Ok. Here's the deal. I wake up late, start to rush to the class when I remember that taking the 'Marketing' text book is mandatory. So I start searching for mine. I take a quick look into my pile of books, clothes and rubbish but I cant find it. I find my room-mate's 'Marketing' text book lying right on his table, waiting for me to take it to class, which I eventually do. We have 4 class sessions for the day. After 3 classes, I go out for a fag during the break. But by the time I return from my fag-break, I am late by 10 minutes for the next lecture. And it so happens that the prof bolts the classroom from inside for that very lecture(she hasn't done that ever). So I go back to my room, message one guy who's in the class to get my textbook(my roomie's actually) from class and keep it safe. Time passes and I forget about collecting that book from him.
Mid term exams are around the corner, people start to crib about the syllabus and the toppers who always study - all that stuff. A week passes. Mid term exams are on. It so happens that the 'Marketing Management' exam is an open-book exam. My room-mate looks for his text book all around and doesn't find it. He asks me and I say that I am unaware of the wherabouts of that book. So he gets a 'Marketing' book from a guy in the senior batch(last year's edition). It so happens thatin the 20-mark paper there's a 5-mark question that deals with a concept that's there only in the new edition. My roomie is real angry that he had to miss that question coz of the idiot who misplaced his book.
One week after the mid terms are over, the guy whom I had given my roomie's book to, reminds me to take it from his room. Now here's the dilemma. Do I give it back to my roomie ? I mean I want to. But I also dont want to earn his ire for this one innocuous mistake of mine. I want him to have his book back, coz if the final exam is an open-book again, he stands to lose some marks again(if the nitwit prof chooses topics which aren't there in the previous edition). If I tell him directly and give the book back, he'll give me the "You fuckin asshole, you ruined my Marketing paper" look, which I dont want to be the recipient of. So I am thinking of keeping it in a remote corner of the room, where he may not have looked while searching for the book before. But if he had looked in that place on that day, then he would know that I had planted it there now, which would make me look more idiotic and stupid than in the case where I tell him directly about it. On the contrary, I think placing it just on his table or his bed would do the trick. He may feel that someone who had his book has come and dropped it on the bed. But then, he'd ask me who was the guy who had dropped it on the bed ? (we are 2 persons per room actually). Thinking of so many difficult solutions makes me fall back on the easiest solution, doing nothing about it. Sometimes, it is better not to do anything, coz doing anything may only do more damage to the already bad situation in hand. But then, doing the right thing is what people so easily do in the movies and TV serials. What's the maximum punishment an actor can get? His character may be killed, that's all na. He'll find some new roles to do, life would go on. But this is real life. I can lose my life for real if my roomie, out of frust, pulls out a sub-machine and carries out another 'Virginia tech' shootout in our hostel lobby. So that brings me to the question again - What do I do? Am still thinking......
