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One of the greatest boons of the classroom education as compared to other forms(of which i have no idea)is the backbenches.Set up against the wall, with a view of the whole classroom (and of course the blackboard and lecturer), and with windows strategically located, the comfort of the back-benches is surreal.
So much so, that several occupants including the author have confessed that the sleep that one gets here is comparable to that of a baby's on a mother's lap.Everything, from the drone of the lecturers voice to the cosiness of the seats and the inclinations of the desk ,if at the right levels, leads one to feel more at home than one's actual home.And comfort is not the only thing that draws people here.
Safety...from being hunted down by wily profs whose sole aim is to contaminate your ignorance(or wordly knowledge) with calculus, Free body diagrams, recursive functions and so on.Right from school the warmth of the backbench has been alluring and has protected me from being besieged by the Rams' and Shyams' of the world who are always intent in selling stuffs(which notoriously often are apples or mangoes)at weird fractional profits or losses incomprehensible to the lively world of a teenager,or from the A's and B's of the world who swim towards/away from each other and start running in cirles or on race tracks at inhuman speeds for an inhuman amount of time,or from the alleged super-bird which flies to and from an approaching train and a post till....no! not until it drops dead but till the train hits it which would mean the same to you and me but no...the guys at would NCERT beg to differ.This was all till the tenth after which stuff became incomprehensible to even make fun of...the world of diodes and capacitors(A word of caution:these look deceptively simple but appearance belies a complexity fathomable only to gifted)..of Organic Chemistry where snakes bite their tails!?(no don't ask me where snakes came from because Messrs Morrison and Boyd have mentioned it and this and something about vampires not having mirror images were the only comprehensible pieces, amidst the pile of cyclic compounds,of billowing smoke from cauldrons(if there was smoke there had to be cauldrons rite?) and of precipitates.I am digressing I know...but someone had to take a snipe at all of the above!
I still remember those pleasant lazy afternoons spent at back of my classes, at school,the wind blowing over the deserted (Gopalapuram) ground ....all this combined with the drone of the teacher teaching Chemistry (theoretically it could have been anything other than English,but these details are as 'academic' now as they were then) and the heavy lunch of curd rice used to lull me off to sleep for a blissful couple of minutes before awakened by the understandably annoyed teacher and the sound of the whole class chuckling!Over a period of time I (as did every bloke who used to doze of in class) mastered this art of feigning attention by nodding continuously with my head down.Sometimes I was also saved by a really helpful friend sitting beside who aroused me discreetly with a poke.
In college,it was different!At first the lecture halls were a dream come true!The back-benches and their occupants were in a shady world of their own, a world of no rules, a world of couples fooling around, of pranks and paper rockets.There was no stopping the 'backbenchers' as they were looking to top each other's deeds!Someone did push ups,another played music aloud,yet another came drunk(not verified but not impossible either) and dozed off! Emboldened by each other's successes sky was the limit! Towards the end we had full fledged DJs' whipping out music and crying out loud for dedications. In this regard a word of appreciation to the benign Prof.Sanjeev Gupta,who taught Physics(to the furniture atleast!), who could not be deterred by loud music, cheers and catcalls and went about teaching!And this the class acknowledged by cheering his entry every time and giving him a standing ovation after the lecture!His classes were so much entertainment that people from other classes flocked to the windows , or some even managed to get in!But the restive calm of the back-benches was lost until the second year.
The Civil Dept. despite all its shortcomings,must be lauded for the huge drawing desks with adjustable inclines!The incline could be so steep that it became a solid wall behind which you could choose to pass time as you please.Except the occasional sadist, most Profs. disturb you only for your attendance.This left me with enough time to finish breakfast,catch up on the news and also at times draft the best football XI of the season.Occasionally I did try listening to lectures but these only drove me inscribe my name, my DC nick and several other insanely offensive stuff on the desks.So I would conclude by stating this : Protect Backbenches for a greener tomorrow!
So much so, that several occupants including the author have confessed that the sleep that one gets here is comparable to that of a baby's on a mother's lap.Everything, from the drone of the lecturers voice to the cosiness of the seats and the inclinations of the desk ,if at the right levels, leads one to feel more at home than one's actual home.And comfort is not the only thing that draws people here.
Safety...from being hunted down by wily profs whose sole aim is to contaminate your ignorance(or wordly knowledge) with calculus, Free body diagrams, recursive functions and so on.Right from school the warmth of the backbench has been alluring and has protected me from being besieged by the Rams' and Shyams' of the world who are always intent in selling stuffs(which notoriously often are apples or mangoes)at weird fractional profits or losses incomprehensible to the lively world of a teenager,or from the A's and B's of the world who swim towards/away from each other and start running in cirles or on race tracks at inhuman speeds for an inhuman amount of time,or from the alleged super-bird which flies to and from an approaching train and a post till....no! not until it drops dead but till the train hits it which would mean the same to you and me but no...the guys at would NCERT beg to differ.This was all till the tenth after which stuff became incomprehensible to even make fun of...the world of diodes and capacitors(A word of caution:these look deceptively simple but appearance belies a complexity fathomable only to gifted)..of Organic Chemistry where snakes bite their tails!?(no don't ask me where snakes came from because Messrs Morrison and Boyd have mentioned it and this and something about vampires not having mirror images were the only comprehensible pieces, amidst the pile of cyclic compounds,of billowing smoke from cauldrons(if there was smoke there had to be cauldrons rite?) and of precipitates.I am digressing I know...but someone had to take a snipe at all of the above!
I still remember those pleasant lazy afternoons spent at back of my classes, at school,the wind blowing over the deserted (Gopalapuram) ground ....all this combined with the drone of the teacher teaching Chemistry (theoretically it could have been anything other than English,but these details are as 'academic' now as they were then) and the heavy lunch of curd rice used to lull me off to sleep for a blissful couple of minutes before awakened by the understandably annoyed teacher and the sound of the whole class chuckling!Over a period of time I (as did every bloke who used to doze of in class) mastered this art of feigning attention by nodding continuously with my head down.Sometimes I was also saved by a really helpful friend sitting beside who aroused me discreetly with a poke.
In college,it was different!At first the lecture halls were a dream come true!The back-benches and their occupants were in a shady world of their own, a world of no rules, a world of couples fooling around, of pranks and paper rockets.There was no stopping the 'backbenchers' as they were looking to top each other's deeds!Someone did push ups,another played music aloud,yet another came drunk(not verified but not impossible either) and dozed off! Emboldened by each other's successes sky was the limit! Towards the end we had full fledged DJs' whipping out music and crying out loud for dedications. In this regard a word of appreciation to the benign Prof.Sanjeev Gupta,who taught Physics(to the furniture atleast!), who could not be deterred by loud music, cheers and catcalls and went about teaching!And this the class acknowledged by cheering his entry every time and giving him a standing ovation after the lecture!His classes were so much entertainment that people from other classes flocked to the windows , or some even managed to get in!But the restive calm of the back-benches was lost until the second year.
The Civil Dept. despite all its shortcomings,must be lauded for the huge drawing desks with adjustable inclines!The incline could be so steep that it became a solid wall behind which you could choose to pass time as you please.Except the occasional sadist, most Profs. disturb you only for your attendance.This left me with enough time to finish breakfast,catch up on the news and also at times draft the best football XI of the season.Occasionally I did try listening to lectures but these only drove me inscribe my name, my DC nick and several other insanely offensive stuff on the desks.So I would conclude by stating this : Protect Backbenches for a greener tomorrow!
