EXAMS

‘But it is almost seventeen years I appeared for any exams,…’ I was arguing with psychiatrist during our first meet. He listened to me with all the attention I deserved making me sit on the easy chair for more than sixty five minutes. While he was quietly listening to me as if he’d no other work left in the whole world to do. ‘Well, you get nightmares due to your fear of exams which you used to appear for?’ he was trying to simplify me. ‘No no, not exactly that’ I cut him short; actually he was not understanding the gravity of the situation. ‘Look, I get literally drenched in the sweat in the mid of my sleep, many a times I cry, shiver in utter fear of not being able to solve the sums in my dreams…’. ‘These are the capsules & take them properly’ before letting me complete my explanation to let him understand the gravity of my nightmares he scribbled a few lines on his letterhead & handed over to me. ‘You may make payment at the reception’ he didn’t forget to make me remember of his fees while lifting his intercom; must be to inform the girl at the reception for the amount.

Declaration of my sentence date might not sink me so deep than the declaration of my exam date. Exams have really filled me with tremendous fear as if it was going to the end of the world. I’d collect all those notebooks & text books, loose papers, journals, drawings just everything. Sit & make schedule of the studies as per the respective subjects’ exam dates. Start solving previous year’s questions papers as much as possible. ‘Tonight it’ll be seventh paper I’d be solving for all the subjects’ my classmate quipped a week before our first paper. That much was sufficient for me to pop in fever pills; actually there should have been fear pills since I’d solved only five papers then.

I’d take a bath in cold water even if I run shivering fever contemplating, if I don’t take a bath it would not be auspicious, with a fear of failure peeping in. Then apply Tilak on the forehead, wear the previous day clothes if that paper was satisfactorily solved else fresh clothes; many a times for all those ten days I could be seen in the same dirty stinking shirt & pants. Till the last bell or till the examiner pulls the book from my hand & throw them in the hall corner I’d be glued to the books & read. Who the hell knows which question is going to appear in the exams? Even after solving all those papers satisfactorily if someone comes up with his own theory of papers being sent to tough paper checker or to some other district. I’d just pray god to save my papers from getting lost in transit, eaten away by cattle, wet in water, burnt in fire & even go in the hands of tough & miser paper checker. My biggest worry was my own handwriting. I’d read somewhere, ‘mans’ own enemy is he himself’, whilst my own enemy was my own handwriting; even doctors can scribble legible than me. During my education years I was fed up with my handwriting.

But all are not equally fool like me. There were great souls with whom I’d shared the same time space, class space & even exam-hall space. ‘Write that answer, will you?’ & meekly I’d hide my paper below my closest exam hall-mates’ paper & write the answer for him. Just to keep myself exam writable for the next days’ exams looking at his muscle popping up from his half sleeve shirt. ‘No the answer page is torn from this guide’ I’d given the guide back to my fellow student, later realizing had I been caught with the guide in my own hand than?

‘Squad’ used to be cruelest entity living on the earth then. They were permitted to barge inside any hall, search any girl of boy writing exams. During those days only I truly understood the meaning of discovery as witnessing these squad would discover copies hidden at various places. Inside ear, shirt collar, blouse, skirt, shirt seam, pants seam, inside innerwear, compass box, behind the ruler, inside socks, inside hollow of shoe hill, written on hands, palms, thighs in details or in abbreviations the list is long. Many forward guys & girls would visit toilets in the mid of exams many a time & get back loaded& get back loaded, while I’d be seen begging god for some more time,.

Even in the freedom struggle I’d have fought against rulers with much ease than fear of exams. My teen has been spoiled by these exams; I could not even make any girl friend forget about loving one, these exams never left any time for all such things. Weekly, monthly, quarterly & yearly exams & on the top of it surprise exams had left me shattered. Those who say college life is the best life, god bless them. For me it was hell, just like having asked for all that gold from the god & out of fear of it getting stolen away making it to be seen by self only in the second & the last wish. Upon granting the wish when the god disappears with a chuckle, you realize what is left behind.

Exams left behind all those notebooks & text books, loose papers, journals, drawings plus one more roll of yellow paper with a red engraving onto it, my degree certificate. Leaving me grope for the job in the mid of jungle.

I put my first step on the footpath out of the psychiatrists’ clinic assuring myself popping these pills might get me rid of that haunting exam-phobia.

By

Vijay Yelmelwar