Chapter 17

I gave Autumn money when I went to the school next day. I asked her the details of the model she was going to make. But she didn't tell me anything. She told me that she would tell me the details after she was done with the project. I didn't need to do anything because all we needed to do was submit the project and if we won, we would get a prize. There was no difference in me knowing everything or not knowing anything at all. It felt nice to not have to be worried about anything and leaving all the work up to someone else

I wasn't aware of it then, but now I understand what I was feeling. Imagine a group of people working on a project but only one person takes care of everything and everyone else does nothing. I had always been that person but for the first time, I was on the other side of the equation. It felt nice to just sit, do nothing and let someone else do everything. And my name would still be attached to the project. I couldn't believe it! I felt so free, and I realized what my friends used to feel…

Two days later, it was the exam day. I was well prepared. Every participant was given an admit card which listed all the details about the exam like the date, venue and syllabus. It was a must to enter the venue. While there had been many similar exams like that one, I had never competed in any of them because of fees and lack of interest. So, I was a little nervous. Thankfully, nothing was like what I had not expected. Except that the examination centre was pretty far from my home so, I couldn't go alone. And my mom wasn't that different from me. She also rarely went somewhere alone. She didn't have much experience with the outside world. Why? Because she also used to stay at home. I took after her in that aspect. I wasn't too wise with the real world either.

I had to go with my aunt. Her son used to study in the same school as me but in eighth grade.

I reached the examination center and saw hundreds of students already there. It was a bit overwhelming. I thought I was early but apparently, other people were freer than me. I wondered about how long they had been waiting there. If there were that many students at my center, I wondered about how many were present at other centers and how many centers there were in total. While I was expecting it, I wasn't fully convinced that thousands of students would participate until I saw it myself. I was curious about others' reasons for participating. Maybe I wasn't the only one who was greedy…

That institution was definitely going to make a lot of cash. I finally felt a little nervous, but I had confidence in myself. I was well prepared, and I was certain that if I gave it my all, I would win. There was nothing to be scared about, I told myself. Among the students standing outside the examination center were my classmates. But most of them were girls and like you know, I rarely talked to girls. From my friends, only Prat wanted to participate but he couldn't get his parents to pay the fees. The saying that there is always someone who has it worse than you was proven true again. I was poor but he had it worse than me. Rest of my friends thought it was a waste of time and money. Dirk was there, but I couldn't care less about him.

Few minutes later, we were finally allowed to go inside. I showed my admit card to the security and went inside the building. Only students were allowed to go inside which meant my aunt had to wait outside for two hours.

It was a small building with not a lot of rooms. It was easy to find the room assigned to me. I was not good with directions so; I was afraid I would get lost, but luck was on my side. I went in the classroom and there were few kids already present. They had arrived earlier than me because they entered the building earlier as well. It didn't take me a long time to find my room. It was a pretty big room with around 35-40 benches. There was space between every bench and every row of benches, probably to avoid cheating.

Every bench had a paper slip pasted on it which had our roll numbers written on it. I rechecked the roll number on my admit card and sat on the seat with my roll number. Up until the moment I sat on my seat, I was nervous and afraid that I was in the wrong classroom and only after sitting down, I managed to relax. We still had around fifteen minutes until the exam started. Other students were revising from their books, and I wanted to do the same as well. But I didn't do it because I thought it was useless and it would just end up making me more nervous and forget things I already knew.

It's so weird. I remember some things so vividly even though they are completely useless. I guess our brain never truly deletes any memory…

Anyway, few minutes later, a woman came and told us put our bags on the floor. Then, she gave us the instructions about the exam. After she distributed the questions papers, we were given half an hour to look at the questions and prepare ourselves. That half an hour was given to us to make a strategy to tackle the exam. It included which subject's questions and what questions to attempt first, staying calm in case we encountered a tough question and checking everything after we were done.

I went over every question, and it looked pretty easy overall. All questions were multiple choice questions with four options. I knew the answers to most questions right away. And I was sure that I would get the answers to even those few questions that I couldn't answer immediately.

The exam started and we were finally given the OMR sheets. The clock started ticking, but I was in no rush. I was even more confident in myself now that I had seen all the questions. At first, I filled out the OMR sheet with answers I was fully sure were right. That covered around eighty percent of the questions. Then, I did the questions that needed some thinking but weren't difficult. Most of those questions were aptitude based and from mathematics. After around ninety minutes, I was done. I had left few questions because I wasn't hundred percent sure about their answers. I couldn't risk giving wrong answers because of negative marking. I hated it… deducting marks for giving wrong answers, I used to think it was stupid.

In a way, it was like a mirror to the real world. Even a little mistake can result in huge repercussions. It was as if we were made to think multiple times before making the right choice i.e., choosing the right answer. Or we would have to pay a price which was losing marks for even the right answers. It was an interesting comparison.

I went over my answers once again to make sure I had not made mistakes while filling out the OMR sheet. I couldn't say about others but for me, it was scary. If I had filled even one question wrongly, I could have to fill the entire thing from beginning. Luckily, nothing was wrong. Exam ended, and the teacher collected our OMR sheets. Some students weren't done and asked for extra time. But that teacher just snatched the OMR sheets from students. I thought it was a little cruel. It was so weird. Two hours had passed but it felt like only half an hour at most. That was when I realized time was nothing but an illusion and during exams, it feels like it goes faster than usual.

I left the classroom, and it felt a little lonely. Before and during the exam, I was completely focused on the exam. But after it ended, I wished I could discuss it with someone. I sighed and found my aunt standing outside the building. She asked me about how my exam went, and I told her that it went great. After that, we went straight to home. My exam took place in evening and because of winter, it was already dark and foggy.