Board exams are going… interestingly.
The first paper was Economics.
Honestly, it felt superb. One of those exams where you walk out of the hall thinking, yes, that went well.
Then came the BA paper, the one that scared me before the exam.
But surprisingly, it didn’t kill me.
And then came Statistics.
The real villain of the story.
I had barely studied Statistics the entire year. So when the paper landed on my desk, I already knew this was going to be a dangerous game.
While writing it, one thought kept repeating in my mind.
Am I passing… or am I failing?
If I calculate it statistically, the probability feels simple.
There is a 51 percent chance I pass.
There is a 49 percent chance I fail.
But here is the funny part.
I wrote 32 pages.
So by my personal theory, if one page equals one mark, then technically I should pass the exam comfortably.
But the real reason behind this chaos is simple.
I did not study Statistics properly the whole year.
Still, something interesting happened today.
tomorrow is my Statistics exam.
And today is the final of the ICC Cricket World Cup between the India national cricket team and the New Zealand national cricket team.
Now here is the strange part.
I am not a cricket guy.
In fact, I almost never watch cricket.
The last match I watched seriously before this was when the Gujarat Titans won their first Indian Premier League title.
Which means in my entire life I have basically watched two cricket matches seriously.
But suddenly the entire country is talking about this one game.
Instagram.
News channels.
WhatsApp groups.
Everyone.
And that is when a strange thought hit me.
There is an old Roman idea called Bread and Circuses.
The idea is simple. If rulers give people entertainment and comfort, people stay happy and stop questioning bigger things.
I am not saying cricket is bad.
I am not saying entertainment is wrong.
But it made me wonder something.
A country like India does not just need millions of spectators.
It needs thinkers.
Strategists.
Builders.
Problem solvers.
India probably does not need fifty crore people doing the same thing.
Maybe even fifty thousand extremely sharp minds could change the future of this country.
And right now I am not claiming to be one of them.
I am just a guy who might either pass or fail Statistics.
But after the exam ended and the usual post exam discussion started, I realized something important.
Sometimes the real problem is not the exam.
Sometimes the real problem is the people around you.
Listening to that post exam chit chat made one thing very clear to me.
If I actually want to think differently, build something meaningful, and move forward in life, I will have to slowly distance myself from certain circles.
Because the environment you stay in eventually becomes the person you become.
Today I walked out of the exam hall feeling something strange.
Not panic.
Not excitement.
Just relief.
Relief that the Statistics paper was over.
And maybe relief because one more realization about life quietly arrived.
Sometimes the real lessons of school do not come from textbooks.
They arrive after the exam ends.