During exams, Karan Pandit does not suffer from the blues. He simply wears them.

Pandit, an HSC student whose exams are on, wears a variety of underwear in different shades of blue. For luck. Two years ago, on the first day of his SSC examination, he had worn blue underwear and simply sailed through the English paper.

So, Pandit decided to make it a ritual. Throughout these board exams, his innerwear has been blue — not the same one though.

“It has worked before. I scored 79% (in SSC), much beyond my expectations,” says the 18-year-old, who is now counting on this elastic “inner strength”, for his HSC. “I might even wear it on the day of my results.”

Karan knows he is not abnormal. The frantic time that is the boards make many like him act in strange ways. He has friends who carry only one lucky pen, and cry when its refill runs out. Some like Anamitra Ghatak vow not to shave. Some don’t bathe for fear that they might “lose touch with the exam air”.

When Vivek Kumar Duggal, an ad professional, was giving his degree exams, he would make it a point to pay one rupee to the first beggar he found on his way to the centre.

“My dad threw a fit when he came to know,” recalls Duggal, who was careful not to convey his other pre-examination pact to his father. The former arts student had struck a quiet deal with his then girlfriend. “I would kiss her before every paper saying it brings me luck,” he says. It seemed to work for her too, he added.
[Posted at: The Weirdest Exam Superstitions]