► FERVID RHAPSODY

They say your actions depend on your mood (don't look around. It’s just me). Totally true if you ask me. And school is one place where your moods change like David Beckham's hairdo (that means, 'often'). Sometimes you feel like testing the acoustics of the classroom by just screeching out, and sometimes you feel like buying some butter bun from the canteen and giving the blackboard an oil massage (so that the school blames it on the chalk supplying firm), or doing a Stress Level Elimination Exercise Plan (is it my problem that they call it 'SLEEP'?).Sometimes you may even feel like doing really out-of-the-ordinary things like listening to what the teacher says. Once or twice, some really weird ideas may occur to you, describing which is beyond the scope(and censorship agreement) of this blog. But the best way to keep yourself entertained in the 'drab and boring'(with no reference to anybody) classroom, is by getting out of it!

The teachers and the school authorities call it 'bunk', and we call it... what do we call it? Never mind! Fuck the cliché! (even the cliché!).

Bunking is by far, and obviously, THE best way to evade the anguish and agony that you (your mood) face, when you sit like that, staring into the obscure (sometimes obscene) picture that the blackboard paints for you, while the preceptor's views on Romanticism, Quadratic equations and disposable diapers, proves to be a lullaby, that which, instead of getting you to S.L.E.E.P, transports you into deep, and hidden hotspots within your multi-dimensional imagination.

In eighth, I still remember (like I’m a hundred years old), there was this gang, who would go missing (completely out of the radar) on all library periods. No prizes for guessing the gang members! (You wouldn’t have guessed it anyway. Pointless.) Aaron, Neehar, and I (the only ones with no nicknames), K.C (rainforest), Mammu, and Gundu were the usual ones in the gang. (more and more people took to the art later on)Bunking, then was all about staying out of sight (whoever's that might be). Slipping out from the library was cakewalk. But after that, it was lot of fun. I remember, we used to pull our pants up, to camouflage ourselves among the hundreds of little kids (imagine an eighth grader saying 'Kid!') who ran around (pointlessness again) the vast football ground. So, week in week out, every library period, we played, played and played (and played). Until the library period was shifted to some other hour (Damn!). We couldn't bunk any more. The grounds would all be empty at this hour, and the last thing we wanted was to buy a thousand eyeballs by walking the empty grounds, pointlessly. We had just one option in front of us. And stopping was the last thing we would've ever done (like you didn't guess that. Yeah right.). So we shifted to the college living room, and hell, it was (I use past tense, because times have changed. There are new characters in the frame now.) one cool quad for some dirty street football. The living room, is THE place for desperate bunkers because it is the least populated (where white and black silhouettes are least abound) place in the campus (if you don't count the forests), and also because it has a lot of exits. If someone does catch you (tries to catch you) you can always escape in four different directions, leaving the 'someone' confused (Such an incident actually happened!).

So, we played played and played(and played) and I take the utmost credit in saying that we were never caught, no not even once. Just one or two close calls, but never caught, the whole year.

But, that was then. You can't expect to do that now, unless if you're ready to get banned from all inter-school fests (with deepest sympathy to Keshav, who had his own ways to get banned!).

So, if you're intensely (I N T E N S E L Y) desperate and can’t hang on for even forty minutes (which unfortunately is also 2400 seconds), here is something that might help you. Here are ten creative ways to take a break from the devouring piles of crap the preceptor expects you to swallow:

• Walk up to the teacher, sneeze three times, and say you forgot to wear the mask, the doc advised you to wear. And then walk out.

• Steal the chalk boxes from the office, just before the class (anticipate it) and when the teacher walks in, volunteer to get the chalks for her. If you're caught, "I was looking for limestones. They didn't have chalks in the office!"

• Drop a book out of the window and say you dropped it. (Duh!) You can get a few minutes off on this one.

• Cry 'BOMB! BOMB!' and run out. You'll have loads of company.

