Status Quo - 2

I plan to write something about "how to handle extreme rumour pressure" very soon. As most of you know I have been in the eye of the Civil Service Exam storm for the past one month or so. For others let me explain what I meant - a national-scale rumour about the CSE results has been doing rounds for the past many weeks. It went to that extent that my colleagues here even wanted to have a photo session with me based on that rumour. Sundar/Rajan has topped this year's CSE. That was the rumour! Over the past few weeks not even a single day passed in my life without at least five people congratulating me for topping the exam. Such people also called me from diverse geographies like Chennai, Delhi etc. Most of them would also add, "Topping IAS exams is in your family genes", referring to my elder brother's feat a few years back. A few of them also concluded that IAS Rank.1 is a family property. And over the past four-five days the number of callers and the people who congratulate me had only increased. Some of them came to me and even said the marks I had (apparently) scored in the Mains and the Interview, with great authority. 

Combined with the speculation about the actual date of the results, my life was quite peculiar. Things reached the zenith today before dying out at about 4 in the evening. But overall I enjoyed the process. It made me learn a lot about people - individuals and groups. I will talk more on this later on a post fully dedicated to rumour - and rumour only. But for a very few people belonging to my inner circle, no one actually knows the adventures I undertook, the dreams I chased - after taking the prelims exam, last year. Looking back I'm quite happy about the way things turned out. But even in that little inner circle many actually expected some truth in that rumour. I'm terribly sorry for them, and really grateful to them for placing such a high level of confidence in my capabilities. Or is it their lack of confidence in the Exam system? I guess it was a blend of both.

I have been laughing away this rumour since the day it reached my ears for the first time. Also from some corner of my mind, Dr.Gopalakrishnan's (ED, Tata Sons) quote always flashed within me. It goes like this - Deserve before you desire. [Something more fundamental to that is - One should want something in the first place. Only after that deserve/desire rule sets in] No no...don't worry, am not trying to be philosophical. I generally believe in cause-effect and usually do not subscribe to destiny/fate etc. Probably had I got the Rank as per rumours I would have started believing in destiny etc. I am happy now. I had full faith in myself and I'm happy that I was able to uphold that faith. I genuinely believed that for the kind of treatment I meted out to the Mains exam this time, even getting the interview call was a great bonus for me; leave alone Topping the exam.  And I would have really got confused with my career, again!

I'm happy that I have not betrayed myself; My belief in myself; 

My belief that I do not deserve anything, as I did not want anything this time.

I'm also happy that no one can be a Topper just by some miracle.

Now, let me resume the Debit/Credit lessons!