justifying my indolence... in a way

Goodness, the days have become so somnolent now; there’s absolutely nothing to do, visits from relatives notwithstanding. I’d never imagined that the days before the Board Exams could be this boring. I don’t have any recollection of them being anything like this before last year’s Board Exams. Speaking of Board Exams, I have only recently come to realize how awkward it is to tell curious relatives that the exams you’re studying for are the Board Exams when none of them has ever heard of people having Board Exams in 11th grade. I think this is the only Board that conducts these useless exams for 11th graders. It figures once you take a look at the content of the textbooks. The textbooks, by the way, are published by a company known as “Telugu Akademi”. Notice the spelling. Strike you as strange? I find it inexplicable myself. I mean, why would anyone in their right mind spell the word “academy” wrongly on purpose? This mutated version of the word isn’t what I would call aesthetic, nor does it serve any purpose whatsoever as far as I can make out. Unless the publishers were desperate for publicity and had decided that this was the only way they could get it. “Academy” isn’t even an Indian word to begin with, so logically, there can be no “Indian” variation of its spelling. Is it supposed to reflect the pervasive linguistic deficiencies exhibited by the so-called teachers that this so-called Board hires? No? Let’s go deeper then. Does it perhaps insinuate an ulterior motive, a nefarious intent to initiate some kind of sick Indianization that would ultimately entail a degeneration of this country into something unspeakably primitive? Or is it just a case of misplaced self-righteousness, defiance for the sake of defiance? I have no answers. But the name printed on the books on my desk continues to be an eyesore.

Contrary to expectations, I didn’t do too badly on the Second Preboards – except on Math IA. The day when I had my Math IA test coincided with the day when the air-conditioning system had ceased to work. It was unprecedented. For three hours I was stuck in an unventilated classroom with twenty or so other people, and was expected to take a math test. The air was stifling, practically saturated with water vapor, and if I may be permitted to twist facts in favor of the horrific tale I’m narrating, the oxygen in the air was inexorably disappearing, only to be replaced by gallons of carbon dioxide. At the end of the first hour, breathing had become a singularly exacting task, and those of us who managed to breathe in without passing out had come to be regarded as superhuman. The proctors had begun hallucinating at the end of the second hour, and the few of them who were unfortunate enough not to swoon and begin foaming at the mouth when they had the chance ran out of the classroom and jumped out of the fourth floor window with a fearsome, long-drawn “Geronimo” escaping their lips and ending in a sickening thud. Nobody knows what became of them, but several students followed suit, probably in a brave attempt at finding out. I was the only one who was still in the classroom at the end of the third hour, the others having been taken to the nearby hospital in an ambulance that had soon become a common sight at the school. What became of the others, I couldn’t tell you – the last time I checked, most of them were in the ICU. Okay, I’ll admit that was a little exaggerated – just a little bit. But at any rate, I was unfortunate enough to experience the ultimate form of unpleasantness (this is the part where you hear the ominous drumroll in the background) – a bad score in Math IA. For the sake of keeping things pleasant I shall refrain from mentioning my score. As for the others:

I scored 43/50 in English. It was out of 50 because the English Teacher (GK, in case you’re new here and haven’t got used to things) was too lazy to make a full-length test paper. So in the grammar section there was this one section that was so retarded that I shudder to even think about it – rearranging jumbled dialogues to make a sensible conversation. The fact the English was more or less what I would call Hinglish, or Tinglish, or whatever, had me confused for a moment, and I unfortunately chose that moment to attempt to rearrange the dialogues, the result being something that I would later realize was not a sensible conversation. This is, of course, a problem. The solution? I can’t spot one for miles. Unless of course I abandon any pretense of self-respect and start to observe native Hinglish and Tinglish speakers intently. I know, right? Not gonna happen. I scored 90/100 in French (Je suis content), 70/75 in Math IB (I could do with a little improvement here – just a wee bit perhaps), 59/60 in Chemistry (now this is something I’m proud of), and 55/60 in Physics (for the sake of my self-respect I need to do better here). To wrap up this entry, my dad’s brother and sister are here with their families. The brother’s family left a couple of days ago for this unheard-of town somewhere in the state, but they’ll be back tomorrow. The sister’s family will be leaving tomorrow. Does the fact that I have relatives at home insinuate anything? Why, yes it does: I can score decently on tests even when I’m faced with the temptation to slack off and spend time with my cousins. Amazing, isn’t it? Well, that’s me.