So miracles do happen! ;-)

October 15. I had screwed up my Communications paper. (Slightly less screwed up than Mohammad Kaif's fielding stance while catching at slip). The sitter of a paper had been spoilt. To make matters worse, we had we had Accounts-5 the very next day. (For the uninitiated, Accounts-5 = Waterloo of many a budding accountant.)

Dhara Zinzuvadia, a senior, who topped the entire Gujarat University in her FYB.Com University exams, came to the final year and flunked the first sem in this very subject. Now if THAT wouldn't scare us poor old average students, then nothing would!

Let's cut to the chase. I had not studied so well for Accounts-5. The time I had on October 15 was about 20 hours to study for A/c-5. At an average, informs Professor Jokhi, about 70% of all TY students in my college had failed A/C-5 in the previous years. It's do or die. My case was more like, "Didn't do, so already dead".

Low passing percentage or not, I just had to give it my best shot and not worry about the outcome. Because this was pretty much a lost cause.

I decided that my strategy would be to crack the theory questions and ignoring the practicals. Till about 10 in the night, I crammed and I crammed as if there was no tomorrow. Umm... I think there wasn't.

October 16: After 4 hours of sleep, my heart thumps! 9.45 AM, we start the paper. I pull my hair out in frustration. It was like this. Your syllabus has 6 parts. You study 5 and leave out 1. And what they ask you in the paper is the one that you did not study. Talk about the height of frustration.

The paper was a disaster. I think I attempted less than 25 marks out of 50. So 'disaster' is a small word. The result seemed inevitable. Only 1-2 times before in my life was I 100% sure of failing an exam. This was another addition to the list. Came home. Told exactly that to my folks, who obviously were pissed. I said I tried my best, but who's to believe?

November 26:Results were declared. I ignored it for a while as a huge crowd gathers around the noticeboard to check out the results. I decided to come back later after the crowd scatters. Meanwhile, Puneet became curious about my result and asks for my roll number so that he could check it out for me. I asked him to piss off.

He still somehow managed to find my name on the results list and noted down my result. He came back and tried to tell it to me. But I still tried to ignore him. Then he comes up and says, 'Congrats, you passed'.

Now only a very few things in life can be too excessively good to be true. It's like finding an oasis when you have been lost in the Sahara for a month. Like India chasing all 360 runs in the world cup final. Like getting to be Kirk Hammet for a day and to be able to stirr up those ungodly guitar riffs.

Like hearing that Karan Johar died in a gruesome car crash where his body got mangled beyond recognition and was eaten up by vultures before any medical help could arrive.

What Puneet said might have been one of those things: EXCESSIVELY good to be true. It was difficult to believe him since I was 200% sure of failing in Accounts-5. Secondly, you can't trust a Sardar especially if he wears a fake beard on the 'Dressup like Sardars' day.

Checked out the notice board myself. "Accounts-5: 19/50".

So I passed. When I think about it... maybe I was on the borderline and was pushed over by a few grace marks. But I had decided to take the problematic subject, HEAD ON without thinking too much of the consequences. May be that is what paid off.

A miracle, nonetheless.

Moral of the story: Never, never, never, EVER give up. You may never know what's coming your way.