At 1:40 AM, one desk lamp burns brightly through an apartment window.
The room is small. A single study lamp throws a circle of yellow light on a crowded desk. Books are everywhere — Polity, Economy, History, Environment, Current Affairs. Notes are stacked in uneven piles. Sticky notes cover the walls.
Tomorrow morning is the UPSC Examination.
For most people in the city, tonight is just another night. For him, it feels like the edge of a mountain he has been climbing for a year.
The Decision
A year ago, he made a choice.
While friends took jobs and moved on with their lives, he stayed back with a different dream: to become a civil servant.
His days slowly turned into a routine. Morning newspapers highlighted with a pen. Hours of reading NCERT books again and again. Online lectures playing on his laptop. Practice tests that sometimes crushed his confidence.
There were days he felt unstoppable. And there were nights he stared at the ceiling wondering:
”What if I fail?”
The Silent Sacrifices
He remembers everything tonight.
The birthdays he missed. The weddings he couldn’t attend.
Friends who slowly stopped calling because he always said:
”I’m studying.”
He remembers the evenings when his mother quietly left tea outside his door so she would not disturb him.
He remembers his father saying just one sentence months ago:
”Just try your best. That is enough.”
But tonight, that sentence feels heavier than ever.
Before Tomorrow Decides
The clock shows 1:50 AM.
His books are still open, but his mind is somewhere else. Questions keep running through his head.
Did I revise modern history properly?
What if the paper is difficult?
What if I forget everything tomorrow?
He leans back in his chair. The room is silent, except for the slow-spinning fan.
For a moment, doubt creeps in. Then he looks at the wall. Pinned there is a small piece of paper.
On it, written months ago in his own handwriting:
“Why I started.”
He reads it again.
”To prove to myself that I can.”
The Final Moment of the Night
He closes his books. Not because he knows everything. But because he knows he has done everything he could.
He switches off the lamp.
From outside, it is just another apartment window going dark. But inside that room lives a year of discipline, hope, fear, and determination.
Tomorrow morning, when the exam begins, thousands will sit in that hall. But tonight, in this quiet room, one young man whispers to himself:
”Whatever happens tomorrow… I gave this dream everything I had.”
And finally, after months of restless nights…
He sleeps.
About This Series
This story is from a series called “100 Windows”.
In one apartment, there are 100 windows. Behind each window, there is a different life, a different struggle, and a different story.
This was Window 1.
More stories are waiting behind the other windows.
If this story stayed with you even after finishing it, share it with someone who might need to read it.
Highlight the lines that spoke to you, leave a clap 👏 or a comment. Your support encourages me to keep writing and sharing more stories like this.
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Thank you for reading.
With 💚,
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Elijah Crouch On Unsplash
