The Greatest Trick The Devil Ever Pulled Was Convincing The World He Didn't Exist


Date: Someday-I think March-1996
Time: Sometime in the morning

My history teacher comes into the room (CLASSROOM STD 10A), "Shaibala can I talk to Brijesh?" Shaibala said "Sure!" Kalyani said "Brijesh I can't seem to locate your final project did you turn it in to me?" Pulse raced, I knew I had nothing to lose, so why not right? NO! I've been trained not to lie, not to decieve, damn! what am i thinking, i have to answer Ms kalyani ! And so it began!

"Yeah Ma'am I did, you were standing by your office door and i handed it to you this morning."

Kalyani: "Ok let me go check again"

So yeah, that was it, i knew i had started a big mess!
You see all along I knew i had that damn history project, which was worth 20 points out of a total of 100 for my 10th board exams. The project sat in my bag while she looked, frantically, in her office, and probably everywhere she could look...
The thing was that I had done a disasterous job of trying to make a history project. I had tried, and failed, to burn the sides of the every page in that project book to make it look like it was an old manuscript. It wasn't...it was the ugliest thing you could imagine...
Why are we supposed to do those stupid things anyway? I know I'm not creative, so why try to make me creative, and end up making me look like a fool?
So yeah, I had turned in the project a couple days ago and she had turned it back over to us, after having taken a first look, so that we could make minor changes before it was given to the external grader.
She came back in an hour...
"Brijesh, I need you to look in your bag and check if it is still in there...I never misplace anything."
"No, Ma'am, it's not in my bag, [DAMN IF SHE COMES AND LOOKS HERSELF, IM DEAD], I'm sure i gave it to you..."
"Ok come out here!"
So i went out and waited, in the corridoor, sitting on a chair, outside the pricipal's office, while the external examiner, Ms Kalyani, and my principal had a discussion. Let me say this, it helps to have been a model student. So I waited, and taral came out and sat down with me, it was just the beginning of the lunch break, he waited with me, knowing exactly what was going on, and doing a great job of making everything look real. I don't remember if i had told him, or he just figured it out...but he knew...like only he could have. He looked at me, and he knew what i was doing!
And he just sat beside me, while people gathered around us, and asked me if everything was ok...and I had no words...with my head down, probably thinking that they had caught on and that everything was done, I had messed everything up, just for a stupid project...while just he sat there...

I had started to feel very scared...this was unheard of, the meeting went on for a long time...and it happened...the touch of GENIOUS...the one thing that could change the final outcome...I CRIED...It had to have been one of the greatest performances of any amateur actor's life...to sit there...and take in all the sympathy from everyone on that floor...and cry. WHILE HE JUST SAT THERE...

Finally, when they ended the neverending meeting...she looked at me...."Brijesh, you have three days, redo your project."

You will never believe it...it was the defining moment of this story...everything happened exactly according to the "no-plan" that i had going...so taral and myself..we got up and went to the restroom...we walked and looked at eachother...he was probably thinking that I had to have balls of steel to pull this....but i didn't...it was sheer luck....so we walked into the restroom...it was just me and him in there...
"HARAMI...", he said.
And we laughed...and laughed...because we knew the magnitude of the lie that we had just pulled...we had used up every bit of the goodwill that both he and myself had earned over the years with our teachers...and it had worked PERFECTLY!


Couldn't have done it without you man! Love ya