Rohan sat back down. “Remember the first program we wrote? The one to find prime numbers?”

Three days later, in the exam hall, Rohan read the first question:

Silence.

Aarav frowned. “No. That’d be chaos.”

For the next twenty minutes—past the final bell, past the sound of lockers slamming and friends leaving for vacation—Rohan walked Aarav through the library system. They traced data flow on the back of an old printout. They rewrote the Transaction class to properly calculate fines.

Aarav shrugged. “I don’t get it. The logic. All this self , __init__ , classes… why not just write everything in one straight line?”

Ms. D’Souza, invigilating, watched Rohan finish early and flip through the paper, checking his SQL JOIN syntax, his network topology diagram, his truth table for (A ∧ B) ∨ ¬C .

Rohan packed his bag. On his way out, he noticed Aarav, who usually sat at the back, staring blankly at his screen. His program window was still open. Only two functions written.

Ms. D’Souza collected the submissions. “Before you leave—your theory exam is in three days. Cover Boolean algebra, SQL queries, and networking fundamentals. Any last-minute doubts?”

She tried it. It worked. She gave him a small, grateful nod.

“You okay?” Rohan asked.