Exams

Recently our friend from mechanical (Sreejith alias Aandy) managed to select a girl (Litha) with whom he got married and we were lucky enough to be a part of the occasion which was solemnized here in Bangalore. As usual the most vociferous crowd was the NSSians. Now during this function I happened to meet Ranjith who was/is affectionately called Pookalam. It was a rendezvous with him after a long gap and he had changed a lot and I hope its for good, anyway I wont delve much into any personal issues or any philosophical stuff which is unwanted for at this juncture and especially in this blog. Now what happened here was free flow of old talks and humours which has in turn tempted me to jot down on a couple of instances that happened back in those wonderful years at a wonderland place called NSS Palakkad. This blog is all about examinations and how we had prepared for it.

A lot of us have the habit of keeping things till the last and the best example is me. I used to keep things till the last and finally when it’s almost time for the exam I will not be even equipped to pass the examination. It all started with the internals , as most of us were struggling to get the magic figure of 35-40 (35 internal marks and 40 university the minimum needed to pass or it must be 50 university). Since we were a bunch of hard(ly) working students most of us were always short of internal marks. If we happen to enter an exam hall prior to any internal exam there will be the usual studious guys frantically studying for it in the front rows and some of us who were lazy enough to study occupying spaces next to people who had done their homework. Then we had the self sufficient guys with their ‘thundu’ creeping into the corners. One of the most efficient guys in this context is our Unni, mind you he is just the tip of the iceberg if we rummage then we can have masters at the art of copying ,and I had the privilege of watching him live in action back in the third semester. It was an internal exam for electronics by Sheila Madam. I was diagonally across Unni and I was watching him, he was very efficiently scribbling down all that was with him in the answer sheet. Alas and unfortunately while he was at it he happened to miss the graceful madam waltzing across the hall towards him. He thought that he was doing his stuff very professionally which I admit he was but I think he couldn’t do anything about the devious look on his face which a very veteran madam could easily distinguish. I still remember that day when Unni was copying from the piece of paper in the corner of his hand by looking at it through inconceivable angles which are by no means a normal feat for a normal person, it was at this moment that madam had reached near unni and she was watching him doing his tricks. “Entha ado thante kayyil” that’s all that madam said in a very feeble voice which was polite and yet strong at the same time. To this unni suddenly jumped from his seat then in his stereotype style shuddered and stood like a zombie for a couple of seconds wondering what to say, then finally after recalling his senses he said with a pathetic smile “ sorry madambit aanu madam inji repeat cheyilla madam , sorry madam”. He was shown the door and he scored a duck.

There is this instance which is quite hilarious and which makes us wonder how could have we been so stupid well I presume that Girish is the one who has to answer this. It was the fourth semester Maths internal exam and the madam had asked to prove Cauchy integral theorem or something pertaining to it, we had all working at this. Now a small flashback before we enter the exam hall. Jim had seen gireesh loitering around the campus and it was reported that gireesh had no intention of appearing for the exam. Jim being a good Samaritan pushed and heaved Gireesh into the hall saying that he had the stuff needed for the exam and will help Gireesh while in the hall. So heeding Jim’s word gireesh entered the hall and to be very candid he is one of the most pitiful copiers in our batch. After a moment of sitting idle in the hall gireesh started getting the creeps and he began pestering Jim who finally passed on the answer sheet to Gireesh. A very satisfied Gireesh started copying oblivious of the fact that he was in the exam hall. Pretty soon the madam noticed this and thankfully due to some Gods grace gireesh too got wind of the fact that he was noticed and he returned the sheet back to Jim. Noticing that something shady was happening she inquired with gireesh whether he had copied, to which he innocently replied “illya madam njan copy aadichillya. Njan paadichittu annu vaanathu”.
To this the madam nonchalantly replied “ annoo Gireeshe enna pinne eeyal para than enthu theorem aanu derive cheyuthe Cauchy integral theorem aano atho Cauchy differential theorem aano”. Hmmm you should have his face that’s what all say it had turned pink with guilt and the feeling of being trapped coz chances are that he had heard that for the first time but our dear gireesh didn’t stop there he sheepishly replied back “ athu ippol Cauchy integral theorem undu , pinne Cauchy differential theorem undu athu kondu njan ippol prove cheythathu athu…….” And so on. The teacher got the wind of it and he too was shown the door.

