Perils of Copying!

Disclaimer: All the incidents in this post are completely imaginary and any character resembling any living legend is highly coincidental. ;-)
To make the post more interesting, I am playing the role of the copy cat ;-)
People who know about this incident are going to kill me for the previous line. :-)

I should admit that I am an amateur in copying during exams. There is a wonderful incident that took place when I was in the 3^rd semester. We had a very boring and theoretical subject, System Software. Eventually, we had our first unit test. I had the jitters about the test as I had not prepared even a single word. My best friend advised me not to get so het up about it, and it is after all a unit test. She promised that she ll help me face the test by letting me copy from her (as if she had slogged like crazy by preparing for 18 hrs continuously for the test. the fact is, she had the book fully open on her lap.. I should really appreciate her for the guts..)

The teacher made an announcement.. “The test starts now and you have exactly 40 mins to complete the paper”.
This is when the copy game started. My friend showed me her full paper generously. I got so tensed, that I started sweating profusely. For every 1 word I copied from her, I ll search for my teacher to see if she is anywhere close to me. I couldn’t even hold my pen properly because my hands were drenched with sweat. My heart was beating so fast and loud that I was afraid that the others could hear my heart beat.. (:P) anyways, I had all the feelings that a thief will have when he steals for the first time. Successfully I finished copying one 2 mark from her and I was totally exhausted by then.

Then this hallow suddenly appeared behind my head from nowhere and an inner voice told me that I am holier-than-thou :-D , hence I decided to write the rest of the answers on my own (by recollecting whatever my ma’am taught us during class..)

I started thinking hard, scratching my head (people around me would have got an impression that I had a severe dandruff problem, cos most of the time I was scratching only.. :D) . I filled the answer sheet with all the possible stories. Managed to fill in 2 additional sheets. The 40 minutes seemed to be like 4 years to me. Alas.. My teacher announced that it was time for us to submit the paper!! Phew…... it was all over. I tied the sheets and submitted it on the table and I was the first to come out of the hall.. I was very happy that I had come out of the hall spot-free.

Waiting for the result, is any day much painful than taking up the test. I was praying to every single god that I should clear the test. The much awaited day came finally. My teacher entered our class with the bundle of answer sheets with a skuzzy look. Every time she looked at the girls’ side, I felt as though she was accusing me for copying that one 2-mark. There were already very anxious people sitting in the front row who were trying to look into the marks stealthily. My teacher had arranged the sheets in attendance order and it was my bad luck that I was one among the last few in the attendance list. The long wait was testing my patience.

My teacher finally read out my roll number

Ma’am: Roll no :111 (the roll number signifies a lot.. Naamam!!! :D )
Me : (went to the dais)
Ma’am: Roll no 111 and 112 total copy
Me : ma’am… errrr. Umm(I wanted to say, “Ma’am u ve not read the paper properly ”)
Ma’am: Now read out your answer to the class.

I was already very very embarrassed.. and I couldn’t imagine that I ll be the laughing stock if all my other friends(experts in copying) realized that I was caught for copying.
In order to hide my embarrassment, and wanting to prove that my teacher was wrong, I went through both our answers. My total bad luck, my teacher was talking about the first 2-mark that I had copied.
The answer in my paper was something like this “… a 16-bit software register, which is written into the nonvolatile ... “
Somehow, the Saturn in me (wanting to punish me) saw the word bit.

Me : (in stead of saying “No ma’am, it is different (as if I were campaigning for the Maggi sauce :D ) I said………………………………………………

NO MA’AM…. IT IS A BIT DIFFERENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There was a silence in the entire class which was ephemeral and it was followed by a roar of laughter.. My teacher herself started laughing for the dumbest statement she had ever heard from any student. She was rather surprised because she thought that I admitted that I had copied. I turned pink in embarrassment.

Copying is an artifice and I realized that I can never master it!