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!!

There she was: A victim of Bullying and Eve-teasing.

girl getting bullied in school

There she was… the little girl with her new pink lunch box that her dad had just bought her. It was the first day at a new school. 3^rd grade, she was growing so fast. Newly moved to the city with her parents, she had to mingle with not only the new surroundings but also with the new kids at her new school. She hated to enter this new territory. But her dad promised her that she will be treated like a princess here. This school loves new-comers and she will make many friends in no time. He promised. The little girl wiped her tears hearing her daddy’s words and waved him good-bye. No sooner had her dad left her, than she was surrounded by four kids, bigger and older than her. “Hello new-comer, what’s that you holding?” enquired one kid, while the other kid pulled the little girl’s plaits with glee. The little girl back-tracked with fear in her eyes. “Where do you think you are going?” the third kid pulled her roughly. She tried to call for help but the kids surrounding her were so tall that she could barely see over their shoulders. “If you scream or cry loudly, we will tear your new dress in half” threatened one of the bullies. The girl was too petrified to stand up for herself. She let them grab her new pink lunch box. She let them push her to the ground as they gleefully ran with their new stolen treasure. First day of her school, she had barely entered the school premises and what a bullying welcome she got!

source

 Her dad had obviously made a mistake. This was not a good place to make friends. She decided to tell her dad about this and braced herself to face the rest of the day. After the last school bell, she was more than glad to go wait for her dad outside. As she made her way out of her class, someone gave her the leg, making her to trip and fall face down with a thud. Her hands got badly bruised as she tried to avoid the fall. The four bullies were back and were having a good laugh at the girl’s misery. “You know, we hate tattle-tales … you are not planning to go running to your daddy with stories are you?” asked one kid. “If you do, you will receive an even better welcome tomorrow”, warned another kid throwing the empty lunch box back at her as the four bullies walked away.  She was 8 years old and a new found terror circled around her. Never had she experienced something like this. Bullying… She was being bullied right now but she barely knew what bullying meant. When her dad asked how the first day of school had went, the little girl silently replied a positive lie. She was scared and bruised both physically and mentally to even bring up the actual events that she happened to face that day. She hoped that keeping her mouth shut would make those older kids leave her alone. Poor little girl, how naively wrong she was. The next few weeks went by and the new school was a place of suffering for this little girl. Her bruises got worse, she frequently happened to lose her belongings. Her parents thought she was being merely clumsy and scolded her to be more careful. She got more reprimands for losing all her new things. Her own mother failed to notice the actual truth being hidden by her 8 year old daughter. Every time the little girl lied to her parents, her eyes were silently pleading them to notice the hidden truth. Two months later, on a day just like any other, her dad noticed that his daughter was nowhere to be seen when he came to pick her up. On a closer inspection with the school faculty, he found out that she was lying, unconscious on the toilet floor, with bruises so severe that she had to be hospitalized for a month to recover completely. Finally the truth was out, but at what expense? At the expense of the little girl’s inner spirit. She was mentally depressed after this ordeal and it was a challenging task to get her back to her cheerful self again.

eve-teasers in the night

Mean while, in a different city and under a totally different situation and circumstance, there she was… a young lady in her mid-teens. A high school student by day and a volley ball player by evening. She was born and brought up in a severely conservative family and they restricted her to go anywhere else but school.  But she had fought with her parents a lot to let them give her permission to pursue her skills in her favourite sport. She was forbidden to wear shorts like the other girls. But she didn’t mind as long as she got to play the game in the evening. The sports field was 2 kms away from her home.  One late evening, her bicycle happened to have a puncture. She was pushing her cycle through the dark street and suddenly she heard a fast moving motor-bike behind her. Before she could turn and look, the bike was right next to her and in the next two seconds, a rough hand grabbed and slapped her behind and before the girl could assess what was happening, the bike was gone. She didn’t even get the chance to shout at the monster riding the bike. With anger and shock blazing through her, she quickly made her way back to her home. She dared not tell her parents about this. They were already scolding her for reaching home so late. If they came to know about this incident, they would surely ban her from leaving the house in evenings. A few weeks passed and the girl almost put the incident behind her. But little did she knew that she was now being stalked by the same monster who had eve-teased her a few weeks back. One such evening, the monster grabbed the opportunity to confront her while she was riding home alone. The manner less brute came close to her and asked her to go with him. This time the girl wasn’t dumb-founded. She knew it was the same guy and that made her even angrier to think that he had the nerve to behave so heinously. She did what she thought was the right and justifiable thing- she slapped the brute once and without further words, she quickly rode back home. Yet again, she didn’t dare tell her mother and father about this incident. Her mother sensed she was upset about something but when she tried to ask, the girl refused to talk and went to her room. The very next day, tragedy took place in the girl’s life. No sooner did she leave the house to go to school, than the brute; along with his friend chased upon her and the brute threw a bottle of acid on the girl’s face. The girl, although survived the acid attack was disfigured for the rest of her life. She became the victim of her own fate.

