It all started with one innocent message in our class unofficial WhatsApp group, which was dropped by me, "Hey guys, should we do a group study for Media Law? Exam’s in three days". Now, as a Master’s student in Mass Communication, I knew exactly what this meant. We weren’t going to study, we were going to panic together, like a bunch of caffeine-fueled, semi-prepared intellectuals pretending to be responsible adults.
So, we decided to study on the WhatsApp Video call because of the tremendous heat, any person can become tandoori chicken.
We were four girls or rather I would say "WOMEN", and our conversation starts with, "Pata hai Riya aur Rohan ka chakkar chal raha hai (You know, Riya and Rohan is having an affair)".
I mean, bruh....we joined the call to prepare for our first semester exam, and they all were less bothered. But, I found it a little bit interesting as well, so I also jumped into the conversation and ended up saying all the "Darkest secrets" of Riya. I promised her that I would never share those conversations with anyone. It went for thirty minutes and we didn't open our notes.
Again, I stopped the useless conversation (which was useful to them) and made them open their class notes. Unfortunately, I could only see the drawings of trees, flowers, red hearts, and their boyfriend's name on each page of their notes. I got in trauma because I was the only one with perfect notes, as I had to travel for two hours for a single class, which was unreal. We got into the syllabus and found out that we don't know any of the topics, so we started panicking(which we do in most cases, and it's a core job for us).
Ritama asked, "We are in miserable positions right now. We have to start the syllabus, otherwise we will fail this time".
After hearing that, everyone got panic attacks again (it was the second time). I told them to start with the first topic of the media Law, which was defamation. So, as I have attended the classes, I started teaching them what it is all about, under which article it comes. Then, I heard a whistling sound. I saw that Shreya was sleeping peacefully, and Priya was eating Domino's pizza. I don't from where she got in the middle of the group study. I asked them to be serious, but they were chilling, and seeing that, they were giving me chills.
Shreya wakes up suddenly and says, "Why aren't you all studying? Time is running out...come on, let's buckle ourselves."
I was surprised, but it worked, and we started studying for the exam. I helped them prepare all the notes that were important for the exam, and they eagerly prepared for it. I was surprised yet happy that we started our syllabus. Sometimes, they pretend to study, pretend to listen, and sometimes pretend your Wi-Fi died just to escape.
Suddenly, a minor mood swing happened, and everyone got distracted again.
Ritama said, "I need some rest and some food....I lost my energy". Shreya replied, "yes...even am also going to get someting to eat".
We have to stop where we ended. They went to bring some snacks, and Priya and I were gossiping about more lovey-dovey cases that were happening in our department. Soon after, they join the call again, and we start studying.
After completing almost half of the syllabus, everyone exclaimed, "Let's keep it till here...We are sleepy".
As we all know, Bengalis need an afternoon nap after having their lunch. We decided to sit again in the evening, and everyone dissolved the meeting. Group studies on video call are the ultimate performance art. We pretend to study, pretend to listen and also pretend to understand.
But in the middle of all the mess, there’s laughter, panic bonding, and that weird comfort of knowing everyone’s equally doomed. And for Mass Comm students like us, that’s the most unfiltered content we could ask for. After all, if we can survive a group Zoom study, we can survive anything, even the exam.
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