Faith

'How could he do this to me?', standing in front of the notice board, Ankit imagined his fraudulent friend lieing him earlier. 'I trusted him so bad, that I forgot even to doubt that he would ever take such a decision', he thought to himself. On the notice board, a notice regarding the failure of a student was pinned. It was two days ago when it all happened. The final exams were over and the annual submissions were being conducted. In the celebration of the end of exam, Ankit didn't prepared for the labs. On the day of exam rumours started galloping the hostel environment that the external examiner is very strict and always failed atleast one student in the final exam. Shivered by the thought of failure, Ankit remembered the only person he could ask for help without hesitance. When he entered Yogesh's room, all he could see is the mess all around and at the top of the pile of mess, a boy was sitting comfirtably reading or rather enjoying the book. 'How the hell are you reading for exam, today?', Ankit asked him bewildered. "Don't you know tomorrow is the toughest lab?", Yogesh asked calmly. "Yeah, I know it now. I am totally lost. Please help me to understand the programms."
The next day, both entered the exam hall together, satisfied by their last night work. The examiner distributed the sheets to students and the starting bell rang. Ankit opened the sheet confidently to start writing. But shell shocked was he when he read the title of the experiment. "How the hell could this happened? Why did I left the single experiment and got the same?", he murmured in disbelief. Frustrated by his own luck, his eyes started searching for the solution and as usual the only thing that came to his mind was Yogesh!! He found him sitting on the corner of the next table. Desperate to get rid of the problem, he signalled Yogesh, but poor were his efforts. The examiner was sitting there and could not be fooled. Exasparated, Ankit started thinking of the solution. When the examiner went outside to freshen up, Ankit stood up from his place and ran to Yogesh. "You got which experiment?", Ankit struggled with his breath. "The same as you", Yogesh replied calmly. "Just tell me whta to write?", Ankit begged helplessly. Suddenly he heard the voice of the footsteps of examiner coming close. Without thinking for a second, Yogesh took his answer-sheet and gave it to Ankit and took his. Ankit came back to the place in time. But the examiner sensed the movement in the room. Angrily he announced that no two programs should match or he will fail both of the students. Yogesh saw the fear in Ankit's eyes and returned him reassuring smile.
'He must have given me the wrong answers', Ankit thought to himself as he started going away from the notice board. 'Hey Ankit, did you know what happened with Yogesh?', a friend from the class came besides him tapping his shoulder. "No, what happened?", confused, Ankit asked. " He got failed in the last lab exam. He couldn't write the program, it was so simple. This will badly affect his annual score", the boy said and went away. Suddenly, Ankit felt everything around him slowing down. The picture was getting clear. After Yogesh gave Ankit his answer, he had no choice but not to write the correct program again otherwise it would have matched with the other one. So deliberately he wrote the wrong answer and got failed.
Ankit failed a guilt rising up in his throat. 'Why did he do this? How could he care so much about me? And here I am doubting the very act of his sacrifice. I was expecting so much from him, but would I ever do such thing to help him.' He knew the answer. A drop a tear came out of his eyelash, but he didn't wipe it because it was for the true sacrifice which he never deserved. Smiling he thought, 'And I was the one talking about the faith.....'
[Note: All the characters and situations are purely fictitious]