You see, the above are two independent incidents, the likes of which commonly takes place in every nook and corner of our nation. Bullying and Eve-teasing…. The two major crimes that takes place under the radar of our nation’s law. Bullying is a form of an aggressive behaviour that is forced upon victims who are usually weak to stand up to themselves and fight the oncoming harassments. The harassments can be of any form- verbal or physical; an act often replenished on the same victims through various methods of emotional blackmails and other forms of intimidation. Bullying is often seen at schools and colleges where the senior students usually choose the juniors as victims for their experiments. No kid is born with a cruel intention. They often pick such behaviours off the television or may be due to the surroundings in which they are born and brought up. In most cases, if the father figure is abusive on the child then the child tends to show the same aggression on fellow kids at the school.  Even I was a victim of bullying in one of my school years. Not only I, but many kids in my class became the victims on one such occasion. A group of boys from the higher class self-assessed themselves as the class monitors and said they were assigned by their teachers to our class during lunch breaks and we blindly believed those boys. Every lunch break, they used to come to our class, pick a few helpless kids as victims and they used to beat them black and blue with wooden scales. I’m shocked to remember that even I have undergone the rule of such bullies in my life. I was too scared to speak two words back then and alas, I got my share of unjustified beatings from those boys. Had I had enough courage to voice my own opinion back then, I’m sure things would have been different. But I endured the pain silently along with most of the kids in my class. Thankfully one of the teachers found out about this sooner and those boys got their share of deserved punishment.

By spreading proper awareness among students and parents, bulling can be controlled to some extent. It’s a duty of every parent to make sure their child is not being harassed in his/her school. It’s a very sensitive age to undergo such physical and mental torture. I wish I could ask every kid to stand up to themselves and never let the shadow of bullying upon them. But all kids are not born with bold and outright nature. It should be every teacher’s and parent’s duty to ensure that the kids are not having any problems at school.

source:google

Coming to eve-teasing. Well, it’s another form of bullying but alas it’s not something a child inflicts on another child. It’s in fact an outrageous crime that comes face to face with every woman across India and the rest of the world. Some low lives think there is no harm in simple jeering and cat-calling and groping random women in public as it would give them the satisfaction of god-know-what. But any form of eve-teasing is a tone-down term for sexual harassment on women. No educated man with a little bit of common sense would ever mistreat a woman in public like that. Unfortunately, in many situations even an educated man becomes ruthlessly indisposed in the face of some so called “sexual thrill”. According to Section 298 (A) and (B) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), if a man found guilty of making a girl or woman the target of obscene gestures, remarks, songs or recitation will be sentenced to a maximum jail sentence of three months.  But how much of this rule is our government really following? We hear rape cases, acid victims and eve- teasing on regular basis that has almost made this whole thing to be viewed as casually as a common- crime in a “wattcha-gonna-do-abut-it??” manner. But one cannot blame this entirely on the justice of the Indian system. Every woman undergoes eve-teasing more than once in her life. Some are bold enough to stand up to themselves. They take up the bold initiative and lodge complaint to the nearest authority. But how much can you expect from a helpless teenager? They are just opening their eyes to woman-hood and already they are fast becoming victims to this atrocious crime called eve-teasing. The least they can do is confine such incidents to their parents. Here comes the parent factor! It is very important for the parents to give an open support for their daughters. As I described in my second part of the story, it’s not only the girls who dress boldly undergo eve-teasing. Even a simple conservative girl would be targeted by these monsters. Had her parents given her more support rather than restricting everything she did, she would probably have told them when she experienced the groping attack the first time itself. This would have prevented the latter events that took place. But not only parent’s support but a lot many other factors come into picture when it comes to eve teasing. Poverty plays a main role. In rural areas, this act is probably more common and yet completely hidden from the public eye since the victims themselves seldom wears the courage to speak out loud. I wish I could tell all these ladies to stand up to themselves and fight. Just fight. I’m glad states like Delhi and Bhopal have taken up initiatives and protests against eve-teasing. I would gladly join their ranks and render my support.

