💬 I still have my old school answer sheets in a box

There's a green box on top of my wardrobe with my Class 10 answer sheets in it. My mother kept them. When we moved house in 2019 I found the box and didn't throw it. Last Sunday I opened it looking for my birth certificate. I sat down and read for 2 hours. The birth certificate was in the next drawer. I never even looked for it again that day. My maths paper has 61 out of 100. The teacher had written, careless, in red, next to every mistake. There are 9 of them. I remember the exact feeling of dropping marks for a minus sign. On the back of the physics sheet I'd drawn a cricket field with a stick figure bowling. I was bored for the last 20 minutes and had finished early. I got 88 though. My English paper has a note folded into it from my friend Arjun. It says, after this exam let's go to Paradise for biryani, you pay. I did pay. We went on a Friday. It rained and we got soaked, and the biryani was cold when it came. Arjun lives in Pune now. I took a photo of the note and sent it to him. He replied with 3 crying faces and, who got 88 in physics, I know it wasn't me. I put everything back in the box and put the box back on the wardrobe. I should throw them out. They take up room and nobody in the house needs them. My mother said keep them, you never know. I asked what for. She said, to show your children.

61 out of 100 with 9 careless marks in red, I could feel that one. I kept my class 9 science notebook for years because my teacher wrote good question in the margin once. That is the only comment I remember from the whole school. Do you think your mother kept the box so you would read it one day, or just because she keeps everything?

I have my class 4 report card in a plastic folder in my cupboard. Maths 34 out of 100. The teacher wrote, needs to pay attention. My father signed it in red ink with a very angry signature. No reason to keep it. But I can't throw it away, it's the only one with his handwriting from back then. My maths is still not great, by the way. Some things don't change.