De ja vu

Does this ever happen to you that you see or hear something and feel that you have seen or heard it before? Or you do something and you feel that you have done it before? What if you get that feeling seeing your exam paper?

Now many of you must be thinking that it is bound to be a good feeling because it means that you are getting known questions. However, the syllabi of medical subjects are huge, even when they are paradoxically called ‘short’ subjects. So, the night before the exams you are bound to leave out some topics and almost naturally you end up deciding to leave out the two long question topics from last semester under the impression that a huge batch of new topics have been taught in the new semester and most probably the topics from last semester’s question paper won’t be repeated. But let me warn you, you don’t just get fooled on the first of April. Some departments take pleasure in fooling you each and every day of the year. Hence the topic you left out the night before stares right back at you from the question paper with a big triumphant smile as you feel horrified that a more complicated version of the same question could show up as a long question in this semester as well.

Now all you can rely on is your already sleep deprived and anxious brain to suddenly remember what it read weeks (feels like years) ago. While you get a de ja vu that you might have written that answer earlier as well, you can’t really remember what you wrote. As you look around, you find most of your fellow examinees being in the same mess. You all secretly curse the old lady invigilator who keeps shouting, startling you every now and then. When you find one of your wise friends submitting his answer script within 1.5 hours and smartly walking away from the situation, not ready to deal with the mess, and you end up wondering, “When will I have this kind of confidence?”

The truth is, most of us do not have such confidence. So, we toil along for another hour and a half, with nothing but our creative writing skills and what we studied weeks ago to support us. If you are thinking that why didn’t these people do team work then? Let me tell you that one cannot afford team work, when there is good chance of getting cursed by the God of Exams and quickly receiving a minus forty for evoking His wrath. Though you also wonder, “Will I actually get forty marks that I have to deal with a minus forty? Or am I getting a negative score this semester?”

As you fill up your answer script and extra sheets with truckloads of nonsense while secretly asking forgiveness from the trees who gave up their lives to give you that paper that you are now wasting, you wonder, “Is creative writing enough to make me pass this toxic subject?”

Who can tell?

Happy Propose Day

P.C-Shuvojyoti Rakshit