Hi there, I am Sara.I hail from the sunny regions of South India, where no one may tread without being armed with an audacious amount of sunscreen. Unless of course the person wants to look like a wheather-beaten tomato; whatever floats your boat. India the land of exotic,intricate jewellery,dance and sculptures, and is the owner of my heart. Actually, Britian ties with India for the first position. I have lived there for the past two years and just recently shifted back. I can still feel the cool breeze, the cold kiss of the rain and the slow warmth of the sun. It feels like home now. 

I am currently in the profession of being a ChemNet writer. Exciting right? I mean with the deadlines, panic, zero inspiration and writer block(s), I have my hands full. Though I would not give it up for the world! So I hope you find my blogs interesting.


Results Day


Oh my goodness.

I feel sick; as must every other child on this 200,000 sq km island, stuck in the Atlantic Ocean, and bang in the midst of the most miserable weather of the entire week, on this day. This momentous day. This day, which I rather had not come at all, has arrived in all its pomp and glory. It’s Results Day.


Yet the screen has still not loaded with my results.

Fuming I drag my aching feet to the kitchen to scavenge some coffee to keep my fluttering eyes open. A symptom of the luxury of my holidays, which are finite; as this day has very kindly reminded me.  

As my parents serenely slumber in the adjoining room, I grumble to myself about the unfairness of the world, school, the results, my friends who will get all A*s, etc. The kind of blabber teenagers are prone to when under high levels of stress due to the impending nature of their resul- speak of the devil. And I had just found the coffee.

A blinking box cheerfully greets me as I reluctantly position my fingers over the keyboard. Oh dear me. I am pretty sure this had already taken 20 years off my too short lifespan.

The cursor hovers over the send button-

‘WAKE UP!’

BANG.CRASH.BANG, Bang, crash.  Ouch…


As the symphony to which I awake quieted, I managed to find some my bearings, with my legs in the air whilst rapidly slipping off the bed. Well, that explains my pounding head and the new angle at which I am currently viewing my world. Not that it was a bad angle, but my neck started protesting violently, forcing me to resume normal human posture. It’s a typical Indian summer day, with light streaming through the windows and boring school to go to.  So annoying.  

I rush to the washroom as my mother gives me the if-you-don’t-get-up-now-there-will-be-consequences evil eye. I am sorry, but I love my computer and phone too much. Ah, I wish for the long lost vacations. With this yearning in mind, I devise a plan for the entertainment to watch tonight.  My reward for 7 hours of school. Joy. As I morosely step out of the house, my mother yells behind me-

‘Don’t forget. Your results come tomorrow.’

And the world stops,as my dream comes crashing back. As my brain works furiously to remind me of the dream, my heart clenches with each sucessive image image.

First thought: I am going to die.

Second thought: I am seriously going to die.

Third thought(s): Oh my goodness oh my goodness oh my goodnessohmygoodnessohmygoodnessohmygoodnessohmygoodnessohmygoodness … 


All the mistakes I had made on various exams started to crash through my memory blanks and onto my retina as I started to panic. Every mistake, every exam, everything I didn’t remember, everything I didn’t write, every stupid, idiotic, illogical played at fast forward, and I was powerless to stop it.

It was horrible. Like reliving a nightmare again and again. Horrible.

So I step outside. I make my way to school. I greet my friends and so on. It’s routine. It still doesn’t take the film away from my head. It’s like your life is in the back seat and your fears and nightmares in the front seat, and you can’t see where it’s taking you. The sun beats down on my head. Making my body sweaty and disgusting, but my insides are as cold as stone. So I do my work, package all my tools and steel myself for the homing bullet of tomorrow.

With a heavy heart, I return home. Plans trashed for the evening, leave me with no joy contemplating them as I walk through the door. And then my parents arrived with all their swooping glory.

With the permission of entertainment in one hand and sweets in the other and being pushed to my room, I was thrown off balance, mentally of course- I like sweets too much to lose balance physically. But seriously, what in the world was happening? Was today a festival I had never heard about?  My questions were put to rest a moment later, as was the heavy burden I had been carrying the entire day.

‘Don’t worry about tomorrow kiddo, just eat up and have fun!’

‘We knew you would be worrying, but I am sure the results will be fine, after all you worked so hard for them’.

I love my parents.
As the storm in my head cooled down and my heart sprung into its unclenched state I stopped worrying.


And perhaps that was the hardest part. It was not studying for, giving or receiving the results, that was hard. It was the waiting. The long hours of staring at the wall, of trying our best to forget it by immersing ourselves in other things and of constantly trying to run away from it. It was fatiguing. And look at what we got. Exhausted and tired of worrying. In fact we were not even worrying about our actual results, but rather what others would think of us based on our results, our friends, our teachers, our society, but most of all – our parents. Who put in effort to get us into the place we are –‘What if my results are not good enough?’ is the thought that goes inside each of us.

But listen to me. Open out those ears and clean away the dirt and fear blocking it and listen to me.

Your parents love you. They love you for who you are, not what your marks show you to be. And even though there might be disappointments with your results, be GCSE , A-Levels or any other exam, this is what will happen: They will sulk, they will scold, they will threaten and all the manner of bad things will happen.
But they won’t leave you, and they will not stop loving you.

And downright-oh-my-goodness-is-that-really-my-grade results happen to the best of us. But as Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson said -‘What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us’. In the end, that printed letter on a piece of white paper will not matter more than you, ever.

So believe in yourself, no matter the results.



tbc....

Posted by Sara Misra on Aug 27, 2014 3:52 PM Europe/London

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