The Power of Prayer..

For most of you the incident that I am about to narrate shall have little significance but this is the first time I have seen something of this sort happen and hence it is something worth blogging about for me..

Of late I have been having a tough time…things are going wrong , I am spending more time crying and worrying these days than ,I guess , I have ever before. But well, this is part of life and if there are going to be good times, there are bound to be bad times as well..

Anywayz..
Amongst the many worries I have been besotted with , one of them has been Bhai.
Now, Bhai is a super chilled guy, who is always ready with a stupid yet terribly funny one liner no matter how bad the situation might be.Also he is as optimistic. as I am pessimistic

So, Bhai is gving is first proffz(exams) these days. The day he wrote his first paper(Bio Chem) he called us up at 12:30 in the night .He told Mum that he had messed up that days exam and as he was saying that he started crying.
There is something about hearing your younger brother, who happens to be thousands of kilometers away from you and whom you have not seen for about 6 months , cry that wrenches your insides .
You want to just do anything that you can do to put things right for your sibling, but you know you cannot.
The last I had seen/heard him cry was about 6 years ago…and as I heard him cry every atom inside me knotted itself with every other atom inside me culminating into a a feeling of supremest unease and helplessness.

So, the next day we continously called up Bhai, he said he had gone completely blank during the biochem paper and he had left things he was supremely comfortable with.

Also, for the first time since he left home, Bhai told me that he has had enough of this crap called hostel life and he just wants to come home.

There was nothing that we could do , sitting thousands of kilometres away from him .So, Mum decided it was time we started praying( in case bhai messes up a paper it could easily cost him six months and also last year only 4 northies had managed to pass all 3 subjects) .
The next paper was Anatomy..the most dreaded subject .Bhai kept on saying that he was not able to recall all the stuff he had been mugging up for the past 2 months. The helplessnes in his voice was as novel as it was disturbing.I have never heard him sound so low and each time I would speak to him , I would send a prayer to the heavens above asking Him to help him out.

The next day , Mum sat down with her meditation( which she does normally also) at 2:30, Bhai ‘s exam would have begun by 2 o’clock.

I spoke to an audibly relieved Bhai at 5:30 and this is what he had to narrate :

The exam conditions in his med school are extreme! The students assemble inside the huge hall at 1:20.The hall is locked from the inside and then the University releases the exam paper on the net.The print outs are taken out there itself and then distributed to the students. The invigilators consist extrenal faculty with just one internal invigilator and they happen to be very strict with ‘aaju-baaju dekhana’ going on.Unlike engg colleges, teachers cannot help students at all, and no cheating is allowed.

When Bhai got his question paper, something happened, I am not sure what , and 10 people were shifted from the big hall to another smaller room and the internal invigilator assigned to that room.

So, bhai sat down to do his paper.He looked at the first question . He had made that diagram atleast a hundred times.He picked up his pen to write and his mind went blank.

He left a page and started with the next question which was something that was at his fingertips and there again his mind went blank.

This continued for the next half an hour during which he could not come up with a single word and his answer script was blank.

He is not the sorts who do this, but at about 2:30 , the same time Mum sat down for her meditation he went up to the invigilator and told him that he was unable to recall anything.
The invigilator was very surprised…as he knew that Bhai is a good student and he had been performing well consitantly all throughout the year.
He then said ‘ See, I can do just one thing, I will stand outside the room for two minutes you can use those two minutes to have a look at your neighbour’s answer sheet.Will that help?’
‘Yess, ‘, said Bhai.

He needed just one look at the diagram for evrything to come back to him.
In the remaining 2.5 hours Bhai did 23/24 questions. One is partially wrong and the rest are okay.

As, he came out of the room at 5, Mum got up from her meditation.

Later bhai told me that this was for he first time that such mismanagement had happened in his college that resulted in 10 students being shifted to another room.
Also, the internal invigilators are not supposed to in any room ,alone.This was the first time that that had happened,
Also, the internal invigilator guy was reputed to be amongst the strictest people around and this is the first case of his helping another student
And I know for a fact that this was the first time that Bhai, who is very shy when it comes to all this, went up to a invigilator with this kind of a problem.

And you know what Mum and continuously muttered during the 2.5 hours she was praying for Bhai?
She asked God to do whatever it took to help him.Even if that required him being present there to help out Bhai.

Bhai finished with his theory papers today at 5 in the evening.He was very relieved, had done the paper well and is going for a movie tonight.
The practicals begin after 17 days and after that on the 13th of september Bhai will be home again after 6 months.

Good night and sleep tight.
Ruchi.