10th standard results - II

I must have calculated my mathematical score atleast a 100 times and was quite confident that I would surely pass. 10th standard ranks were already announced on April 9th itself and a girl from my school had got 12th rank. This was the first rank to our school. I was going crazy with nervousness. Finally the dreaded April 10th was there and I got up in the morning and asked my father if he could go and check my results. He asked me if I wanted to accompany him and I refused with a firm "No". My dad and his cousin Praveen went to my school to check the results. In those days a cell phone didn't even exist, forget a cell phone we didn't have a land line too. I kept chewing my finger nails and kept saying "vakrathunda mahakaaya..." mantra in my mind. After a good one hour my dad and Praveen returned home. The first thing my dad did was shake my hands and pat my back, phew! I was relieved thinking that I must have passed in Maths. Then he started rattling off my score in all the subjects one by one, however, I was all ears only for my Math score, Pappa said "Maths nalli 93", for a second I was too numb and shocked to react, I asked him to repeat and he said "Maths nalli 93 bandide, thombatthu mooru", meaning you have scored 93 out of 100, I asked him to check my register number again, and he repeated that he was sure it was my score. My overall percentage was 83%. I was literally on cloud nine at that moment. Finally I thought god had answered my prayers and my efforts and hardwork had finally paid off.

I went to meet my guru Kaduru Ramaswamy with a pack of goodies. He greeted me and I saw that his house was packed with all the students from my batch. I saw the carmel convent and vijaya high school brat pack too. They were all giving me sympathetic looks thinking that I had either flunked or got a just pass. The first thing I did when I saw my guruji was touch his feet. He blessed me and asked me what my score was. The moment I told him I had scored 93 in Maths and my over all score was 83, the brat pack leader G's eyes popped out, she just couldn't believe her ears. My guruji on the other hand was very happy and he looked at the brat pack and said,"You students were always over confident about your abilities, look at her she has got a better score in Maths than you! Her score in preparatory was 24 now she has got 93". Sandhya who hadn't expected to pass this year had passed with a second class and she was also extremely pleased.

I realized that this was just a stepping stone, I may have to brave through many such challenges in life, the next one being II PUC :(