BELIEVE IN SELF

This post is to boost the already high spirits of my greatest admirer on blogger. Harshita, this is for you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It happened when I was in class X. On the verge of appearing the first public examination of my life. About 10 days left for the board exams.The mock test results weren’t out yet. The school principal took our History and Geography classes and didn’t have enough time to check our answer scripts. Scores of all other subjects had been intimated to us before.
A fateful afternoon, my sister barged into the living room and almost shouted,”Good ! Keep on watching television. 78 in Geography.” She was back from school.(My sister and I were in the same school. She was a seventh grader then.) Mom came running and said ,”What!”My sister explained, in a tone full of sarcasm, ”Your darling elder daughter has scored 78 in Geography test. Here’s the report card.” She handed over the report card to my mother. It was the first board exam of my life and my parents were more nervous than me, I guess. A detailed post-mortem of the report was done by mom and dad and the “verdict” was- You have done all your map work wrong. It’s your forte and how can you be so careless ? Meanwhile, I was brushing up my Julius Ceasar text and was oddly nonchalant. I behaved as if nothing had happened. That perturbed mom. Later she told me that she was tensed due to my reaction. She thought maybe I was shell-shocked and didn’t react. (None of it had happened actually.) Somehow all was silent by evening. Though I could hear Dad’s voice,”God knows what she’s upto. She was so good in Geography.”

The next day-morning 8 am. ”Dad,I want to see my Geography paper”,I told .
He took me to school. Straight to Principal Sir’s office.
“May I come in, Father?”(Our principal was a Catholic Father.)
He looked up from his files and said,” Come in Anwesa.”
“I wanted to see my Geography answer paper.”
I had already noticed my mark foil in his hands.
“Yes, its here.”, he handed me my answer script in no time. I was about to leave the room when he said,” Anwesa, I’m not happy at your performance. Especially in Geography.”
I preferred not to answer and quietly got out of the room. Checked the answer paper. Instantly my face brightened up. I knew my intuition was correct. Dad was waiting all this while. I stood up and went straight into the Principal’s office.

I came back with a message for dad-the principal wanted to see him. I hadn’t seen Dad’s face more morose than what it was then. The meeting was over in ten minutes. I was in front of the notice board. Dad patted my back and said,”Lets go now.” His smile was a resplendent one-I can’t forget it ever.

Perhaps that’s why he wasn’t a bit surprised when I topped the school in History,Civics and Geography in boards.

My readers must be curious to know what had happened. Well,the evaluator had skipped one of my maps. And there was a minor error in totaling of marks. I had scored 94 , not 78.

I’v taken many important examinations after that. And it was not always that I stood above the crowd.(I too had my share of failures in life. But as Robin Sharma puts it- nothing is failure, its an experience.) But every time I faltered I learnt something new. My parents have been my greatest pillars of strength, be it sun or rain.
The “cocky” confidence I have has saved me from a lot of trials and tribulations. And I know, God willing, I’ll sail smoothly in the “real examination ” called LIFE.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------