Pre-exam scenes

A Story by Nishita

You know that feeling when chills run through your spine when you think of exams? Every college has similar scenes before exams. Read on to know what goes on in my college

The year had passed by within the blink of an eye. 12th grade was a lot different from that of the previous year. Seriousness was just in the air. It wasn't as exciting and adventurous as the previous year but it wasn't bad at all. December had walked half the way. Preparatory exams were to start the next month followed by the practical exams.
A facebook post had the picture of the rear mirror of a vehicle which said 'objects in the mirror are closer than they appear' and the object was none other than our exams! This wasn't to be denied. Barely two and a half months and we all would be seated in our life-changing exam halls.
As days passed by, the scenes at college changed. There were more question papers than students in the college. Our chemistry teacher was more famous for her advertising skills than her teaching skills. She initially started off with a handbook that she had proudly named 'The 50 rupees book'. She advertised it at least ten times a day and sometimes advertised it personally to some as well. With the book always in her hand, she had utmost faith in the 2-centimeter thick book and believed that it could fetch us up-to 90% marks. I wouldn't be surprised to know that she was the brand ambassador of the book's company. It was funny how there was no unity among the department staff itself as the other teacher from the chemistry department told us the complete opposite of what she had said. He in turn asked us how four questions from each chapter could fetch us so many marks. What he had said made sense.
Along with time, the pace of everything around us had increased. Everyone was always in a hurry. There was a flow of guides, handbooks and question papers everywhere. Teachers were constantly in a hurry to finish the portions while a few of us, especially I had lost hopes that they would finish it on time, especially physics. The 'let offs' had come to an end and teachers were desperate for extra classes.
Along with the exam pressure, our lives became very busy and hectic. Records were to be submitted and assignments were always in hand. The tests at tuitions had never failed to burden us. The mock practicals had only made things worse. We could never sit in peace anymore. We always had something or the other to do. We often looked at the physics lab manual and wondered how we would memorize the circuits or looked at the computer programs and suddenly realise that they looked like alien codes. The chemistry manual had acids everywhere and maths was just never ending. I had had enough of integration, determinants and vectors. Maths had nothing other than that!
The acting scenes had however decreased. Probably the 'actors' knew that situations were too blatant and no acting would work now. Thus, not many people put their old dialogues into use which often went like, "I haven't studied anything" or "I do not know anything! I don't know what I'm gonna do". However, such dialogues had not grown old in tuitions yet.
In the midst of all this, emotions had secured its own place. Just a few more months and we all would walk our paths of life. No one ever knew how many promises would be kept and how many would be shattered. Friendship bonds didn't seem as strong as they always were. Not everyone hesitated to bunk classes and stay at home to study. Not everyone needed company to occupy the benches of the library. It sometimes hurt to know how people who were once so close to us were drifting apart but ultimately, we all were in college to study and we were serving our purpose. I wrote the last few experiments in the record. It would all be over soon. It didn't feel good to get the last signature on the index or to know when the seal would touch the pages of our records. It would mean that all of it was coming to an end. No matter how desperately we want each other to stay in our lives, destiny always has its own plans.
Be it reputation or our future, it would all be decided within a matter of a few months. In fact, that was all that ultimately mattered at the end of the day, if not for us, then at least for our family who was more eager than us.
I looked out of the window at the orange sky. It did not reflect our fate but the sunset proved how beautiful endings could be and gave new hopes...