Ravi is our (Usha Kiran and I) friend. A close one. Rather I should say, the best of our friends. Or I shall make nit much better: one of the best human beings we have met in our lives. How was I claiming him to be the best of humans? He is honest, hard-working, relentlessly fighting his problems, hopeful, ever ready to learn, and a great friend to everyone. And if we say we saw this spark in him from the beginning it is a lie. We did not see that spark in him, rather worst: I, being his friend-mentor, consistently was afraid that he might face setbacks in the journey he passionately took up. And this blog is about his journey.

Ravi is a person with mixed feelings, he likes to do a thing and hates doing the same thing exactly at the same time. It was intricate and interesting to see a person struggling with himself. He likes a girl, then he doesn’t like himself liking the girl. Sometimes it spirals up so much, he cannot explain what he goes through, and we cannot understand what he goes through. He is so annoying when he is rigid not to move, but also lovely with his staunchness to do what is right. వాడు అదో టైపు.

We’ve been with Ravi since 2015. One can say it is not such a long time. Just six years. But these six years made us what we are and what we are going to be. We lived together, laughed, cried, broke, remade, sang, fought, played, believed, and disbelieved in each other. It was a long time. It was our beginnings. Or, new beginnings. And we helped each other to lay bricks to our psyche, lives, and everything that pretty much is now.

The Introduction to Introvert:

I don’t remember when I saw Ravi for the first time. He isn’t spottable. He was just sitting in the corner of the class and was always writing something. preparing for something. I was just eccentric, sitting on the last bench concerned selfishly only about myself, and Usha Kiran was trying to beat the class from the first day itself. He was there to prove himself or that was what I thought with a smirk. Abilash was the first important person to patronize Ravi, and I had a prejudice against them: they were trying to make groups in the class, and Abhi was growing to be an inevitable leader, who he really is.

The first encounter I remember with Ravi was when I sat beside him, for what I do not remember, but observed his notes in which he meticulously scribbled all the time. I saw, and I was surprised to find him noting down countless antonyms and synonyms. I was going through Shakespeare or Marlowe and I kept them aside to know about him.

He was preparing for banks. He was from a village Icchapuran, the border of Andhra and Odissa. And from then on I understood he was from a backward community, and his mother sells vegetables in his village’s market, and his father works as a contract plumber. Of course, these details were not in my head immediately, but he told me about himself enough to understand that he needs to stay in the hostel of Andhra University and try to crack a bank exam in the next couple of years. He asked me if I could help him with grammar topics and vocabulary. I said that it was okay, but I didn’t and couldn’t help him there. I was so bad at grammar myself, and I should be frank, I didn’t care much about it.

In the Ravi never seemed to talk with anyone. He had a group of friends from his place and they hang out together. But slowly in the hostel, he stuck with Abhi and a few more friends from our class. Usha Kiran, who wasn’t a hostler stayed with them almost all the time, and I, along with Durga Prasad stayed at a different hostel. Apart from looking at him in the class, I never got to know much about him or his general views. Slowly, with the rolling of the academic year, things changed. I made my mark in the class with my explanations, answers, and undeterred passion for the subject. With exams coming up, I got invitations to their hostel for combined studies where I got to know him personally.

Contrasting Companionships:

Ravi is a hard-working person, and no one can deny that. He never went towards any distractions despite us trying so hard to introduce various malignant elements in his life. He never let anyone make him late to the college, he never missed writing his notes, understandable or not he always tried to listen to the class and make sense, he was always after the notes to study hard, and while we all used library as a covering spot with girlfriends, he was the only one that looked at it as a knowledge hub. He got impatient while professors were irregular or wasting time. He constantly wanted to learn something: about life, about the subject, or about society, it didn’t matter. He listened to everyone, learned from everyone, and thus he had grown.

Usha Kiran and I were movie buffs. Usha Kiran is a great talker, who can exploit any topic for any length of time. I was interested in music, writing, and freelance reading. We could make time for watching movies, making them sometimes, rant all night, just go away and not return to the hostel for hours together. Ravi took part in everything too but was never reckless. He was always careful. For him, these were not dope, like how it was for us. For him it was learning something new, trying something he wouldn’t after us, and he wanted to try everything! The zeal in him to see everything in life was the most inspiring. He did not think if it was important or not if he liked it or not. He was detached. All he needed was to be fearless and try things that come along his way. Always.

Of course, he was not very fearless when it came to the ladies! We wish!