• If you don't mind denting your reputation, try this: Paint a football on the board (ignoring the teacher's gaze) and run out of the classroom singing "Here we go, ale, ale, ale!!"

• "Snake!" ("I thought I saw a snake. It might have crawled out through the window")

• Or better, bring a snake to school. Let it out during class. Then you'll have the entire classroom to yourself. And the snake.

• Just run out of the classroom with one hand on your butt. No one will stop you. NO ONE.

• Kill someone. Then you'll have eighteen years to think of better ways of bunking school.

• Jump out of the window. You don't have to bunk to school again.

Be sure to try only one at a time. (Like, you can't jump out of the window, and drop a book out of the window at the same time. That's not bunking. That's suicide.) And it’s not my fault if they expel you (which I am sure they will), because staying at home IS a form of bunking, about which this whole article was written. The only thing I can say is, well, to always think twice before you bunk class, especially because times have changed. As I have already warned you, new characters are in the frame now, and it’s your choice to risk everything you dare not risk. You decide.

P.S:

-The author is not propagating negative tendencies in the mind of the reader.

-The author IS propagating negative tendencies in the mind of the reader.

-The author can't make up his mind.

-The author can make up his mind.

A complete list of exaggerated malfunctions with which an unlucky individual is identified throughout his/her stay.(at least in our school!)

English that kills!*

• The Suspicious: "I saw u yesterday rotating near girl's hostel pulling cigarette...? "

• The Environmental: "pick up the paper and fall in the dustbin!!!"

• The Ecstatic: "I'm going out of the world to America..."

• The Furious: "..DON'T TRY TO TALK IN FRONT OF MY BACK!!..."

• The Observant: "don't..laugh at the back benches...otherwise teeth and all will be fallen down....."

• The Sultry: "why is fan not oning?!"

• The Inflamed: "write down your name and father of your name!!"

• The Considerate: "shh... quiet... the principal is revolving around building"

• The Knowledgeable: "I'll illustrate what i have in my mind" said she and erased the board!

• The Time Saving: "will u hang that calendar or else I'll HANG MYSELF"

• The Strict? : "IF U WILL TALK AGAIN , I WILL KNEEL DOWN OUTSIDE!!"

• Aiming for the stars! : "My aim is to study my son and marry my daughter"

• "Chastisement!" said Cassius: " Tomorrow call your parents especially mother and father!"

• The Omnipresent: "Why are you looking at the monkeys outside when I am in the class?!"

• The 'Lab assistant', investigating a piece of code: "I understand. You understand. Computer how understand??"

• The Undertaker(teacher) : "Keep quiet, the principal has passed away!"

• Someone throws his lunch out of the window. The chemist: "Now, What u doing? Outstanding people will suffer!"

• The oxen: "Only wild animals can teach you!" The wild: "That is why you are teaching me?"

• God's messenger:"I have the divine duty to tell you why the communists supported the UPA govt after the 2004 elections."

• The over desiring:"Open the windows,let the air force come in."
  
  
• The chemist:"Take an iron rod of any metal in an empty beaker filled with water."
  
  
• The reformer: "From now on we are going to make leave procedures strict,so all those who are absent,please raise your hands."
  

• Brimming with common sense: (On his 12th attempt to successfully approximate the attendance register)"Say only whether you are present or absent! You stand up, yes you, are you present?!"
  
  
• The theorist:(supporting his decision to target the minorites, for performing conversions):" For every action,there is an equal and opposite reaction."
  
  
• The irritated(Teacher): "Don't ask me 2 repeat, i'll only say once upon a time."

When father principal(with all due respect) had a couple of odd structures erected all over the campus over the summer vacations, one fine year, it was met with a lot of criticism-that it was too high, looked too artificial, and that it didn't go with the scent and contour of the campus in general. At first sight, it symbolized the unsuccessful attempts of a worn-out, out-of-mind, desperate principal, to acquire some lost appreciation by making bamboo out of cement. So we were all but surprised when told that they were 'benches' and were supposed to be 'sat on'.

