He was 15 and had never done that. He used to look down upon the people who used to do it and felt it was a sin. The speed at which the tables turn is frightening. His friends were experts and had tried to influence our protagonist very much, without any success. It required a close West Indies – India test match at Port of Spain to corrupt the incorruptible. He always dreaded the West Indies tours. His day starts early in the morning like any normal class X student and extended till the final session of the day, at 3 AM. Sleep was the most precious thing in his life and the last 2 minutes in bed used to extend almost the entire day at school. But this particular day he had his History exam. He had two options the previous night, to watch match and flunk the exam, to watch the match and cheat in the exam. As expected he chose the latter. Teachers had caught up with technology and had started checking mobile phones for photographs and he had to improvise. He decided to go old school and made chits. He had a 2 page summary of Mayan civilization from his class notes, 4 page summary of the Mesopotamian and another 2 page summary of Ghengis Khan folded up in his back pocket. He did not as much want to succeed as he did not want to fail.
Nerves and lack of confidence usually pull down the chances of a novice criminal. Add to this conscience, one has the perfect concoction for disaster. He was first of all not sure if he had the balls to commit the crime. Equally disturbing him was his conscience. Integrity was always his Hallmark and deep down the heart he kept hearing a low but powerful voice that kept saying, -“it was not worth it”. But the dent in reputation that would arise from flunking the exam was too painful even to imagine. Suppressing the inner voice with all the might he had, he went on eating his breakfast. It was just 30 minutes away and every passing minute was an echelon in itself.
As he reached his school, his eclectic band of maverick buddies were there to greet him. It was a motley of boys with diverse ambitions and attitudes, and when few of them flaunted their perfect plans for cheating in the exam, our protagonist had his heart in his mouth. He, with little success tried to ignore all those around him and slowly entered the examination hall, settling down. He kept his face as stoic as possible, trying to hide the inner turmoil that was squeezing out every bit of courage he had. A quick look around and he could see all kinds of students. The confident, the nervous and the carefree. Deep breaths did not calm his nerves. The supervising teacher gave him the question paper and walked past ignoring the deluge of sweat that decorated his forehead.
“Explain in detail the conquests of Ghengis Khan and the territories he captured. Also describe his battle strategies providing examples” read the 10 mark question. He had a beautiful sensation of 10 full marks resting peacefully in his back pocket. All he had to do was take out the papers and finish off the question as quickly as he could. He looked around and saw his fellow students writing intently. There was the invigilator, who was sitting in the front with a magazine in hand. It was his chance. “It is just a midterm, is it worth losing one’s integrity over such a petty thing?” His inner voice had broken its shackles and alas, our protagonist was starting to get confused again.
“Mam, I need to go to the restroom.” As soon as the teacher nodded her head, he ran, ran like his life depended on it. The nearest restroom was just few yards away. But his luck, it was closed for cleaning. He had to run across the playground and use the one behind a set of buildings that was constructed new. He ran a good 100 m across the ground and reached the restroom with the same satisfaction as Jessi Owens once felt in Berlin. He threw the papers near the restroom and with adrenalin pumping high returned with the same pace as he set out. After returning, with a sigh of relief he sat back and started writing whatever he remembered from the class.
In a few minutes there were a couple of people coming into the exam room. Our protagonist’s name was called out and to his greatest shock; he had the same papers that he threw near the restroom lying on the table. With all the adrenalin pumping 10 minutes back, he had forgotten that the restroom was located just behind the newly constructed staff rooms and about 10 teachers witnessed his courageous Jessi Owens act driven by his conscience, his bloody conscience.
No comments:
Post a Comment