Surprises of Life

"Life has its weird way of juxtaposing two extreme situations in a single moment..."

The old sweet, happy school days reminds me of so many incidents - some of those were mixed with two far extreme rush of emotions - one sweeter, other being bitter.

Back in the time there was no semester system, rather we had 2 exams per year. The half yearly would not really matter much, but indeed was an effective way to judge how we were doing so far. 

Teachers would tell us the scores/marks beforehand, and many of the times allowed to take our answer papers to home which had to bring back after few days, duly signed by the guardian. It was solely for showing our parents how well we did in exam hall. Any kind of alteration in the answers and/or marks were strictly forbidden.

So during a class break when we would see the next teacher walking to our class room with a bundle of answer papers in hand, we used to get too excited & tensed, with high rush of adrenaline flowing, and had no idea of what to do, except keeping our fingers crossed. 

I used to be good in science subjects - it was 7th or 8th grade - we started getting our marks in different subjects one by one. Just in last period/class we were given the answer papers for 'Geography' and I got quite a high score there.

I almost squealed with joy because it was more than my expectation. Next class was for the 'Physical Science' - thru the window we saw Asit babu, our good old physics teacher was strolling towards our classroom with an impossible poker face, with a very slow pace. There was no paper bundle with him, but last day he promised to tell us the exam score - at least whatever he would've completed checking and that very day is today. All of my exams went quite well, so my impatience was growing bigger every minute - "what's taking him so long to enter the classroom!! Today is supposed to be my day! - Please hurry up Sir!"... I was talking to myself!

Finally the moment came, Asit babu started telling us the marks in ascending order of our roll numbers. On my turn he called up my name, and in a grave, shocking voice he announced my marks - it was 37 ... I barely paased!! 

"What happened to you, Kuntal? I went thru your answer papers twice once I noticed your name - and no way I could give you more than 37!! I could not believe my eyes... you have no idea how much disappointed I was!"

I was stunned & crushed, almost had tear in my eyes, suddenly felt my shoulders were too heavy - Sir's voice started echoing in my ear. My exam might not go too well - but was it that bad? really?  Suddenly I felt tired, fatigued and paralyzed, unable to cry or react - I forgot few minutes back I was all but jumping with joys.

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Few days later, while returning to Home from school, I was lying on the playground near the bus stand and waiting for my bus (80B-5) to arrive, I saw Asit babu was also standing little far away, on the other side of the road, waiting for his bus and talking to one of my friends. His bus came before mine and Sir went away. Soon afterward 'that' friend came to me with a smiley face and sat by me. 

He started laughing and said that Sir asked him to let me know my real score - actually I got 89 in Physical Science!! It was a kind of mistake, not really of him - but there was another student by name 'Kunal' (yes, I did know him)- while going thru 'his' answer paper, apparently Sir did not pay much attention on the spelling of the candidate's name and thought it was of mine ('Kuntal'), though actually it was of that student, 'Kunal'!!

I was numb, again I felt a tear in my eyes, but this time 'a tear of joy and happiness' - a boulder suddenly came off my chest! I released my breath as if I had been holding it all this while!

I guess life just likes us to go through these surprises only to see how well we react...