NO MORE CLASSES

It started on July 28, 2003 and ended on April 17, 2008. I just attended my last class at IITM. As is my wont, I went in 2 min late. I am sure I can never attend classes on time unless there is a negative incentive in the form of X beside my name.

My first class in 2003 was a core bore subject in Mech and probably one of the worst courses - Materials Science and Engineering . It had this stupid concept of prof in one room and the students in the other, staring at the screen like some movie ,and the profs did not take attendance. It was the foundation for bunking, sleeping in the last bench, killing time etc. Of course I wont be a loser and attribute my lack of enthu to the lectures, but yeah why should I take all the blame . I think I got 5/20 in the first quiz , the least score during my stay here . The best thing being in Mech is that you always have company , and in many cases people who outperform you. So yeah, there were people with binary value level marks also. Btw that course was scrapped the very next year. I guess it was an aftermath of our wonderful 2003 Mech batch. This reminds me of one incident, in another class though. A gets 1 and B gets 0. A goes to B and says - Macha I got infinite times more than you. Thus started the saga of proxies, bunking-and-maintaining exactly 75% attendance, one day internationals, xerox, assignment submission by faithfully adhering to just-in-time policy (JIT) with a six-sigma level accuracy like Mumbai dabbawallas etc.

4th sem had an awesome incident at which I laugh even now. One guy had not submitted the assignment like our entire gang. The prof catches him. Here goes the convo -

Prof - Did you do the assignment ?
Guy - No sir
Prof - I always see you in the last bench and you never have interest. You people slog day in and day out in your 11th and 12th and give up like this. You wake up at 4 am and go to Ramaiah's classes braving the cold Hyd winters and end up doing nothing here. What happened to that dedication, commitment etc
Guy - Sir I was in the evening batch.

The most common graffiti seen were IIT - Insti of Idiotic Teachers, Insti of Infinite Tensions and a coffin with an inscription - In memory of those who died waiting for the lecture to end. My favourite time pass used to be snake on Venky's mobile and arbit drawings on my notebook. A few samples are shown here.


This cartoon was obviously not an original one. A reproduction, but a decent one in my opinion. As you can observe, the girl has a :P expression. I urge my readers to come up with a satisfactory explanation for that. The winner gets to play basketball with that cute girl in her micro minis. In case the winner is a female she can chat with the cool dude below who has a cell phone surgically grafted to his left ear, given the plethora of calls he receives daily.


However, when I do have enthu I scribble down something which generally resembles an aeroplane taking off of every line. A few more samples -


These were about 2 famous playwrights - Arthur Miller and Ariel Dorfman, both of whom had strong Leftist ideologies. This was from a Humanities course - Drama. We actually had to stage a group play at the end of the course. Given that it was my debut, I had the least number of lines. However , I got to play the bridegroom in that play titled "A Matrimony of Errors". It was good fun though.

And yeah, hold your breath, I am about to reveal a tsunami causing news. There was a clamour for my notes in the 8th sem Mechatronics course. Many guys photocopied my notes as they felt mine was very legible. On a personal note I actually put major fight for that course and it was by far the best I had ever written . I can now proudly say "been there , done that" regarding all aspects of classroom life. I am not sad or nostalgic about it being the last class. Infact, there is no feeling at all. I am happy that I had at least attended it. I now bid adieu to the rooms which housed most of our classes - Class Room Complex (CRC) - 101,102,103, Mechanical Sciences Block (MSB) - 257, 357 and Machine Design Section (MDS) - 217,306. I hope my name is scribbled atleast on one bench.