Sandip Adhikari

Picture this! The study table all messed up; texts and notebooks lying in total disarray; the coffee running cold and the messiest of all, the sleeping bed. It’s exam time and not surprisingly I am loosing my cool and rummaging through every page of the notebook to grasp something that I forgot for the umpteenth time. This time again, I am short of preparation and trying hard to compensate every lost moment in the eleventh hour.

Exam-time is the most torrid of all times. One is never at peace with multitude of thoughts crossing one’s mind. It’s like flying on clouds of thought.

I often wonder, can’t exams be taken in a better and enjoyable manner? Exams can be as enjoyable as going through a new novel or a science story. It’s the heavy expectations that our family rests on our shoulders that account for all the exam fever. The tests then turn into nightmares with many sleepless nights. I have seen many friends crumble under stress and take to multitude of ways of relaxation — not to mention few of those detrimental ones.

Why do exams bother me so much? It isn’t that I am careless student. I always have that desire to excel and perform to the best of my ability, which I usually accomplish. Still then, when it comes to the high-level commitment towards study at the beginning of any particular phase or a year, I usually falter.

The routines and study schedules all get ignored. They are merely reduced to a decorated sheet of paper on the wall. Meanwhile, time just flies.

The sorry feelings for all those diligent and studious friends are so profuse at the time. Watching them scurry to the library with a desperate haste every hour after the class quite never acts an inspiration then. It’s only when the feeling of diffidence creeps in during the horrible preparation time, one feels sorry for oneself, repenting the wasted hours.

The thought however never ceases to occur. I am besieged by another type of thought. I would not hesitate to admit that I am not well prepared to take exams. But then, barring those few studious friends, no one else is. This infuses a flicker of hope and consolation in me and I am back revising the notes: the coffee running cold and the table getting messier.