Engineer of Exams

I was at it again. Sitting, waiting; like I had done all through my four years in BMS. Time seemed to have slowed down to an unbearable, inaudible blip on my Casio watch. Muffled sounds and overlapping frames passed by, without making an imprint on my over stuffed memory.

The protocol was standard. A look at the watch, followed by a sideward gaze at no one in particular, and then at the invigilator. The wait to catch a glimpse of the dreaded sheet of paper seemed to stretch well beyond my threshold. My mind was wandering, as usual ; a feature that I had enforced upon myself, for reasons weird enough to bring out strands of incomprehensibility from others (Its no surprise that I will not bother to explain).

This time, the wait, was different though. It had a sense of finality to it. If all went well, this would be the last time that I would go through this ordeal. But the ironic part of the whole setup was the fact that, it was not the wait, but rather the 3 hours that followed the wait, that actually mattered. A very easily justifiable feeling of underprepared-ness, and the high probability of receiving a nuclear bomb for a question paper, superimposed on the highly inviting prospect of getting done with VTU exams for good, promised to make this a day, a very special one.

As forethought, let me give you an insight into the mind of a VTU student, when he/she is face to face with a question paper that does not look very promising. A quick recollection of the Internal marks held in the subject, followed by an accurate estimate of the bare minimum needed to come through, is arrived at. The student then solemnly pledges every grain of sand owned, to every god he/she can think of. No atheists here, we are all very devoted people; In God We Trust. Silent prayers are muttered in ancient languages for not so ancient purposes. Then, a very quick survey of all the classmates' faces is done, to ensure that everyone shares the same plight. The countenances of toppers are conveniently skipped for the better good of the world. One deep breath and the student dives in.

The artificial clangor of an electric bell startled all my senses to awareness, just as the invigilator realized that her moment of glory had arrived. With a determined look on the face and nimble fingers, she set out to hand over one death warrant each, to every ashen faced warrior in the room. What was the probability that I would not be issued one? well.. zilch. And as fate would have it, 30 seconds later, I found myself staring into the RTS question paper, desperately looking for familiar strings of words, that I could make sense out of. And .. yeah… this is just about the right time when the previous paragraph begins making sense. The question paper was deceptively pleasing. I did not have to think much as to what questions I would be attempting; it seemed my repertoire of RTS concepts fell well below the maximum of 5 questions that could have been answered.

It was time to get down to business. The Cello Pin Point in my hand zig zagged at a frenzied pace, at will. The VTU watermark on every sheet of the paper, was jarring. Pages seemed to disappear in a dizzy sway as the recently stocked contents of my brain, poured out unrestrained. Legibility was a concern, and I tried my best to make every letter look the way it was supposed to. In places where I dint know what to write, I repeated a couple of sentences from the earlier portions of the same answer, and prayed for my paper to be corrected by a maniac suffering from short term amnesia. And before I knew it, I had done the best I could and the cello pen came to a halt on page number 28 of the answer booklet.

The answering phase for me lasted only for about 2 hours and 30 minutes, at the end of which, I had succesfully compiled 4 (hopefully ) full answers to 4 (hopelessly) full questions, underlined everything in the paper that was underline - able, stared out of the window 27 times, and assured myself that If I had screwed up, then so will have my friends. Scant consolation, but we are pretty self – satisfied people here in VTU.

Finally, I gave the answer booklet one final glance, handed it over to the invigilator and walked out a free man. My tryst with the dreaded VTU exams was over. Nothing long or short of an achievement. The gusty winds of VTU had passed me by, on the beautiful streets of BMS. I smiled unwittingly, as a thought crossed my mind “ I’ll live to be an engineer after all “.