Elegy

I’m fairly certain that my celebration of the ‘finally final’ end of exams yesterday was unique. I had unformed but grand ideas of what the culmination of five years of legal education should be like. I wanted to do something that would acknowledge the momentousness of the occasion properly. But ultimately, I simply stayed at home and cried. I’ve been the victim of similar afflictions before- I had a mild attack of the blues after the ICSE exams, which graduated into something bordering moderate depression after the HSC. So yesterday’s reaction was no surprise- I was only disappointed that I couldn’t delay the onset of the sadness long enough to allow me to celebrate in a more conventional way. The weeping could have waited a bit.

I’ve tried very hard to analyse why I feel the way I do at the end of exams. It is not, as some people would allege, an expression of extreme nerdiness. I’m as happy as everyone else not to have more studying to do (at least for a bit, anyway). I welcome being able to sleep finally (though this simply means that I get 7 hours instead of 3. The only thing I resent GLC for is having robbed me of my previously inviolable 9 hour night). I’m thankful (hopefully) to be rid of the idiosyncrasies of the Mumbai University. And it’s good to be able to feel my arm again. It generally goes numb after three hours of furious scribbling.

I suppose I’m going to miss all the little rituals and idiotic superstitions that characterize my examination phase. Like my dad syringing ink into my fountain pens or my grandmother unfailingly making my favourite, lucky sweets before each exam. I’ve been wearing the same earrings and writing on the same board and bathing and eating in the same, very specific order for the last thirteen years. It’s going to be a wrench not having any of these comfort routines for my future exams. Not to mention the license I get during exam time to be as messy and unhelpful around the house as I like.

These exams don’t represent the end of my student life, but they certainly mark the end of what have undoubtedly been its best five years. Also, they were almost definitely my last tryst with the Indian education system. Thinking of it that way overwhelms me somewhat. And this might sound dramatic, but at a time when we sometimes think of generation gaps in terms of 3-4 years, these exams signalled the end of an era. A good measure of how much I value something or somebody is how much I cry over them. I hope yesterday’s weep did justice to five glorious, glorious years.