EXAM DIARIES

Needless to say, the stress and the apprehension regarding studying the right subject for the right day (it may sound stupid but trust me, sometimes it’s better to keep checking the time table every hour in a day, coz you never know when you might get the dates and the subjects wrong!) and not to mention, clearing one’s mind from all the impending “doomsday” thoughts like, writing wrongs answers for the right questions and writing right answers for the wrong questions... exams... I’ll just come out and say it; it’s just a bloody pain in the arse!!

One day before the BIG EGGJAAM.

Consider me. You have seen my picture on my blog page right? Keep that in mind and now imagine a girl wearing really shabby and ragged clothes, her hair oily and unruly (and even smelly if she decides to skip taking head bath for the fear of falling asleep on her study desk for hours and hours!). Well that ghastly image my friends, is me at my worst during these painful exam days.

Just yesterday, I was in one of my “best” ragged and torn salwaar suit. Weird I know, but these are called as my “shabby exam cloths” and without which I just can’t seem to comfortably sit in one place and even attempt to study! I’m a very careless person. I forget all the dieting I’m supposed to be doing and end up consuming more food than necessary (I call it, “the nervous exam diet”).

So yesterday evening, after waking up from a nice pre-study slumber, I was in the kitchen, all set to prepare my favourite food during all occasions: MAGGIE. While I was shedding tears as I sliced the blasted onions and pretended to be this woman who cries for no reason (one should touch upon one’s acting skills while one is shedding free tears!), I heard the door bell ring and some unexpected guests decided to show up at this unruly time (unruly for me as I was stuck in the kitchen, in my shabby clothes, teary eyed and overall smelling of onions L ). Okay, definitely not an avatar I’d like to present myself in other than my mom, dad, granny and bro.

Even amidst this sticky situation, the first thought that came to me was “Thank god, I didn’t put the Maggie into the boiling water”, because the thought of sharing my precious Maggie (while my hungry tummy growled with rage) with outsiders was more mortifying than going out the kitchen and facing them in my current get-up!

As the guests were being loud and chit-chatty with my mom and granny, I took some time to groom myself to appear like a normal girl and not a complete cave-person. Not much of a progress, to tell the truth. So abandoning the sinking ship I braced myself and walked out to the living room.

An aunty and an uncle were sitting on the sofa and when the uncle saw me, he looked taken-aback for a bit (or maybe that’s how I thought his reaction was, as I would always get a shock to see myself in the mirror during these treacherous times!). But he’s a friendly chap and asked me whether I was done with my education. I told him solemnly that my exam was tomorrow and I was battling for a war at the kitchen. He said, “Good, good, nice food always helps and best wishes for your exams”.

Next I turned towards the aunty and she looked like she would faint if she looked at me again so she didn’t say much to me but instead, showed her many jewelleries she wore to my mom and complained loudly, “You know, we roamed around a few wrong streets until we finally found your "little" house! It’s so dangerous to walk in the night in this area. And the streets are so confusing here. Our (big) house is so easy to spot in Bangalore”. 

While my mom politely nodded her head in agreement, I wanted to get up and rip the woman’s head apart. First of all to any normal person’s eye, my house is far from being called as “little”. It’s no less than a castle to my eyes! And this lady keeps visiting our house with her husband four to five times in 3 months and yet she complains of getting lost in this unholy fashion. But my saner mind warned me to behave and not think like a barbaric cave-girl and so for politeness sake, I sat and listened to her stupid ramblings for 10 whole minutes.

My stomach was growling loudly at this time and my head was starting to ache and I couldn’t bear to listen to her shrill voice anymore (I was thinking on the lines of interrupting her by saying, “Auntieee, shhhh”). And so, when I was sure everyone was happily ignoring me, I got up and literally ran upstairs.

I couldn’t study in an empty stomach. Gah! More wastage of time and I had already wasted a lot of time that day. And so, to while away the time i.e., to wait for the beloved guests to take leave, I opened my MS Word and started writing all these things. I wrote only about two paragraphs and then ended up listening to songs while reading other blogger’s entry to the Lakme contest (But this, I don’t call as a waste of time, never!).

Finally, after an hour and a half, the guests took leave and I came tumbling downstairs and straight to kitchen like a tornado to finish my unfinished business of preparing delicious, steamy, hot MAGGIE. And before my younger brother, would come and ask me to share, I transported all of it to my room and locked myself safely and for next 2 hours, enjoyed savouring it slowly as I watched a thriller movie called “GONE”. So much for wasting my time right?