But never in the wildest and most barbaric of dreams did we ever think that these eerie unearthly cement structures would become the centerpiece of our class one day.

The first major thing that occurs within the boundaries of our school, day in day out, is undoubtedly and unsurprisingly, the arrival of the school buses. The disposition, is not random at all. "How come?" Well a little about the histories of the drivers would answer that. Army, K.S.R.T.C, it varies. So does speed.

And after lots of wiggling, swaying and knocks to your head(and licking adidases, nikes, pumas, reeboks and chappals), its not surprising that we are the first to arrive. The bus, well, is all about the heroics of 'chuck', who comes in and vaunts about how he fell off his heartthrob's terrace(the house's), about how many songs his 8-megapixel-camera-equipped 64kb(solid KILOBYTES) sony-ericcson can store, about how his enfield skidded off the road and ended up in the wheelie pose, and how he bought a new computer, but never cared to unwrap the cardboard, because his grandmother passed away!(he still hasn't done that)

Myself and my friend, 'mammu', provide the counter-argument, snapping at each and everyone of his exaggerations, while 'mathi' silently spectates the unfolding drama. These usually end up in kicks to your external genitalia(chuck is good at those) and nosebleeds.

So we arrive, and take in the fresh air and scent of the campus, still wondering if the calcitration(the kicks-the 'chavuttu') cost you anything. We take a seat in the aforesaid 'bench' and wait.(meanwhile chuck goes on about literotica and stuff).

Bus no1 arrives and Aaron jogs out and joins us. He pretends to have split his ears owing to chelsea being battered again by liverpool(it is the other way sometimes). A long argument follows, with chuck giving audience, and mammu spice, to the torrid brawl.

'Gundu', 'Kathi', and 'Ambadi' walk out of a bus no4, known more for the controversies it spouts, and jest-packed stories than for its six wheels. They inject 'tuitions' into the worn-out football brawl. The talk goes on about tests, assignments, HAC and girls.(where chuck is active again).

Meanwhile, 'nightish' or '89', whichever you prefer, gives us a wave and takes the long route up to the classroom.(that ironically is down the stairs).

'K.C' comes in with his trademark dimpled rainforest smile, and fires his own bit into the conversation. He is one of the people, who has a hell lot of nicknames ranging from 'brukkappi', 'faru', to 'tree-dog'.(A sub-species of rodentia).

Enter noel, 'chubby', and 'motta', together since time immemorial, talking about astrophysics, blackholes and other weird stuff. They take the already fired-up talks to boiling point and get on quite a lot of peoples' nerves in the process.(chuck, K.C, etc). Chuck puts the solids(rocks, stones, gravel, bricks, etc.) to good use and empties his rage on a sheet of metal.(on a car).

To cool proceedings down, the perfect person walks in, in the shape of 'thadiyan'. The guy who speaks from his stomach(that accounts for the huskiness), and walks as if the world were in slow motion(for want of words :D). He is one of the few people, who are always attentive in class, except while sleeping, making the teacher wish hell for bell, reading Dan Brown, aiming carbonate missiles(refer to 'the infusion persists!"), and familiarising with the facilities of pinD's hideout.(dat takes up a lot of time)

"TTTRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG!!!!!"

Disappointment, is the word, when the bell tolls, and we head for the classrooms, having given the day, the start it deserves.

Words can't explain how time fleets by, once you take a seat in one of those benches. And words can't explain how we give 'Babu's'(RAM's) day the perfect start as he arrives in his two wheeler, clad in denims, pulled down to ass-level.

The feeling is inexplicable, and for once, we have our principal to thank.


P.S:
-I express my deepest fucked up sorry to all those who I have failed to mention in this post.
-I express a deeper and 'not-fucked-up' sorry to all those who I HAVE mentioned in the post and take it easy on me, the next time we meet :(