Once upon a time, there was a boy named Arif. He was a popular student in his school, not because he was good in studies, but because of his luck. Yes, Arif often got very lucky in situations where other students just couldn’t make any difference. Many students in his class were impressed and thought his intelligence was behind his success. This also made Arif overconfident and he thought whether he studied or not, he would pass his exams.

The mid-term exams were very near, and the school announced a few days off so that the children could study well during their break. Therefore, most of the students were studying day and night to do well in the exams. However, Arif wasted his break on playing games with his neighbourhood friends and watching TV.

Arif had a close friend, Asif, who was also his classmate and lived in the neighbourhood. Asif was not like others. He often asked Arif about his studies, to which Arif carelessly answered that he had nothing to worry about because he was a lucky boy, so he would pass the exams. Asif kept on warning Arif to study, because luck doesn’t work every time, one has to work hard also. But it didn’t have any effect on Arif.

Whenever Arif’s mother came in his room and enquired about his studies, Arif pretended to study, but kept his cell phone inside the pages of his book and watched YouTube videos or played games.

On the day of the first paper, which was mathematics, Arif felt over-confident, thinking his luck will work and he will top the class. When the question sheets were handed over to the students, Arif was shocked. He could not make any sense of most of the questions, as the calculations were very difficult for a person who had not studied. Arif was very confused, he kept gazing at the other kids busy doing their paper, while he pretended to attempt his.

For the first time, Arif felt down and wondered why his luck didn’t work in that paper. He knew he wouldn’t pass. That day, when he came home, he started studying the remaining subjects to get good grades. But because there was an exam each day, without a break, and Arif had already wasted his study break, he didn’t have enough time to study well, as he should have.

One week after the exams were over, the results were announced. Arif thought something would happen and the teacher would announce he had done well. But it was the opposite — he failed in three subjects and scored grade D in the rest.

His parents were cross with him and, as punishment, they took his PS5, cell phone and TV for the rest of the term. Arif realised his mistake and got to know that luck is not going to help him until he works hard and studies.

Luck won’t favour us all the time — the harder you work, the luckier you get.

Published in Dawn, Young World, February 11th, 2023