My Golden Moments - I

I still remember the month of May, 2001 when we were called for Air Force SSB (Service Selection Board). After all the preparation me and Amit left for SSB to Dehradun. We had already passed written test for that. Other than very little seriousness we were looking forward to enjoy to the extreme for one whole week. We were more excited because they were giving to and fro conveyance charges. In addition to that free stay in Air Force station for full one week.

After reaching railway station, one bus took us to Air Force Station. After reaching there our documents were verified by the officials. We were through, but I remember around 80 students of Agra university had to go back due to some reason. This makes our batch of around 94.

After 5 days of several written, physical test, GD and interview finally the day arrived when results were to be announced. We all were sitting in the room as per our chest number. Officials were also there. All of us were eagerly waiting for the result. My heart start pounding when they start taking names of selected guys as if I just finished 100 meters race in 10 sec. They already told us that they will call the names in increasing order of the chest number (the number allocated to you during the stay). They called the first number "4". There is still some hope, I thought in my mind. I was praying to God for my selection. After some pause they announced "19". Within a second I was on cloud-9. Incidentally my number was 19. I was feeling as my heart will come out of my body. It was beating faster than any of my imaginations. After that I was not able to listen anything they said. Was that excitement or something else, due to which my body was there but my mind stopped working. I was behaving like a dummy.

My mind came to existence only when all the names were announced and friends start congratulating me. But I feel bad when I came to know that Amit was not selected. Within 5 minutes after that only 4 people (selected ones) were there in the room. We had filled bundles of documents and did at least 50 signatures that day within next 2-3 hours. But during all that time I was seeing myself in blue dress of IAF. I was happy that I was the first person of my batch (college) who got selected somewhere. I was happy because that day I felt I achieved everything. I was happy because I thought I'd be able to do something for my parents now, they have done a lot for me till now.

I still feel that was surely one of the golden moment of my life.