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Annual fever
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The tension spares no one — the students who snored through the lectures, fashion freaks or even bookworms
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E FOR Examinations. It's about time the country's health authorities took notice of this disease. It moves faster than a rumour and wallops its victims with more power than a souped-up steam engine. They mutter to themselves through the night, crouched over textbooks that could give a weightlifter a complex, and suffer dark circles that would give a super model months of nightmares. The Examination Fever spares no one: not the students who blissfully snored through months of lectures with their heads gently rested on a pile of notes, nor the ones who swaggered through the year brandishing more hair gel than textbooks... Not even the bookworms who divided the year between memorising their lectures and memorising the college library.
"Everyone goes nuts here just before the exams," says one hostelite, before yelling at her friends to turn down Pink Floyd's `Brick in the Wall', which is reverberating through the hostel. "Studying here is really difficult for me since I need silence to concentrate and every one else can't study unless there's loud music on. It's SO tough to study in time to music... try conjugating French verbs with Britney Spears squeaking "Oops, I did it again" and you'll know what I mean!"
However, being forced to set math theorems to thumping music is not the only problem hostelites face when the examination fever sets in. "The night before exams begin I can guarantee at least two people will lose their hall tickets. Then, all of us will have to put away our books and crawl under beds and behind cupboards to find them. Once that is done, about three of us would have misplaced our notes in the process and the whole procedure will start again. By the time everything's in place, we're too tired to study," laughs Divya, a student.
However, burning the midnight oil is apparently a lot more fun than most people would imagine. Everybody has their own theories about what the best time to study is. While some people prefer to study through the night, Satish from Loyola insists that 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. has been `proved' to be the best time. As a result, students in the city's hostels take turns to keep each other awake. "Most of the time I'm the only person here who wakes up when the alarm goes off at 4 a.m. So, I fill a big mug of water and go from bed to bed pouring it on everyone to make sure they get up," chuckles one girl. Lavanya from SRM Arts and Science College is more kind. She says "I give `missed calls' to my pals' cell phones the moment I start studying. We have a code: The longer the missed call - the more lessons I've finished."
According to Karthika Devi, a lecturer in a city college, girls are more serious about exams than boys. "Most of the boys are either not interested in exams or find easy ways to cope, such as copying or ensuring the questions papers are leaked," she says. "In some colleges, the students take the phones to the loo and then ring their friends for answers," adds a student. "The kids are so techno-savvy these days we're finding it difficult to keep up," sighs one Head of Department who's having a tough time controlling the recent surge of cell phones in her college.
Meanwhile, the old cheating methods are still going strong. "We write answers on our ankles or arms. We also use a form of dumb charades - you scratch your nose for `yes' and pull your ear for `no'. In one college the girls do the same thing by adjusting their dupattas!" says a student, who understandably pleads anonymity.
In the end, however, papers have to be written intelligently and no amount of ear tweaking and dupatta tugging can ensure that you pass. Which is probably why, after a few desperate attempts at Examination Dumb Charades and wily SMS-ing, most students realise that it's less painful to just hit the books, and then plough through their exams hoping for the best. The alternative is to suffer the examination fever year after year... perhaps till you grow almost as old as the buildings around you.
SHONALI MUTHALALY & K. LAKSHMI
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Metro Plus
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Hyderabad
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