July 15, 2020 was an important day in many students’ lives, as well as mine. As anyone can guess, that was the day when the 2019-20 batch’s 10th CBSE Board Results were released.
But this time it was something beyond normal results release. I had finished all my exams (luckily) on March 18 itself, and had dreamed of an amazing vacation in Mumbai at my Grandma’s place, outings with my friends, shopping etc., once I finished my exams. But a tiny virus came as an obstacle to all these plans. But my plans could wait, actually. Many students’ exams were held up for so long and many exams weren’t even conducted. For those exams not conducted, the marks were based on their internal assessment marks. Few were lucky and few were unlucky, if you consider these marks.
And the wait for results were so long this time, (longer than usual) due to the lockdown and pandemic. Paper correction and evaluation became a tougher procedure as these had to be done individually by teachers at their homes. Then the distribution, arrangement, etc., etc., all had to be done keeping in mind the abnormal dangerous situation of disease.
And my 10th grade vacation seemed to grow longer and longer and just more longer. If only I could go out and enjoy this unusually loooong vacation too. But honestly, my vacation turned out to be similar to a jail punishment for having written Board Exams.
Then were the online classes, meetings and calls. I had never been part of an online class until the results came, which means I didn’t open even a page of my study books during the whole 4 months of waiting for results. I didn’t start preparing anything for my 11th grade at all, whereas at the same time, my other grade friends had to spend most of their time in online classes. I was kind of gloating a bit, but not for too long.
During the first two months, (actually the whole four months) I never really gave a thought about the results. Since the lockdown and everything seemed to go on extending, I stupidly thought that even the results would go on extending.
Due to the delay, I even forgot how well or bad I wrote all my exams. My friends were in the same situation too. So, when CBSE announced that the results would be out on or before July 15 2020, I couldn’t actually make a predictable result of my marks. No remembrance of whether I wrote Science better or Social. I was tensed for a few minutes when I heard this news, but then thought, “July 15 is a long way to go.” And again didn’t think about the results at all. I just danced, painted, watched TV, read books, and talked to my friends all the time.
When July started, I remembered with a jolt that this was the month for results. Then as usual, I chatted away with my fellow 10th graders about the upcoming results. My friend Poojithaa and I would make deep analyses of our performances in our exams (with whatever we could remember), compare, brood over it and stay tensed until one of us would say, “Okay, stop this topic.” And then the usual topics would continue through chat.
This happened sometimes in our class Whatsapp groups too, when July 15 dawned nearer and nearer, and emotions grew tenser and tenser. But still, I would only get a bit tensed if I was reminded of it, otherwise I was surprisingly cool (I was known to be a ‘tension-party’ among my friends).
Whenever someone would become hysterical or too much tensed about their results, then all the messages would be like, “These marks are not really important” “It’s okay nobody will remember your marks after two days” and the famous line “A single sheet of paper will not change my future.” I also mischievously sent reminders to all my 10th grader friends about ‘the’ July 15th that was in the next week, and they shot back with messages like, “Why did you have to do this to me?” and “I’ll never leave you for this!”
I never really took results seriously until the 12th grade results came on July 13th. I saw my seniors getting their pretty good marks and people congratulating them. Only then did I realise that the same thing would be happening to me the next day or the day after that day. Even the school Whatsapp group became more active, and the topics were about how the results could be accessed, what was Digilocker and how it worked, and so on. Then the emotion called tension started swelling up in me. Few relatives and teachers even messaged me asking what were my results on July 13th (the day 12th results came out) and whether I got a centum. Hearing the word ‘centum’, my tension bounded up even more. I didn’t even remember whether I wrote good enough to get a centum. Then only did I start seriously remembering my answer sheets where I had left thinking about them on March 18th. I thought I could probably get a centum in IT (computers), because I had written it fairly well. My only doubt of getting above 90 marks was in Hindi, and even Social I was doubtful for above 95. But Maths I was sure I would either get 97 (because I had lost a 3-mark question in Trigonometry) or some real bad mark. English and Science I couldn’t actually make up an expectation. So when I calculated my approximate score, I got 474, and I thought that was a decent score. I just wanted my overall percentage to be above 95 (although a tiny ray of hope in my mind expected a centum in Science).
So on the result day, I woke up early and sat in front of the laptop the whole while, with the CBSE result site open for company. Then was the announcement that the results would be out only after 12pm in the afternoon. I had already finished my works for the day the previous night, so that I could devote my entire day for this.
The school Whatsapp group was the most active group this day. And it had never been so active, every single member was online and sending ‘good luck’ messages. The ‘good luck’ messages made everyone feel really worse, so we just chatted about random, made-up topics (just for diversion ) like what we ate for breakfast, or what movie we watched recently.
Then 12pm started ticking nearer and nearer. We chamathu-kids were thinking that once the clock struck 12, the results would be out and we’d be done and dusted. But CBSE cleverly didn’t put a ‘P’ in their acronym, so they never told they would be ‘PUNCTUAL’. The clock struck 12:00, 12:10, 12:20 and so on, and everyone was getting frustrated that there was no change in the CBSE site which should have shown the link to our results. Then at about 12:30 pm, the HRD Minister officially announced that the results were out and they could be accessed in the website. Everybody hurriedly entered their details and hit the ‘SUBMIT’ button with a heavy, tensed heart, only to see a blank page telling “This site cannot be found.” I could tell this my whole life, “There is nothing more frustrating than this moment.”
We all kept trying again and again, but as predicted the site crashed. It was obvious, since about more than 18 lakh people were accessing the site at the same time. There was another method for knowing our results: through SMS. I had sent a message to the CBSE number long back in the morning, but there was no reply.
Time ticked away, and the clock struck 1:00 pm. And yet, no sign of the results. None of my friends had received too. Then at around 1:15 pm, my mom gave me a shock telling my results had come through SMS! I saw my marks and was happy that as expected I had got a centum in IT, but lower than what I had expected in English, Science and Social. But I was very happy with my Math mark: 98 (since I had never crossed even 65 out of 80 marks in all my Math exams in school). The funny thing is that I got very good marks in the subjects I disliked the most and the lowest in the ones I loved the most. But I was happy that I had got 94+ in all the subjects. That was enough for me and I got 96% in overall.
In fact, I was the first one to get the results in my whole school group. When I said “It came for me guys!”, most of them were like “Really?” and then slowly, everyone got their marks too. I decided that the SMS Distribution of results are the best way to get your results rather than the website. Later on in the evening, I was able to access the website and get my proper marksheet through Digilocker too.
My parents, dance teacher, and relatives were real happy to know I had got 96%, since I had gone for a lot of dance programs this year than I’d gone normally, and got very less time to study properly. In fact I had gone for dance programs and classes in between my Board Exams. I hadn’t scored very well in my school exams either, so I could keep up my promise to myself and my parents that I’d score well in the Boards.
Then the whole day was spent in calling up relatives, attending result-enquiry calls and asking my friends their marks through chat. I had become tired by talking too much that by the end of the day I developed a sore throat (which alarmed my parents, and they looked at me suspiciously for other signs of CoVid-19).
Overall, it was an exciting first-time experience of CBSE Board Results for me!