We both woke up at nine when the college was at eight-thirty, and Ravi would try all his best to wake us up. We washed our clothes once in a couple of months, and Ravi washed him every Sunday. We spent the last rupees of our money like we were billionaires, and Ravi saved everything he could. We never ate in our mess, finding cheap thrills for dinner, and Ravi did never break his routine of eating at the mess. We were hot-headed, over-confident, and show-offs while Ravi was a humble, open to learning, and waiting for opportunities guy. Yet, we came along. We just pushed everything, and we ended up being together all the time. I should say, many times, his care saved us from being busted in one or another way.

The Journey Begins:

If there was anyone who deserves the credit of Ravi being in literature in the first place and till the end, it was us. Ravi was with us almost all the time, and the way we pursued literature as a piece of life inspired him a lot. He wanted to learn English too, and for that, he had to begin at the very beginning. He had challenges that would frighten anyone else that was in his place. He was doing really well with bank exams. He was preparing for it for nearly two or three years by then. And when it came to English or literature, he was a novice. He accidentally joined the department, and he heard of poetry, novels, and drama for the first time in detail. The leap was huge, and he was ready to make it. Then, I wanted to encourage his interest in reading first, and I suggested Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons. It worked in the way how I exactly wanted it to work. He ran along with Robert Langdon, and could never take his love away from the thrill that the book introduced him to.

After an internal struggle, with his mother’s suggestion to do whatever he really likes to do, he had left those bank exams for good and started to invest his complete time in literature. He was already getting to know how to make literature into his career and was planning to attempt important exams like SET and NET. There was a little backlash from a few friends. He was good at competitive exams, and he will be lost in the stream of English literature, they thought. But Ravi did not hear them. He was determined. He was going to pursue literature, that was all. He discussed with us all the time, took suggestions, used the library, took classes from us, utilized the internet for knowledge acquisition, and spent a lot of time in the reading room of the library, and he grew every day.

The biggest barrier Ravi faced was the language. He was not versed with English as much as you need to be when you are going into the roots of the subject. So we made a pact that we speak only in English, and one who misses doing so will be beaten by the others. It worked well, I have to say. Ravi struggled a lot to explain simple things first, and then he was easily talking the simple and was struggling only for the complicated. He installed various language development apps on his old android phone and utilized them to the full extent. He was reading the texts prescribed in our syllabus, and slowly was going beyond the syllabus and focusing on major exams.

Then there was a major blow.

The Set-Backs:

Ravi has failed in one of his first semester’s exams. I do not remember the detail, but I remember the initial agony he had inside him. Was he doing the right thing? Or was he just too passionate and was inspired/influenced by us/me? It took a lot of time for him to heal from that initial setback and get back on fighting. Around the same time, we were trying to crack the State Eligibility Test and National Eligibility Tests, which proved to be far beyond us. I was attempting NET by then, and it was not very hopeful. But SET, when I first attempted, before anyone else, I missed the prestigious exam by the bits, and I was destroyed. It was an illustration of how tough those exams were.

I used to struggle a lot to study, and I can guess how much harder it should have been for Ravi. To pick a Theory of Literature book and read it at a stretch took a lot from us. And that too with the time limit we have set for ourselves – by the end of P.G. made us more anxious. We started spending more and more time at the library, and stayed in the reading room till midnight, and reading everything possible in the breaks and lunch hours too. Here, I need to say, Ravi was a bigger companion than Usha Kiran. I tried and made contacts with remote bookstores, bought important books, and was securing material, and was spreading through everyone and anyone interested in doing this. Many came along with me. Many tried my experiments. I kept high stakes, and it wasn’t easy. Everyone shed off me, except Ravi.

Slowly, Ravi became a fluent reader. He could read books for hours at a stretch. He was more dedicated than anyone, I have to say, more than me. I was on fire in those years, and Ravi was trying hard to match my fire, and he had outdone me in various instances. But by the end, we attempted NET again, two times in a row with full preparation, only to fail disastrously.

When we were failing in NET, many of our classmates were looking for resorts like online guides, namely Vineeth Pandey and others. I was the one who was against it. I believed in self-preparation. I believed in reading thousands of pages of material, acquisition of knowledge, exposure to the subject, and so on. But many who drifted away from my planning and way of studying found these cooked and served processes easy. But Ravi did not. He stood by me. He was with me to make my plans better, giving me insights when I missed something and outsmarted me when it came to the application of those plans.

Yet, they did not yield desirable results.

