The Last Day Of Exams

It is late in the night. You’re pacing across the room, anxiously biting your nails and desperately trying to grasp information from your books that you hadn’t touched since the day they had been freshly bought.

As you scan your textbooks and highlight every single thing (yes, including the full-stop), you feel dizzy. You feel like somebody has lifted your chin up, parted your lips and is force-feeding you until you are overstuffed and ready to throw up.

Then finally, as the clock strikes three (the time which a lot of horror movies state is the perfect time for all the ghosts and all things spooky to arrive), you slam your book shut and yawn. 

You walk to your bathroom and see your reflection – you look exactly like all the ghosts that our beloved horror movies talk about. Your hair’s messed up and filled with dirt, your eyes are droopy and laced with dark-circles and your entire body is aching, as if you have been waging a really taxing war. 

Then again, final exams are wars. You have to drop aside everything to prove your worth. 

You brush your teeth, sigh deeply and go to bed, your mind whizzing with paranoia. 

***

The next morning, you’re a mess. You simply can’t remember anything you studied and your revision process is a disaster. All the words are fusing together and you’re a bundle of emotions. A part of you is cursing your past-self for being so cavalier about studies and a part of you is desperately wishing to gain last-minute knowledge so you can ace the test. 

And a part of you is desperately waiting to get done with the exams and get some DAMN SLEEP.

On the way to your examination hall, you keep breathing deeply. Even when you have a strong urge to drop everything onto the floor and RUN, a tiny voice in your head keeps whispering: darling, for once in your life, stop acting like a coward. Grow up, for God’s sake. It’s a freaking exam, not a war. 

A larger voice screams:  OF COURSE IT’S A WAR! DON’T YOU REALIZE IF I FLUNK, I’LL NOT GET INTO A POST-GRADUATE COURSE. IF I FLUNK, I’LL NOT GET A GOOD JOB. IF I FLUNK, I’LL BE PENNILESS AND LIVING IN A TRAILER, LIKE A GUTTER RAT!

You are trying so hard so hard to keep your thoughts under control and desperately attempting to revise when the teacher who will invigilate enters the room. 

No matter how nice the teacher has been to you in the past, today you feel scared at her sight. What if she falsely accuses you of copying? What if she takes the paper a good half-an-hour before? What if –

“Okay students,” The teacher claps her hands together to silence the din. “Keep your books and mobile phones in your bag! Do not forget to switch off your mobile phones! It’s time for your exam!” 

You take a deep breath. 

“Okay now,” you whisper to yourself. “This is it. Three hours later, you’re free. Just give your best shot. Do not panic. I repeat: do not panic.” 

The sad fact is, you’re actually panicking. 

Your heartbeat’s crazily fast – faster than it is when you see that your crush has liked your current Facebook profile picture, faster than it is when your phone drops onto the ground, faster than when it is when you get a gazillion missed calls from your mom. 

Your entire body’s turned to jelly as you stuff your textbook and last minute notes into your bag. Your fingers are literally shaking as you keep your phone on silent and press the switch-off button. You’re gulping uneasily as you keep your bag outside your class, voices in your mind whispering: What if you can't write a single word? What if the paper is too difficult? It shouldn't be too difficult. It should be easy peasy lemon squeezy because you've studied for it all night long and you can't afford to lose marks after that much amount of last-minute swotting! 

Then, as you sit down on your desk and are trying to maintain some composure, the shrill sound of the bell pierces through your ears and breaks you away from your stormy thoughts. 

“All right, the exam begins now!”  

WTF. 

Your mind’s gone completely blank. 

WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU GOING TO DO!??! 

***

It’s half-an-hour later. You pen’s scraping away through the paper, scribbling everything at a leisurely pace. Okay, there are some questions that you have NO IDEA what they mean, but what you’re focussing on is to make the questions that you DO know look pretty. 

You decide to keep your pen down for a minute, because hey, you’ve written a lot and you deserve a minute’s break from all that writing. 

After capping and keeping your pen down, you take a long swig from your water bottle and survey the entire examination hall. 

There are kids who aren’t writing anything and staring at the question paper, their eyes widened like Helena Bonham Carter’s in Sweeney Todd: The Demonic Barber. There are kids like you, who are taking this last exam pretty easily because come on – two and a half hours later, you will be free! And lastly, there are kids who are furiously scribbling away – as if they want to impress the paper checker with their staggering amount of knowledge. 

Your eyes meet the invigilating teacher. She narrows her eyes at you and you spontaneously look down. 

It’s time to start writing again. 

***

Five minutes for the exam to end and you’re writing furiously. Your handwriting vaguely resembles that of your family doctor’s but you don’t care – you hate the fact that you wasted so much time and you just have to complete this paper on time. 

Most of your classmates are done – some have dozed off, some are doodling and the smart ones are cross-checking their paper for what it seems like the thousandth time. 

But you, my dear, have gone absolutely bonkers!

Finally, as you put the last full-stop, the bell rings – announcing the end of the exams and announcing the arrival of freedom. 

The invigilating teacher gets up from her chair and starts collecting the papers. You put your pen aside and breathe deeply. 

You’re feeling all things happy, warm and fuzzy. Your muscles are aching from all the slogging and swotting that you’ve been rigorously going through, but you don’t care. 

You are free. You are finally free from the anxiety, the tortures of late-night cramming and the unhealthy junk-food diet. You are free to hang out with your friends, chatter with them about all things unnecessary. You are free to binge on WhatsApp and Facebook and NOT FEEL guilty about it! 

The most important thing is: you can rush back home, dive onto your bed and sleep!