When I thought and thought and thought...

Have you ever been in a situation when you think and think,yet you have no answer? When your brain goes blank and refuses to function? When you try to recollect but all you can garner is nothing? Well, I definitely went through this,not once, but twice.

My mind drifts back to 12th November,2008.My alarm rang at 4am. I literally jumped out of the bed,freshened up and sat in front of a pile of notes, books and xerox copies of Signals and Systems. My heart sank. I was 6 hours away from writing the exam. I tried to recollect and revise what I had supposedly studied. I wore my lucky dress(yeah right!),slipped into the same sandals that I wore for the previous exam and even used the same rubber band for my ponytail(now, that was a little too much,I agree!)As the bus took me closer to college,I tried in vain,going through all the formula e that i had studied during the study holidays and before the exam. "Don't worry.I'll remember during the exam", I told myself. (gulp)

2 hours to go.
We all sat outside the exam hall partly revising, learning, discussing, teaching and confusing each other, until it was time to enter the testing chamber. My mind was saturated with equations and symbols literally juggling through my brain. Sigma, DFT, IDFT, convolution...it all seemed a mess. "I'll sort it out during the exam", I calmed myself. (gulp again)

10 minutes to go.
I cautiously filled in the details in the answer sheet and waited for the question paper. I was chanting prayers non stop. This is when we got out first blow( or rather 'bulb', in colloquial terms!) We were sitting in the wrong room. The seating arrangement had been changed and we didn't realize. About 10 of us made out way to the new hall.
"Bad omen", my instinct said.
"Don't be ridiculous", my mind contemplated.

I rubbished away the useless thoughts and tried to concentrate. The bell rang and I got my copy of the dreaded question paper.I made a quick scan. The two marks first.Then the sixteen marks. At first shot, it seemed okay.
I read the questions again.

There are times when you wish you could just disappear.

That was exactly what I felt then. I sensed the pressure mount, my heart started beating rapidly. I tried to be patient. I started with the questions I thought I knew. As I proceeded towards the sixteen marks, I was low on confidence. Half way through them, I lost all hope. I looked around helplessly. I gathered some relief when I saw everyone around me was blinking and staring at the paper.I felt my temper rise, when I thought about the person who had set this question paper. He had probably fought with his wife when he set this paper. Why on earth would he then set such an atrocious paper?I managed to sit through the three hours,nonchalantly filling up pages in the answer sheet with answers I felt were sensible,not knowing whether they were right or wrong.Amusingly, at that point, all the formula e and symbols that were earlier a blur,seemed perfectly clear. But, they had no use in the paper. When the bell finally rang, I handed over my paper and looked at Selvi. Her expression, seriously helped me feel better. Sanch and Shweta followed. We gave each other that "it was awful" look, left and hall and surprisingly started laughing. That was quite lame, but we couldn't contain that feeling of helplessness that surrounded us.Many people sought to crying.

After a long discussion;blaming the university, the paper setter, the questions, the syllabus and finally the subject itself, we decided it was time to leave.

I kept calculating mentally to check if I would be able to clear the paper. Sigh. I walked home pondering over the effort I had put in. Was it less? Or was it enough?

The 'traffic signal' changed the green and all the vehicles rushed past me.


Oh damn...I just don't like signals!!