WHEN YOU ENTER THE ZONE

Human mind is very childish. It never takes things for granted. It will only accept those things which it has felt first hand; otherwise it finds it really hard to believe it. If someone says that the bench is freshly painted we have to touch it, even if somebody says that your favorite team has lost the match, we will watch the game verify it from three sources and then we believe in it.

In this category there is a special entrant. Its Exam time (goose bumps!!). The exam schedule is out a month back and that’s when we comfort our mind that there is enough time for you to prepare for the exams. I decided to draw a plan as to how each and every subject would be tackled; my mind raced to the minute the examiner would read my answer paper and acknowledge it as the work of a genius. And that’s how preparations kick start. (Well the kick was not where it has to be…more on the kick later).

The first morning of the EPL (Engineer’s Preparatory leave) is coincidently an important day for EPL (English Premier League) and inaugural day for IPL( Indian Premier League).  The first day comes and goes and so do many days after that. Every day is a slow and steady progress (my parents might read this!!!) and syllabus has to be covered. When the first few sums are solved, we stumble on to a few problems but they are solved and my mind races to the expression of the examiner…work of a genius. It takes a few seconds for the mind to come back, the next few questions keep adding to the trouble and one after the other topics are piled up and then enters a friend. A friend is someone who can manage to distract you from studies and at the same time makes you feel that you have spent the whole day studying. A friend is someone who makes you feel that you have studied everything possible on the face of this earth.

And that’s precisely how we feel. We think we know everything and then slowly the nerves start coming in and also a mechanism I have perfected of calming myself down, by playing a little FIFA 09, or Age of Empires, the more nervous I am the more I play.

The sun rises and I felt extremely confident about the paper, all the jugaads are in place, my mind again goes to the expression of the examiner, he still thinks I am a genius but he doesn’t know is that is that I hoodwinked him to make him feel like that.

Then I took a nice long relaxing shower, and drove my way to college and that’s when I met my friend again (grrrr…..)

“Did you study this part, its important” the world comes crashing down ,the topics on the important lists keep adding up, the topics which I haven’t covered are equivalent to the number of topics which are important, the watch skips an entire hour altogether in no time the exam bell rings, I can imagine the wicked smile of the examiner, books are replaced by answer sheets and in no time the invigilator lands the final ( is it?...I thought there were more to come) blow with three words

                                                      "All the Best”