Indian Forces as there reputation carries along are very cautious about selecting officers and so thus the results show over the past years, just 1 in every 20 candidates called for the AFSB ( Air Force Selection Board ) interview is recommended for medicals and after that very few are able to get through the dead strict medical standards of getting onto the forces.
After finishing my final year exams of Engineering degree and before getting into my next career step i got the chance to attend one of these AFSB interviews at the Dehradun Base station.
Even if it sounds so but the 5 days i spent at the selection board were not so tough but a fun trip for me (at least i thought that before reaching AFSB Dehradun). I choose to attend the interview because of a long lived dream of clearing the SSB interview which is supposed to be amongst the toughest selection process for services in India and even perosnality like Rahul Dravid and APJ Abdul Kalam were not able to crack through.
I took this whole AFSB thing very lightly because i was pretty much sure about my IIIT H selection and the Job offer i had from BTech placements at BARC Mumbai which was there to be grabbed at any time.
So here goes the story of those 5 days which includes one of my most enjoying birthday celebration over the years.
After boarding from New Delhi to Dehradun i only realised that i was in Uttranchal when the beautiful natural scenery started showing from the window of the train, it was more then the word awesome to describe the beauty of the scene.
Thanks to the Indian Railways soon i landed at the Dehradun station and Phew ! welcome abroad some of the officers were already there to grab all the candidates and take us all to the AFSB.
DAY 1 : There were 150 odd candidates on the 2 Air force buses, all of them hoping for a good luck for the day 1 selections. We were not allowed to take our luggage into the campus and left all of our stuff in the bus and after getting our respective CHEST NUMBERS (mine was 25 ) we started giving various tests.
I was totally screwed up after the long journey and now these non-stop tests which went for around 4 long hours made the situation even worse.
Finally day 1 results, only 50 out of 150+ candidates were allowed to get there luggage into the campus and rest of them were said Goodbye ! Thank lord i was IN.
DAY 2 : We were divided into a group of 10 people each , last night we had a little group chat cum Intro talk amongst us. We were asked to get ready by 7am but as expected i was bed ridden enjoying the weather of Dehradun till 6:45am , seriously i am not at all a morning guy but all of sudden i had to get ready at 7am in morning that too in Dehradun weather, it was totally killing me, but thanks to other guys they helped me with a bucket of water over my bed and i was suddenly all ready with ALL WHITE dress and ready to take on the Air Force selection committee.
During the day 2 events we had few group tasks, some G.D's and a few written tests.
All's well if ends well day ended with some guys turning into friends.
DAY 3: Today our group was given half-day off, but after some time we were called for a series of events. Another fine day ended well.
DAY 4 : Today was the big day, the day of Physical tests at the AFSB. The candidates of the previous group who gave the physicals were not in the best of there beings after the tests.
I don't want to describe the tests or rather i won't be able to do so, but at the end of the day most of my group candidates ended up with wounded knees, palm and what not.
Damn ! Now i know why the forces is lacking Human Resources.
The day 4 was even more interesting because it happened to be the day we went out in the city in search of some civic life which we were almost away from the past few days. It was 9th July and the next day was my Birthday, the other guys planned a private party in the room and thus we picked up some stuff off the market.
We brought a big cake and at mid night celebrated one of the fewest birthday celebration parties ever happened in the AFSB campus ( FYI it was not allowed in the campus). Seriously it was one of the finest Birthday celebration i had over the past years even after what happened during the physical tests.
DAY 5 : The day of Personal Interviews. Since it was my birthday i was supposed to have a good luck today and moreover get birthday greetings from the interviewer.
The interview went good, it was supposed to be a formal interview but me along with the interviewing officer settled for the informal approach considering my birthday.
After an hour long interview followed by couple of more hour of nervous waiting we were called for the final results. All our stuff already packed we were standing outside the campus to hear our chest numbers to be called out loud.
Those 5 days we were not allowed to take names but the Chest numbers amongst us and this particular rule thing was actually irritating but this result time was the only time all of us were very much eager to hear our chest no out loud.
A Officer Lady walked into and started calling out the results with a small speech about the people who are not getting selected that IAF is not the end of the world and Blah Blah !!
She called 3, 34, 12, 48, 20, 24 and finally 25(that's me). Hurray i was in along with 2 other guys from my group. Out of the 50 allowed to stay for 5 days only 7 people got selected , I was totally surprised and even more satisfied as i never expected my self to posses thus OLQ's ( Officer Like Qualities ) which guarantees your selection into IAF.
Thank You IAF This was the most wonderful present i could ever get from my self, i finally captured my long lived dream of getting through the Board interviews ( mind you not getting into the forces ).
So , after this 7 of us were asked to report to the Air Force base in New Delhi ASAP and if found medically fit there we will be commissioned on permanent basis as Flying Officer in the IAF in technical branch, after getting training at the Air force academy in Begumpet Hyderabad and after that to any where else in the country to serve the Nation.
So this was the story HOW I CRACKED THE AFSB but what happened later, the Medicals , the Scientist job at BARC Mumbai and finally IIIT Hyderabad.
Surely it is a long story and was amongst the toughest decision i had to make in my life, How i got through the toughest 5 months of my life to be where i am today not joining the other candidates to the IAF Academy here in Hyderabad but sitting in my LAB surfing World Wide Web for research projects for my second semester MS degree.
At last this One liner from John Wayne which might give you an idea about what happened
John Wayne once said, "A man's got to do, what a man's got to do ".
But seriously the story and the situation was never so easy for me to decide and to make it worse there was no one for a word of advice to me, but still I'M what I'M and I'M feeling good as never before here in front of a computer screen and not an in front of MIG Series of planes or Atomic Reactors.
So stay tuned for the rest of the story...
PS : Today (10 Jan'09) is the Day when I was supposed to be at IAF Academy Begumpet Hyderabad but instead I am still in front of the World Wide Web writing about my Life.
Sorry for mistakes above and before ( if any...)
Cheers !
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