“Good morning, sir!” Ali greeted cheerfully as he entered the classroom. His polite greeting made everyone in the class look towards him. In return, Ali received few greetings and smiles from he classmatesas he steadily walked towards an empty seat in the room. After a few minutes, the exam started.

Everyone in the classroom was given the question paper and an answer sheet. Soon they started doing their exam and there was silence in the room.

The teacher started walking between the rows of students and scrutinised everyone. After few minutes, the examiner came and stood very close to Ali.

Ali showed no concern as it was the duty of an examiner to look closely at each student so that there remains no chance of cheating. Ali remained focused and did his paper calmly.

Then, an unexpected thing happened, the examiner asked Ali to get up from his seat. Ali was shocked as well as confused, however, he stood. The examiner first checked Ali from head to toe and then looked all around his desk. He found nothing. He let Ali sit and continue with his paper.

Ali was embarrassed as all the students looked towards him with suspicion, but he ignored the whole episode and started doing his exam.

The examiner moved away, but stood at a distance while still staring at Ali. The examiner thought Ali was having cheat notes and that he was copying those on his answer sheet. All he wanted was to catch Ali red-handed.

Ali remained engrossed in his exam and maintained his calm expressions. He finished his exam before time, submitted the answer sheet to the examiner with a smiling face and then went out from the classroom. The examiner remained doubtful of Ali. So as Ali left, the examiner quickly started looking into Ali’s answer sheet.

He found that the answers were neatly organised. He continued turning over the pages. It was surprising for him to see such a fair and well-attempted work, done in very clear handwriting.

When he reached the last page, he saw that Ali was writing rough points at the back of his answer sheet so that he won’t forget them while writing the answer and could organise the answer in a step by step way. And Ali had crossed that page and written ‘Rough work’ on it to indicate that it was not part of his answer.

The examiner was ashamed to realised how wrong he was. He had misunderstood the boy and even embarrassed Ali by checking him in front of the whole classroom.

Remember, you cannot measure someone’s abilities. Being suspicious of someone and making judgment on that, can ruin their reputation and personality. So be careful in making judgments.

Published in Dawn, Young World, September 16th, 2021