Gone are those days when I used to make separate notebooks for every subject I had, when I used to look at the blackboard, when I used to listen to every sentence our prof taught, when I used to take down notes...
Slowly it degraded to making one notebook for every three subjects, looking at the blackboard after every 10 minutes, listening to only those profs who were strict and demanded attention and taking down only the points written on the blackboard...
and NOW....
I make one notebook for all the subjects. I dont know where the blackboard is hung in our class... I dont understand the language spoken by our profs... and I seriously fail to understand the strange symbols written on the board.. let alone taking down notes...
I dont know whether this is natural....but over the past few years I have learned to be an Autodidact.... and I prefer it to be that way... But life aint easy with it...
Well..it happened a couple of weeks back.... I was late to college as usual... (The college starts at 8:30 and I leave my house at 8:40).... Students who are late are made to stand outside the gate for one hour (something wierd to be done at a college level)... but I somehow managed to sneak in past the gatekeeper.... I consider that as a talent of mine...
My first lecture was TV and video engg. ...we call it TVV.. The prof was already there..obviously.... I really didnt want to go in... at the same time I didnt want my name to appear on the blacklist. So I reluctantly opened the door and asked, "May I come in, ma'am"...
She turned her head and looked at me... which made all other heads turn in my direction.... I felt awkward but stood there looking at her awaiting for a reply... She chose to let me in than to castigate infront of everyone....Good for both of us...
I walked in ignoring all that stares and searched for a seat to sit.... One bad disadvantage of being late to college is that you are left with no choice but to sit in the first bench.... It was clearly visible that only the first benches were untenanted.... Not giving up I kept looking... and noticed that there was one second bench where Vishy was sitting alone... I went and sat beside him..
I settled down...took out the only book from my bag and hunted for a pen... It was only after 2 minutes that I realised I never bring a pen to the college... Without asking for permission, I picked Vishy's pouch and took a pen from it.... I guess I was all set to write... but write what??? I looked at the board hoping to find something to copy.... All I could make out was that an alien from another planet had managed to enter our class and scribble something on the board.... I then decided to pretend to write something.... So I started drawing a scenary...
I suddenly started feeling that the time had stopped.... The hands in my watch werent moving....I took my eyes off my watch and continued with my scenary.... As I was trying to 'add life into my painting', Vishy came closer to me and whispered something into my ears... It was about the latest Eminem album 'Curtain call' . He said he had the CD... This was something worth talking about... I couldnt resist but ask him more about the songs... While the conversation was going on, our prof stopped talking and looked at us.... We quickly moved apart and contiued to pretend to write something.... She resumed her teaching... May be she again chose to keep quite and save her time than to castigate infront of everyone....
We waited till she turned back to the board... The moment she turned we resumed our talk about the best known rapper... He started telling how splendid the lyrics were and also sung a few lines... This whole thing was getting very interesting and I couldnt help but get closer and imbibe every word he was saying verbatim... We could see that she was again giving us vicious glances intermittently... We continued to pretend that we were indeed copying down everything from the board and everything that she was dictating... Least did we know that neither of us was a consummate actor...
As the talks on how the voice of Dido and that of Eminem blended in a song called 'Stan' was going on.. I heard something that made me feel as if a migraine just hit me... "I want to see both of your notebooks after this lecture" She was looking at us with those same monsterous eyes which are worse than basilisk's eyes... I looked down into my notebook and all I found was a half drawn scenary and some lyrics of Eminem's song.... I was happy to see that I had managed to copy down a few sentences she dictated but the handwriting was worse than an alien's...I started thinking of what to do next to escape from this whole thing... May be I can tear these pages off and copy down 4 pages of diagrams and notes in 5 minutes..........May be I cant... I sat there cursing every person I met that morning... Why didnt I catch fever last night?? Why didnt the gatekeeper catch me sneaking?? Why did she let me in the first place?? Why did I sit with Vishy?? and last but not the least.. Why did Eminem make such a wonderful album??... I knew that wasnt all.. I braced for another reprimand...After she was done with that day's lecture, she opened her file to take down the attendence... As she was flipping through the pages, she looked at us and said, "Its not a rule that you have to copy down everything I say, but you too have been talking continuously through out the lecture"... I gave out a sigh of relief.... atleast she wont check our notebooks...Now I can finish my scenary...sigh...
But as I said... Life aint that easy... The trouble didnt get over with that... She turned vindictive..
"Ok..tell me...Why are surrations added to vertical sync pulse?"
In english please..
Our silence exuded the fact that we had no clue about it...
"Dont know" We muttered under our breath..
"Ok..Check your notebook then.."
"I didnt bring my notebook today"..Vishy said..
"What about you?"
I hunted for a better excuse but decided to stick with the same
"I forgot to bring my notebook too" As if I had one....
I could see electric shocks coming out of her eyes... She then started taking attendence.. I was not going to leave it that way... I kept thinking for a better excuse... Something striked me... I told Vishy we could tell her that we were talking about our 4th year project and that we had problems going on with our group... He agreed..
When she left the class..we followed her and called out "ma'am"..she turned back... Vishy rambled on and on with that excuse of mine... She kept staring... It was so apparent that we were lying...I knew this canard would be useless... and she knew that... Darn..we just made things worse... Me and my ideas...
"I didnt expect this sort of behavior from you guys...If I dont see you two talking about your project during the break..I am going to punish you"
I tried to muster some words for an apology..i tried to show my feeling of penitence... but decided to stay with... "I am sorry ma'am".. How insipid....She left without saying anything.... which said everything... like "you guys are going to suffer" , "wait till I give you your termworks", "you will suffer eternal perdition" etc etc....
I turned back and started walking towards my class ... What a day.. Why dont they let us do whatever we want? It's a democratic country afterall...I was tired of Drudgery.. Life would be heaven if all lectures were self-study type especially for an autodidact like me...
