She lets out a long breath. ‘Gaurav and Maa–Papa were irritating me. They kept telling me that it’s not the end of the world if I don’t score well. They think I will kill myself or something.’
‘You give that impression by the way you look right now.’
‘They also know how important today is. They are just acting, trying to play it cool.’
She turns and stares at her computer.
I look at my watch. ‘It’s not 10 a.m. yet.’
‘Sometimes, the results come quicker,’ she says. ‘But they haven’t or I would’ve started getting messages.’
Her fingers are trembling. She closes her eyes and mumbles a prayer.
To distract her, I say, ‘It was pretty unremarkable for me, the day my results were announced.’
‘Were your parents angry?’ she asks.
‘Again, presumptuous of you to think I scored badly, but yes, I scored a 73 aggregate. No, they weren’t angry.’
‘They should have been.’
‘Mumma hugged me. Baba went into a long-winded rehearsed speech about how no one remembers marks after a while. I remember we went out and had biryani. Right next to us, there were parents celebrating 90s, and there I was with a 73.’
‘And you? How did you feel about 73?’
‘I . . . I was disappointed to know that I wasn’t smart. I expected more, but the 73 sort of told me that I wasn’t one of the smart kids. It was the final confirmation.’
She nods.
She turns to the screen and swivels it towards me. ‘Can you check, please? I’m too nervous.’
I refresh the page. The results are still not out. I open a new browser. Sometimes, it shows the old cache if you keep trying to visit the same website. No change. So, instead, I take out my phone and I type in the website in my phone’s browser. It takes time to load. But it does.
‘Aanchal?’ I say.
‘What?’
‘The results are out.’
Her face turns red. I dangle the phone in front of her. She looks at me, eyes piercing mine and orders me, ‘You’re going to check my result.’
‘Wha—’
‘Do it, Daksh,’ she says, her voice barely a whisper. ‘3455883.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘You have to do it, you just have to,’ she says.
I type in the number. The page takes time to load. I say a silent prayer. She stares at the smudged swastika on her palm and closes her fist. Her scoresheet opens incredibly slowly. I find myself praying again.Please help her, help, her, help her, help her, help her, help her, help her.I want to hold her and tell her that everything is going to be fine.
My heart begins to race. The numbers start appearing. I don’t see twos, or threes, or even sevens.
100.
99.
99.
