Quote from memory

Soumya and I had a pact between us before every Kannada test and exam during our Pre-University days. The deal was that she would study half the portion allocated for the test and I would do the remaining half. On our way to the test, we would narrate/explain to each other the parts we had studied.

On one such occasion, when the portion for the exam was vast and we had two sections to study – detailed and non-detailed, I was assigned the simple detailed part while she took it upon herself to study the more challenging non-detailed section, which happened to be Rashtrakavi Kuvempu’s Sri Ramayana Darshanam.

Convinced that she could not do justice to the masterpiece in the usual thirty minutes’ time; Soumya suggested we start for college earlier than usual on the day of the exam. After the standard “Tumba easy Kane” and “You have listened in class; haven’t you?” Madam Soumya started off with the narration. It sounded simple enough in the beginning; most of the incidents familiar. But as the narration continued and new characters were introduced into the plot, I started losing track. Add to that, Soumya’s “There are three ways of analyzing this statement. One:…..” and I was lost! At the end of the story-telling and retelling, I had a vague idea of the story but couldn’t remember the names of any of the characters other than Rama’s immediate family. After repeated re-caps, I memorized some names, but wasn’t sure if it belonged to a Rishi or Rakshasi. After I had settled on one of them, I could not tell which of the dozen rishis or rakshasis went by that name! But I wasn’t disheartened; this was after all, the non-detailed part; the questions would not get into the details.

The bell rang to announce the start of the exam. Not having used the Kannada script since the last test which was four months ago, I had trouble picking up speed. Due to the major influence English has on our day-to-day conversation, there were times when I was groping for the Kannada equivalent of simple words like “problem” and was tempted to go ahead with “praablam”. Save for these small hitches, the detailed section of the question paper was a breeze.

Satisfied, I moved on to the Non-detailed section. Now there are times in life when you feel helpless. You wish you had practiced copying. You wish you could just peep into someone’s paper and find the answer. You wish you had studied. You wish, but it’s too late. So there were all these 1 and 2 mark questions staring at me and asking me the names of people who did this-and-that. I wish I was confused; that way there was a remote chance of getting some answers right, but I wasn’t; I simply went blank. I didn’t remember a single name! Hoping to recall the names later, I proceeded to the not-so-detailed part of the non-detailed section and was able to answer most questions. Soumya’s “another way of looking at this…” came in handy here. Very soon there was just enough time to fill in the answers to the 1 and 2 marks Q’s and with no miracle happening, I ended up writing the inevitable. I had, “ObbaLu Rakshsi”, “Obba Rishi” and “Ondu Pakshi” all over the paper!

A week rolled by and I had nearly forgotten my dismal performance in the Kannada exam. I had moved on to more important matters like PCMB, when one afternoon Prof. Sreenivasa Shrama read aloud an answer, namely “ObbaLu Raakshasi” from my paper, to the whole class. Did anyone hear my name? Yes?

...and there are times in life, when you wish the earth would just swallow you!