The turn of the year...and the looming exams!

“Dilli abhi door hai”- Delhi is too far away, said the king of Delhi. The student felt the same. "The board exams are only next year"- too far to worry about. As the old year gave way to the new, the equation changed. The exam was not just "this year", it was “now.” You counted the days. “What? Only 40-odd days to the finals?” Time had suddenly shrunk, as though in a time-warp. How did it all melt away?

There was so much to do and so little time. You felt like a batsman who had idled away, blocking balls, while the asking rate had swelled to unmanageable proportions. Even if you hit sixes every ball, you would still fall short of the target. The sense of immediacy hit you in the face. You had to do something, and it had to be now.

There was no respite from the looming crisis. When you took a walk in the evening, some acquaintance grabbed you, “Board exams coming up, right? No pressure! All the best!” When you went to school, teachers spoke in a monotone, “As you embark on this journey of life, the board exams are like the steppingstone. Life itself is an exam.” School friends no longer spoke about juicy topics. They rubbed it in further with- “You know Sridhar? That chap finished all his portions in September! Last September! Can you beat it?” Closer to home, sister asked, “Did you start solving previous year question papers?” Truly, it was a pressure cooker situation, with no escape valve.

The first thing to do was to prepare a timetable. After all, proper time management can solve all problems. With the ruler and pencil, you meticulously drew out an elaborate timetable in the rough notebook - the remainder of the days till the exams and the activity for each day. The day had to start early. “6:30 am to 7 am- Maths”, “7 am to 7:30 am- Physics”, “7:30 am to 8 am- Chemistry”. The afternoons were blocked with “solve papers”. The evening slot was covered with “solve more papers”. Only 30 min were set aside for lunch and another 30 min for dinner. Putting everything down on paper, took the load off the mind. It was as if, it was all too easy- as easy as a-b-c! You felt supremely elated.

Leaving the notebook open had its perils. Sister glanced at it, “Such a packed timetable! When will you take bath?” You got angry and snapped back, “Why are you poking your nose in my affairs? May be, I won’t take bath!” and shut the notebook tight, away from all prying eyes. But sister had a point. Now, the entire table had to be redrawn on a fresh page to fit in “bath time”. One hour of bath time seemed too indulgent. Only Romans did that. May be, 15 minutes was optimum. But with the bath time introduced, every other activity had to be equally shifted. It now read- “8 am to 8:15 am- bath”, “8:15 am to 8:45 am- Biology”. It just made the timetable unreadable. May be, 15 more minutes after the bath- the “8:15 am to 8:30 am slot” can be devoted to “memorize all formulae”. That would move Biology to 8:30 am – 9 am and the rest of the day fitted into a nice rhythm.

The vessels were clanking in the kitchen. The pressure-cooker (the real one) was letting out a burst of steam every few seconds. Mother was cooking. The maid was crisscrossing repeatedly to stack up the washed vessels. I was sitting on a make-shift table and writing away frantically. Sister asked, “What are you doing sitting here?” I retorted, “Don’t talk to me. I am solving a previous year Maths paper!” Sister persisted- “But why are you doing it in the kitchen?” “That’s because they told us to practice mock tests in all conditions…silly! We can get any exam-center, even Crawford market! Shut up and don’t disturb me now!”

Collecting previous year question papers was a full-time occupation. There were too many schools in the neighborhood. “Premier high school”, “Little Angels”, “Auxilium”, “King George”, “Balmohan vidya mandir”- the list was endless. You haggled with friends (at the cost of upsetting the daily timetable for several days), to get the previous year papers. Sridhar had all the papers, but that slimy chap pretended he had none. Dinesh had a few but was tight-fisted like a miserly grocer- he wanted another paper as a return-favor. Also, how far back in time do you go? You cannot solve papers starting from 1950. The syllabus would have surely changed. Plus, it would take you the next decade to complete them all.

Subra was the first ranker, the previous year. He gave some sage advice, “You cannot solve all papers. Just get your basic concepts right. Your "fundas" must be strong.” With only 19 days to go, you latched onto that timely advice. No more futile solving of papers. However, other doubts racked the mind, “What is this concept? Yeh "concept" kya cheez hai rey? Every concept depended on a previous concept (which you didn’t know), which in turn pointed to a previous concept. You had to start right at the beginning- the basic alphabet-set or the multiplication-table and climb, all the way up, like scaling the Everest.

Prayer was the only resort. “Dear God. Please God. Please save me. Next board exam (by the way, I hope there is none), I promise to study better. If you help me this time, I will shave my head, come walking all the way and I will carry 2 huge bunches of bananas and may be, one big jackfruit (if you save me). Save me, this one last time!”

Did someone write, "Golden days of childhood"? I am coming after them, with an upraised slipper!