LACHRYMOSE LACHRYMARKS

It’s funny how exams affect us hostellites in ways unimaginable. For people living at home the seriousness of the exam time is imposed upon them with parents breathing down their neck reminding them of the seriousness of that A , and the possible ramifications of having a good career with the help of that A. It’s hard to imagine that such a innocuous looking letter can be of such importance. For hostellites the exam time is a frantic rush to cram as much as possible,sacrificing a good night’s sleep,consuming ungodly amounts of coffee and grappling with mind boggling amounts of photocopied paper,mostly done at the thirteenth hour.Come exam time and there is a queue of boys in front of the girls hostel,the supplicants waiting in tense anticipation for that notebook from the girl who has taken immense pains to maintain her notes all year round.And as the girl proudly dishes out her notebook replete with pencil and colourful margin notes she even dishes out some free advice about what to study and what not to.Mother Teresa would have been so proud of her she feels.

All year round the very same girl would be the victim of caustic remarks from the boys who have labeled her as a teacher’s pet and roll their eyes whenever she chooses to answer a question in class.But come exam time,she would be the savior,the good Samaritan who chooses to lend her painstaking efforts to the work shirkers.And the boys happy with an easy way out,religiously study from the notes and manage respectable grades and satiate their parent’s marks lust.The girls get better grades and the guys manage something of lesser envy and everyones happy.

But scratch the surface and the rust is exposed.Few people pay attention to the real reason why a girl producing a same answer on her answer sheet is entitled to more marks than a boy.Of course such a subtle difference may escape the average boy, so I am not offended at the poor attention span of my male readers and thus choose to enlighten them at the blatant discrimination that goes on in the marking system. After nearly four semesters of careful scrutiny and analysis coupled with insights from various male eye witnesses I finally came to the conclusion that most of the marks that are bestowed upon the Venusians come from an unusual and subtle coercion method that plays on the very human psyche.Although they sometimes choose various methods like producing the same answer in active as well as passive voice ,they rely on a tried and tested technique handed down from generations.Girls choose to exploit a very fundamental flaw in the mind set of a guy…All they do for a few extra marks is….. CRY.

Yes,no man in history has acquired considerable success in consoling or pacifying a crying girl when things are not going her way.The male brain simply runs out of ideas when the eyes of a girl brim over.Of course the lachrymal coercion used in college is a touch different,but the results are the same.And this time tested technique never fails them.Be it a wizened and grizzled professor or a fresh young teacher just fresh from college,all of them fall for the same ploy.At first when there is a huge crowd in the teacher’s cabin the habitual criers stand idly by patiently biding for their time to go in for the kill.And just when the teacher is in a state of utter frustration they home in to the target.At first they try for the cajoling strategy,when that fails they once again repeat the cajoling and now the sniffing adds to the cajoling.Almost akin to the delay of a time bomb sounding out its warning before the final blast.And then when the teacher is absolutely adamant that he wont even think of giving extra marks,the girl bursts into tears. Tears that flow fast and thick smudging the answer sheet and the report papers of the teacher which has been meticulously arranged.Seeing no way out the teacher is forced to scribble a few more marks on her answer sheet.

You would think…end of story..objective achieved.But NO,the girl seeing that the teacher has taken the bait wishes to dupe him hook, line and sinker.She is still on the teachers side pleading for more.This time she spins up a cock and bull story about how she had taken ill the night before the exam and how a few extra marks would really augment her career prospects.To add to the story she paints a sordid picture of how she had religiously studied the concerned teacher’s notes fully trusting him but the exam question paper begged to differ.If the teacher has’nt fallen for the ploy till now,this frontal assault on his ego does not go unnoticed.His inflated ego takes a beating when he hears this statement.And the knight in shining armor swings into action.

Finally the teacher wishing to salvage his reputation and with a flourish adds a few more marks and signs off with a flourish finally placating the sobbing girl.Now there “Are you happy”?, he asks and the girl who has so far been hell bent on flooding the room with her tears suddenly ceases her lachrymose assault and gushes in happiness.”Thank You”…You are the best..she utters and runs out of the room in sheer ecstasy.For a moment the teacher swells up a bit for having placated a crying girl before he returns to his mundane world of exam papers.
And the girl who is now bragging about her stellar performance in the exam to her friends and nonchalantly mentioning her inflated marks to all and sundry,mentally makes a checklist to improve upon her performance next time that would warrant even more free marks.She silently sends up a prayer thanking God for making fall prey so gullible to the charms of women.And she also is thankful of the fact that most of her teachers in the college are male.

Thus careful observation has given me an idea on how to get a few more marks too.Next time ill come equipped with a glycerine bottle to the teachers room and cry my heart out, just hoping that a crying guy would be as torturous to the teacher as it were for a crying girl.For I too wish to exploit the teachers basic flaw….his FEAR OF THE TEAR. So next time you see a girl brandishing her near perfect marks..be sure it was just TEAR FACTOR that helped her.And as I mentioned earlier she is no more the Mother Teresa ..rather she is just “ANOTHER TEARESA”