Day Of The Jackal

He came pounding down the dirt trodden path at brisk pace. He looked around with his keen eye spotting his prey for the day . His sunken beady eyes glared out from under those protruding bones of his forehead. He stretched his limbs and body menacingly , freeing it from the strings of long inactivity of the previous night. Walking up and down , he analysed the flat expanse of dry , rugged terrain in front of him . He picked his line of attack , going over his action plan again ,making sure that his chances were good for a quick and clean kill . He looked at up at the sun ,guaging the time by its diuranal motion. The time was near,he could feel it . The day was hot . He licked his lips , feeling his saliva soak the dried skin ,making him feel instantly better. He used his furry paws to scratch his itching neck . Turning slowly he walked ,with neck hung low ,eyes down , conserving energy , searching for a comfortable place to lay in wait for the right angle of sun and for his hunting partner for the day to come . He sat there hidden from view from his prey , making murmuring sounds deep from his throat.

I was feeling tensed , unexpected at it was to me , it was making my palms moist in the mid morning sun. I knew I was safe for the moment , but I had seen the jackal come, reconnoitre and make his way into the shade . I could feel the tension among the other poor animals with me. They too could feel their time was close . Perspiration was running down the neck of each of the females with me . They could see that the hunter would go for the weaker female . I moved to their side and tried to calm a couple of them who were particularly close to me . I could see that one of them was taking long labourious breaths . I tried to calm her , or she would'nt have a chance at survival . Freezing in tense situations was a wide response I had seen among them . But today that would spell their definite doom , because the hunter today was as relentless and cunning , as he was fast in picking out the weaknesses in his prey.

Yes ,today was the fifth semester survey lab examination . The time was mid morning . We , a batch of two boys and 6 girls were waiting outside the civil engineering laboratory building , lazing around in front of the dirt laden roads . I could hear someone taking deep breaths . Turning around I see Anjana filling her chest with long inhalations and calm exhalations in a futile attempt to calm her jumpy nerves. Arathi was cool as ever , atleast on the outside . But i could feel her hand turning cold in mine. Finally after a while the time was here to see the result of what the constant conspiring of the external and internal examiners had churned out to make to make us sweat and toil in the hot sun and finally burn out our intellects and imaginations and still not reach a plausible result which may atleast lay to rest our fears untill we get out of the lab. Ofcourse the question appeared simple enough on first glance , but ofcourse , why would they do that ;give a simple question ? I had all the observations I needed , each of which i had painstakingly taken ,making sure each were correct to the nearest second .*what for?* Resuming the juggling i had left off an hour earlier, with the trignometric relations , on the plain figure , I used up all the imagination i could muster to improvise towards , at the least , a plausible answer. But needless to say nothing came out of the skillful manipulations and assumptions I made to dupe the examiner into overestimating my mathematical talents .

In the end I was probably better off than the others, Anjana having to manufacture readings and most others way off the mark with their *genuine* calculations. Lets wait and see whether all my innovative *creative* calculation methods pay off. *Varaan ollathu vazhiyil thangilla!*