Wednesday, April 12, 2006

From in the memory of the class

We already had one hour of torture. Here was a second one. Vani had already left. Lucky guy, I thought. The previous prof had lulled us to a deep slumber by his monotonous voice. This one was no different.

He walked in gracefully, found the class to be half empty. He paced his steps across the classroom as if waiting for someone. May be he awaited the arrival of the only female in the class.

She did not turn up.
He heaved a sigh.

He started with his usual blabber. He would first tell us the number of things he was about to tell. Then he would start with his first thing. Suddenly he would realize that he did not have as many things to tell as he had claimed in the first go. He would then go back, revise the number of things he would say and start all over again. Fed up, he would give up the process. Or rather, I'd give up listening to him. I never knew what happened next. I was already into a deep trance. But I could not sleep.

It was always puzzling for me to see Katoch sleep right under the prof's nose. He looked straight like a steel column, attentive too. The only thing is that his eyes were closed.

The person next to me was taking down good notes. But before I could celebrate, his words started changing shape. From normal English letters, they turned into what looked like an ECG of a dying man. Gradually, the only thing left of them was now a slant line merging into the vast whiteness of the notebook, as the roller tip parted from the long fibers.

Batchu was now swaying, sideways. His eyes deceived him; he could see two of them now.

Bura mat dekho, he thought.....He closed his eyes.

Something went wrong. I could no longer hear the prof's voice. I looked up to see what was going on.

He stood there with his back turned towards us, staring into the vast greenness before him, hoping for something to appear out of nowhere.
It seemed that there was some mistake which he had done while copying from his notes onto the black or rather the green board. And it also seemed that this would have generally been un-noticed by the sleeping class, unless it would have been pointed out by Shravan.

The prof looked into his notes, then onto the board and then into his notes again. He continued this and stood there trembling. I am sure I could hear him talk under his breath. Maybe he was cursing Shravan, cursing us, cursing the damn papers. He longed to be back in his room, or at Nescafe near the CS Department or at the one near the Mech department.

Suddenly his trembling stopped. It appeared as if his genius had found a solution to the grave problem at hand. He finally turned around. Although it seemed forever to us, it took only 5 earthly minutes for the prof to come up with a solution.

"It's not my fault"
What???
"I copied whatever was given here", he said innocently.
"In that case", he continued, "It must have been printed wrongly in the book from where I copied it, I'll tell you tomorrow"

Tomorrow is a very good word invented by the English, to save oneself. I am sure it's a boon for the Profs. As if he'd meet a genie tonight and get the answer from him. Just do whatever you like, if anyone asks you anything, save the day for tomorrow.

I could not help smiling. It was dangerous for I could get caught. ( For those who'd seen me similing, they'll know why).


Shravan did not look satisfied. But before he could overcome his instincts to get back at the prof, he was stopped by his neighbor.
Spare him, poor thing.

The class soon went back to its normal state. Katoch went back to sleep, Chiku continued nodding his head for god-alone-knows-what reasons. Mohit was staring all the time into the Prof’s eyes, he seemed to be unaffected by all this chaos.

It appeared as if a massive black hole had come near us, for Time did not seem to find its end. Even the prof realized this. The material which he had prepared for today's class was getting exhausted. He then decided.

He would let go of us now. He would get rid from the class and leave us in peace. He would do that 15 mins early from the actual time. Do you realize that??? 15 god dam minutes early. I could not believe my ears, or my eyes or any part of my body.

A moment comes, which comes rarely in history, when we step out from the bonds, when a class ends (that too prematurely), when we get to eat good food in the mess....

Oh, now where did that come from, that was supposed to be my next blog entry, never mind :)

6 comments:

Acroyali said...

:D, lovely account. i say we start a group blog for civil dept creativity. theres a lot of potential and amazing creativity..:D

Gyro Gearloose said...

Thank u :) Nice idea.

There's no better place other than a classroom to groom one's potential, I wrote all that in the class:P

al said...

kewl :D

meenakshi said...

lively description of not so lively class :P

Gyro Gearloose said...

@arvin arre the first one just for the sake to starting up :P

@fundoome As I said, the class room is the best place for getting creative ;)

Anonymous said...

hahah loved the part bout mohit