All the best

All the best
Vinita Bahadur

My hands are sweaty and my feet cold as I prepare tea and lay the breakfast table in the morning. I was awake even after midnight last night. It seems that my Board exams are starting today though it is our younger daughter who is going to take her first paper. My husband is equally tense despite pretending to be the ``coolest one'' in the family. Actually, other than Priyanka (our examination baby), everybody else in the house is nervous. Radhika, the elder sister, is doing last minute corrections on the sample paper Priyanka had solved last night. ``God! Priyan, when will you learn to distinguish between `quiet' and `quite'?''

Papa is checking her pencil box, ``Four pens, three pencils, two erasers, a set of sketch pens and a ruler. All right.'' He seems satisfied but suddenly I hear him yell, ``Where is your admit card?'' Before he can go on a scolding spree Priyanka replies coolly, ``It is with the clip board, Paaa. Only yesterday you had asked me to keep it there.'' Pa deflates while Priyanka continues to munch her favourite chicken sandwich with milk peacefully. Priyanka eats only chicken sandwiches before going to take any exam; nothing else goes down her gullet that day.

All ready, we spend two minutes in the pooja room and then get into the car to see her off at the examination centre. On the way, all of a sudden, Priyanka perhaps realises that she should also show some sign of anxiety. She puts her head on my shoulder, ``Ma, I am nervous.'' ``What?'' Papa is very quick to turn his face back, ``This is not like our Priyanka. You will do well, I am confident.'' But his frown and knitted brows say something else about his confidence. And he proves it as he instructs her for the umpteenth time, ``Check your roll number twice; do not be in a hurry to finish the exam; revise your answers. And by the way, have you taken your admit card?'' ``Yes Paa,'' replies the young one, exasperated.

Priyanka now opens her textbook so as to go through a few chapters while waiting for the red lights to turn green. But I notice that for the next half an hour, the open page remains the same -- a picture of a mushroom cloud hanging in mid-air -- a lesson on Hiroshima.

Once at the examination centre, Priyanka jumps out of the car and joins her friends. The girls are meeting after the long prep holidays and a gossip session begins immediately. I hear snatches about a Hrithik Roshan show and Shah Rukh Khan being in town.

We stand a few feet away with dozens of other parents. Most of them are trying to boost their children's morale. ``You know everything, beta, remember to read your paper properly, don't commit last time's mistake.'' Suddenly there is some commotion. I see a very pleasant looking, sari-clad lady applying tikas on the students' foreheads. ``Amravati didi has brought prasad from the Sai Baba temple,'' I hear someone say. I pull Priyanka out of her group and take her towards Amravati didi. ``She is our home science lab assistant, a very religious lady,'' informs Priyanka.

It is 10 a.m. and the school gate has opened. Students start going in one by one. We can hear only cries of ``best of luck'' as the nervous parents gather near the gate watching their wards enter the examination hall. Some mothers start praying, looking up at the sky, just like Tendulkar does when he steps on to the cricket field. For them they are their small Sachins going out to prove themselves.

Priyanka has also entered the hall, so we turn back. My husband will go to work now. I will take an autorickshaw home. As we part we hold hands, take a deep breath and wish each other, ``All the òf40óbest.''