As the S.S.C exams were just A few weeks away, the students scarcely paid any attention to the circular ready by the teacher regarding the inter-school elocution competition in hindi for ssc students.

The students barely raised their heads buried in the notes that they had been mugging up. Who has the time for such diversions when feverishly preparing for the exams?

During meals at night sudha, the ssc student causally mentioned about the elocution competition to her mother. “ I think none from our class is going to participate.”

Sudha's mother stopped eating. “ Elocution competition? Find out the details and let me know. 

“ But mummy you want me to take part? That's impossible! I don't have time to prepare for it!” Sudha protested.

But her mother was firm that sudha must take part in the competition. “ I shall train you.” Sudha went on protesting . Then her mother narrated an interesting experience she had when she was an ssc student to convince sudha. " The second terminal exam was going on…this happened on the day we were to appear for our exam in tamil. There were rumours about cancellation of the exam in view of the students strike in the town. The students who were quite sure of the closure of the school were in no mood to sit for the exam. They were eagerly expecting the striking students to storm into campus and save the ordeal of writing an exam for which they were prepared the least. Lo! The bell rang. The reachers warned that the answer paper would be evaluated and the marks would be entered in the register. But the girls were in such a distracted state of mind that most of them sat with blank papers.

“You too ignored the warning?” Asked sudha. " No. I took a wise deciy. I had always been weak in tamil and I used to fare poorly in the subject . on the day of exam I had barely learnt by heart a couple of answers , that too just before entering the classroom. I went through the exam paper frantically looking for a question for which I knew the answer . Fortunately, the questions for which I had learnt the answers by rote, were there among the maze of confusing questions!

Unlike the others I wrote the two long answers I knew thoroughly and then the strikers arrived, forcing us to stop work.