Exam chronicles

It's 5:30PM and I'm supposed to be studying for an exam that I'll be writing in 16 hours time. It's the last exam of the semester and I can't find the motivation to bring myself to study for it. It's that time of the day when I like to sit in front of my open books, deep in contemplation about how expertly I'd managed to waste the past 3 days doing basically nothing other than reading tweets from random celebrities and posting some tweets myself. Of course, no one probably read any of those tweets but that's the weird thing about twitter. If you're someone with thousands of followers, it's a great medium to share your views. But when you have fewer than a 100 followers, it's basically like shouting at a wall in a very noisy room because eventually, not only is no one listening to you but also, you can't hear yourself amidst all the confusion the other people are creating BUT, you still do it anyway.

I slap myself a couple of times regain my focus. Although, in hindsight that was counter-productive because I spend the next 20 minutes consoling myself by treating myself to some delicious biscuits that my mother had hidden away in a corner cabinet of the kitchen I hadn't hitherto visited. As I push away the crumbs of biscuit that now rest peacefully on the pages of my text book, I realise the quantum of work that I have left. I flip the pages desperately in the hope that somehow they'd reduce in number but obviously, no luck. I get up from my seat and walk over to the cabinet and explore again. Sadly, no luck there either. I get back to my seat and try to read another page. This was clearly not working very well. Suddenly, I get a notification on my phone. It's the calendar. “Chelsea Match Day at 7:15PM” it read. “One hour to go” I told myself, in the hope that it would motivate me to study for that extra hour. Image processing is a very interesting subject. It's what people now use to make their disgusting photos “look better”. If you've ever seen that fair and lovely advertisement that makes the girl “fairer in one week”, I can tell you with some authority that it wasn't the cream that did that. It was some basic image enhancement. If you want to look fair-er, you should have chosen fair-er parents. A bit late now for that, isn't it?

Anyway, as you can see, I have a tendency of getting a bit carried away. It's 6:30PM and I've still got loads to do. I walk into the kitchen again to find anything that's remotely edible. There was a packet that used to have cream biscuits but now hosts a handful of salted peanuts that escaped their own packet and rolled into this alien territory where they've mixed with the strawberry cream from the previous inhabitants. But when you're panic eating, your taste buds just take a nap.

I manage to read a couple of more paragraphs and close the books to get ready to watch the match. I've got an elaborate pre-match sequence that I follow which takes about 15 minutes.

I've settled comfortably into my couch where I usually sit at the beginning of a match. (By the end, I'm usually sitting/squatting/lying down/crying/jumping on the floor depending on how the match goes). Chelsea play Southampton today and we've got to avoid defeat to stay top of the table at the beginning of the new year. (Yes, that's a useless detail but then again, isn't this whole post pretty much useless?).

Two hours pass by rather quickly and I've to get back to studying now. I decide to check twitter one last time before turning off the internet but there's some disturbing news there. A low intensity explosive had gone off on Church street and injured 2 people. Church street is parallel to MG road, one of the most popular, crowded places in Bangalore. Church street itself is a lazy looking lane. There are restaurants and book stores and houses and offices on either side of the street (and funnily, no church that I've seen. But of course, that's probably my ignorance). It's a nice place to roam around at almost any time of the day which makes this piece of news even more saddening. The city is on high alert and everyone has been advised to stay vigilant and report anything suspicious. All this is making it even harder to study but I'm trying to finish as much as I can before lady sleep descends on my eyelids.

It's 10:30PM and I decide to give in to the pressures of a sleep-inducing boredom that has presently thrown a veil over me. I set an alarm for 5AM so that I can finish off the rest of the syllabus and revise in the morning.

Pharrell Williams' super hit single “Happy” rang out loudly, awakening me from my blissful sleep. It's still dark outside. I opened the windows to let some fresh morning air replace the suffocating, stale air that had filled the room. A cold winter breeze found its way in and grazed the tiles. Walking on this floor feels like walking barefoot on ice but it has certainly woken me up. I leave a bowl of milk to boil on the stove and walk back to my table. I notice the calendar showing yesterday's date but I'm too lazy to go change it now.

Exam day tension compels me to put my head down and study what I have remaining. By now, the milk has boiled and spilled over. I leave it to cool and get back to study. A couple of hours pass by really fast and I realise that I've to hurry to get ready now. I close my books and go to take a quick shower and change into college clothes: a full sleeved shirt and blue jeans. I pour some milk into a cereal bowl filled with cornflakes, a practice I began over 12 years ago.

It's 8:15 AM and I have 15 minutes to leave for college. I drink the remaining milk in the bowl and leave it in the sink. As I stand in front of this little mirror, a strange calmness descends on me. I pick up my bag and get ready to leave. I flip the date on the calendar and walk out, locking the door behind me. It's time to go write an exam!

P.S: In case you were wondering, which you probably were not, Chelsea and Southampton played out a 1-1 draw.

In case you were wondering, which you probably were not, the exam went like all exams have ever gone. "It was okay".

And finally, In case you were wondering, which you probably were not, there are better posts than this one that will be published soon.

And FINALLY, in case you were wondering, which you probably were, yes, this post is finally over. Bye.