The Train Journey that Changed Destiny - Part 3

Note: A moment of loud noise to say "In your face!" to the Pakis. The Jihadis they have been so diligently promoting came back to bite pakistani cricket in the ass. Great going guys! On a more serious note, I am happy all the Sri Lankan players are safe and what happened in Lahore is a despicable, cowardly act. Targeting Cricketers??!! Common guys!

".....Wake up!! Wake up!!...." Ishant woke up with a start. He sat up and looked at his watch, it was 5 A.M. "Ishant! Are you up yet? would you like some coffee?" It was some time before he realized what was happening. He had reached Chennai yesterday morning and spent the day at with his grandparents. There, he had met up with his mother and late that night, they had taken the train to Kumbakonam. "Gosh! Feels like I have been in a train forever!" thought Ishant "Thankfully, it will all be over soon, I can take a look at KIT, reject it outright & hop on the train to Chennai tonight." ".....Are you even listening to me, Ishant", suddenly he realized his mother had been talking to him all this while. "Yes mom, what do you need?"
Mom: "Ishant, we will reach Kumbakonam station anytime now. I asked the T.T.E and he told me that the train was on time. Why don't you climb down and help me with the bags?"
With a sign, Ishant started to climb down from his berth......

A few minutes later, they were off the train and out of the station looking for a hotel where they could freshen up. A couple of fights with the attendant later, Ishant's mom settled on Hotel Thalaiva. A quick shower followed a short nap, Ishant was ready for breakfast. He said "Mom, why don't we have breakfast at Ananda Bhavan, its right across the road." "I saw a temple along the way, lets go and pray there first before we get something to eat" his mother replied.

A quick visit to the temple and a sumptuous breakfast later, they both were at the Kumbakonam Bus Stand waiting for a bus, although KIT was 'in Kumbakonam', the campus was located 40 minutes from the city center. A really crowded bus came by and they hopped on hoping to find a place to sit. Once inside the bus, Ishant handed some money to the conductor and asked for KIT. "KIT? I dont know any KIT, I think you are on the wrong bus." replied the conductor. Ishant explained that KIT was an engineering college, "Ohh...you mean KCE..." said the conductor and handed Ishant a couple of tickets while muttering "everybody wants a fancy name these days...". Ishant looked out of the window and all he could see was arid land interspersed with a few paddy fields. Slowly his eyes started closing....

Ishant woke up with a bone-jolting jerk. Startled, he looked to see if he could catch a glimpse of the conductor, the bus was almost empty by now. Having spotted the conductor, he walked up and found out that KIT was 2 stops later. He looked out of the window only to see arid land all the way in the distance on both sides of the road, "Man! How do students even study in this place, No hangouts, no malls, not even a movie theatre! I'm sure the only people who study here are the country bums." he thought to himself and chuckled. His thoughts drifted to life in Delhi and how he would bunk classes in college and hang out with his friends and roam the city, just like his brother had done." "KCE..." he heard the conductor yell and suddenly to his right, surrouned by acres of arid land was this collection of small buildings with a couple more under construction. "This sure is a desert" he thought to himself....

Ishant and his mother headed inside the KIT campus and entered the first building they could spot. A couple of girls asked to look at Ishant's ranking letter and crossed off his name in the sheet they had. "You are in the 11 A.M to 2 P.M session" one of them said, "It should be starting anytime soon, why don't you go upstairs and take a seat in the large auditorium to your right." Once inside the auditorium Ishant noticed that students were called in batches of 12. He wondered where they were taking those students. Right at the front of the auditorium, he saw a white screen onto which was projected all the branches and the number of seats remaining in each branch. "Wow! no seats left in Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE) or Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE)" he thought. "Who cares about those branches anyway, I'm only here for Bio-Technology." Ishant had talked with his mother at length the previous evening, she had told him how Biotech presented him with much more opportunities than chemical engineering. She had also reminded him that KIT had two other biology related branches, namely Bioengineering and Bioinformatics. His mother's words had struck a chord with Ishant somewhere, "besides, I did do better at biology than at math. I can always take this seat first and reject it later, when i find a seat in Delhi." he had thought to himself. "Rank 600 to 611" He heard someone shout out at the front of the room. Completely unaware of his mother's presence, he got up and started walking up to the man, when he quickly glanced at the screen, there were still 3 seats left in biotechnology. The group of 12 was taken to another room, where they were split into groups of 4, 600 to 603; 604 to 607;608 to 611. Ishant looked at his ranking and saw he was ranked 611. The first set of 4 were directed to a computer terminal each where they selected a branch of their choice. When 600 to 603 finished, Ishant saw that there were still 3 biotech seats left. The second batch of 4 finished and he could see there was still 1 seat left. "This is getting tense" he thought as he was being directed to a computer terminal. As he sat in front of the computer, he involuntarily said " Ishant, rank 611, I want Biotechnology". The attendant tapped away at the computer for a minute before looking up and saying "Ishant....."