It has been raining and Sri’s exams had been postponed for a week. She had been anticipating for that day for more than a fortnight. She was tired of waiting and it was too much for her to sacrifice the family time simply whiling away at hostel. The night before her last exam happened to be unexpectedly anxious1. She couldn’t stop responding to the darkness of the night disturbed by thundering rain.
The very thought of the exams getting postponed again threatened her; she has been hoping to finish off her exams and run off to her native to enjoy her family time. The day she became part of the hostel life, she started desiring to be a bird to fly off whenever she wanted. It was possible only in her dreams. Now all her worries were not about her performance because she had flipped through the same pages more than a hundred times. All she wanted in the world was to get done with her semester exams.
Finally her last exam fell on the next day. Every second of her night was cruelly punishing her with the increasing noise of rain. Probably that was the first time she had hated the beautiful rain drops.
Suddenly her thoughts were thrown back to her home where she dances in rain with her sister and young neighbours. The reverberating noise of the ferocious rain drops didn’t let her fall asleep even for a moment. Somehow she passed her night thinking how happy she would be at her native town. She completely hated the noisy, polluted environment of the city. She always wanted to lead a peaceful life in a small town. Her thoughts were oscillating back and forth from her hostel to her home. She tried feeling the deep silence of night hidden behind the drumming rain drops.
It was sharp 3 am in the morning when her mobile alarm rang and shook her from dreams. She wanted to rest for sometime but the fear of exams surmounted her like a huge wall and made her stay awake. It was a new experience to her and she almost felt like banging on her nicely snoring room-mates heads.
The picture of her sitting in the exam hall flashed for a few minutes like a lightning and disappeared. She started revising for her last exam hoping it would not get postponed. She had been desperately hoping the same for last five times when the same exam was scheduled. Now the alarm rand again indicating it was 5 am. she started feeling tired out of sleepless night she spent.
She fell into deep sleep forgetting about the exams for about 30 minutes when her phone ranged. She jumped out of her bed when she saw it was a call from her friend. She felt herself mentally worn out. But her hope was still alive. She picked up the call and felt relieved when she knew that it was just her dream. She couldn’t hit her bed again because it was no longer raining outside. She was pleased and started getting ready to college. Her exam was scheduled for the afternoon. So she couldn’t be completely happy until she enters the exam hall. When she finished her breakfast, she realized that it was that monster again.
Yes, it was raining again and she sprang in motion. She tried calling her friends to confirm that they had exams as scheduled. It was 11 a.m. then. She was still carrying the hope in vain; her last hope of writing the last exam on that day successfully. She was blatantly looking into mobile, expecting a positive message.
Finally her mobile blinked for a moment showing a message has been received. She felt her body jittering out of anxiety. She saw the message and felt the silence which she couldn’t feel the last night. She was moving out of the hostel to college. She heard a reverberating noise. This time, it is her heart reverberating in happiness and not the rain drops. Her last hope bloomed into life.
- Millan, Mark J. “The neurobiology and control of anxious states.” Progress in neurobiology 70.2 (2003): 83-244. ↩︎
Last Updated on by kalidaspandian
