Exams were never my cup of tea. I managed to pass every time all right, but they just didn’t suit me. I got loose motions before every exam. Be it Mathematics, Physics, or even the simplest of all, English, I was on the pot before the exam. But now in college, exams seemed a lot different. In school I managed to pass, sometimes even with good grades (rarely though). In an engineering college, exams were just another means of satisfying the sadistic whims of the professor. It seemed like the professors had their vengeance with the students for not attending their classes, or attending but sleeping, or attending and not sleeping, but still not listening, or completing their assignments under the professor’s nose. These exams were a test of mental toughness, acuteness of the brain, and application of the vast material taught in the semester (sometimes even previous semesters) for others. For me, it was just another test of my cheating abilities.
When a small booklet was distributed to the class, containing some 20 odd pages, little did I realize that this actually was the question paper. And that too of one of the most dreaded papers in engineering history – Mechanics. Ask any dumb or even average engineering student and they’ll tell you about Mechanics, (the intelligent one’s do not worry about anything) or how many attempts it took to clear one paper. The question paper was unconventional, 20 pages and full of diagrams. I nearly opened the pin, separated the sheets, and passed it to Arun sitting behind me because I thought the prof had accidentally given me the question paper for two people. Realizing my foolishness, I started attempting the paper. The girl in front of me, Bhavana, started crying. Bhavana used to cry exactly three times during the exams – before the exam, during it, and then after the exam. Arun, who sat behind me, had only one record playing “kuch padhai nahi ki hain yaar”. And then there was me, with my diminutive brains and a vast experience of cheating, thanks to my school. But we three knew that these exams were a combined effort, and a combined effort was what we gave every time.
My hope rested on one person and one person alone – the invigilator. The invigilator, or the supervisor (whatever makes you happy) played a key role in all the exams. If he were to be lenient, I could be rest assured that the exam belonged to me. But if he were to be strict, he could be rest assured that I am going to give him a tough time.
Coming back to my Mechanics exam, I started scanning the paper as if I knew something. “First question aata hain?” I asked Arun secretly. “No” came the reply. “First question aata hain?” I asked Bhavana, leaning a bit forward. She looked at her question paper and burst into even louder sobs. The entire class looked at her, even the invigilator. Attention was the last thing that I needed at this point. “Kuch padh ke aate nahi hain aur fir rote rehte hain”, the invigilator said with scorn. “Sir, the paper is very tough”, Arun said coming to Bhavana’s rescue. “Easy bhi hota to kya kar lete?” pat came the reply from the invigilator. I chuckled to myself. How true I thought and chuckled some more. “Second question aata hain?” I sounded desperate this time as I asked Arun. The reply was the same – “No”. “Abe tujhe aata kya hain be?” I asked getting agitated. “Wohi to dhoond raha hoon kab se”, Arun replied smiling. “Stop kidding yaar and kuch dikha de”, I said getting down to business. “Achha let me write something. Tab tak tu Bhavana se pooch le”, Arun said. I asked Bhavana the same question and to my delight, she knew the answer – the wrong answer. “Something is better than nothing”, I said to myself and started copying the answer. After nearly an hour had passed, I was done copying one answer, playing with my fancy scientific calculator, and looking at what every other person was doing in the class room. The invigilator had his eyes set on Bhavana and me, thanks to her wailing, and my James Bond style secret movement of my eyes to see everyone’s answer sheets. It was that time of the exam which I hated the most. The time when I was forced to use my little brains which were already stressed out by now.
I took a long hard look at the question paper again. The diagram seemed familiar. Actually too familiar. Wait, this pulley diagram looks like that porn’s star’s breast, didn’t it? I chuckled to myself some more. My thoughts began wandering in myriad directions. I looked at the question some more and since I had never encountered any pulley questions in my studies, I promptly ignored the pulleys and solved the question. That was 10 marks worth, 20 marks from cheating and that made it 30 marks. Whew!! Seemed a lot to me. But that was not enough. I had to get 10 marks from somewhere and maybe a bonus 5 just to be on the safer side. Lucky for me I spotted the 10 marks “True and False” questions. Who the hell gives questions like these I wondered. It’s a professional course for God’s sake. I scoffed at those professors who set the paper; until I saw that question that is. Not only did they require explanations as to why a particular question was true or false, they also needed derivations for the same. “Why the fuck did I take up engineering?” I shouted loudly. This time it was the turn of the invigilator to laugh. And an evil laughter it was.
The closing stages of the exam saw me being frantic for answers. I looked at everyone, tried to copy everything. Then I came to my last resort – writing the same answer twice. “Whenever in doubt, write the same answer twice” my room mate said before wishing me good luck and kicking me out of the room so that he could begin shagging. I neatly wrote the first answer again at the end as the bell rang. Bhavana started crying again, Arun ran away so that he couldn’t overhear people discussing the answers, other people just stood there wondering what hit then, and as for me, I just prayed. Well the results came out and I scored a neat 43 (never know where those 3 extra marks came from). People hated me from then onwards and I cleared my engineering without having to repeat a subject ever again.
Engineering funda: “Study hard and you might just pass. Study and work hard and you might even get good marks. Cheat, and you won’t have to worry about marks – marks will come to you”.
