The Backbenchers

To be honest, I don’t know why I thought of writing this post, maybe because I have my Board exams on! Although I’ve got plenty to finish off with, yet, here I am, writing and publishing. There’s a lot I can write about at this moment, from the feeling of euphoria to that of misery, the examination hall itself serves as a roller coaster of emotions.For some reason, I came up with this topic, something that each one of us know about.

So, Backbenchers? Must have been one of those! Wondrous moments, weren’t they?

I’ve always had a bunch of amazing classmates, luckily half of them have always been too curious enough to fill up the first benches, thanks to them. A few, that occupy a specific corner of the class, and it’s fixed. They won’t leave it even if killed. Believe me, all of us had the cribbing to know what’s it like sitting there, it’s like an unfamiliar corner of your class you haven’t been introduced to. And then , there are these last benches. The heavenly area of the room that you cherish,every moment, when in your class. You can do anything you wish, but be cautious, especially if you are tall.
That’s an advice from my side.
In my entire school life I never got the deal between ‘being tall‘ and ‘being caught.’ I’ve been through this so many times.The high school teachers are adept in their ways. Skilled and totally accustomed to any mischief you can think about pulling off.They don’t scold. They don’t even kick you out of the class.Obviously, you don’t ever get what you desire for!!
All you get is finely carved sarcasm piercing through the wall of your self esteem that’ll make you succumb to “the deepest of embarrassment” ever. But,after all, they are the best!

I just recalled a casual day from my eleventh grade.
We were having our physics class, two lectures in a row, which by the way is very common in high school. There still were two more hours for lunch break.We were famishing. With “we” I mean the whole class. But sometimes we forget to differentiate between “being bored” and “being hungry. ” And that’s how our conversation followed:

ME: (to my partner)- Got anything ‘good’ to eat?
[My emphasis on the word “good” was a reference to junk food, because during a physics lecture when you’re hungry you don’t want to hog on fruits and salads .]

PARTNER: No, just veggies!
ME:(to a friend behind me) :Anything to eat?
Friend : Just finished, had a sandwich!
ME (including four other people around) : Bitch!

I could smell chicken nuggets, two benches behind me, and could easily see there were around ten of them, plenty to make it up for this lecture. I asked them to pass it on to us quietly. Surprisingly, by the time it reached me there were only two nuggets left. I mean , where the devil did all of them go? Did the wooden benches on the way stuffed inside all of them, why is it so less?

Here’s a Pro fact : “It might be alone at the top, but it wouldn’t ever be alone when you are having a delicious food.”

So I picked up a nugget, and put it in my mouth and even before I could chew it, bam!!

PROFESSOR: Shivani!
ME: (stuffed mouthed): Hmm, Ma’am?
PROFESSOR: What are you eating?
ME: (in my head) [Did you just hear my roaring gastric movements ?Why am so visible? ]                                    – No ma’am, nothing.
PROFESSOR: If there’s anything, throw it out, now!

And for the next five minutes my hunger was satisfied, with the icy sarcasm that was bombarded meticulously. Oh, that wasn’t  tasty at all!
I wondered what made her not see the bunch of ‘hunger struck’ people in front of her, eating as if they were kept on a diet for five years! That’s exactly what always happens, but I’ve made my peace with it.

There’s another moment that I recall, it can more likely be called as an embarrassing moment, but the thought of it doesn’t embarrass me anymore so sharing it with all of you wouldn’t be of any problem.
Before I begin with it, here’s a universal rule :
“YOU NEVER FLIP THROUGH A STUDENT’S LAST PAGE OF ‘ANY’ NOTEBOOK.”
You just don’t!!
I mean, we all know it’s the page where all our artistic work is portrayed, in addition to bizarre drawings, song lyrics, vulgar jokes, funny nick names, and a few paper-pen games.

So this is how it was on that day.
Another physics lecture, and the whole class looked visibly bored,you see, just like anger, boredom shows up!

My partner and I decided to play a pen paper game called Hang A Man, and turned to the middle page of my notebook.
(For those of you who have no idea about it, it’s not even necessary! Just a game wherein you guess a movie’s name within a number of chances.For eg: Beauty And The Beast would be like this:)

It had just been around two to three minutes after we started playing it, we got so engrossed into the game that we actually really forgot than one of us is an ostrich particularly a lot visible than sun,sky,stars and the moon.
My subconscious could figure out the change in the environment that just happened. Suddenly, everything was noiseless! I looked ahead, and saw our professor standing quietly, looking straight into my eyes.She headed towards us, with every step of hers my heart skipped a beat.Shit! I could  have closed my notebook and kept in under my desk, or I could have flipped to any different page, but she was close enough to watch my movements. I was basically trapped, in an ugly way. I still turned my page. She stood in front of me. I was prepared for the worst, like being inside the Vice Principal’s cabin or being dead, maybe. She took my notebook. I could see my self respect being lifted up with it too. To my astonishment, with an obvious look at her face, she turned to the last page!!
With sheer acceptance of the naked reality, thud! came a sound. The fragments of  my self respect laid shattered in front of me. I hadn’t seen my last page since weeks and was clueless as to what all I might’ve scribbled on it, how much worse it would be. But hold on,this was not it, she decided to read it out to the whole class, in a typical satirical and  hysteric tone:

“Got my mind on your body,
and your body on my mind”

Dead!

The lyrics of the song “Cool for the Summer by Demi Lovato, which was trendy back then and could be found on anyone’s playlist, got me on top of someone’s hit list.
I was pretty sure my professor doesn’t know that it was a song lyric, she must’ve thought of me to be a creepy retard writing bullshit in her lecture.
I turned red, with every word being read out loud. Had she been reading out the movies we wrote while playing hang a man it would still have been fine, but this!
She tore off that page and remarked crossly that she’d show it to my parents in the next parents teachers conference.I knew I’d soon be a disowned kid.Now obviously everyone was laughing, I kind of laughed at my own self in my head but had to maintain the seriousness on my face. There were still ten minutes to bell. I remember how badly I wanted the lecture to get over. The bell rang finally. But I had a thought in my head, I felt bad. Even though she misunderstood me, I felt terrible. I rushed outside the classroom, and approached her, it took me a lot of guts to look her in the eyes. I apologized. I felt what I did was disrespectful.
She seemed calm,not at all frustrated as she was before.
I came back to my class and had a bunch of people asking me about it. The funny thing was, nothing really got on to my nerves , neither their questions nor their endless jokes.I mocked about it myself, a lot of times afterwards.
After having it talked off with so many people, rather than being embarrassing, it became more of  a “hilarious” high school memory.
A few months later, our annual exams came up, the physics papers were getting distributed and it was my turn. I expected anything and everything. But out the blue she said, “I want you to score a 100 in your next paper, promise?!
Wow!!
Should I? Shouldn’t I?
I just said, “Yes ma’am!”
Well, I mean, we all make promises, right? That’s like a good sign! We even fail to keep up with a few, and those are the best ones. Just saying.
She never showed it to my parents. I always knew she’d not.That’s why I felt the need to mention it before, however firm or strict they might seem, they are the best. Not just because of this incident, but because there have been times when even we gave up on ourselves, but they never stopped believing in our abilities, and maybe that’s why they don’t need any reason to be called as ‘amazing’ or ‘the best’ , they are just unique in their own way.

******