Opportunities and Adversities

A Story by Div

A funny college experience.

One day in college, my Electrical Measurements Professor, Mr.Janar,announced a full portion written test for the next day. I was an average student (according to my professors), who managed to secure a pass mark in all subjects in the first attempt itself (But my class fellows considered it to be an exemplary behavior!! ). I used to sit in the 2nd bench because of my shortsightedness but I was more lazier and crazier than any last bench student. I went home that evening. I was watching some of my favorite cartoons and TV soups for a while. It was around 7.30 P.M. when I got reminded of the test (Too early right??!!).I opened the book and read out loudly (mere reading and no learning !!) the very first paragraph of very first page of the book. While I was physically reading the 1st paragraph, millions and billions of thoughts were running in my mind, a few thoughts viz. the number of pages remaining , excuses to be on leave the next day, what mom was preparing for dinner, things to do in the vacation, were more dominant.The book had some what around 200-250 pages excluding the content, acknowledgement and the bibliography page. (uhhff!! How on earth can a normal human being like me read a 250 pages book overnight??)

Suddenly, my mom screamed." Its dinner time! Wash your hands and plates and be ready. Dosa will be ready in five minutes".This was when I came back to reality from being lost in stupid, crazy thoughts and realized that I was reading the same paragraph for the 6th time ( It sounded like chanting a mantra again and again !! ).I lowered my voice slowly and smoothly (due to the fear of being caught for chanting the paragraph for the 7th time) and read the paragraph again with full concentration and completed the 1st paragraph successfully (yey! I did it !!).Dosas were ready and my mom had already served it on the plate for me considering the fact that I was working hard (ha ha).People say opportunity knocks the door only once and this was my only chance too,so I shut my book down and left for dinner immediately. It was around 8.30 P.M. by the time I finished my dinner.I went out for a walk with my dad and returned after an hour.

It was 9.30 P.M. Guess what?? It was Bed time (hurray!!). In my house, everyone has this so called "healthy" habit of going to bed early and getting up early, whereas I have an exceptional habit of following the first part( i.e. going to bed early) alone. I asked my mom to wake me up little early the next day so that I would at least be able go through few pages of my book before the test and I slept peacefully.

After a long time, I could hear my mom's voice ordering me to get up and study. I ask her for five more minutes to sleep. Five minutes later, I got up, brushed my teeth, went to my study room, opened my book and started studying. I was done with reading 100 pages of the book with full concentration in about half an hour (wow..what an energy man!!).I moved on to the 101st page, my eyes were slowly closing and I felt very tired and drowsy and I fell on the book and slept for the first time.

After some time I could hear my mom again asking me to wake up. I got up from sleep and to my surprise I was in my bed. I asked my mom whether she woke me up earlier and I asked her for more time or not. She said yes. I was so happy that it was not a dream and asked her how I was carried back to my bed. She was puzzled and she replied," Yes you asked me for five more minutes but you didn't get up from your bed !!". I was shell-shocked.

It was 7.30 A.M. then and I had to reach the college at 8 A.M.(Thank god!! My college was very near to my place). I had only half an hour left with me which was only sufficient enough for getting ready. And I knew no excuse for not going to my college was going to work that day because my parents were very well aware about my test and they will never allow me to bunk a test, come what may. I gathered up courage, I bathed ,dressed, packed my bag and left for the college.

Later in the college, one of my close friends, seeing me upset (guessing my preparation status to be nil or low), consoled me by asking me to join their "group work"(copying in decent English) team. I had no other go, so I said yes. Nearly three-fourth of my class was a part of this team on that particular day. While everyone around me were praying for the test to get cancelled, there were few black sheeps ( like in every class) who were secretly against cancelling the test.

Mr.Janar entered the class and started to clean the board, it looked like he had totally forgotten about the test. But to my disappointment it was not the case. He asked, "Are you guys ready for the test?". Every one of us (in chorus),loudly replied," please sir..please sir..not today", and we promised him that we will prepare well for the next day. I guess he was in a kind of bad mood that day because on hearing our reply he changed his mind from conducting a written test to conduct an oral test instead of cancelling the test.

Oh my god ! I used to hate oral tests. In a way, written tests are far better than oral tests. In a written test we can write anything and everything, ranging from abcd..(alphabets) to twinkle twinkle little star because we are not going to be judged while writing the test. But, this is not the case in an oral test. Nothing but you can help you in an oral test. "Written test" is like a "recorded TV show", where we can edit,crop,cut and do whatever we wish to with it before telecasting but "oral test" is like a " live TV show", where nothing can be done.

I crossed my fingers and was hoping for the best. Mr.Janar started calling out the numbers of the students one by one and was questioning them. My roll number was 14. He called out ,"13, 16,18,35,45,..". I had butterflies in my stomach. Later he announced , "Its enough for today, lets continue with our last chapter". I escaped narrowly. It gave me a better feeling compared to eating an ice-cream in rain. But there came a twist in my happy story…

Mr.Janar asked number 14 to summarize the previous class portion (Oh god!! Why 14 ? Why not 1 or 4? And why the hell am I number 14 ??). I stood up ( It was compulsory to stand up when we hear our number in my college. Sometimes we stand up out of fear even when our fellow mate calls our number.)and blabbered, " yes Mr.Janar ,we were talking about aaah(thinking!!)...yeah the Kelvin's double bridge (William Thomson,1st Baron Kelvin is the culprit who invented this stupid bridge! I hate him..hate hate him to the core)and it is used to aaaaah(thinking!!) measure resistances below 1 ohm". My professor was quite convinced with my answer and I was asked to sit down.

( Thank god!! I didn't sleep in the previous lecture!! yes!! Yes! Hip Hip Hurray!!)

MORAL : Opportunity knocks our door only once but we can encounter Adversity anytime, anywhere and in any way. So we must work hard and smart to convert all the adversities that we face into opportunities.