Can you rotate this machine?

This incident happened a few years back during our 6th semester Engineering examinations. The subject was Electrical Machines-III. This was considered as the toughest amongst all the subjects in our four year engineering course. Securing pass marks, that too in the very first attempt was considered as a remarkable achievement. Even a mark above 40 was considered as an icing on the cake, considering the level of difficulty of the questions encountered,which was more than enough to rotate our heads in synchronous speed like any other machine. The stringency of correction never seemed to help the cause and the professors, known for their notoriety had no qualms in flunking a student by even a mark. Clearing the exam in the second attempt was also no walk in the park.

On the night before the exams, all of us were cramming our heads, frantically memorizing unfathomable formulae and bizarre diagrams to avoid the humiliation of appearing for a supplementary examination. A few of us were offering humble prayers to the Almighty to help us clear this obstacle. Pandemonium reigned all around. Some students tried to relax themselves by having an occasional drink, while others turned their lungs into chimneys courtesy of the deadly cancer stick. So amidst this bedlam arrived our hero Mr VS (I would refrain from expanding the abbreviation). He was cool enough to note down the syllabus from me just the previous evening and was about to start his preparations that night only, unaware of the mayhem that lay ahead of him the very next morning. He was fortunate or rather unfortunate enough to sit in a room occupied by 2 students who were busy making chits since evening. That somehow upset my dear friend, and he was searching here and there for someone who could explain him the concept behind the rotation of a machine, but alas! he could'nt find a single soul and cherfully he dozed off. (I remember having handed him a few notes and drawings that evening and asked him to go through them to ensure that he somehow scrapes through). His carefree attitude towards the uphill battle that lay in front of him, raised a few doubts in my mind that he might have been blessed by the Almighty with some divine power to pass the exam. I wondered that, had Constantino Brumidi been alive, this would have inspired him to draw another fresco titled "The Apotheosis of VS".

The next morning the dreaded day came. After 3 hours of racing against time, I was confident of just about scraping through, whereas some were very depressed and were sure of a retest. A small contingent was spotted near the canteen who were in mixed emotions. From them I came to know that our hero Mr VS had bunked the exam..!!!! This was like a shock to me. I was simply stunned and had no words to express my bewilderment. In a flabbergasted state, I somehow mustered courage to take the phone out from my pocket, and call up dear VS. He answered and said," Harish, I am busy giving tuition classes, I shall get back to you in an hour. My student has a major examination tomorrow." My head started reeling on hearing this. Then he called up and said calmly, " Harish, I somehow didnt like the idea of my roommates preparing chits, who also encouraged me to do so, and I thought that flunking was a better option than copying from chits and passing. I accept my mistake of not studying for this exam and I shall surely clear the retest on my own merit."

This incident shows the integrity and honesty of VS. These are indispensable qualities which all of us must possess and never let go of irrespective of any situation. Whenever I see people copying in any exam, I am reminded of good old VS. Then I thought, really this VS means "VERY SPECIAL." Today he is one of my best buddies. I failed in rotating this machine in VS, but then realised an important fact, "A Transformer is also a type of a machine which does’nt rotate. Life itself is a machine and it must rotate in the right direction."