source:google

So if I could bring upon a change in this society, then I would support for a positive change that would put an end for both Bullism and Eve-teasing. No child deserves to be picked upon and no women deserve to be sexually harassed. One must stand up to themselves and fight. Just fight. We are not born in this world to live; we are born to live and to fight our way where there is injustice.

And as an old saying goes;

Knowing others is intelligence.

Knowing yourself is true wisdom.

Mastering others is strength.

Mastering yourself is true power.

If you realize that you have enough, 

you are truly rich.

If you stay in the center

and embrace death with your whole heart, 

you will endure forever.

I thank Indiblogger and Stayfree for endorsing this wonderful contest “Time to Change”.

Being 23

I just realized I’ll be 23 this year. I know it’s a little too late to realize this. But the sudden realization hit me like “BOOM... OMG I’m gonna be TWENTY THREE!!!”... Why do I sound so shocked? This was bound to happen. Some might say, “Hey, take a chill-pill hon, you are just turning 23, life is still young and hip for you!”... Hmm, should that make me feel relieved? I’ve lately been asking myself some crazy questions that I can’t answer. Whenever I pop a crazy question to myself, I just open my mouth to answer but alas, there is no answer.

So, the pros and cons of turning 23. Let me give some mathematical insight on the number 23:

•  23 is the ninth prime number.
•  It’s the smallest odd prime which is not a twin prime.
•  It’s also a 5^th factorial prime, the 3^rd Woodall prime (whatever that means!!  Found these stuff on wiki)

I also observed from the movie “The Beautiful Mind” (which is based on a real-life story of John Forbes Nash , the noble prize winning economist) that Mr. Nash was obsessed with the number 23 and that same number was the root cause for his nervous breakdown. How sad... I sure hope I don’t get a nervous breakdown by turning 23. I sometimes feel, just like the number 13, 23 holds some mysterious weight age about it that would cause people to go mad and think up crazy theories (just like how I’m writing about all these even though I know none of this can really matter since this age will pass and I’ll be 24 next year and that will be a different horror show for sure!!)

Some of the good or ignorant things about turning 23:

•             I’ll be old enough to know what the hell is going around me but I’m young enough to ignore it and stay oblivious to my surroundings.
•        I’m nearing 30 yet I've left my brains back at high school!
•       Well 23 is two years above 21, so I have every right to get drunk whenever I please. (But some crazy dreams are best left to stay as dreams!)

It’s so hard to come up with good stuff to support my age, when all I can do is whine that I’m turning 23. And I just had an epiphany that every even year, my age turns odd. This year March 11Th, 2012, I’ll be turning 23! So what did I infer from this so called epiphany?? I have no idea, but something feels oddly wrong about aging. Every year it’s the same with me. Neither am I happy nor comfortable to have my age incremented every 365 days or so. I stand in front of the mirror and observe all the changes I can spot. Well, frustratingly changes are hard to tell when you look at yourself constantly every day. Still I spot a few hateful white hairs here and there that shine amidst my black hair. It’s acceptable that age has to show one way or the other. But why should my hair turn white?? Can’t age leave my hair alone? So, I decide to take refuge at the hair salon to dye my hair to my favourite shade of chocolate brown.

