Despite Smriti’s earnest attempts, an imminent failure in Mathematics was right around the corner. Her second year Pre-University examinations had just finished and she had managed to convince her parents that she had given it her best shot. They knew she was lying. But to keep things calm at home everyone involved nodded and went along. Thus began Smriti’s wait for the day when the truth would bare its roots.

During this waiting period, she found a new hobby – the internet. She would visit the cyber café near her house and shell out a generous Rs 25 to surf the web for an hour. That one hour was the only time she would not think about the nightmares that awaited her outside. Instead she spent her time chatting with random people. Those few minutes of bliss gave her immense pleasure.

On one such evening she found a rather bizarre message in her email inbox. It was from an unknown sender called “friend” and contained a horrifying tale of a girl who had committed suicide due to her examination failures. It went on to describe in gory detail as to how she had planned and executed the death. The story also poignantly re-enacted the sea of sorrow that had swept past the parents. Smriti’s eyes welled up as she read the message and tried to erase images of her self dangling under a fan.

Despite the obvious helplessness there was one line at the end of the message which instantly lit up Smriti’s moist soul. It read “Send this message to at least 10 other people now and good luck will be yours in 30 days!” Needless to say she looked in her address book and shot the message off in a few heartbeats. That day she returned back to her haunted world of reality with a smiling face.

Elsewhere Sandeep, one of her classmates, opened the same message and deleted it instead. Smriti’s fate was disclosed a few weeks later as she realised she had not only failed in Mathematics but also in Biology. Instead of killing herself she decided to give it one more shot after all. Her parents were obviously upset but were glad she was still alive unlike other news they had read. Smriti blames Sandeep even today for breaking the chain.