"I think I should start building watch towers right from the Dark Age and by the time I get into castle age, I can keep an eye on the enemy", I thought thinking of strategies to prevent the enemy from building Barracks right at my door step as it happened the day before.
Trrrriiinnnggg... the bell rang and the invigilator started handing over quesion papers. Age of Empires, a game by Microsoft, swept my B.Tech College boys hostel and I had been playing it the day before after finishing studying for the exam. I glanced over the question paper and started sweating. I had no clue about one two mark question and one five mark question, the rest I could answer quite well. That is seven marks gone out of hundred, eight more marks and I could bid farewell to S grade, the outstanding grade. Cursing Age of Empires, I started answering.
Three hours later, "How did you do?", "Phod diya kya?" kinda questions were floating around.
"Not very good. Seven marks straight in the bin", I answered
"That is ok, you can still get S", consoled my friend.
With no mood to have lunch, I went straight to my room to find out the answers to the questions I did not attempt and resolving to delete that wretched game.
I never knew what M.Tech would do to me.
I choose a place close to my friends, far from the inviligator. We were all fully armed. The innocent Professor allowed a cheat sheet - one sided A4 page. Naveen SSM squeezed around 40 slides in that one page - the entire syllabus. The invigilator looked at her watch and started distributing questions papers, the good old bell was missing. A lot of other things were missing - no bell to tell the time, no open windows, no streaming sunlight, no fresh air, no wooden benches, no anything which would suggest it was a room for humans not robots. The room was fully closed, airconditioned and computerized, the kind of room which makes me feel highly claustrophobic. I looked out of the window, the weather was awesome, just about to rain but not raining.
"Here", said a rough female voice snapping me out of my day dream.
Resisting the urge to run out for breath, I looked at the question paper and felt elated.
"How did it go?", asked a friend an hour later when I got out of the examination hall, also being the first person to get out.
"Better than I had expected. I could attempt twenty marks out of fifty. Guess I can manage a C grade now", I said happily walking towards the canteen for a cup of coffee to celebrate!
