University Rank!!!

It happened when I was doing my masters in computer application. When I returned home from college my uncle told me that there was a call to our land line telephone from someone called Vidhya, and the person said that I have secured a university rank in General English(cell phone was uncommon those days) . I thought my uncle was trying to pull my leg, but he was so serious and he gave me the number that I was asked to contact. I was sure it was a prank played by my friend by the same name. I wanted to give it back to her. I called her up and made it clear that she was not successful in deceiving me. She was desperate, 'Akka I am not your friend Vidhya. I am your junior and our HOD asked me to inform you about your university rank. You have to send your passport size photo to our college address and bring your parents for your convocation. All the best Akka'. She hung the phone. I could feel hot air getting into one of my ear and leaving through the other. The whole world became hallucinatory. I told my mom about all this and kept telling her 'this will not be true.'
The reason behind my disbelief was that, there were at least ten studious people before me in the list. I was a mediocre and not-so-ambitious kind of person. I did fairly well in my studies and I was happy with that. I never felt bad for my mediocrity. I enjoyed theory papers and language papers as I was passionate about writing innovative stuff. I never wrote those exams for marks. I wrote it because I liked to.
I still remember my lecturer called Sandhya who taught Shakespeare's 'As You Like It'. When we saw the book for the first time, we felt it was so crazy of them to allot so much of marks for such a small book. But when we started reading the book we had a feeling that it was Greek and Latin. Sandhya ma'm was so strict and she would send us out of the class if we forgot to bring the book. She asked us to write all the meanings using a pencil in our book. She would be annoyed if she saw some one using a pen. In the first month there were at least 20 people who walked out without the book. Ofcourse I was one among them. I usually find it difficult to arrange books in bag according to the time table. I dump some of them and leave a few on my table.

By chance I had the book with me one day. I found the play 'As you Like It' very interesting and I became a fan of Sandhya ma'm. Every word she uttered in the class showed her passion for Shakespeare. She never had any pocket dictionary or a guide or even a reference material for that matter. She walked in with that small green book which had nothing other than Greek and Latin according to us. She saw all wonderful things in that book. She introduced Shakespeare to us. She was extremely crazy about his writings. It was so contagious that, at one point most of us in the class fell for Shakespeare. We all brought the green book every day, whether we had the class or not. Even the notorious of the lot started taking down the notes. We would crave for our Shakespeare class which came only thrice a week. Sandhya ma'm enjoyed every word in the book and was so particular in making sure that every one understood each word in the book as she did. She would be excited when ever a witty or a romantic part of the play is to be taught.

By the time the academic year came to an end, our green book became really old. It had pencil marks every where. When ever we took the book during exams, those pencil marks reminded us of the whole class she took and those memorable cute expressions she gave for each word. None of us required any study material or guide for Shakespeare. Every thing was available in the small green book. We could see wonders in the book that Sandhya ma'm saw. Many of my friends from other departments kept whining to study Shakespeare. Neither they, nor their lecturers were interested in Shakespeare. We were lucky that we had Sandhya ma'm to handle the subject. That was the time I realised the role of a lecturer. It is not only the teaching but also the interest for the subject they spread to us.

I started getting good marks in English in the internal exams. Sandhya ma'm was attracted by my writing especially when I reviewed Shakespeare's words. There started my journey towards a university rank which is considered to be an impossible thing on earth for a mediocre student like me. I learnt that a little bit of interest and lots of motivation can make wonders on earth.

Then came the most awaited day when I received a medal from the governor. It turned out to be the most memorable day of my life. No body would have ever thought a university rank was that easy to crack. To conclude I would say, any body can become a university rank holder with very less hard work and more interest for the subject.