By Yashna Paliya, Batch of 2017
‘Tis the season of practicals (basically, the blessed vivas)! You may drudge, you may delve into every nook and cranny of that book you got, you may revise (and re-revise), but the Gods of Vivas shall never smile upon you. There are some unwritten inner workings and conspiracies of the universe that no man can escape during vivas.
1. Your ‘how-much-you’ve-studied’ vs ‘how-chill-you-are’ graph is a negative slope.
The more you study, the more hassled you look, digging up terms and what not.
“Modulus of rigidity kya hota hai? Bata de, bhaii”
*sprints for the books*
Whereas on the other hand, the lesser you know, the surer you are of the outcome. Hence, all these vivas are only ‘moh-maya’.
“Lagne wali hai. McCain chalein?”
2. ‘Whatev’r thou studyeth, thou shalt nev’r be ask’d from, but always, the p’rson sitting next to thou shalt.’
Truest s**t ever.
All the questions posed to your co-viva-givers are EVERYTHING YOU KNOW. And you’re sitting there smugly, feeling good about yourself, that this viva is finally your calling…
and the next question they ask you, wait, WHAT? This is not what I signed up for. Thank you and, farewell.
3. You somehow always end up as that person who’s asked the irrelevant and hard questions.
Teacher: Give me types of bleh blah.
Student 1:* Obvious answer.*
Student 2: *Obvious answer.*
Student 3: *Not so obvious answer.*
After all possible answers are over and only the one super-hard type that no one cares to read is left.
Teacher: Aur batao, aur batao?
You:”…..sir, bas ye hi nahi padha. Aur kuchh bhi puchh lo.”
4. Agreeing to everything ‘they’ said.
There are times when you don’t know the answer to the question. Not a clue. Nada. What do you do then?
Look at the kid answering before you, and say “Yahi, sir. Jo isne bola.“
5. Pre-viva horror.
“Oi, can a dc generator be converted into an alternator?”
WHAT?
WHAT ALTERNATOR?
WHAT CHAPTER IS THIS?
WHAT SUBJECT IS THIS??
WHAT ARE THESE KIDS SAYING?!
Practicals get to the best of us. The key is put on all those lucky rings, gear up for all the above, and zor se bolo jai mata di!