The Applications

“ I remember,” said Julius, to no one in particular, but being the only other person in the room, I was obliged to acknowledge his address, “this very interesting incident. It involved a horse, a hill, and a fall.”

Fairly predictable plot, I thought to myself. “The hill fell on a horse, or some such sequence of events,” He continued. Looking slightly puzzled by how things turned out, or perhaps it was something he ate. “well, that does it for that story, but, hmm, I now recollect another one, that I can perhaps furnish more detail for.”

Well, with nothing better to do, I sat up and paid attention, I muted the tv, to indicate that he had my undivided attention. Of course turning of the tv was out of the question, I mean it’s a tv, it’s almost rude to do that, or at least I haven’t seen any precedent of a polite Tv turning off.

He didn’t seem to happy about the tv still being on, or may be it was something he ate, the paneer probably? Anyhow with a grumpy screwed up brow, and his upper lips turned up in painful disgust, Julius continued. “well it was like this, in college we were, well everyone, except me, was applying for a scholarship. The reason I wasn’t applying escapes me at the moment,” I’m sure it had something to do with the fact that he stood no chance of winning any, “but I was helping one of my friends fill out his form.”

“We’d just got by the difficult part, you know name, address, educational qualifications, economic back ground. These are hard to fake, but none the less, had to be, each scholarship has a particular profile for all prospective candidates, and the goal of your application is to fit that stereotype as best you can. Think of it like a Styrofoam cut out, and you have to make your inset to match that shape perfectly. The hardest to… er… make fit are the basic information about you. So name, education and economic background are the hardest parts of the form. After that, interests, activities, extra currics, sports and the like are easily managed. You can almost get sets of certificated manufactured for the required scholarship. You know, like a scholarship for the US would probably care more about your social work than a scholarship from the UK. Also a UK scholarship is usually more sympathetic to sporting achievements, not so with American Scholarships because they don’t have the same sports.”

Julius insists on giving me advice of this nature every chance he gets. Of course he means well, but he doesn’t realize that I don’t particularly care. I don’t need to, but I humor him, it doesn’t hurt me to.

“So this particular scholarship was particularly prestigious, which basically means, it had the most money. And everyone was in a bit of a tizzy to apply. Two of my friends, one of which I’ve already told you I was helping, were doing some research on it together.”

“Now of them, S_____ needed to know what the scholarship committee was looking for, and E_____ needed to find out about the scholarship itself. Some how they decided that I would know, while this does me credit, it doesn’t do them any, because I am widely regarded as the most uninformed person on campus.”
“However, it soon transpired that they each held the information the other wanted. So when S___ questioned me about the age of the scholarship E____ popped up with the answer, and when E___ asked me what kind of extra currics the scholarship favored, S___ chirped, 'oh mostly social service work, if you have done anything with NGOs that’ll really help for you, and so will having done something on your initiative.'”

“This seemingly pleasant turn of events for both of them soon turned into a nightmare, as it became increasingly obvious to both parties that exactly what they lacked in terms of qualifications the other possessed. If S____ had never done so much as help a blind student to his class E_____ had literally started an NGO for village immigrants into the town, and was running it on her own. She didn’t have the slightest clue about the scholarship though, and was glad to find that she met the minimum academic requirements…”

“This revelation into the stellar nature of each other’s qualifications for the scholarship created an odd sort of nervousness in each other. Well I say odd, because I don’t understand it, but its common enough, I feel given how competitive everything has to be. A good analogy for what they were experiencing is two contestants at a beauty pageant, one with a better posterior, and the other with a better anterior… I hope I don’t need to get more graphic.”


“The discussion between the two proceeded along the lines of, ‘Wow you know everything about this schol. They’ll be so impressed.’ ‘oh come of it, they don’t care how much one knows about the schol or the school, they’re only interested in what I’ve done, and I’ve done nothing, you’ve done so much, its almost a preset thing, you’ll get it.’ ‘yeah right, and they’ll ask me, so why do you want to stud wherever it is and I’ll say… nothing… that’ll end that,’ ‘oh come one they don’t care about how much you know about the school or anything, they’re just interested in what you’ve done.’ ‘yeah right! These firang types, sure! They have the hugest egos ever, they expect you to know the last 100 years of history of their schools before they even consider your application' …. And so on.”

“The next day I met S_____. We were leaving class, and he came upto me rather worried, ‘so how good do you think E_____ is going to be?’

‘well pretty good, I guess, I mean she can speak well, has done some pretty awesome work and all… I don’t know though, I’ve never been on the board of a scholarship committee so I’m not one to judge am I?’
‘yeah I know,’ S____ said, ‘she is pretty strong, I think she’s got it down, don’t you?’
‘well like I said I don’t know.’
‘oh well, I’m not going to waste any more time on this stupid thing! I mean what’s the point of applying? She’s going to get it, and there’s only one scholarship.’
‘well,’ I said, ‘we don’t know that she will win, I mean, she is pretty ignorant about a lot of stuff.’
‘Hey you don’t need to cheat to cheer me up, its okay dude.’ And off he went.”

“I met E_____ too, she just told she wasn’t applying, and didn’t see the point of it, since it was a given that S____ would get it, and he had the contact too, apparently his Dad was dentist to someone’s aunt who was on the committee. So what’s the point? I don’t want to come in second… Convinced that that sealed the deal, she left me.”

“Neither of them seemed to happy for the rest of year, and neither let it be known that they’d not applied. I was told to keep it in strictest confidence, which is why I didn’t tell them about the other either.”

“The scholarship however remained the most prestigious one in college, so its results were waited with much suspense and expectation. The results were meant to decide who the best student in college was going to be, as in who would have the best chance of landing a high paying job. When the results finally did come in, it was slightly sad to be informed that none of the applicants were deemed worthy of the honor.”

“Of course those that didn’t know, interpreted it as a slur on the quality of our college. But when two of those assumed to be the front runners of college hadn’t applied, for fear of being beaten by the other, preferring to maintain their undefeated record, which all toppers hold so dear, it might be understandable that the vaster majority of hopefuls also assumed a similar stance. It was quite astonishing, the number of applications that got lost in the mail that year. In fact if I remember correctly, the number was so staggeringly high that the college courier office was sacked, and a new franchise invited.”

"After all, admitting to not applying would be the same as forfeiting and admittig defeat, worse than actually being beaten. But if the committee didn't ever receive the applications, no one really lost. Which was fine with everyone but the courier office."

“My only regret in the whole matter is however, that I didn’t bother applying myself, once I heard they were both withdrawing… but then getting together that huge plethora of documents in a week’s time wasn’t a task I relish.”