HEY! ITS 7th SEM,MISTER!!!

17th July 06 marked the beginning of not just any season of EPL, SPL, SERIE-A, LA-LIGA nor was it the television premiere of LOST (season 3), AMERICAN IDOL (season-god knows which one) or for that matter any cool movie on star movies/HBO (who knows, blackouts still knocking us out) . What actually began on Monday the 17th was SEASON-7 in fr.Angel penitentiary… how cool!!! Coz by the end of this season (tentative date 27/10/2006), we’ll actually be 7/8th of engineers!!! (Awooogaa!!).

But a season is never complete without its GRAND FINALE (generally a 1 or 2 hr episode on TV) and fr.AG (GAY) NEL’s specialty has always been its term ending PRELIMS. (ag-gaynelite may sound weird but Royal MECHIES (mechanical engineering students) would know it very well, I mean, c’mon 73 guys & only one babe in our class & looking at the babe’s build-quality, one always thinks whether to call her a babe or BABA. Hell! Even our top ranker goes by the name of DICK-SHEET…so u see where it is all coming from).

Now, PRELIMS are one hell of GRAND FINALE; let’s say penitentiary’s MAGNUM OPUS. The professors think that the students should be able to answer all the questions sprucely as they have been “taught” everything beforehand. Unfortunately for them (actually us), that ain’t case. Barring a pedantic few & worthless others, the main players of our class are not interested in attending these exams at all. The perennial question in our minds has always been, “after writing truck-loads of assignments & a million types of class tests during ‘PRACTICAL’ sessions, why the hell do we need PRELIMS for?”

And this has given birth to some really uber-cool characters in MECH-7. So to start with, there is guy called Mr.PPB who’ll always sit on the first bench (coz he is roll no.1) and end up writing some crap or the other and still clear the exam thanks to his good handwriting!!
Then there is this guy who goes by the name ANNA (not Kournikova you despots, anna…as in a typical south Indian guy) a.k.a “the jholer” who’ll bring not just chits but also formulae scribbled on his calculator & guess what…whatever he writes on them…everything comes in the exam…some charlatan he is!!

Next in line comes the terrific trio of Danny, Viru & Mr.Patil. These 3 are known to do a Houdini within an hour after exam starts. We wonder whether the tioka come just to collect the question paper & say ‘HELLO’ to the invigilator or to jot down some answers!!!
Moving on, there is another character called ‘ZZZZZZZZZZZ’ who’ll be seen showing his answers to ‘apachika’ but that dude ‘apachika’ never shows/tells anything to him. Silly boy ‘zzzzzzzz’ you are!! Plus, weird thing about ‘ZZZZZZZ’ is that he’ll sit for whole 3 hours and end up flunking while others sit for 1-2 hours(max) and end up…FLUNKING! (What a waste… no, not us but... that guy ‘zzzzzzz’).

Finally, let me write about us as well. Bilkulbakwas here will always turn up about 15 minutes late; keep on laughing like a mad man (traumatized i guess) for next 10 minutes after reading the questions; "psst" around asking for answers; scribble something on the answer sheet and after dozing for 10 odd minutes; hazard asking Mr. Strange for any 'valuable inputs'; get pissed off when Strange tells him to elaborate on 'dividing a raster into 9 parts'.... i mean what does he expect, by then he realizes his pet needs some pooja, he leaves the exam hall for a cup of chee and roadside snakes....(hail gujju!!)

As for me (peteboy), I’ll study something; won’t be able to reproduce anything and before the exam commences, annoy everyone around me by asking them everything. Besides that, my mates have always questioned my exam hall virginity: - my inability to cheat. I just can’t do it man! I try, the examiner scorns at me; I move my legs to squeeze in but only manages to bang it against the front bench just to wake up that professor who is about to doze off; I try to whisper; no one understands what I say. Tell me, how can I be a good engineer if I can’t cheat in the damn examination hall??? (Formulae & calculations who????).

That’s not all folks. Magnum opus n all is ok but piece-de-resistance of this Season 7 (and for previous seasons too) will always be the re-tests & the re-re-tests & the re-re-re-tests (sic). The above-mentioned players are there for these events too but at the end of every event, some drop off, one by one, until the Chosen One remains. No one knows how many of us would be Chosen Ones this season but esteemed personalities like Mr. “Aaaaaaaa-you-hush???”, “So-deep”, “Mamu” & co. have always been able to raise the bar (sem after sem) and even if you don’t respect their attitude, you have to salute their fortitude.

So, that is what you experience in this urbane educational institute of ours. Although it’s been a mundane thing for MECHIES, other departments spare their kids, as they do not find later half of the extravaganza germane enough. Hell! Maybe our department has lost its humane touch.

-peteboy