There was water everywhere. Water—so clean, so pure, from which life evolves, on which life depends. The pipes and tanks that had remained dry for months were now pouring water. It was like a water-filled festivity. What a scene, I was bemused. Maybe they finally got Melamchi, I wondered. Maybe I should play Holi now. I was about to take a dip in cool water; eyes closed, cool water beneath my feet. Suddenly, I wanted to be a dolphin. And then I was taken aback by a shrill sound. Maybe I was a dolphin and I was producing that sound. Oh no! What if I were? What was I going to tell my mother? This sudden thought gave me an electric shock and I abruptly opened my eyes. There I was all human, lying in my bed like a stick.
“It’s your phone call. Wake up.” My brother was pinching and yelling at me. Electric shock, shrill sound! God, it was a dream. What time was it? Eight or nine in the morning? Oh no, I had to reach my college by 10. Maybe it was one of my friends giving a lazy sleepy-head like me a good morning call. I swiftly got up and picked up the receiver. What if there were no telephones in this world, I wondered. Thanks to Graham Bell.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me Romi.” There was a tinge of excitement in her voice. Maybe she had had a weird dream too. “Listen, there’s a news here,” she said, “Our results came out yesterday.”
And now the excitement was on the other side, or maybe I was getting nervous. But what result was she talking about? The word ‘result’ always gave me goose bumps. Maybe, I thought, it was the result of our assessment. “A friend called me just now and told me that the result of our last semester was out yesterday,” she explained, as if to clear my dilemma.
Semester exam, two months back. I suddenly had to recap the past events and rundown of the subjects. What was the subject I thought I was getting less marks in?
“Hey, are you there?”
Suddenly aware of my friend on the other side, I began to search for the words.
“Yeah, just a little sleepy,” I said nervously.
Why is it that students are so scared of exams and results, I thought. Or is it just me? Is this abnormal? Is that because I didn’t do my exams well? But I thought they went well except for one subject which didn’t go as I’d expected. Which paper was that? I started pondering. Suddenly, I felt that I was thirsty. I hadn’t even had a cup of tea. Maybe I needed something to eat. Hunger and thirst, they say, make people go crazy. My thought picked up its pace like never before. Why did my friend have to wake me up only to scare me? And I thought it was a good morning call. I felt my hands were shaking. I was going nuts. No, I needed to make sure it was not just me who was acting crazy.
“You’re nervous?” I asked.
“Nervous and scared to death yaar. I know my exams went well and still…”
So it was not just me. Two crazy people on the phone. That felt better.
“It will be fine. I mean, we studied so hard.” I tried to reassure her and myself too.
“I hope it does. This thing really stinks.”
“What thing?” Maybe she encountered a sock that had not been washed for days, just like mine, since we do not have water to drink, let alone for washing.
“This exam thing.” So it was not a sock. “Getting scared when the exam hangs over your head and again when the results are out. Why can’t we just study, pass and get a degree just like that?”
Exactly like that. Now, that’s what most of the students would dream and want. But then, there would not be a success story to tell then. Moving through fear, enduring every pain, surviving, living, that’s what life is all about. Was not this what wise men always said? Suddenly I was thinking about those dolphins, the second-most-intelligent mammals in the world. They’re lucky, I thought. For one thing, they have water all around. They do not need to go to school or college, nor give an exam or wait for the results, for that matter. They are born intelligent. Only if I were a dolphin! But maybe then, I would not have been able to feel this facet of life—fear, nervousness. And God knows what problems those poor creatures have to go through—global warming, sea pollution, sharks and what else. Suddenly a bell rang in my head (only nobody could hear it),
and I thought of those dolphins as survivors.
“Hey, what happened?” My friend must have been struck by my silence. “What are you pondering on?”
“So many things. From exams to dolphins.”
“What? Anyway, you know it’s April first today?” There was a chuckle in her voice I had not realised before.
“So what?” I was still happy to come across a sudden realisation.
“So, you are now an April fool.”
And that was it. April first it was. And April fool I had made out of myself. Of course, no results were ever published the previous day and, hell, it scared me like anything. After a minute-long silence, we burst out laughing, long roars on both ends of phone. The call that gave me goose bumps at first and a sudden jolt of life midway ended with loud roars. Even after putting down the receiver in its cradle, a smile remained on my face. I have heard many a times how people get angry once they are made fools. But I was happy to be an April fool. I mean, for 364 days, you live an intelligent life. But once in a while, you’ve got to be a fool. I was happy that morning, happy to be a fool.
The sun was rising and it was getting hotter. Cool water, I remembered. Maybe I should take that unfinished dip first. But then there were clothes to be washed, stinking socks and empty tanks. One day without a bath wouldn’t be all that bad. I’d survive, I knew, just like those dolphins.
- Barsha Chitarkar
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