But no amount of “hair dye with no ammonia extracts” can cure me of aging. I so badly wish to get hold of the elixir of life or the sorceries’ stone from the Harry Potter book. Ah well, life happens and I just have to go with the waves.  But on a bright note, being 23 is not that bad. But don’t ask me in what ways it’s not bad (I’m still figuring it out!). If you are still reading this, then please pray stop, my ramblings have begun again!

My college friends have planned to give me birthday bums and I’m rigging out master plans to escape them on my birthday.  But I’ll be meeting the same friends on Monday on the inevitable train journey to Bengaluru for project classes and so I don’t think I can completely escape them this time!!

Ah well, even though I feel like the least happy person to celebrate my birthday, I’m still feeling good that I have friends who are on the same boat as me. I don’t have to sail the boat of ‘aging’ all alone. Yet being born early in a year does nothing but age you faster than most of your friends, who even though are born on the same year as you, yet they remain a year younger while you turn 23. I have quite a few friends whose birthday falls in November and December. Damn! They turned 22 just 3 months ago and here I am turning to a whole other year!!

But the bottom line is that I feel like my youngster quota is getting over too soon. Soon I’ll be in the “aunty” category (maybe I already am! I’ve already endured getting called as aunty by those kids that sell flowers or toys on the streets :-/). But still, not even god can stop me from getting a year older every year. On the plus side, at least this year I’ll try to meet up with some of my resolutions, like graduating and landing a job for starters.

But these have to wait. Right now, I’ll be a brand new girl to the house of 23. I welcome myself to this odd numbered age and I just hope this year will end on an even and positive note. Fingers crossed!

Being 23
A reason to celebrate?
Oh no! please no, no!!

You are 23

Give us a birthday treat

Commands' from my dear friends

Its bound to happen

I am 23 and there's

Nothing, I can do to be!!

Midnight Ramblings

I’m gonna treat this post as my scribbling pad (BEWARE, unruly ramblings ahead!!).  I just need to spit out some issues out of my mind. Firstly I’m extremely pissed off at my project guide/lecturer who is purposefully making me give a seminar on the same topic (for 20 mins!!) AGAIN... She has my 50 marks so all I can do is just suck it up and prepare for the damn seminar again. Oh, did I forget to mention, she has even criticized that my seminar report has very less number of pages (last time I checked,  22 pages of seminar report is the minimum number of pages a student is supposed to make and my report is a total 24 pages!!). These lecturers I tell you. When you are in your early semesters, they play with your internal marks and sometimes refuse to give you minimum marks just because they caught you dozing in their class or copying in some trivial unit test they conducted in class. And if such a lecturer becomes your practical lab guide, you are sure to become her personal lab rat for the rest of the semester. If you are unable to get the required output in every lab you can bet your bum, that lecturer will have an evil glee in her eyes as she happily marks a big, round zero on your weekly lab assessment.

 But coming to the final semester, you’d think all these childish acts between a student and a lecturer has finally come to a rest. WRONG!!!  The 200 marks project is their final boon to destroy your remaining amount of self-respect and conviction. During the last 5 months of your engineering lives, these devilish lecturers enter your lives and they make sure every day of those 5 months is a living hell. As long as you suffer under their rule, they are happy. Voice your opinion even a little loudly; consider yourself black-listed in their evil minds for the sole purpose of sabotage and torture for the rest of the semester. That’s where I am right now. In this case I didn’t exactly voice my opinion but my project partner did in one of the recent seminar sessions. And as a result, our clearly pissed off guide has started her reign of sabotage and torture on our lives. Two months of this semester is already behind me. Still three more months to go and I’m literally counting the days. Sigh!!

P.S: I apologize for bringing such a hateful topic on my blog space. But this thing was really bugging me and left me all restless, not giving my creative writing side a chance to come up with anything positive. Maybe now that I’ve spit it out of my mind in the form of words, I can actually get back to being my cheerful self again.

P.P.S: um, still a little distraught. Maybe sleep should help. Oh, crap... Just remembered my assignment is due tomorrow (another hateful lecturer is trying to ruin my life!! ).. Oh well, I’d better stop rambling here and start writing (the said hateful lecturer has posed a ridiculous rule which states “no assignment tomorrow== no internal test next week” =|).