Chapter 4

The second term had begun. It was time to gear up for the many intellectually gruelling tests coming up. K.K.Anand sir had started pushing us towards the final stride in the olympiad subjects. Life was moving at a frantic pace. We were losing time like money now. Every moment seemed precious. The day of submission of our computer science project was the day after our olympiads in physics and chemistry. So the project did take a huge setback in our eagerness to clear the olympiads. It was a planned, systematic approach of bunking classes and studying. Twice a week were holidays, or rather, were taken as holidays. If we already had a holiday that week, we bunked two other days, thus making it three holidays. In fact, one such week we had Navarathri. The school had given us four days of holiday that week. So we could bunk only once that week, so we bunked thrice the next week to compensate for the loss of bunk. In effect, we had to BUNK two days per week, excluding the obvious holidays which we had. It was quite an experience, a thought-provoking experience too, because you had to search for new reasons every time you bunked. Having a good name among teachers didn't hurt, as you were generally let off, because the teachers knew you wouldn't waste your time bunking. I was never caught for my bunk, NEVER! But Pradeep was, not once, but twice! Both times, when we had studied together. The first time he bunked, he told the principal that he had to go to Tirupati that night. Then came the obvious question, why did he have to bunk in the morning when the trip to Tirupati was only in the night. He then said, a few relatives had come from Dubai and he had to go to the airport to pick them up. The principal wanted to meet his mother the next day, and when she came, was asked why he was sent to the airport when he had school, and morever the people who were coming were adults and could manage to come home on their own. This pissed his mother off. The next time he was caught, she told the principal clearly that he bunked to study for the olympiad as he felt that was much more important to him than the classes at school. Even I was questioned once when I had gone to my grandfather's death ceremony in the outskirts of the city after having bunked school. My math teacher asked me why I had bunked, when I told her that I bunked because I didn't know how to cook. The sent peals of laughter across the class and the teacher promised to come home the next month to have food, specially prepared by me, which meant I had to learn cooking by then. Fortunately, or unfortunately, she never turned up.
Then it was again time for the serious stuff that olympiads were. I was working my butt off with physics. Learning all the physics which I didn't know, from Pradeep, who was known to be king in physics, I badly wanted to clear the olympiad. Chemistry was never a possibility as far as I was concerned, and I just gave it a try, a wild try. I attempted all questions, in spite of negative marking being there in the objective paper. It was a funny experience indeed.
As far as physics went, it was a real learning experience and in the mock test which Anand sir kept, I topped! After a string of failures, this was some sort of a success. Suresh and I used to discuss a lot regarding olympiad stuff, and it looked like we could easily make it in physics given the preparation we had put into it.
Finally the examination arrived, and went. I had surprisingly done better than most of my friends, including Pradeep and Suresh, and that was some sort of a real confidence booster for me. Chemistry was more of a joke, and so I rushed through the paper, before rushing to a hospital where my mom had been admitted for a hernia operation. I had to study for the chemistry practical examination for half yearly from there. But there was another mountain to surmount, I hadn't even started my computer science project. I remembered this only after I reached the hospital. I didn't know what I was going to do. But God had an answer to this too...