Give me puberty or give me death.
or
How I failed the examination.

It was class 11, hormones were in the air. Unfortunately so were other things, those unmentionable things that, in my book*, rank somewhere between the bubonic plague and castration and somewhere above dental extractions (without local anesthesia- kyon ki hum "local" cheez istemaal nahin karte hain). I, am talking about Maths exams.

Now if you are one of those enthu cutlets who says "Hey! exams are fun ya, especially Maths exam bring on the differential equations" or "what's a bit of trigonometry, I model stochastic processes and work on Quantum superposition while i am asleep- When I am awake I don't use sissy tools like computers and so on do perform Monte Carlo analysis- I can do it with pencil and paper.". You sir/madam will be severely beaten with a hawaii chappal, size 10 (India size, USA 11.5 and Europe 45.5), not just for being good at Mathematics, but for merely existing. You sir are a disgrace to the human race, you are not an enthu cutlet- but a chut pakoda.

Back to the mid-late 90's.

tan  had ruined my sleep. It had invaded my dreams, wet or otherwise. I wondered if it were a "sin" to dream about trigonometry that way. It was not so much about me doing nasty things to trigonometry, it was things being the other way around that worried me. That was "cos" I was so bad at it you see. Somehow I did manage to study. I was fairly confident that I would manage to achieve the previously unimaginable 'zenit" of 35%. To butcher a Beatles song- All you need is to pass.
However fate and hormones had other plans in store.


Before going further let me explain the seating arrangements we sat in the made in the assembly hall of the school that allegedly used to double up as the prep room in the old days....much before I was there. The hall was named after one of the old Angrez principals, but that is besides the point. So, we had half the rows of seats (along with tables of course) facing East and half the rows facing West. I was on the last row that was facing east. I could see the faces of all the blokes who were on the last row facing west. Lucky sods weren't taking Maths.

People who know me will tell you that I have a tendency to keep looking "here and there" be it a class, a concert, a play, a cricket match or even an exam. Suddenly my eyes stopped. There- a few rows in front of me was this girl let us call her umm. M. M was kind of hot. She was sitting in a very funny way, I could look up a lot of her skirt, and when she crossed and uncrossed her legs one could see a lot lot more. .There were two of us who chanced on this view at the same time, the other guy was sitting right behind me. Horny 15 year old boys being horny 15 year old boys., our jaws dropped, our tongues hung out and a puddle of drool collected on the floor. M would periodically look up and smile at us louts for some strange reason. Both of us (the guy behind me and yours truly) failed the exam, and were in the race for the bottom of the class.

And that Ladies and Gentlemen was how I failed an examination for the first time. I subsequently got used to it.


* - Book published by S.Chand publishers. S.Chand books for all.