I woke up
at around 10AM and realized that today is going to be a big day. Yes, I was
about give my Oracle “Programming with PL/SQL Certification” – upon completion
will make me an Oracle Certified Associate. Bench days – nothing special in
office except for my preparations towards the big day. $125 is nearly equal to
6500 bucks. You can’t loose that by just failing in an exam. So, this time my
preparation was good enough. Comparing to my first Oracle exam – Introduction
to Oracle 9i – where I just studied the DUMPS (A set of questions which we
expect in the exam), I actually ‘studied’ the materials. I learned new things
and I practiced them at home.
So, I went to the office and prepared again. My exam was scheduled at 3:45 PM, 15th of September, 2011. Until 3PM that day, I did not complete my preparations. By 3PM, I finished the materials and also, the DUMPS. It’s a rainy season here in Pune from the month June. It should have been finished by the end of August. It was a sunny day, so I did not take any of my jerkins or rain coats. I reached office at around 12PM and studied until 3PM. I started towards the exam center at 3:05 PM. It was drizzling at that time. I thought, ok, it’s not going to be a big rain. But, I was wrong.
Soon after I reached Wipro Phase2, it started to rain a little heavier than expected. Ok, this can be manageable. I can still make in time. I continued riding my Bajaj Caliber (Not exactly mine, a friend of mine) along with my fellow colleague and a good friend – Vinodh Alagan. My thoughts were still on the questions that I just viewed. The rain got a little heavy when I reached WAKAD. I still thought I can make it on time and finish my OCA. But, when I reached the whistling palms, I realized that I am not going to make it. I experienced one of the heaviest rains that I ever saw before from Whistling Palms until my room. I felt like I was inside a heavy water falls. All me (Except my head because helmet is a mandatory in Infy) was drenched in the rain – none was left dry. I decided to go to my room and change before I reach the exam center. It was 3:30 PM when I reached my room.
I got a little time to change and head back towards the exam center. I changed everything and I decided to leave my helmet behind because helmet is not mandatory while driving in Pune. Also, the rain had showed some mercy and stopped a while. I had my Jerkin and a rain pant – so I have no chance of getting drenched. We started again from my room and as soon as I took the first left towards the exam center from my room – the worst was waiting for me. I felt myself again in a water falls. With no helmet, I literally could not see anything before me. With all my rain gears, I still felt I’m getting drenched.
We tried calling the exam center to inform them about our late arrival, but he never picked the phone. We were running late and the rain got worse and worse. I couldn’t go beyond 40 km/h and if I had ever gone beyond that, I’d have ended up in a hospital for sure. It was 3:50 when I was just 2 KMs away from the center – when I got stuck up in a massive traffic. When I was waiting for the traffic to clear, I thought about it for a while – everything before we started for exam was normal and as soon as we started for the exam, everything went wrong. May be, it’s God’s will that we do not make the center on time!
It took 15 minutes to clear the traffic and I was about to enter in to the street where the exam center is waiting for me and welcomed by a surprise. The road was normal the day before – when we went to pay the money and confirm the schedule. Today, it was not. We were not allowed inside the street – a big rope was tied from the both ends and before us were about 10 to 15 vehicles waiting. I saw the road to be under construction and it looked like they’ll not allow us inside. The person aside came to the waiting vehicles and asked them to take diversion, but we never did. Another 5 minutes of wait and then they opened the rope and let us inside. It looked liked an organized way to avoid traffic jam inside the small road.
When we finally reached the exam center at 4:20PM, the person told us that the power is not available and we’ll have to wait for about 15 minutes. He also told us that if it does not come, then he’ll allow us the write the exam in the back-up mode. We waited outside the center for 15 minutes and luckily, the power did come. We started our exam at around 5PM and finished at around 6PM. Happy that everyone qualified and we became the Oracle Certified Associate.
The story is not yet over. I have to mention here that the time we reached the exam center – 4:20 PM until the time we left from there – 6:30PM, there was no rain. We started towards our room and as soon as I hit the main road, it started to rain again. It became worse when we were just 10 minutes away from our room. We did not stop and got all wet again. The story is not yet over – I have to admit that I never learned any lesson from the above story. There was no power in our flat only and we had to bring an electrician to fix this. I got drenched again while doing so and changed again, got drenched again while bringing the dinner. It was a rainy day after 3PM that day, but then it was one of the memorable days. We are an Oracle Certified Associate!
