Trrrng …..Trrng.
Thus rang the phone on the momentous day at the ungodly hour(for me) at 7:30 in the morning. I dragged myself out of bed to answer the phone little knowing that I was about to receive a shock. I picked up the phone.

"Hello", I said sleepily into the phone.
"Hi",said my friend, "the results have been announced".

I was too stunned to speak. What a horrible way to begin a day.

"Stop talking rubbish", came my response a few seconds after the initial shock ,"I don't like such things early in the morning".

"I am not joking!, my friend protested indignantly, "its true and what's more, I can't seem to find my Roll no. in the paper. What's yours, I'll check".

Now, I was about to shift into a new house, so for the past week I wasn't receiving the newspaper at home. So naturally, I was anxious to know about my result. I was not sure whether I would pass or not in my first year engineering exams so I was naturally a bit apprehensive and quite pessimistic about my results. Still, I gave him my roll no..,50236. "It's there, total:750.",he said.

That means that I had passed in all my subjects. My roll no. was in the newspaper. I couldn't believe my ears.

After commiserating with him and extending my sympathy to my friend who hadn't managed to pass, I put down the phone and started to gather my thoughts. I still didn't believe that I had passed. For all I knew, maybe my friend had seen someone else's number or maybe he was pulling my leg or maybe… a thousand maybes were floating about in my head. The only way I could clear my doubts was to see a newspaper and see my roll no. in black and white in the newspaper. I had to be careful here. If I could not find my name in the paper and my mother came to know of it, I would have some explaining to do. So I decided to first check if my roll no. was there and then, if it was present, I would triumphantly tell my mother that I had done well in the exams. Typical behavior of a nervous student and human being.

So, armed with a definite plan of action, I moved to the hall from my room. I unlatched the door.
"Where are you going?" asked my mother.
I had to be cool here and act as if nothing was wrong or she would suspect something. "Just going downstairs to get the newspaper", I replied with what I thought was perfect coolness and nonchalance. "Have the results come?" asked my mother immediately.
So much for my coolness and nonchalance. I couldn't even hide a simple fact from my mother. How was I going to survive another 3 years in engineering? I had to admit the fact now that there was a direct question.

"Yeah, it just came today", I replied trying not to look too ruffled. Yup, I was still in control. "Did you pass"? This was getting tough. I just shrugged, put on a vague expression and said that I didn't know and that I was just going to check and would just borrow the newspapers from downstairs and then I practically leaped down the stairs. Now that my mother was waiting upstairs, I was praying to all the gods that I really had passed or the alternative was too scary for me to speculate on. I rang the bell downstairs and glanced upstairs where I saw that my father and mother were now standing out on the balcony waiting for me to tell them my results. I borrowed the paper with the intention to go upstairs and look up my roll no. but once I had the paper in my hands, I couldn't do it. I had to check my result there and then. I rested the newspaper on the seat of my two-wheeler and opened the result page and began searching for my number.

50236……..50236, I kept mumbling, searching for my results. My number had to be there. It just had to be there. I kept looking for it till I realized that I was looking in the wrong column and college. "Cool down, boy", I told myself. "Go about it in an organized manner". So I decided to go about it coolly. I located my college and went through it column by column.

"Have you passed?" asked my sister who was waiting for her school auto. I replied with quite a bit of tenseness that I could not locate the number. I kept searching. There it was..50236.Whew!!! What a relief. I checked again whether it was 50236 or 50238. Confirming that it was my number, I shouted to my parents(the next door building tenants would have heard it too) that I had passed. I then went upstairs with a spring in my steps and my heart considerably lighter. What a beautiful way to start the day!

……………to be continued.