We peeped through the almost closed door to see the faces of our classmates, inside, amused. A knock and then we pushed the door to open slowly with a screeching sound. Eyes on fire, he looked as if we had just killed his dog. With the face of disgust as if we were the dirtiest pigs he had ever seen he showed us the way of corridor with an agitated wave of hand, our mouths full of dirtiest of slangs all for him. One more gone!! All this just for class?? Obviously not! We don’t love that inside atmosphere which can be very well used to cure insomnia. It’s all for the most appetent thing in a college like ours, we all bow in front of it, the deciding factor of everyone’s future, ‘the attendance’. That lacerated yellow book which says, ‘hallowed be thy name’ if you have the blue marks, and ‘swallowed be thy name’ if you have the red ones.
“No mercy for the students falling short of attendance” accrues the glory of the noticeboard these days. ‘We don’t come to the college to study, we come only for attendance’, simple line which carries the true pain of every student here. As for me, it’s the same. A late morning followed by running for a kilometer to the class so that the teacher doesn’t throw me out of the class is not the life I want. It’s been about two and a half year since i enthusiastically attended my first class (luckily enough I am in third year). Since then I have learnt the art of peaceful speculations in any blatant environment. No matter what you do, how you do, you cannot decipher that humming codes spilled out by most of the teachers. They are so unpredictable.
For an instance, let’s talk about the man we call ‘Chhotu chhaliya’. A pot belly man looking like upside down folded huge umbrella , plump cheeks, a thick wide moustache along with the dyed, extra black side parted hair make him look like an overgrown version of a school boy with a moustache.
“What is the least count for the vernier caliper we use in LVDT?” he asked Vishal.
“Err… sir?” Vishal stood up, waking up from an American dream, looking into his watery black eyes.
“EGGJACTLY!” he said, pointing a finger at him.
While we were still confused and Vishal bewildered about what happened, he continued to tell the whole answer looking happily at him as if he found his long lost child. On the other hand, the most lenient teacher of the batch sent us out for discussing the answer(not relative) as he lost his temper.
The time of issue of hall tickets is the time when people are more scared than that of the results, praying to god, giving him bribes, so that they are not detained due to shortage of attendance. This attendance makes students run behind the teachers begging and crying. Piles of medical certificate, certifying the most dreadful disease that could happen to any human being can be seen in every cabin of the staffroom. Recently one student gave a stamped, authenticated certificate of brain tumour claiming for attendance. Unfortunately or fortunately, he got it. Come on, its all about attendance, the most powerful appalling reality that could decide the course of all of your engineering life.
It’s all we need from the teachers apart from the question banks at the time of internals. We can do anything for it, for thy sake, attendance!!!…
