Viva

He came, He terrorized and left with an expressionless face. He was an external examiner that had come for my bioinformatics viva. When my roll number was called, my heart thumped and I was already shaking while walking towards him. He asked me to be seated and I quickly grabbed my seat.”So “he began and took a pause while going through my journal, I was saying to myself inside “what ‘so’, just ask and finish the damn thing and set me free”

After wasting my time by ordering for coffee, with his terrorizing eyes and stern expression he asked me the full form of RNA at a very low voice. I asked him to repeat as I couldn’t hear him, he repeated with a bit louder but unclear tone. It sounded like ion A but since that doesn’t have a full form so I guessed it must be RNA. I answered. Before I completed my answer he bombarded me with another question. This time it was to list naturally occurring sources of distilled water. I was saying to myself,”damn…what has distilled water go to do with bioinformatics?” I began staring at the ceiling but that didn’t help. I mentioned rain but he refused (I should have said that natural distilled water is definitely found on mars and say if  he would refuse me this time  then I would ask him to go and check it for himself ).Without waiting long he moved on to another question. This time again deviating from our bioinformatics syllabus he asked me,” what is cloning”? I wanted to answer him right this time so to make sure I asked him if he wanted the definition or the procedure; without paying attention to my question he repeated again what is cloning, but this time in sterner voice. My mouth went dry with fear & without wasting time I gave him the definition. With his expressionless face it was hard to say if he was satisfied with the answer or not. Sometimes these heartless creatures seem so weird while asking question without giving a slightest clue whether your answer is right or wrong.

Further, he pointed to an accession Id mentioned in my journal and asked what it denoted. I was sure that it was a unique number assigned to every new protein or Gene sequence discovered. He began smiling & biting his lips, was it that he didn’t know how to smile or was he scorning and mocking at my answer it was hard to tell. My anger was fuelled up already with his expression but it’s better to control ones’ anger in such situations as it might affect one’s marks. Further the grilling continued till he could.

I heaved a huge sigh of relief when the battle came to an end. Next day, with friends we went for a movie to relax and forget the taxing experience.