The Sleepy Tale Of Two Naïve Lads And Their Exam Ordeal

Disclaimer: The protagonists in this post are the innocent, fledgling, primitive versions of the current characters. Some resemblance to the current versions of the characters may be exhibited by these young protagonists which I guess is not coincidental.

          The scenario shifts back 7 years from now rewinding to the year 2001 when I was this innocent little guileless boy studying in the 9th grade. Those were the carefree salad days in Loyola when life was less complicated and the only things revolving in our minds were Sachin Tendulkar, Pam Anderson, The Undertaker and the like.

Scenario:

Bells, candles and cribs. Angels, gifts and Santa Claus. Yes, it was almost Christmas time. But not there yet. We had to jump this herculean hurdle known as Christmas exams to reach there.

Scene 1:

It was the eve of Geography exam. Time 6.00PM. There were 2 whole days for studying and I haven’t yet opened my textbook. While wondering how all my precious time was gone and cursing myself for my slothful attitude, I decided to phone someone. Now phone calls are a big time relief on the exam eves if you call the right person. A sense of solace pervades inside you when you hear that the person at the other end is in the exact same situation as you are (hey, I’m not being sadistic. I hope at least some of you can empathize). I would never call Rohit as he would invariably say he’s doing his 3rd revision (the overconfident brat!!) and I would never call Hari who says he hasn’t studied anything yet (the modest nerd!!), but my experiences suggest that, the kind of marks he gets when the results are out is totally contradictory to what he says during the exams. So, there is no point in calling these 2 buggers. Now there’s one person I can rely upon – JK!! So I ringed up JK.

Me: Man, I’m totally screwed. Haven’t touched anything. I might get digit marks tomorrow.

JK: Me too daa, haven’t started.

Me: Oh!, man, what are we going to do??

JK: Dey, I’ll come to your house now. We’ll do a combined study. If we have a night out, we will get X hours before the exam. Now there are Y chapters and Z pages to go which gives X/Y hours for 1 chapter and (X*60)/Z minutes per page. It’s still possible that we can manage to pass tomorrow.

Me: Hmm, seems like a good idea, but I haven’t had a night out ever in my life.

JK: Me neither, but it seems there are no alternatives now.

Me: Ok, I’m ready, you come here ASAP.

JK: Ok man, I’m on my way.

JK reached my home by 7.30PM, we ate our supper, had a chit-chat, and the time now was 8.30PM. Realizing that we wasted much time, I got a bit tensed.

An optimistic JK: Don’t worry man, we have the whole night before us, there are P hours and Q minutes still left. (Bugger again brings up calculations)

Finally we opened our textbooks. I’m still able to vaguely remember studying about all those different types of clouds – altostratus, stratocumulus, cumulonimbus; the different types of soils – red soil, black soil, alluvial soil; that was one hell of a boring subject. Meanwhile the clock kept ticking and time just breezed away. 10PM, 11PM, 12AM, 2AM, 4AM, 5AM, and now we couldn’t take it any more and finally succumbed to sleep. I think that was the longest continuous period of time I’ve ever studied in my whole life. We had brushed through most of the portions but we never thought about revising it. It was 7AM in the morning when Amma woke us up; I was too dreary and dizzy then and I guess JK was also in the same predicament. In those days, daily life was rather systematic, fixed sleeping time and waking time, and so I guess the sudden night out shattered our biological clock and hence the 2 hour sleep destroyed our equilibrium. Nevertheless, we set out to school after having breakfast.

Scene 2:

There was pin drop silence in the examination hall and the noiselessness further augmented my drowsiness. For a moment, I felt like I was actually floating in the exam hall. I actually knew many of the answers (had studied them the previous night), but I was so drowsy that they just occurred in my head and didn’t come to my hand; I guess the nerve cells in my head didn’t want to transmit the signals to my fingers. I just looked around me; Rohit was there writing his heart out, taking papers, papers and more papers while I was struggling to finish just one page. Hari too was eagerly writing, taking out his ruler and drawing diagrams, diagrams and more diagrams. Then I looked at JK; he was there comfortably sleeping, head buried in his arms resting on the desk. Aha! At least there’s one soul who’s more screwed up than me. After a while, our principal came to the hall for his regular inspection (Fr.Anikuzhy was the principal then). Princi sees JK and goes to him trying to wake him up. JK slowly wakes and looks up.

