The Brown Shock

Surprise quizzes (I still prefer the word short test) are a very common phenomenon here. Every term has got courses in which the quizzes are “unannounced”, the euphemistic term used by the faculty members for a surprise quiz.. But, the word “surprise” in itself seems to be quite incongruous for something as nasty as a short test. Surprises are supposed to be pleasant. But how can a short test be pleasant, is the million dollar question. With time and experience, we have devised our own methods of predicting a surprise quiz, or at least can predict that a surprise quiz is not about to be given, but many a times they have really caught us unawares. More than this, the fear of a surprise quiz being given always lurks at the back of the mind. Therefore, the first thing which many of us do on reaching the classroom complex is trying to search for the brown envelope in which the teacher carries the question papers. That is if the teacher is already there Of course, the technological revolution has also played a major role as the message passes from one section to another, through SMS.
The teachers too leave no stone unturned in making the quiz a real (nasty) surprise. They try to hide the brown envelope as much as possible. One of our teachers who taught a course in the first term did not even carry the papers in the envelope. Another teacher would send the question papers through his secretary, even when the lectures for some other course would be going on. Now that was what used to come as a shock, more often than not catching us on the wrong foot.
The brown envelope has become synonymous with shocks. You sight it when you least expect or want to sight it. Just imagine, you have a sumptuous breakfast of buttered toast and cutlet, on a sunny morning, looking forward to a lunch of kadhi pakora and rice, just four hours away, when you catch sight of something brown peeping from the teacher’s file. The good and sweet thoughts just vanish away. More so, because, your calculations showed that the test will be given in the next lecture and you were dumb enough to come unprepared for it.
So, it is another chance squandered, another test gone awry and yet another D and the brown saga continues.