Memories..

"Heart is enclosed in a double walled sac,the pericardium and in between its two layers,there's a pericardial fluid..and it prevents the friction between the heart walls and the tissue.."Annamma ma'am barked with her ever soothing sweet voice to make us understand.. It was always a paradox about her voice and its effect..

It was the 4th and the last hour of the forenoon session..like a marathon race,she had been teaching or lecturing or singing biology into our ears for the 3rd consecutive period..of course her perseverance needs special appraisal, for she continued blabbering even though she knew,not a centipede or millipede in the class was listening.. even chitra's songs wouldn't have succeeded so well when compared to annamma ma'am's lectures for we could never never help ourselves from dozing off if it was just her zoology that we were rapturously listening to.. this was not just a day's suffering..but we'd been going through this hell since the very first day of 11th std..

We'd discovered or invented every possible way to sneak out of her class..and each day started with the thoughts of escapism.. We became the most privileged visitors of the library for it was our nearest refugee camp.. We even became the most glorified nature lovers of the school until when the gardener started asking us,do you girls not have classes this period.. Physics and Chemistry labs were our next resort for that was far less asphyxiating when compared to the bio classes..

"God.! How long do i have to listen to this atrocity..will the bell not ring soon..?",i heard me mumbling to myself..

"Anand...!!!!!"

I suddenly jolted out of the reverie as i heard her holler someone's name..i looked around and felt even others were shuddered out of a dream..or may be my squint made it seem so..

"What happened?",i asked Nandita,she happened to be the one bearing my snores that day..
"I don't know,seems like Anand did some mischief..",she looked discomfited either..
"Which Anand..?",I asked..
If it's not obvious from the question,we had 2 ANANDs in our class.. Anand Sriram and Anand.C..
I didn't have to wait for her answer for i saw ma'am picking someone by his shirt.. Ohh yeah,it was Anand.C.. but what happened..? If it was the nap that mattered,even others were doing the same..!

"What was going on..? Gimme that book..!"
"Ma'am..please ma'am,i'm sorry.."
"I say gimme that book.!"
At last he surrendered and handed her the book.. Gosh.! It was his entrance material..must be,he was doing his homework for the day..

"I'll see to it that you don't get these books in your lifetime.."she ranted and went on with her class..

Bell rang.. She left the class after 5min of the bell.. that was her shortest possible relaxation time, and granted only because that happened to be the break time..

Why did i narrate all this..?
Yeah to elucidate how pathetic my attention was in that class..biology sucks..to the core..i cursed myself every single day on my decision to take bio-maths..i never understood how a mozzie respired or how a cockroach excreted..neither did i understand if an Australopithecus really had a brain..


Life went on with similar snippets of events occurring every single day..
I should say,it was not until my second pre-board that i really read at least a sentence of the bio text.. i was completely molested in the first pre-board.. that everyone was,of course.. But by the time second one arrived,my parents started whinging about my studies.. Even I thought it was time i sputter and start reading the Amarchitrakatha, for the boards were less than 3 months away..
The more i read the more dreadful it was..but nevertheless i could salvage myself from the fiasco this time.. In less than a month,the third exam came as well..and it went on fine too..(FINE only meant the overall gain was good, for, the input was very meager!)

And then came the monster..the giant dragon..the board exams..
Study hols started.. I started praying.. that's the only way out for bums like me and God is the only one apart from mom who tolerates my rants and raves in silence..
I studied studied studied..studied my ass of..i never understood anything in the Tinkle..neither could i mug up and regurgitate in the exams..but still i couldn't give up..it was no time to give up.. exams were in the offing spitting fire everywhere and if i shirked at that point,it was my end..

Monster dragon reached..3 hours of struggling in the hell-hole exam hall.. utter gibberish in my answer paper..

All the theory exams ended,giving way to the other petrifying ones..

2 months of lull between exams and results passed..
May 25th(not sure if it was 24th or 25th or 26th,at this point..but surely one of the three..!), the d-day..
I got up pretty early..started praying The Omnipotent,The Omnipresent,The Providence with all my cheesy prayers..
I switched on the pc and logged on to net well in advance..may be my parents thought,Wah.!how eager she is to get her results..only i could feel the dragon pirouetting inside my stomach..

8am..!!

I reloaded the page some 10-15times until i saw my name..
I prayed with my full heart..and glanced through the result once,..all A grades..God.! I reloaded again,.is that really my result or some other gayathri of some other school.. No it was mine..
I couldn't believe my eyes for it was that pathetic my performance in the exams..
But yeah,my climax was no melo.. It was yet another happy ending.. Yet another plays directed by the master evaluator.. yet another comedies written by Him..

It was only then that i got the drift that 'agar ending khush na ho tho picture abhi bhi baaki he mere dosth..!'

Khuda Hafiz
~Gayathri~