Usha Kiran is a great planner, and he always was. With his help, I helped to fix our plan. It was an anxious time. Every one of us, and importantly Ravi, had so much to lose if things did not go as visioned. At such kind of a point, I was distracted in a very bad way. I have emotionally drifted away, wasting days and all the precious time I have. The same was happening with Usha Kiran. Ravi, in the sense of preparation or working for his future and his home, was alone, but he never gave up on what he was doing. He always stuck to the plan. He was always working. Always growing.

The First Winds of Success:

Ravi completed his backlog next year, and after that things went very smooth, except that our P.G. was done and we had no idea what to do, for none of us could complete SET or NET. Usha Kiran got the gold medal and that was an encouragement we carried along with ourselves. We all dispersed to homes heavy with many lovely memories and broken dreams. But none of us could stand that. I talked with Usha, Ravi, and Abhi and we decided we need to stay together somewhere and continue our preparation, for the diamond might just be there and I did not want to back up. They all thought the same. We thought we would stay somewhere at Vizag, but my parents suggested they come home, and we could prepare for as long as we want to, and my mom would cook for us. Simply.

With that decision one of the most memorable parts of our lives started.

Through the second half of 2017 and the first half of 2018, we all lived on the upstairs of my house, and at that, we had laid the cornerstones of success. Without any complaints, and any compromises we prepared the best we can. I would prepare anything like that again only in 2019 again, two years after this. We made meticulous plans, sorted materials, read extensively, and discussed the subject almost all the time. We had our recreational activities, like playing badminton every day from four to six-thirty, and we even made a couple of short films, and we played computer games whenever we were bored, and we watched numerous movies in theatres and at home. But more important than all of them, we studied, all the time, and Ravi was always ahead of us.

Ravi is an intelligent fellow. He understands where he is lagging and he works on it. He needs no one to understand himself. It was natural that Usha Kiran and I read two or three times quicker than Ravi, thanks to our exposure to English from childhood, and also our reading habit. So, Ravi used to wake up three or four hours earlier than us to cover us, and he never left books or preparation even when we were at a break. With that anxiety to match us, he worked so hard, he crossed us away and went miles away.

When we were at my house, there were two notifications. One for SET and one for Ph.D. entrance into Andhra University. We were more inspired. We prepared monotonously and hit them both. Ravi and I cracked SET and I was the state’s top ranker. It was high. It was proof that what we were doing was right. Soon after Ph.D. entrance followed and our preparation, along with fun, was at its best then. Ravi got 4th, I got 5th and Usha got 7th ranks. He just went past all of us. Just like that! We all prepared for the interviews, drafted proposals, prepared for the interview, and gave the best shot possible. Usha Kiran missed with a slight margin, and the same happened with me too, just lagging one rank behind the number of seats (3), but Ravi got selected.

It is a huge success. Ravi has become the first of all to get a Ph.D. seat in our batch, and that was a success story for then, turning everyone’s eyes towards Ravi; who started as a novice and turned out to be the best in the batch.

Ravi, with our encouragement, took the Ph.D. seat.

With that move, Ravi’s confidence soared, and he loved the subject more and more, diving freely into it. We were waiting for a proper opportunity to set ourselves in a financially viable place, for we knew it was high time we need to settle down and support our families.

The Opportunity:

While Ravi got Ph.D. and there was nothing to look forward to, we thought it was time to disperse. One got Ph.D., two qualified SET, and we acquired a lot of knowledge and immeasurable memories together which no one can beat. Ravi left for Ph.D., Abhi to his home, and Usha Kiran and I were left, as always, together in the same pool.

We decided there was nothing to look forward to and decided to join The Sun School of Vizianagaram, where I found my love and a lot of great, life-long-lasting friends. All the memoirs of the school are here.

Exactly after six months of joining The Sun School, in the December of 2018, there were two notifications again. This time it was big. NET and lecturer posts in government junior, degree, and polytechnic colleges. That was what we were waiting for. That was what we were preparing for. AT last, the notification was out. The posts were pretty meager, ten or twenty in each, but that was enough. We needed to do something. We did.

The moment the notification was out we were alert. We took out the syllabuses, shared the books we need to buy, marked the books we already have, used my kindle for costly works, and the material was ready within a few days. The exam had six months’ time, but NET was pretty nearby, and we thought it would boost our confidence. We tried hard for it.

I failed by one bit. Usha Kiran failed by six. Ravi did it.

I was devastated that I couldn’t do NET after all the preparation I have gone through all those years, Usha Kiran was distraught too. Surprisingly, Ravi was unhappy too.

“I got NET in the reservation. I want to crack it in the open. Only then I can accept myself as a hard worker,” he said something like that.

