The Tragedy of Having Exams During Wedding Season

It was your mother who let you know of the wedding since the invitation came when you were outside doing "broke student" things. You take the invitation thrown haphazardly over your mountain of books and turn it over only to balk at the date. The wedding is right in the middle of your exams.

The wedding, in retrospect, was always meant to be around this time of the year. It doesn't matter that the wedding is of your favourite cousin, or your most beloved childhood friend, or your closest neighbourhood "apu/bhaiya". It doesn't matter that this is going to be the event of the year, especially since the first half of the year was awful and to compensate for the misery, everyone would try to make this event even more fun than it would have been otherwise. You are, unfortunately, a student in this magical time of the year, and that is always going to have some consequences.

You console yourself with daydreams of you in your graduation cap, yet a part of you still longs to disregard all your academic responsibilities and just get into the fray of pre-wedding preparations. So what if you have your finals on, or that you are an HSC examinee, or this is a delicate time before your board exams?

It doesn't mean that you should be happy to miss out on spontaneous wedding shopping, holuds that go on till 4 in the morning, or countless impromptu hangout sessions to discuss the wedding. You sigh looking at the Instagram stories and then looking at your most recent post with the #studygram. You feel robbed, yet you understand that there's nothing to do.

There were a few moments where you almost called up the "man/woman of the hour", begging them to change their wedding date. Thankfully, you had the last minute realisation that the world doesn't revolve around you, as much as you like to think of yourself as the "main character". So, you carry onwards in your quest to finish this round of forsaken educational milestones.

You get very little studying done, mind you. Considering the unfortunate circumstances, you think that's good enough.

The wedding day comes and goes. If you are really lucky, you get to attend at least two programmes, and you truly have fun for however little time you could spare. After all, you are just really happy for the newlyweds, and the fact that you did not get to properly celebrate their wedding doesn't diminish that.

So, you congratulate them with your exhausted eyes that tried to cram two chapters worth of information the night before, and get yourself a celebratory glass of borhani.

On your way, you concur that you have shown remarkable restraint and maturity that you're surprised you had. You spent this wedding season with the least amount of drama and angry tears and even managed to study. You completed this wedding season with dignity and that is worthy of celebration.

Congratulate yourself on a job well done and get home to hit your books again because the wedding may be over, but your exam sure isn't. 

Raya Mehnaz had to miss her brother's holud for her finals. Send condolences at fb.com/raya.mehnaz