The Classroom

Dated: 19th Dec, 1999. Published with editions on April 4th, 2000 in Bangalore Times section of The Times of India with title as If only we could mass bunk.

I entered the classroom and took my place at the last bench of the middle row, from which place I had a vantage view on all my fellow-mates in the three rows. It was always fun to attend the Monday morning class and watch what my friends did. Though, I must confess, not all my friends ever did attend this class. By one glance around the class, I estimated that only half of the original strength was present. The other half, I guessed were busy in playing cricket, shuttle and various other physically prospective – and thereby mentally prospective – games, which I suppose was a far, far better option than attending this third-degree torture of a class. But attend, I did, for, the minimum requirement of attendance was 75% for us to be eligible to sit for the examinations, and mine was at the border. “In college, you don’t attend the class to learn, you attend to get the attendance,” a senior had once told me.

The bell rang, and there was a generous groan, for it was the start of the torture. Mere sitting was a problem. The lecturer entered. Half of those present got up as a mark of respect and the other half just sat, looking warily at him, apparently more interested in chewing the gums in their mouths. Once the lecturer had settled himself after cleaning the board, he gave the attendance. There were ten proxies and the lecturer could not make out that all ten were given by a single person! Once the attendance got done, he gave a hasty glance at the notes in his hands and started the monologue. The moment he turned towards the board, Jayant, the daring rowdy of the class, slipped out through the door coolly, as if he was going out of a theatre.

For once, I really tried hard to concentrate on what he was saying. Ten minutes later, I failed. What he said never made sense, far less, never went into head. The concepts were too complicated to comprehend, the explanations and examples insufficient to satisfy us and the topic always beyond our range of imagination. Moreover, he lacked in the art of simple narration, and that made the situation a hell lot worse to us. To put everything in a capsule, one could easily sum it up as “An hour’s waste in life.” An hour a day implies four hours a week, sixteen a month and approximately seven days a year! Forget games, the time could have been well spent even in the library. Damn that 75%. Whoever made that rule was making some of us waste our time rather than instill any discipline in us.

I casually glanced beside me. Anil and his friends had already started their usual tradition of playing various types of games. Either it was cards or tic-tac-toe or book-cricket or housie, or if they were bored with all these, they would invent their own game added with some highly entertaining rules. Well, well, well.

I leaned forward and listened to what Rajesh was whispering so intently to his friend. I came to know that he was narrating the story of the newly-released Aishwarya Rai film. The lecturer, oblivious as usual, continued to write some equations on the board, which meant nothing more than a collection of alphabet sprinkled with inexplicable mathematical intricacies for the students.

I shifted my vision next to the front-benchers, and predictably every one of them was attentive. While one was nodding constantly, the other was furiously writing whatever was lectured. The other two studious ones were listening intently and any one could easily say that his lecture was only for those four.

I then looked at the second bench. I was not amazed at what I saw. Sure, they were writing, too, but then I knew what they were writing. They were completing their practical record books, for they had their lab that day! Behind them, The Giggling Girls, which is how we call them, as expected were giggling away the class, cracking silly jokes and laughing under their breath. In front of them sat a far more sophisticated ‘Julia Roberts’. She was busy applying a light coat of lipstick to the already reddened lips. I peered more closely, and sure enough, there it was, the small round mirror in her hand. Boy, oh boy.

My next place of interest was the third-row benches beside the sun-lit windows. An expert was reflecting the sunlight on to the lecturer’s shirt through his watch, and moving it as the lecturer moved, thus causing some ripples of laughter. A boy in front of him, far more decent, just spent his time gazing at the scenery that lay beyond the window and the college premises. He was deep in thought, I came to know when I asked him later, on what would happen to Tendulkar’s average if he got a hundred in the second successive innings.

Vijay was drawing an excellent replica of Prime Minister Vajpayee on the bench. His diagrams of lecturers were even more fascinating. He was an excellent artist. Honed properly, he could become famous. But his parents coerced him to undergo technical education – for that is where the money is – rather than go into something more passive such as Arts and Painting. What a waste of natural talent. The bespectacled Ravi beside him was poring over The Week in great detail. I guessed it would either be Outlook or India Today tomorrow. On the contrary, Nawaz beside him was far more interested in Sports and Film fare.

My gaze then fell on Ramanujan. He was working out problems in mathematics, though it was not that class going on. Math always interested in him. He hardly looked up at the board and the lecturer hardly looked at him or the others. Neither the students nor the lecturer were hardly interested in what went on in the classroom. The lecturer didn’t bother about what the students were doing and equivalently, as if to maintain an unsaid balance, the students didn’t bother about what the lecturer was doing.

Ramya was staring at a photo of the latest Bollywood Hero Salman Khan for the past 20 minutes. Navya had created a record of completing 2 full pages of her own signatures, 100 in each – a feat she had been trying to achieve since the time I know her. Mohan was tearing a long sheet of paper into thin chits, quite simply. Reshma was having a postponed breakfast. Varun was solving that day’s crossword. Divya was singing the latest Rehman hit. And then there were the two groups of students, one each from the first and the third row, enjoying themselves thoroughly throwing balls of paper at each other whenever the lecturer turned towards the board. Each hit fetched a point and a miss fetched the other team a point. During the Indo-Pak war, the middle row was considered as the LOC, with Hindustan on one side and India on the other.

Then there was Nalini, who always kept falling from her sleep, even though she had the temerity to sit in the first bench. Malini beside her was much more respectful. She slept with her eyes open. Manu always used the desk to rest his head on and soon he’d be fast asleep. So much so, that it would take three of his friends to wake him up after the class is over. But Ramesh topped every sleeper. He always used the entire last bench to sleep, as if it was a cot, and the scene was further more hyped by the use of his bag as the pillow!

But then it would not be like this in all the classes. There will always be one lecturer who got the respect of the entire class. Everyone would attend and there will be no giggling, no Salman, no sleeping, no playing and no nothing. The lecturer would spell-bound the students into the world of academics in such a gripping fashion that once the time is up, the students would groan why ever the class came to an end. Such would be the lecturer’s charisma and style that students will be waiting for his next class with gusto! So, then, I put the blame squarely on this lecturer, who failed comprehensively in catching the attention or gaining the respect of the students.

With my vision having completed the entire class, the lecturer had just completed, I was later informed form the front-benchers, the second chapter. And to think, there was just 20 days to go for the end of the term, and still 3 huge chapters were left. But, alas, the next class, taken by the Head-Of-Dept, would be even worse. Someone suggested we mass-bunk the class. One class was more than enough for one day! Thankfully, everyone, including the front-benchers, agreed. Within minutes, the classroom was empty.

The HOD informed us later that he was never humiliated like this ever before. Atleast 5 students used to attend his class. And because of the mass-bunk, he told us he would never take our class again. As if we would regret what we did. On the contrary, it was exactly what we wanted. We were thankful and grateful to him, though we were decent enough not to express it. The event, though, fuelled us to think of mass-bunking all the classes!

Boy, this was college.