Wednesday, November 30, 2011
THE EXAM
Category: Humor/SatireMy eyes were furiously glancing towards the alarm clock on my table. It was barely visible amidst the numerous books piled one over the other and the empty biscuit wrappers lying lazily besides. It was five past eight in the morning. Exactly fifty five minutes more for the exam to begin. No way I was going to finish the portions in the time left. I cursed myself silently. I should have finished it ages back. It was my fault to have laid back doing nothing as time blew past serenely. And now it seemed as if time was running a race. As my mind was making furious calculations as to the time left, another five minutes of my now-so-precious time went up in smoke. “Have mercy god!!!” I cried as I stared blankly at the horrendous amount of formulae heckling at me.
It was 9 O clock. I was sitting feverishly on the scrapped brown desk at the farther end of the room. Atleast I could get some wind and some scenery if I didn’t know any answers, I thought glumly. The question paper was very small for 50 marks. It read 5 X 10 =50 marks. And as I scanned hurriedly, I felt a stone drop deep beneath the chasms of my stomach. I didn’t know 4 of them. Well to be frank not even the remaining one, but I could atleast understand that question. Not like the other four which could have easily been picked up from some Chinese manuscript. Well yeah agreed that I could read them, but couldn’t do more than to write the given values in my answer paper. As was customary with people who didn’t have a clue as to what was happening over there, I turned back and front. Nothing. The people in my front and back were staring coldly back at me. After all those retards depended on me to get some marks out. I could literally see the word “FAIL” written in bold on my grade card. I had never failed a test before. The shame, the shame. Family would be after my blood. I wrote down all that I knew and with as much space as possible. And then suddenly a little spark of hope burst inside me. “Might be everyone feels the same about the paper!”. I hurriedly turned to the one person who could be the weather stone. The class topper. If the paper was bad enough, I could easily guess from his face. It would have been pale yellow, as if he was about to puke. Well no, not today; his outstretched tongue was nearly washing the paper. I am done for, I thought; even the all almighty can’t do anything to my paper today.
In all the tension that followed for the next lame one hour, I started to have the feeling of taking a leak. So I stood cowed up, like a person who had lost a horse race, rose my hand and asked the sniggering invigilator permission to visit the loo. He looked at me as if I was asking for his kidneys. Well normally he wouldn’t, but our entwined past wasn’t normal at the least. I had ridiculed him many times during the class hours, practical hours and whenever I got the chance to snub him. Quite frankly, he wouldn’t be pleased would he? After what took him two minutes to give a smudged version of approval, I rushed out before my bowels exploded. I was really full. And when the colors returned to my world, I saw it. Papers. My subject papers. Some ten of them on the floor. I could not believe my eyes. All the places to read and this person saw fit to read in here??? Then I realized, it was no reading, it was copying. I looked here and there to see if anyone was watching me; there was no one except a few curious squirrels staring at me from the ventilator. With a impish sense of anticipation I turned to the book. It was perfect, all the theory asked was actually there in the book!! Well I can’t complain now, I thought as I started turning the pages rapidly. And in all my glee, I forgot to see the ticking time which made the invigilator to come over to see what was happening. And what was that he saw? Me standing naively with a book in hand and a lopsided grin on my mouth. A moment of horror for me and a moment of victory for him. And slowly it dawned on me; that the shame that might have happened had I failed the exam was light years lesser than what would happen now. As I bent my head with defeat, he started to growl. Nothing he said made sense to me; my head was buzzing like a badly tuned radio. I could collect some words like “caught”, “done for”, “copying“, “banned” here and there. Other than that, nothing. I was ushered into a room where he left me stranded, with the sheets of paper on the desk. I heard the latch click on the other side of the door. Might be he had hurried to get the professor. The papers were on the desk, mocking me. For want of air, I tried to open the window, but it was too tight. With no more power left in me, I placed my head on the table. The papers were fluttering still.
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Ten minutes later, I heard the familiar click sound of the latch again. I stared blankly as two people entered the room. The not so happy professor and the invigilator besides himself with joy. “Where are the papers?” he turned to the invigilator. “Here”, he said brightly and then stopped. The papers weren’t there were he left it. He bent down to see the floor, but no. It definitely was missing. A dirty scowl took the place of the grin a minute back. “Where are the papers?” he barked at me. That was the moment I was waiting for; I looked at the professor full on the face and said, “Sir I didn’t copy, he is trying to frame me”. That scene will remain in my memory for some time to come. The disbelief on the face of the invigilator, the professor mad at having been pulled into a charade and me standing stock still hanging onto every single utter. And finally after so many “he copied sir”, “I caught him sir” protests, I was left free to leave on the face of “no evidence”.
With not an ounce of will to see my answer sheet again, I rushed out of the building hurriedly and headed to the coffee shop. My stomach was making loud grumbling noises. Apparently the meal I had ten minutes back didn’t go too well with it.
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