I was in the 4th semester of my engineering life and that time I was addicted to Counter Strike and TV series. I bunked as many classes as I could and because of that my attendance dropped below 65% and our mechanical department wasn’t providing us admit card for semester examinations. People who are from IIT-BHU can understand how we protest for everything otherwise they don’t listen to us. We did the same and protested whole day just before the our first exam of Machine Design and later in the evening department agreed to provide us Admit Card in the morning.
So we came back to our hostels around 6:30 PM and after having a tea I went to one of my friends room in order to study with him. Mostly I used to study at night time so it wasn’t a big deal that whole day got wasted in the protest. We were studying but all of sudden a power-cut happened which generally don’t happen a lot in IIT’s & it electricity always comes back within 15 minutes but in those 15 minutes I decided to take a nap. This was the last thing which I remember about that day. (I don’t sleep more than 4–5 hours in a day but when I sleep it’s hard to wake me up)
The next morning, I woke up around 7:00 AM in the morning just one hour before the exams. I came out the room and saw that every one was busy in the final minute preparation. I went to my room and asked to room partner why they didn’t wake me up. After knowing that they tried to wake me but I was in a very deep sleep. I decided not to write the exam but room partner forced me to write the exams. There were 4–5 students from my batch (out of 18) who were protesting with me. I asked them about their preparation. They didn’t sleep like me but their preparation wasn’t also good. So anyhow I went to attend the exams and student with low attendance got entry after 30 minutes. I was 100% sure that I am not going to pass that exams but after the exam it became 50–50% because I filled the answer sheet with good stories and It gave me some confidence.
So after writing all the exams. I came to my home in Akbarpur, Ambedkarnagar and got busy with my two months internship in NTPC, Tanda. Later, One of my friend informed that I got backlog in two subjects. At that time in IIT-BHU there was no carry on system. Backlogs were followed by supplementary exams and failing in supplementary exams resulted in year backs.
I reached to college again just 2 days before the supplementary exams. Separate hostels was allotted for b.tech and IDD students and we were 4 students from IDD who got backlog and one was having backlogs in the same subject as mine and other two got backlogs in different subjects. So we two were preparing together for supplementary exams and the other persona already had received my admit card and also confirmed me about the timing. I didn’t cross check as he was writing the same exams.
So on first supplementary paper we left room around 8:45 AM and reached to classroom around 8:55 AM. After reaching to classroom we were shocked seeing b.tech students were already writing the paper. There were two invigilator who told us that we were late. We were arguing that we weren’t late and I was about to show my watch to one of my professor but suddenly one of them told that paper was from 8:00 AM and according to college rules no student was allowed to enter the exam hall after 20 minutes. They said that they can only permit us after the HOD permission and asked us to leave the examination hall. We were in shock and had no idea what to do then. We left the exam hall and tried to call on the personal no. of our H.O.D. as the opening time of the department was 10:30 AM. We tried 5–6 times but no one picked the call.
[Let me confirm this first that why we had wrong information about the timing. My friend asked one of his friend from Material Engineering about the timing and their exams were from 9:00 AM]
He came to department around 11:00 AM and after discussing the whole situation he refused to help us. When we came out of his office then we realized that if we didn’t get to write the exams then it will get converted into year back. We contacted as many professors as we could but no one helped us. It was first kind of situation in our college. Every staff and professor was laughing at us for our mistakes. After a week we contacted the vice chancellor of BHU but he did nothing just mentioning to our HOD that to help us if there were any provision for such accidents. The whole matter was revolving around my HOD’s decision but he didn’t help us.
After struggling 15 days we gave up. So many thoughts were going into my mind from quitting college to quitting life because I wasn’t not going to attend classes with my juniors. I informed my family that I got backlog only not about the year back. New semester started & we both received a letter to attend 2nd year again but we didn’t listen to them and kept attending 3rd year classes. We weren’t sure but we kept attending 3rd year classes ignoring everything. We spent 5 months in the fear of year back and holidays were the difficult time when I had to face my family with a big lie.
5th semester exams date were coming near day by day and we including 25 students from b.tech batch were unsure about what we were going to do. Like every time we again united students from each batch and did a massive protest demanding carry on system and this time we didn’t fail. One good day carry on system finally came into IIT-BHU rules. No one can understand the relief I got after reading that on the official website of IIT-BHU. I wrote 3 exams back to back in order to get rid of that backlog in Machine Design.
I scored 6.09 CGPA in 5th semester but I was more happy than the topper. I attended every class in 6th semester and kept my attendance always more than 90% after that.