A surprise class test on creative essay writing for class IX students at Holy Mary Holy Jesus High School in Mumbai resulted in heartburn and unhappiness amongst the entire class. Ironically, the topic for the essay was 'How to be Happy?'. Mrs. Sheela Patkar, who teaches English at the school surprised the students by announcing a surprise test on essay-writing. But when she handed out the results of the test the next day after evaluating the performances of her students, it left most of the students upset, distraught and deeply unhappy.
Class topper Prashant Deshpande who always prepares well for every test found it difficult to complete his paper as the topic of the essay was beyond the syllabus of class IX. Finishing 39th in the class having scored only 34 out of 100 marks, he was terribly upset that the teacher didn't give a list of probable topics for him to study before taking the test. "Even if she had given us a list of essay topics just a day before, I would have downloaded all the essays from the Internet, memorized them and would have finished on top" he was heard whining to his friends.
The surprise test disturbed the current order of the class with students who regularly receive good grades finishing poorly and those who generally don't do well scoring better. But even those who finished with high scores weren't too pleased when they were told that the results of the test wouldn't count for the final examination at the end of the year. "Will I at least receive a certificate of merit in essay-writing?" asked Ranbir Singh who finished third in the class. When he was told that he wouldn't he sat down dejectedly wearing the what-was-the-use-of-all-the-
Mahesh Surve, who was awarded top rank did well since he was lucky to have read a forwarded email titled '20 Simple Tips to be Happy Now'. just a few weeks before the test. "Usually I delete email forwards where there are no pics and lot of text to read, but out of curiosity I read this mail. Luckily, I remembered at least 12-13 of the tips I read." But his joy at finishing on top for the first time in any school test or a sporting event was short-lived as he learned that his top rank won't go down in record books. To make matters worse, he was chided by topper kid Prashant Deshpande who took the opportunity to remind him that one swallow doesn't make a summer.
Soon a minor scuffle broke out between the two groups - regular-toppers-who-did poorly-in-the-test and regular-averagers-who-did better-than-expected - as they got down to name-calling and poking fun at each other.
Surprisingly the only kid who looked calm, contended and happy was the one who finished last in the essay-writing test scoring a perfect duck. Natwar Sharma, a regular backbencher of the class, nicknamed as Naughty Nat by his teachers, returned an almost blank answer sheet with just three words written on it in bold letters "I AM HAPPY!". Natwar seemingly unperturbed by his poor show looked almost delighted that he had scored a zero and wore a mysterious smile on his impish face.
His enigmatic smile further frustrated those around him who looked at him enviously and bitched about his devil-may-care attitude. But Natwar was too happy with himself to care about either his poor grades or backbiting of his classmates. No one could understand the reason for his happiness. After a lot of frenzied confabulations, the entire class was convinced that he must have lost his mind as a result of shock of scoring a duck in the test.
gloomy guy
said:
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I'm envious of naughty nat too. I once read 100 tips on how to be happy. Shortly after i fell into deep depression as i realized i didn't have the ability to follow a single tip  |