Of all the copying attempts for lab exams none will be more amusing than Ragesh (Chimps) doing his Fluid lab. He had all the experiments wrapped up in all parts of his body. So when he got the experiment he went to the store took all what he wanted and helped himself to the experiment by simply copying in all the values, graphs and all data needed. To anyone it was a feat very well done and also a good experiment sure to get good marks. Alas like a thief who leaves a loophole for every burglary committed he too did something which seemed innocuous to him. He went to the lab in charge and returned a stop watch which was needed to measure the revolution of the energy meter saying that it was not needed. This changed the scenario and the sir got suspicious and started questioning him, and within seconds we heard chimproo exclaiming “Sir enne veruthe vidoo sir! Bit undu sir! Sorry sir!” He too was shown the door.
Also one another thing worth mentioning here is that the same chimproo while giving his university exam (this time without copying) was caught in the wrong line of sight by the invigilator whom we all affectionately call Mr. Bamboo. The sir thought that chimps was copying and began bothering him and after sometime of mindless bothering ,chimps lost his cool and did something out of desperation which was quite humorous. He exclaimed
“Hey man! Please don’t disturb me!!!! Njan exam ezhuthikotte! That actually was a surprise for Mr. Bamboo and after some verbal exchange with him, chimps finally said sorry and he then left him alone.

There are n number of instances which due to the lack of time and some amount of laziness I am not mentioning, but surely the most interesting one will definitely go to (Mad Dog, Pe Patti) Nitin and his ‘C’ exam. This one incident is a classic. Well to cut a long story short it was university exam of C and the invigilator was none other than ‘Paal kaaran’(no offenses here, Well I must say that he is a very caring sir). As usual even before the exam stared a master plan was developed and it was agreed that nitin would carry an old C question paper with him. Once he gets the new one he would throw it out of the window which would then be collected by the person outside and he would write down the answers in the answer paper which again would be thrown out along with the question paper. All this procedures went well with clockwork precision and somehow they collected the stuff nitin had thrown but during this melee that happened within fractions of seconds, Sir suspected foul play as nitin was involved and went straight to him and saw that he had an old crumpled question paper that too three year old one. He asked “ entha do? ithu paazhye question paper aanu allo?.” Well we all wondered what would happen at this juncture coz if caught then he had to face dire consequences. To this day even after nearly 4 years I still wonder from where he had come up with such a terrible reply , this is what he had said “ Athu sir eenikyo ee puthiyee paper onnum aariyillya… eenikyo pazhe question paper maathrame aaariyoo, sir athu kondu vesham kaaranam njan pazheyethu kaalenjo, sir please sir njan ee pazheythu veechu ezuthee nookette sir chelleepol pass aavom sir, please sir”. Well guess what he was allowed to continue and finally he won for the day and managed to make it through. Well he can thank his lucky stars for that incident.

Well the above mentioned were copiers but we had one another breed called jojy who used to loiter around without studying ,I was also no exception but still better coz I might have managed to finish 2 modules. In one such instance taking pity on him during the fourth semester examination I called him up for combined study and mentored him and together we both would study at least half of what was required and the end result was that he passed and I flunked. From that day I stopped a combined study with him. Then took support of Pug(Nilby) coz I though that it will be better here ,again he passed and I flunked so finally I started studying on my own and also taking backup ( bit) like vivek who studies also takes all the four modules with him. It will be like a belt bomb around him. Sometimes I used to borrow unnis bit coz he used too take great pain in making them and it would be clear and neat. Also he wouldnt destroy any bits till he had passed that exam.

The list goes on and I will continue this section as soon as more incidents come across my mind and since my non billable periods at office are reducing I do wonder when I will get more time, so until then all out there who will use Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to copy paste items this is just a gentle reminder of how we used the copy paste during those wonderful years.