Arbit-Bakar

“Phew!!!” he put aside the book and went back to the slides uploaded by the professor. Sonu was trying hard to motivate himself to study. He had exam in less than 12 hours and yet he had not completed the slides of the first lecture. He somehow managed to glance through the entire presentation in the next 15 minutes and smiled. He knew he had not understood any of the concepts in the presentation yet he was quite content with his effort. It was not that he was dumb. In fact he has always performed decently as far as academics were concerned. But times do change. He started listening to the title track of “Drona” and wondered what the director actually wanted to do with the movie. He could not withstand the fact that a good idea was wasted by inept handling at the helm and some insipid or over the top performances by the leads. Yet he loved the song. Now don’t judge his taste of music by a single choice of song. He looked at the watch. 1 am. What to do next? There were 9 more presentations to be completed before he can at least cover glancing through all the concepts supposed to come in the exam. He chuckled. He browsed through his laptop to open an image which has recently become his favourite and made it the desktop background. The image said:

Perpetual give-ups are there

He smiled and then started to watch the latest episode of Heroes made available on the LAN. Exams were the last thing bothering him at that moment. He went on to enjoy the episode and then skimmed through his favourite scenes from “Swades”, “Batman Begins” and “Happy Days”. Finally better sense prevailed and he decided to glance through the remaining 9 presentations. 300 slides took another hour and half of his time. It was time to sleep. And he went to sleep but could not do so for another hour thinking how he could have better developed the idea of Drona. Finally when the crows realized that its time for them to wake up and squeak their heart out, the lady sleep decided to take him in her arms. He slept and woke up at 10. Still 2 hours to go before exam. Had it been one of the previous exams he would have studied or at least revised whatever little he had understood but he did not. Instead he browsed, chatted with friends and listened to songs. Examination hall was not inviting and those 90 minutes were perhaps the worst moment of his academic career. Yet he smiled and came out of the room. All his batch mates were smiling. No one had a good exam by their standards. Yet they laughed, chatted and moved to their rooms to “prepare” for the next paper.

Last few days of student life make people do things they would not have done normally. In the undergraduate college, Sonu had a wish to give one end term exam without preparation and in drunken state. And though he had seldom touched alcohol before that he went on to fulfill his wish. Kudos goes to his friends who joined him in his insanity and screwed their grades. To his surprise, Sonu still managed good grade in that paper. Now, months away from being thrown again to the corporate jungle, he wants to lead a free life. He wants to enjoy the remaining days of his student life in a way that they become the happiest part of his life. He wants to play, to travel, to write stories, to direct movies and gossip with his friends all night long. The mission is difficult. Time is the essence and he is trying to utilize it effectively. Here goes a sincere wish that he can fulfill those desires.