Year of exams!

The title aptly suits any engineering graduate who because of the mercy of our then semester scheme, sailed smoothly until the end of second year, with a healthy list of backlogs to clear in the final two years of engineering! Cometh the 3^rd year, the race against time begins, (mind you this race against time is only for those who wish to pass out of engineering with only their class mates as engineers! For others who have no such intentions, and take a leisurely path, can wait until their nephew or niece became their classmates!) The frequency of attending the exams would be more than the number of classes attended, sometimes writing back to back exams, creating so much confusion, that you even forget to take the correct chits to the exam hall :), aah the miseries of supplementary exams and the comedy of errors!! Unfortunately or fortunately, I was not a part of all this drama during my engineering days! I have heard from few of my pals, that supplementary exam hall is itself quite eventful even during the exam!!

So what according to me is my year of exams? The eventful year happened during one full year of my 10^th standard, where the only “event” was exams! You say I must be kidding, but I swear by almighty that most of the students during that era went through this onslaught of exams during their 10^th standard in my school, SPHS!!!

Of course all this was done in the good intention of the students, so that they successfully complete the “considered” most important stage of life, and come out with flying colors. Moreover, what do middle class parents expect from their children? They would be more than happy if their son or daughter got a 90 percent in the 10^th exam, over the moon if they got a rank :), join Science (PCMB) stream in a reputed college, and become an engineer, any engineer!! Their mission accomplished only after that nayi patti(ID tag worn by all types of engineers nowadays) adorns the neck of their son or daughter! 

They would not be so pleased if the son or daughter did well in sports or cultural activities for the school team. Not that they would not be pleased, but that success would not be exchanged for not so good marks in the 10^th exams! Can’t blame them as well! Poor souls would want their kids to secure their future and then try something nasty (yeah! Choosing sports as a career was indeed nasty, according to my DAD!), rather trying something nasty, and spoiling their career as well! Typical middle class mentality!

Warning bells started ringing right after the results of the 9^th exam were announced! Students, who scored more than 80% in the final exams, were branded “excellent achievers” and were eligible for some sort of special coaching right from beginning of the academic year for the 10^th standard! And GodFather (both God and my father) who dint want me to anything “nasty” showered all their blessings on me, the blessing combo deadlier than the Delhi Daredevils opening pair, ensured that I got 80% in the 9^th standard final exam! The result, Karnataka ranji team would go on to miss a left arm super-fast bowler! :) (just kidding guys!, I was nowhere as talented as at least few of school mates even, forget the state level under 16 champs, but what’s wrong in dreaming!). For a person who used to run to school at 11am to play cricket, this was an unwelcome change, for we had sit in the excellent achievers class, right from 1030 up to start of the actual classes, which started at 12 in the noon. I had barely made the cut to this supposed elite group, and would have been extremely happy to swap the place with someone who wanted to attend these classes. Nothing to demean the capabilities of the other guys who weren’t in these classes, for it was perfectly possible that anyone outside this supposed elite group could get a rank in 10^th standard! 

For the kind of syllabus that we had, Science and Maths were pretty easy for most of the students in this excellent achievers class, whereas History, Geography and Civics, was the toughest nut to crack for few of them, well… actually one person, that was ME! Not that I was not good at remembering facts, but facts coupled with numbers was something that my mind failed to comprehend! In which year was the Battle of Plassey fought? The moment I read this question, the random number generator used to start working in my head, and invariably arrive at a year that was not even remotely connected to the era in which it was fought! And since there was no logical way of arriving at the exact era, I was pathetic at these subjects in school! Before you readers conclude, let me describe what the term “pathetic” meant to a student who was in that excellent achievers class. In a total of 100 marks for Social Studies, 65 marks were for History and Civics put together, and 35 marks were for Geography. So my best effort in social studies during that entire academic year for History and Civics, was 58.5 out of 65. Now, for scoring these “many” marks I was grinning ear to ear, however the history teacher, was upset and chided me in that excellent achievers class, that I had scored below 60. Why this sort of bench mark? Because everybody in that excellent achievers class had gobbled up the entire text book of history, civics and geography, and could spit out any paragraph from any corner of the text book! For eg make any one person from the excellent achievers class stand up, and ask, “Page 153, paragraph 2, Start!” and lo to my surprise, the person would start.. “The reforms done during the reign of Akbar…” :) OK OK, I am exaggerating but almost all the students in that class were able to do something similar in response to a correctly worded question, except me! I was the Ishaan Nandkishore Avasthi of that excellent achievers class! The result, half the academic year, I used to study only History, Civics and Geography!! And still had the confusion as to who ascended the throne in the Mughal dynasty after Jahangir!

Outside this cauldron, the regular students were also not out of the woods! As a matter of fact, the excellent class students also had to undergo this mundane activity. Two tests in each subject were conducted every week, one on a Wednesday and one on a Saturday! 4 tests were conducted in the entire year, 2 before the mid term exams, and 2 after the mid term exams! For total marks of 25 in each subject, the marks awarded were ridiculous and would go to show in great depth as to what was the kind of important given to “studies”. Say for example for a science paper of 25 marks, 8 marks were allotted for Physics, 8 marks for Chemistry and 7 for Biology! Forget the students, the details up to which the teachers had to study the text books; to get the questions out of every nook and corner of the text book, would automatically make the teacher a potential rank holder in her/his own right!!! A 3 mark question was worth its weight in gold!! and the answers to these questions required an answer written down in six points! It seemed ridiculous to me in the beginning when I used to get, 6 and a half or very rarely even 7 and half, as my test scores in physics, or say maths! Mind you, I never managed to go beyond 5 in history or geography! So the final score for the test would be a ludicrous decimal value, and occasionally which happened very very rarely, I used to miss the 10^th rank amongst all the 4 sections by say about half a mark!!! Aaah the agony and despair of having missed the mark by a frugal margin!! The sensitive fairer gender would cry their hearts out for that half mark that eluded them the glory! Fortunately, more often than not I stayed clear out of this uncertain zone because I always used to fall short by 10 or 15 marks which was a matter of huge concern!,  No not for me, but for my class teacher, as I was an attendee of the “excellent achiever class”!! 

Amidst all this decimals and fractions of margins, I had the bigger margins of defeats as well!! The  mid term and two preparatory exams, for which the marks were relatively less ridiculous, gave ample opportunities for me miss the mark by bigger margins!! By the time we guys finished the second preparatory exams, all the students were sort of sick and tired of writing the exams, which in a way was good!, because nobody, I guess had the “examination fear”! Hence, by the end of that academic year, all the students would have answered at least 50 odd question papers in each subject, which by a margin, would make an entry to any record books!

After the final 10^th public exam, I came to know that after the two preparatory exams, there was a special exam conducted before this final exam for the probable students who were more likely to get a rank in the public exam! So since I was not called to write that special exam, I was convinced that they had finally given up on me!

For all the effort that the teachers and all the students put in the 10^th exam in our school, we could achieve a 100% first class, and I guess our school got some 6 to 8 ranks in the 10^th board exams, including the 1^st rank for the entire state!  For the 6 months of study that I did exclusively for History, Geography and Civics I scored 79 out of 100 which would be I guess my numero uno performance in that subject! However, for my parents’ relief, my performance was good enough for me to share the benches with a good number of rank holders in the board level exams for the state! My battle with my tormentor subject, Social studies, had ended in a truce, however from being Ishaan Nandkishore Avasthi of the excellent achievers class in 10^th , I was promoted to being the Ishaan Nandkishore Avasthi of the entire class in PU!

A[V]I