After finally finishing all the stuff yesterday, I finally went through the last leg of my thesis submission today. I woke an hour later than I’d planned and so ended up catching a bus to Chennai at 8 Am instead of 7 AM. The bus was not too crowded and I managed to grab some sleep on the three hour drive. I finally got off at Guindy and was welcomed by the wave of humid heat that rips through Chennai in summer. The junction I got off at had some major construction work and it disoriented me – it’s very large and I didnt know which direction I should set off in. After walking up and down for 15 minutes, I finally flagged down an autorickshaw doled out 40 bucks for a ten minute ride to the University. I then lugged my bag to the reception and was soon riding the lift to the third floor and entered the lasrge are marked “PG section”. It had scores of files, books and theses strewn all over. At least I was in the right area. After a very short wait, the Controller greeted me personally and accepted my thesis copies and the Draft. It was over…. well almost. I almost collapsed when she then stated that I need to submit 2 CDs of the thesis and also change the Draft! Although I despaired, I still felt under control. She however said, ” Not urgent – you can send it on Monday!” Although that felt better, I wanted to finish it all the same day. I got back onto the main road and searched for an internet pub where I could ask the secretary to email me the thesis copies on the office computer so I could burn the CDs. After walking a long time in the sweltering heat, I grabbed a 500 ml Pepsi, downed it in no time and then found Sify – an internet center. There was a single guy there who told me it would cost me about 60 bucks for the whole thing – but he didnt have blank CDs. Luckily there was a shop on the second floor of the same building with blank CDs and soon I was downloading the documents in a hot humid dingy internet pub. I then found out that the comp did not have MS Word and whatever he had did not allow me to modify the files. I decided to leave it at that and burnt the 2 files I wanted.
I mentally prepared for the w3alk back to the University. A few meters out of the shop, an auto carrying some cargo pulled alongside and amazingly the driver offered me a lift! Now… that was unexpected!! I rejoiced for I knew he was literally a God-Send! He refused to take any money and simply said, “Just pass on the help I did to someone else!” How amazing!! Wish we had more people like that!!
The rest of the submission was a breeze and the Secretary was very friendly and polite. I then trudged out of the building and after a short stint in the sun got into another autorickshaw and took the looong drive home. It felt like travelling in an oven. Finally I stepped into my home and within minutes gulped down more cold pepsi and sat down in an airconditioned room feeling soooooo relieved.
After that…. home made luncjh with freid fish, a great three hour nap in the cool AC bedroom. After a quick dinner I left back to Vellore and at midnite I was back in my room. It was a tiring day… one where I realised that doing things in the last minute is dangerous… and also that God is more faithful than I could ever imagine! Any comments???!
I later learnt that the temperature in Chennai was 108 degrees farenheit… cool!!