On the second Monday of March, the city woke beneath a pale, hazy sky that smelled of rising dust and dry heat. Spring had surrendered to summer early that year, baking the asphalt avenues into shimmering ribbons of heat before the morning traffic had even reached its peak.

By seven-thirty in the morning, the wide boulevard leading to the Government Central Polytechnic Institute in Sector 8 was choked with cars, auto-rickshaws, and crowded city buses. The institute was the primary district examination hub for both the Higher Secondary Board Practical and Written Exams and the state-level Common Entrance Test (CET) for Engineering—the single, unforgiving gateway through which over one hundred thousand aspiring students attempted to force their way into the state's elite technical colleges.