Learning the Hard Way

Have you ever woken up one fine morning, feeling something was amiss? Like a feeling in your gut that things were going to go wrong... horrendously wrong?  I remember an incident where I got up from sleep with the exact same kind of clairvoyant feeling. Little did I know that ignoring it, would be like jumping head first into an empty swimming pool.

It was the 27^th of November I think. I woke up knowing I had an exam and as my usual efficient self, I had barely managed to push past the index page of my textbook.  I mean come on... Social studies? Like, seriously? How’s History going help me? Why should I remember stuff that happened 200 years before I was born? Geography too, I DON’T want to remember which country produces the most coconuts, or which region has the most number of chimpanzees (I swear I’ve seen enough already, not to mention I look at one when I stare into the mirror every day). The only reason I DO want to know where the deepest ocean is to know where I’d be able to safely drown my Hindi teacher without being traced...  that is not the aim of geography is it? Yeah and Civics too? A deeper understanding tells us Civics points to anything “civilised”. Do I look civilised from ANY angle? As my good friend Nalin puts it, “My hair looks like an upside down pineapple.” I don’t give a flying crap about being civilised. I don’t give a flying crap about Social Studies. Hell, I don’t give a flying crap about any kind of studies in general . Sadly, the education system prevails, and I had to bang my airtight head and force myself to read.

But exams are exams right? Sad thing, but true everywhere you go. So I took my school bag and dumped everything but books into my bag (to make it seem heavy to my Mom and teachers). Nonchalantly, I walked to school, trying to memorize all the dates and places which I never seemed to remember. As I reached the classroom and sat down, I noticed an odd thing. Everyone was sitting quietly, head bent over notebooks, furiously scribbling away. Feeling a little out of place, I asked a guy (he was in the different section) “What is it with people writing so much today?”

He looked towards me like I had dropped from Mars and said “How else would you practice Maths?”

Wait wait wait! MATHS? Did I miss something here?? Frantic like a man suffering from massive loose motion, I started to sweat. “We have MATHS today?” (I didn’t want to hear the answer.)

“Yeah man, why?” He gazed even more cautiously at me.

“Nothing, thanks man” I muttered.

 First thought which passed my mind- I’m dead. If there was one subject I always feared, it was Maths. It brought out the worse in me, I swear if I was a boxer and I imagined my opponent’s face to be my Maths textbook, I would smash even Mike Tyson’s face to Jupiter. I never understood Maths, and found it pretty illogical right from the beginning. (from my perspective) I mean when I was young, the teacher told me 1+6 was 7. Next day, she told me 2+5 was 7. Third day 3+4 was 7, I mean “WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM YOU CONFUSED WOMAN?! Can’t you make up your mind like every normal person??”

And here I was, sitting with my mouth open on my desk. I was going to face my worst nightmare and I wasn’t even ready. I looked up, and prayed that either of two possibilities would happen- 1) One of the peons would come to invigilate or 2) The paper was set by the Maths teacher’s two year old son. (Even then I doubted if I’d pass).

A minute later, a booming voice with a Haryanvi accent shouted “GET IN!” and a crown of people stormed in like someone was distributing free Plasma TVs. My worst fear was now confirmed, the invigilator was Mr Jeetinder, a tough, unmovable Chemistry teacher who was also in-charge of training all NCC Cadets *gulp*. The guy knew me well because I met him during school team practice every evening, but he was not giving me any favours in the exam hall, I was sure.

The room was perfectly silent as he started distributing the papers, and he flashed me a momentary smile of recognition before throwing my question paper on my desk.  I slowly turned the paper around and started browsing from the top. Question 1 to 10 were 1 mark ones, so were pretty easy. 10 marks confirmed, I sighed thankfully and moved on to the next page. THAT is where I almost pooped my pants. Question 11- “Nah”, Question 12- “No way”, Question 13- “is that even in the textbook?” Before I knew it, I ran out of questions. Maths... My downfall, yet again. Why do they have to set such stupid questions huh? Why? “From the figure above with given angles, prove the above figure is a triangle”. Well like duh! The figure has three sides, three angles and it DEFINITELY LOOKS like a triangle. Why should I prove it? WHY?

“Using a suitable identity, prove the following:” Suitable identity you say? What does that even mean? Would my school identity card do?? Huh?! I prayed for somebody to save me, before I got angry enough to swallow the question paper and die of choking. The questions seemed to be getting ridiculous. “Find the value of x”. After you break up, your ex has no value, hence x= 0. 3 Marks for that? Bravo Shamir Reuben... Bravo...

1 and a half hours later, my answer sheet was taken from me. It looked like C.T scan of my skull, it was mostly empty. Mr Jeetinder asked “So much of unused space on your paper? Any specific reason?”

“Yes Sir, I hope to score an extra 5 marks for neatness.”

As I got out of the exam hall, I felt betrayed. I stayed up all night... well, watching a movie. But I wasted 1 hour on studying Social Studies. One HOUR. All that effort down the drain. When the results came out, I leant an important lesson n Maths- Integers. My marks had forced my teacher to teach me the concept of negative numbers.

But life goes on. Since that day, I swear when I have a bad feeling... I puff out my chest and go outside, knowing whatever comes my way would be a test (and an entertaining read for anyone reading about it when I pen it down). Not to mention that I learn something from incidents like this, I ALWAYS write down the timetable now, and I do study maths, for hours... 1/4^th hours ½ hours... Whatever. HOURS is what matters. And I do make it a point to be lazy only on some days... days beginning only with the letter T. Tuesday, Thursday... Thaturday, Thunday, Today, Tomorrow. Can’t help it, inbuilt in my system. But jokes apart, I’m more attentive now. Worse things can always happen, and I swear I have had enough for one lifetime.