She barely noticed the drone from the radio as the announcer switched to the weather forecast. She was quite sure she'd kept the hall ticket on the shelf right next to the telephone directory. Ten more minutes of frantic rummaging all around the shelf did not locate the truant piece of paper without which she was not going to be able to write the exam.

"Aasha, don't forget the umbrella, the radio says its going to rain," her mother chose just that moment to add to the tension. "Have you seen my hall ticket? I kept it right here," she hollered back. "It should be where you kept it," was the helpful response that she got. After some more feverish searching, she yelled again, "Did you take anything out of this shelf?". Her mother came in wiping her hands on the towel she kept hung on the back of the kitchen door. "What are you searching for? I didn't remove anything from the shelf," she said. "I am sure I kept the hall ticket here in the shelf," said Aasha as she desperately started removing everything from the shelf. "If you kept it there, it should still be there," her mother said, "you should really be more careful about these things."

This was not the first thing to go wrong for Aasha; her alarm clock had not gone off that morning and she'd woken up only at 7 AM instead of at 4 as planned which meant that she didn't get to go over those last 3 chapters. She had knocked over the coffee right onto the freshly laundered dupatta she'd kept on the table. She wasn't sure if it was just nervousness that was the reason behind the stomach cramps she was feeling that morning.

"I am careful, I know exactly where I put it. You must have moved it," she literally had to push her mother out of the way to get to the shelf again. "I am going to be late," she was almost in tears at that point. "Is this it?" her mother was holding something that looked very familiar! "Yes, where was it," she checked twice just to make sure she really had it and could run to get an auto. "Right here where you'd said it would be," said her mother with a weary sigh. "Are you late?" Aasha barely heard the question as she was running down the stairs while still putting on her shoes.

"Please hurry, I have an exam," the auto driver didn't bother to respond for a while. "You should have left earlier then," he grumbled just loud enough for her to hear, "look at this traffic, what can I do, fly?" She was leaning halfway out of the auto, the money ready in her hand when she saw the crowd outside. "Here you are," she said as she stumbled out barely noticing that the auto driver didn't have his hand out as far as she'd thought and had to reach to catch the money before it fell down. His irritated glare was wasted on her retreating back.

"What's going on? Why are you all still standing outside?"
"No exam today, don't you know? They are saying that the paper was leaked.. Hey where are you going? Come on inside, it's starting to pour!"

She barely noticed the rain as she walked home. She'd forgotten the umbrella and the storm had just hit. Her storm though, was over and she walked home with a tired smile on her face.