The Wonder Years

This Calvin toon brought back some memories from school and college.

A running joke goes like this:

"Suppose you have only 1 hr to live. What would you do?" A prof. asks a student.

"I would go to college and sit in you class. It always feels like an eternity.".

I joined Chinmaya Vidyalaya in 3rd standard.

We were taken to school by Velayudhan, who would cram 11-13 kids in his auto-rickshaw. He was a nice guy because when he dropped us late and the principal shouted at the kids in English for being late, he would shout back in Malayalam, leaving the principal with no option.

In the first week at my new school, as we were standing in the assembly for a school prayer, a butterfly flew close by. Dileep, my new friend in the new school and I tried to catch it. Sadly, the vice principal saw it and summoned us to her room.

"I will bang your heads against each other if you repeat it" she shouted and told us to go back to classes.

A few years later, our school relocated further off and we had to take a couple of buses to reach the school.

Kacheripady was one stop before the final destination and a lot of school kids would be standing there waiting for the bus. The school principal used to see us as she traveled in her "Tempo Traveller" and she was angry one day that nobody standing there, acknowledged her.

"You must greet when our vehicle passes!" she ordered in the assembly session one day.

The next day, when the van passed, every school kid in the bus stop promptly shouted, "Haaaaaaaarriiiiii Om, Maam", in a tune, which was perhaps more embarrassing for her because she told us to stop it the next day.

High school was fun. Oh, I remember the buses "Maryland" and "Jithin", the last hope for those who want to reach school in time, which all of us late goers would wait for. It seemed the bus drivers somehow wanted to get us to school in time because they always drove like mad men and we, in the last seat in the bus had to hold on so as not to fall off. The bus would usually reach the place just 5 mins before the school call for assembly and then we would have a run to cover the kilometer long stretch from the bus stop to the school.

College was better. You only had to aim for 75% attendance which was still tough sometimes if some lectures always happened in the 8/9 AM time frame. 8 AM was hard to make if you wanted to eat breakfast too. But I had a trick up my sleeve, called the "last minute dash".

If I was late to the class, I would make a dash for the class in the last few meters up to the class and give an impression that I was literally "running" late. The professor would think that this guy ran to attend my class and feel good about and allow you to enter. Bonus Tip: If you come late, always pick the front seats.

There was one professor with initials "SP", who was a little strange. After entering the class, he would take attendance and then spend 10 mins cleaning the blackboard. It appeared he wanted the board to be as clean before he wrote anything. This often presented a good opportunity because when he was looking away, you could slip out of the class, something which we did often in his class. Sometimes, the room would be half empty once he finished cleaning the board but he usually didn't care.

My reading habits improved when I was in college because, it was more fun to read novels in class than hear lecturers read from text books.

Then, there was this guy called Prakash who was a repeater. Prakash was 2 years our senior. But he was the kind of guy who made it look "cool" to be a repeater. I liked Prakash. He used to be my companion in the back benches.

One day, someone dared him during a class. The dare was this: Walk up to the podium of the class, pat the lecturer on the back and then walk off the class.

Prakash's reputation was at stake. He thought about it for 5 mins. He got up, walked up to the podium where the lecturer was writing on the black board. And then, he patted on the back. The lecturer, taken unawares, was shocked. "What are you doing here?" he shouted.

But then Prakash whispered something to his ear and walked out. Later on he told us what he said: "I am not feeling well. Can I leave the class now?"