Shabeeb Bhai's gone off to the hospital today. He'll be back tomorrow insha allah. He has a detached retina in the left eye. Nobody quite knows how he got it but he has it so they've got to fix it.

Among happier news, After Sameed passing with flying colors in his Metric exams, the O'levels results came out y'day and I've got another bunch of over-achieving cousins all lined up with holi-style results. Murtaza's got 10 A's and 2 B's. When congratulted, he insists that "aap ki duaaon say aaya hai. warna mein nay tu kuch nahin parha tha." Ariba gave 3 subjects in 10th grade: Urdu, Islamic Studies and Pakistan Studies. She's scored A's in all 3. That was sort of expected. Seems that girl never really learnt her A-B-C past that first alphabet.

Sohaib's always been more prone to exfoliating in terms of results. He has an A in A/S level Math and a B in Physics. His Chemistry result is withheld along with almost all of his school because of some cheating issue. It's a rather interesting story.

Seems that the examiners found out that the Chemistry practical paper had been leaked out and students already knew that the ions in the salt analysis were Chromium and Chlorine. So they decided to switch the CrCl (or whatever it may be. I've forgotten my chemistry!) with good ol' table-salt (this one i know, NaCl). The students, not knowing that the change had been made, did the tests for Cr, got confused when the results were wrong but still wrote Cr, sure that they had it right. My wonderfully intelligent cousin had heard from others that the answer was CrCl but wasn't sure. However, he took too long in his titration and ended up with very little time to finish the salt analysis. when he finally got a yellow ppt, he figured it had to be Cr (the re-agents he'd used were wrong so he got the yello ppt with the Sodium as well!)

Now he's been asked by the British Council how he managed to know that the salt present was CrCl. He's been given two questions to answers which will all be judged and evaluated before he's given a grade. Interesting situation, I say!

With these results and Murtaza's successful completion of his O'levels, the last member of my family from my generation has finished studying at St. Patrick's Highschool. Sameed and Murtaza mark the end of an era. Unless he decides to go back there for his A'levels, Murtaza has been the last person from my generation to complete his education from St. Pat's. In a seemingly never-ending line of young men, starting from the first name in this blog post, running through me and my brother, it all ends with Murtaza. For now.

Good show, boys!