Those who know me well,
or those who have read my blogs know that I have had an unusual kind of
relationship with exams; some of you may term it as ‘complicated’. Now, for
some time I was living in a state of bliss, believing that my trysts with exams
are all over, and that’s what I thought, but now it has returned to haunt me in
the form of my lads’ struggles.
As my boys struggle
and break their head with their version of aliens, Miss. Manga Malayalam and
Mr. Jhandu Hindi, I am dragged back into my very own fear zone. In many ways, I
fear that I will end up becoming my own parents, or the parents of my close
friends, whose acts I largely despised. Remember their acts of going to the
terrace and turning the TV antennae in the wrong direction, so that we lost signal
reception, or their act of hiding away the VCR, the audio cassette player and
our Tinkles and Amar Chitra Kathas, and then telling our playtime friends in
typical Malayalam accent “o nehi aa
segtha … o pedh reha hai… thum jaao ….ooska exham hei”. This writing is
just to tread past that fear by making it all sound comic and insignificant to
myself.
Until last year, the
exam pattern in CBSE schools was so very convenient. Kids had to just study the
portions for a particular trimester and then forget all about it after the
exams. Now the shitty guys in the Centre have gone back to that same archaic
system that traumatized my generation, and it just gave me a shattering current
of déjà vu down my spine, when wifey informed that the lads will have to study the
whole book for their final exams! Set aside that shocker, she only added salt
to the wound, when she said that, maybe Mr. Jhandu Hindi won’t go away after one
finishes Secondary School, and that he will stay on to haunt the family through
the kid’s Higher Secondary schooling. I am crestfallen; feel roasted, shaken,
stirred, abused et al, some of which are unmentionable here.
As the only adult
male in the house, I took it upon me as my moral responsibility to find a
solution to this problem that has besieged it, and was also working towards
making a robust counter attack plan, but
it so happens that I have been asked by the High Command ‘not to interfere’. More
shaken, more stirred and more what not! But on second thoughts, I think she was
right. What counter attack plan can you expect from a man who tutors his son
about the ‘Desi Maals of Bhojpur’ when asked to teach ‘Decimal System of
Mathematics’ or form the guy who until recently thought that the feminine
gender of ‘Pea-cock’ is a ‘Pea-pussy’.
Yes, academics is
not my forte, and beating the juggernaut of exams convincingly is not one at
all. I can tell this with conviction recalling my many humiliating encounters
with it in the past. My 1st semester exams in Engineering gave me a
whopping 6 back papers, the ordeal of back papers continued through until my 7th
semester, where at one point of time I was sitting proudly upon a pile of 14.
In many ways I have
polished my skill in writing by scribbling fiction in my answer sheets. Sitting
through exams for Science, Management and other such descriptive subjects were
easier and pleasurable too, because it gave me a lot of scope and space to
write. I have made some marvelous discoveries, inventions and written some
profound, yet rib tickling and thrilling short stories in some of my Science
and Management answer sheets, alas all of those papers are now lost. One
incident that I can recall in particular is when I was doing my Masters in
Ahmedabad. In my hostel, we were preparing for our Project Management Exam
which was due next day, when my Brother-In-Law dropped in, and suggested me to
join him at his place promising that he would drop me back the next day just in
time for the exam. Now, since his newly wed wife had asked him to go and get
her brother, he wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, and on the other side, my
friends and classmates advised me against it, and wanted me to stay back and prepare
for the test. My BIL threw in his final bait, the ram-baan, or should I call it a Chapatti shaped Sudarshan Chakra.
He said that my sister was making
phulkas for me, and by God, let me tell you, no one makes better phulkas in
this world than my sisters. I had to bite the bait, although my jealous roomies
tried to hold me back, I left. Next day the exam went well. As usual I wrote
all that I had learnt and filled the pages with the right Project Management
theories, rationale, doctrines and what not. I was really happy with my work,
and even went on to poke my jealous friends’ envy bones describing the soft fluffiness
of the phulkas, and the feeling of bliss one experiences when one relishes those
tender, succulent chicken pieces right from the warm rich, spicy, aromatic
chicken curry that my sister had prepared and had my mom’s trademark seal all over
it. My mouth still goes watery when I think about it, but let me tell you, on
that day, when the answer sheets were distributed I watered not only from my
eyes, but also all the unmentionable places in my body as my professor and
classmates had a field day discussing my revolutionary Project Management ideas
in the classroom. On that fateful day, my love affair with Miss Phulka died. Although
I have remained a foodie, I haven’t looked back at that bread with fondness
ever since.
My worst enemies were
always Mathematics, Analysis or anything that had to do with complex
engineering calculations. Most of the times, my Mathematics, Mechanics and Structural
Analysis answer sheets returned with zeroes all over them. It is a fact that I
have contributed more zeroes to Mathematics than the great Aryabhatta or
Brahmagupta or Bhaskara or any other great mathematician that has walked the
Indian soil, but whatever, I have never let those achievements corrupt my
humility and humbleness. I think, and I believe that it is one of my greatest rewards
and God’s appreciation of my great valor and fortitude that my lads are finding
dealing with numbers and complex formulae a cakewalk. My wife however has the
funny misconception that this is her lineage and tutorage. How silly of her!
Now, it is not that
my very own tortuous affairs with exams ended with my college days, I did face
some big exams after that and I must humbly inform that I did come out with
flying colors out of them, although I know that my examiners must be now
regretting their decision to pass me. J The first one was when I passed an unwritten test, and a silly
girl finally agreed to marry me. Later, with a lot of help from my friends and
colleagues, I did clear two online exams for professional accreditations. As of
now, I am already due to take one more such accreditation exam, which I have
already procrastinated for 4 years. Now hey, it is not that I am scared or
anything, it is just that I want to give this test its due time. I am planning
to take that exam by the end of this year, and when I do that, I am planning to
take a week off from work and everything else, shut myself in the store room on
the top floor, throw off my mobile phone, shut off the wifi in my house and ban
friends and family from my life. You know drastic times require drastic
measures.
But frankly, it is
my opinion, that whoever you are and whatever your age or gender be, exams, its
preparation and its results must not flutter or fluster you. It must not
disrupt your normal life. It pains when I see these little lads and their
parents going through all the stress, and it hurts when I see that they have to
sacrifice their precious ipad, TV and play time, confined to a desk and a chair,
behind a pile of books, with the only sight of a fuming, overzealous tutor of a
parent in the front. This sight is really disheartening.
Life must go on as
normal. We must play, we must engage in our routine sports, we must do our extracurricular
stuff, we must party, and we must have our family gatherings, rituals and
functions. These things must not stop or be discontinued or even take a break
because of some routine exam. That reminds me, we are invited for two parties
this weekend, and both are sure to have lots of exotic spicy Indian food,
awesome company and both the invitations come with unwritten assurances that
the night will be totally laced with ghee and glee. Of course, we won’t be able
to make it; we will be busy confined to our desk and chair, hidden behind
books, preparing for the exams.