While I was in school, we started our Lecturer’s Exam preparation hard, but only for the second paper – that was our subject. Ravi woke up early in the morning in his Andhra University Ph.D. hostel, and we did the same here. We started to read original texts, go through all the material, watch relevant youtube videos, whatnot, it was a full class preparation, but with morning eight-thirty till evening’s eight staying at the school. Even then, I tried to go through the internet reading about respective authors. On the weekends, when Usha Kiran used to go to his home, I used to go to Vizag to spend time with Ravi, reading, discussing, planning, and everything that needs our utmost attention. But that wasn’t enough. I need to give this more time. I can’t adjust the preparation. I need to have my time for my own.

By the end of that academic year, Usha Kiran and I quit the school and went to Rajahmundry, worried, lost, and without a plan for anything. My worst nightmare has come before me. The first paper of JL, DL, and PL: the general studies. I always got the first mark when it came to my subject’s paper, and the first paper which generally dealt with general studies was always a disaster. And with the lecturer’s exam’s first paper being Group One or Two’s level, I thought it was hopeless. Then, Ravi gave me hope. He deconstructed the first paper for me – thanks to his preparation for competitive exams before M.A. and he promised we could do it if I take a brave step. I needed to go to Vizag and stay at his hostel till the exam was done. And he inspired me to do it.

I made promises at my home, and I left for Vizag. What followed after was an epic journey of ups and lows.

The Final Shot:

I was in Vizag for nearly a year. I went there in 2019 June and stayed till the 18th of March, 2020 – the first lockdown. In February of 2020, we attempted J.L., March of 2020 P.L., and in the September of 2020, D.L.

Ten months.

That was the high-pressure time in our lives. Ravi and I were together all the time, except when he went to his home. Then I would go to Vizianagaram, to be at Srikanta. Usha Kiran came whenever he could, and our preparation was at full throttle. I saw the best version of Ravi then. It was not just a period of preparation. It was much bigger than that. I was living with him, being inspired by him, and inspiring him in return. Under such pressure, we tried everything we can to crack this exam. We knew the odds, we knew ourselves, we knew the challenges, and we knew the strengths. We started to take coaching for the first paper, and it was working very well on us. I couldn’t spend much time on the first paper, but I was strengthening the second one. Ravi was balancing both, and it was an art.

In the meanwhile, we pursued one dream of ours: NET. In July 2019, we attempted NET with this kind of anxious and passionately driven preparation, and it was a bang. Ravi did it in OC. I did it. It boosted our confidence. The right time for the right thing to happen. Six months after that, we attempted NET again, and I cracked it better than the last. Ravi missed it but it didn’t matter, with the lecturer’s exams starting in two months from then. We were on top gear, doing the best we could.

The times we laughed, we slept together, we spent at the beach talking for hours, discussing our pleasures and pains. . . It was all wonderful. I haven’t opened up more at anyone than at him, for no one could accept everything of mine like him. We went for adventurous journeys, bike rides, movies, sang songs, ate rubbish, walked on the deserted streets of midnight Vizag. We did not just talk, we mused. Sometimes we cried in each other’s arms. We promised each other that we would help each other to see the light.

It was also a dark time in our life, and I am glad we had each other, and Usha Kiran along.

Day after day, the exam dates were near, and we attempted one exam after another. J.L., P.L., and then D.L. Only I could crack J.L., and the interview went well, and I have become a lecturer, thanks to everything that worked well. But Ravi didn’t. That was an anxiety that was in all of us. Ravi missed J.L. by a huge margin, and then he qualified D.L. in the exam, which was great excitement for us all, but he couldn’t pull through the interview.

His language, his communication skills weren’t enough.

Hm.

Ravi is a small man from a small village from a small family. He was not rich. he did not have the best of education. He did not have the best of exposure. To say anything, he was one among the disadvantaged in this country. He could not spell an English word confidently. He could not write a complete sentence without grammar mistakes.

That was where he started.

But he did not stop there. He did not let anything stop him. He faced various failures, setbacks, and discouragement. But he did not let them stop him.

Ravi was a fighter.

He cracked the exam and qualified for the interview of P.L.

On 08/11/2021, Ravi called me late in the evening, almost sobbing, to tell me that he qualified the interview and has become a gazetted government officer!

Ah. What can I say than that it was one of the best moments of my life? I was screaming, jumping, rolling, and almost weeping with joy.

Ravi, congratulations, mate.

You are an inspiration to many more who will make large from small places!