Mumbai: There are those who get more than 90% in the board exams and still crib about not scoring high enough. Then there are those who are just happy to have scored enough marks to get passed. But what if someone scores the exact marks needed to clear the exam, not a point less not a point more? They would consider themselves to be the luckiest person on the planet. Vaibhav More, a student from Junnar taluka in Pune, is one of them.

As the state education board declared the Class 10 exam results on Friday, Vaibhav got the most peculiar marksheet – one with 35 marks in each of the subjects, the bare minimum required for passing the exam. He couldn’t believe it, and neither could anyone else. “Bhari, na (Awesome, isn’t it)” is his reaction when asked about the amusing scorecard.

Son of a farm labourer couple at the tiny Bori Khurd village situated 93 km north of Pune, Vaibhav doesn’t really like to study and was expecting to fail the test. “I did prepare for the exam but didn’t have much expectations. I was astonished to see 35 in each of the subjects. I haven’t seen anyone with such a mark sheet. My friends, too, are surprised,” says the delighted student.

The 16-year-old says that his teacher and mother were both relieved as they didn’t have much hope. His father, on the other hand, was far from amused. “He yelled at me as he wanted me to score more,” said Vaibhav.

When asked about his son’s bizarre feat, Krushna More, the father, shot a rather probing question. “Did he actually get those marks, or was he passed through condonation?”

While the condonation or grace marks, awarded to students who miss the passing score by a few points, seems to be the most likely explanation behind the improbably neat result, it must take special skill, or luck, to muster just enough marks to benefit from this provision in as many as six subjects.

Vaibhav said that he never had much affinity for education as he struggled to understand what was taught in the classroom. He particularly abhorred Mathematics. To make matters worse, his school was shut for more than a year due to the Covid-induced lockdown. He credits his elder sister, a Bachelor of Computer Science (BCS), to help him study for the exam and get across the line.

While he doesn’t spend much much time studying, Vaibhav helps his parents with farm work and plays Cricket and Kabaddi in his spare time. He is fascinated by electronic equipments and often fasten and unfasten them and he is now planning to pursue some vocational course at the nearby Industrial Training Institute (ITI), though he isn’t very sure about it.