Marching forward!

Yippee, April is here!
Somehow, it seemed that the month of March would never end - could it be because I started going to a martial-arts class last month and the 4 hours I spend there every week seem like 4 days? Anyhow, jokes apart, I have always found the month of March a little tedious. No offense to those who have special 'March-associations', I don't mean it personally: my best friend was born in March and I got engaged in March - so it's a perfectly nice month.
However, after 14 years of Indian schooling, the first thought that March still brings to the mind is the dreaded final exams. April on the other hand brought relief, a new academic year and the hope that the wrongs of the previous academic year could be set right by working hard during this one ( I am ashamed to report, though, that during those maggu days, this simply meant that this year I will come 1st, instead of an ignominious 3rd). Of course, during college, April became the dreaded exam month. Although, I suppose I had become more thick-skinned by then. Plus, 14 ( years of school) > 5 (years of college). All in all, the exam-associated trauma inflicted by March is definitely more deep-seated (deeper-seated?) in my psyche.
Plus, March is the month of Holi - which is definitely not my favourite festival. I remember how, by the time February came around, I used to be already dreading getting pelted by those water-balloons. Anyone who has been hit by one of them even once will vouch for how painfully they sting. Little surprise then, that for the times when I used to have absolutely no alternative but to step out of the house during that dreaded phase, I even had a mental algorithm of the various route and time combinations with their respective 'pelt-probabilities'.
In later years, March started bringing bonus-anxiety: How much will it be? Can't be as bad as last year's? And so on... By April, on the other hand, you had come to terms with your paltry bonus and were sort of enjoying the temporary increase in your bank balance.
All taken into account, therefore, April has always been a darn good month. Plus, it definitely doesn't hurt that "April Fool" is a perfectly reasonable explanation to all sorts of pranks played during this month, especially on the 1st.
This year, April comes with one more special milestone - this is my tenth post on this blog! The beginning of the double digits - isn't that something? :)

So, here's wishing a happy All Fools' Day to all! I hope nobody fools you today.