Memoirs of a Post-Lunch Session

"Post-lunch class hours are the worst thing on earth.. second only to the first hours.."

So here we were, stuck up in this 2-3 class of Power systems, and everyone was bitching away to hell about classes n college n life etc- the usual bitching topics for an engineer.. Half the class was already asleep.. It was a 2 o clock class so the people started pouring in at around 5 minutes past 2, and the maam, who knew better, entered only at 10 minutes past 2..

Roll Call

The routine attendance call started ("Abraham"-"Present maam"..).A common hobby of the class now is making someone lose his roll call- standard tricks include keeping him busy talking, or keeping his mouth shut by brute force, so that when the maam shouts "No. 42, Rahul M.", Rahul is busy talking balls about the world political scenario or something..It is also possible to tickle a guy close to his roll no. call so that he has no way to say "Yes Maam" without laughing... usual victims of this include myself..

Now finally class was to begin.. overhead projector was switched on.. and 67 brains in the classroom were switched off.. maam put what looked like a 100 slides on the desk and started off with each one of them 1 by 1, clearly hoping to finish all 100 in the next 1 hour.. tsk tsk, poor maam.. The first benchers(who werent already drooling over) opened up their notebooks or pretend notebooks.. Slide after slide came onto the projector.. clearly 8 slides a minute is a fast way to go.. only, it never gave people a chance to even blink..

Half-Life : ChalkStrike

At the back benches, action started off with Britto finding an ammo of chalks and pelting the rest of the class with it.. Looked like a 1st-benchers vs back-benchers chalk fight, but soon it was clear nobody had any idea who they were throwing at..1 bullet aimed at the 1st bench barely missed the maam, but I'm sure she felt the bullet whiz past, cos she turned back at the class n said
"What's going on over there?"

Just an honest question, seriously.. no offense intended, or any punishment waiting at the other end for the honest guy who spoke up.. but all the same the class suddenly looked more interested in their notebooks.. so our all-forgiving teacher turns back to her slides..

At one point, owing undoubtedly to her supersonic speed, the maam tripped over her words,n got caught up in a bunch of weird formulae that not even the damn formula-maker had an idea about..the class had a jolly good laugh, and the maam herself laughed it off, saying
" To err is human, isnt it?"..

I think it was Narendar(the class smartass) who found this a suitable time to wake up n say "Maam, to forgive is divine too"..

The Final Countdown

As the torturous last 10 minutes neared("I still have 3 lines of syllabus and 24 slides to go"), the class came into full action. At the backbenches, the chalk fight assumed epic proportions, and every now and then somebody would shout "Head shot " and "Fire in the hole" in veteran Counterstrike style..MSN locked in a tickling fight with his partner Abraham.. Some of the bolder first benchers snoring away to glory(Pritam Kumar a typical example).. Suddenly someone realised that time was up and started closing his notebooks and banging on the benches to give the clue, as if the maam dint already know, poor guy..

Soon the whole class soon joined in..It was a full orchestra with instruments ranging from benches to books to shouts of "Pleease Maam, Please Maam".. In the middle of all the din, around 5 min past 3, the moment of liberation came for the teacher, when she successfully pulled out her 100th slide out of the projector.. the class gave all signs of relief, but no more than the teacher herself.. she finally announced

"Okay.. 1 line of the syllabus is over.. now i will complete the next 2 lines of the syllabus at 5 o clock today..see you then.."

And the whole class went back to its moaning and groaning..

DISCLAIMER : No offense intended to the maam who took this class, she is one of the most hard-working teachers we have ever had..