Once I was done with all these, sudden realization hit me that I had just about 12 hours for the exam next day. So had no other escape but to study and occasionally, check my mail for any more votes for my previous post (really, it’s all new to me, getting so many votes and all... I feel as happy as eating a candy whenever a blogger votes for me!).

On the EGGJAAM day

Two hours to go and still 2 more units to look upon and memorise the important stuff. Time to shed my shabby clothes and get into the even shabbier college uniform (Don’t ask, ours is the one of those engineering colleges that has made uniform as a compulsory attire. Miserable dress to wear!).

Not my best day today. The subject seemed too tough to even memorise or mug-up. In a desperate attempt to add some luck to this doomsday, I scout my dresser for a pair of lucky silver earrings that I always wear during the days I feel everything will go down-town and after 15 minutes of searching, I finally found it. Now mentally I felt a little satisfied but still logically I was still in truck loads of trouble as I hadn’t studied everything completely.

On the way to my college, I passed a temple and every time I pass it, I pray to god regarding something or the other (just to be on the safer side!). During college days, I would pray to god to give some sense to some of my lecturers to behave like adults and leave students like me alone. Other than that, my favourite praying topic is to ask god to keep my mind active so that at least, I can happily write a poem or a story during class hours. But today, as I passed the temple I solemnly prayed to god, to clear my mind so that I can write the best answers possible to the questions I knew and to extend some special ability in me in order to create beautifully carved nonsense on my exam booklet for those questions I had no idea whatsoever what the answer was!  

As accustomed to my constant antics, I arrived at the exam hall 7-8 minutes late (last minute studies, you see!). I caught my friend’s eye and we smiled at each other. And while I was smiling at her, this was what I was thinking, “Look at her, she has studied so much that she has come to the exam hall on time. Am I the only one who hasn’t studied well today?”

And while my friend smiled at me, this was what she was thinking, “Look at her. Always cool, composed and as usual late to exam hall. I bet she got more time to study. No message from her for two days. And no sign of her on facebook too. She must have really gone underground to study well this time.”

But the truth as you and I know, I was just being my lazy, stupid self for the past 2 days!!

The after effects of seeing the question paper for the day!!

When you know you are screwed up and nothing can stop you from it, what can you do at the most? I’m definitely not the type who runs from the exam hall on seeing the semester’s toughest question paper. Nor am I the type that ends up silently crying upon seeing the ugly paper set by an even uglier examiner at VTU. Instead, uncontrollable laughter started to engulf me. For the first 15 minutes of the exam all I did was stare at the question paper and laugh (inwardly) while struggling to control my lips from turning upwards and creating a scene in front of the invigilator.

Once the initial shock and laughter had left me, I got more composed and this time got down to business. There were quite a handful of questions to which I knew 70% of the answer. Fair enough! I can build up passable content for these things. Then my eyes drifted to those questions I had no idea they even existed in this subject. If time would permit me, I decided to use my old tactics: repeat the same answers but twist the words and make them appear like they are new answers. It works most of the time. Whoever corrects an Engineering paper, looks for the amount of content written i.e. how many pages a student has filled in the booklet. If I have managed to fill at least 20 -22 sheets out of a 42 sheet booklet, I'm well on the safer (passing) side. For more details of of my tactics, check this.

From time to time, my eyes swept the exam hall. All my classmates seemed to be writing beautiful answers with energetic composures. I knew then that I was the only person who had a sure chance to flunk if luck turned its back upon me.

But in a strange way, I believe luck is still with me today. As soon as the exam got over, I saw all my classmates (even the toppers!) complaining how tough the paper was and everyone were silently looking up to the sky and praying that they at least get the golden 35 (passing marks).

At one hand I was relieved everyone had performed badly and not just me. But on the other hand I was (and still am) feeling apprehensive that if toppers started to get the golden 35 marks, then would that leave me any passing chance?

Strange how my mind works at times. And even stranger how I’m writing about all these at this time of the night, instead of getting some sleep so that I can study well tomorrow. There’s talks of Bharath Bandth (Nation-wide strike) on the 31^st and if that is the case, my exam the day after will be postponed and I’ll be left to deal with that subject after the other papers.

Desperately hoping for the strike to take place on the 31^st. Else tomorrow I’ll be rubbing my nose in yet another text book.

***

P.S: This is not a figment of my imagination. All the characters, especially the character portrayed by me, are true and very real. Any resemblance to others’ lives is truly joyous and I welcome those people with wide-open arms to join my lonesome rank during these tough times!!