Princi: Hallooo!! There is an examination going on. Not any sleeping competition!!

JK: Aaa Saar, Faather, errrr, har! har!

Then he takes his pen and starts scribbling in his answer paper.

Princi: If I see you sleeping ever again I’ll simply chuck you out of the hall.

Princi (now turning to the invigilator): Ippazhathe pilleerude oru dhairyame. Sleeping in the midst of a serious examination!!

And he walks away saying something like “The standard of this institution is getting worse day by day.” We managed to sit there awake for the rest of the time.


Epilogue:

Unsurprisingly, both of us flunked the exams big time. That day, I made a resolution never to procrastinate and never ever wait till the last moment to study. But it seems I’ve broken that resolution a gazillion times, thanks to my “indefatigable” will power. Looking back at those times, it seems silly that I actually worried about some petty Christmas exams; that little innocent Thomas must have had a heart attack if he had seen the lackadaisical attitude with which big Thomas comes to attend university exams in engineering. Exams may come and exams may go, but flunking then and flunking now, is all that remains the same.

P.S. I had long forgotten this incident and it was JK who called me up yesterday and as we started speaking about our good old times, this exam ordeal came to limelight. And it was he who suggested making a blog out of this so that we can relive those moments for eternity. I guess I didn’t mess it up. JK, what say??

Update: I couldn’t resist but add an update seeing JK’s comment on this post. It’s too good to read the comment. In fact, for the first time I got an idea about how he viewed the incident through his eyes, though after 7 years. I have copy pasted the comment below:

Eda Thommu, it’s JK here,

Got to tell, that was awesome stuff. Did a great job with that. In fact, that was the first time I saw this incident from your perspective Thommu. I would like to add to this post how I had seen it. Now it’s time for some contribution from my part (This comment is going to be painfully long):

Everything about this story started with 'coincidence'. It was mere coincidence that both of us had planned our studies in a way that we finish mugging up everything else at the risk of Geography. It was sheer coincidence that both of us found Geography equally boring and the one to leave out. It was again coincidence that whenever we struggle with a subject, an exam or anything, we tend to think of the other's pathetic face. It was this same coincidence that ended up the two of us in the same examination hall, with one sleeping serenely and the other almost into it.

I was almost in a state of saturation when Thommu called me. Red soil, black soil and all that. Haven’t wondered about so many colors even in my crayon application class at kindergarten. The phone rang while I was trying to spell 'cumulonimbus', reading it for the first time. C-U-M-U-L-O!!!
As soon as I heard his voice, I asked: Dey, What is this Cumulo....Damn!!
Thommu replied: Mmmm. It is…is...It's a cloud.
His condition was better, I thought. But it didn’t make much difference actually for his next statement was "I heard Rohit mentioning about such a cloud last day. The complexity of the word interested me." I did nothing but laugh.

The combined study lasted until 5 am. I was delighted. For the first time in my life, I was able to see the clock hands in such a position with the sun yet to rise. The stage of presentation followed - the Examination Hall. I still remember the expression on Rohit's face when we wished him luck. He was talking about 'Vegetation in the rural parts of Madhya Pradesh' with Hari. I turned to a confused looking Thommu and said "Don’t worry! It’s the second last chapter and we haven’t reached there." The first few minutes (the only time I was awake) forced out the fury in me. My eyes were paining & Rohit was laughing after seeing each question. Hari had a reason to stand every time I look at him - either for extra sheet or question confirmation. Thommu and I cut a sorry figure. We looked into the eye of each other and failed to blink. From that state, Thommu's eye lids gradually moved to the centre of the paper. My eye lids had just one way to go and that was vertically. I saw darkness and blankness take over. I didn’t get a chance to hold on. It was some time in the middle of my sleep that I felt some pointed object striking against my fairly sensitive skin. I had to open my eyes when the intensity of the instrument increased. I half opened my eyes when I saw someone dressed completely in milk-white outfits. I realized it was Princi with the kind of words that emanated from his mouth. I had to write the rest of the exam. Try to write, in fact.

Every year, from then on, I could never forget this day. Even if I forget the significance of Christmas Day, even if I forget to smile at Santa Claus, even if I forget to celebrate on New Year's Eve, I could never forget this day. It was these small incidents that made our 'Loyola days' special. Moments that made us laugh. Moments that would never come back!!