An Internal Exam in Life
An Internal Exam in Life
This happened during my engineering days at a government engineering college in Kerala.
We were four friends staying in a small private hostel in the city, travelling every morning to campus by the crowded KSRTC bus, standing near the door, gripping the overhead rod, discussing cinema, cricket, and world problems, while carefully avoiding the syllabus.
That particular week, we had an internal exam on a Monday morning. We all knew it well. As usual, we treated it casually. By sunrise, none of us had studied even a single chapter.
At the bus stop that morning, there was an uncomfortable silence.
Finally, one of us said softly,
Shall we skip it today?
No one objected.
We made a bold decision.
We decided not to write the exam on that day.
Instead of rushing to the exam hall, we waited until the test was over. Then we entered the campus slowly, choosing our pace carefully, like people who had faced serious trouble. Without stopping anywhere else, we went straight to the Dean’s office.
The Dean was a strict disciplinarian, a professor with more than three decades of teaching experience. He was in his early fifties, always neatly dressed, always calm. He rarely smiled, never shouted, and never wasted words. His strength was silence. Students feared him because he listened closely and remembered everything.
He looked up from his papers.
“Yes?” he said, adjusting his glasses.
We sat down.
One of us began carefully,
“Sir… this morning… we couldn’t attend the internal exam.”
The Dean did not react.
“Why?” he asked.
We exchanged quick glances.
“We came by car, sir,” another one said.
“Car?” he repeated mildly, as if the word itself needed verification.
“Yes, sir. On the way… puncture.”
He leaned back slightly.
“Puncture,” he said again, tasting the word.
“Yes, sir. Not a small one. Serious problem,” we added quickly.
“Tyre damaged. Jack problem. Took a long time.”
He nodded once.
“You tried repairing it yourselves?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” he said calmly. “That is practical knowledge.”
We were not sure whether that was approval or observation.
He looked at his watch.
“Internal exam was from nine to ten.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you reached college at…?”
“Almost eleven, sir.”
He paused, then asked softly,
“All four of you were in the same car?”
“Yes, sir.”
Another pause.
Then he said,
“Alright.”
Our hearts lifted.
“You can take a retest,” he continued.
“Three days later.”
“Thank you, sir,” we said together, standing up quickly.
As we walked out, one of us whispered,
“Yes, this also passed.”
For the next three days, we studied like responsible students. No movies. No canteen breaks. No unnecessary distractions. We treated books with renewed respect.
On the day of the retest, the Dean spoke again, without looking up.
“You will write in separate rooms.”
“No problem, sir,” we replied confidently.
Then the question paper arrived.
Two questions.
- Write your Name, 1 mark
We smiled.
- Which tyre burst? , 99 marks
Options:
(a) Front Left
(b) Front Right
(c) Back Left
(d) Back Right
That was the moment our preparation ended.
We had planned the excuse.
We had practised the story.
We had even perfected the tired look.
But we had never decided which tyre.
After the exam, as we were leaving the corridor, the Dean happened to walk past us. He looked at us once, briefly, and said in a calm voice,
“Next time, gentlemen, decide your details before you decide your story.”
That day, we learned something no textbook had ever taught us.
You can escape once.
You can fool a system.
But you cannot outsmart experience.
When I think back now, I don’t remember the marks we got. I remember the smell of grease, the confident lie, and that one deadly question.
And I smile.
Because college does not just teach engineering.
It teaches timing.
Judgement.
And the cost of clever shortcuts.
In engineering, details matter.
In life, lies demand even more details.
And sometimes, one missing detail costs you 99 marks.