We, The Back-Benchers

The disturbance in my ears became a raging storm when I was rudely jolted from my afternoon siesta to find the furious Professor glaring at my face. Shaking off the last remnants of my dream I stood up swaying, and trying my utmost to stifle a yawn. As I hung my head down( the best escape mechanism that you can adopt in these sort of trying circumstances), the wizened professor decided that the whole class deserved to know more of my upbringing and mannerisms. The grooves in the wooden desk in front of me had never been more interesting. The swirling patterns and the whorls entranced me and interred me in the depths of their multitudes.
Finally the storm abated and I settled down to muffled giggles and guffaws. I yawned once or twice loudly just to see the professor getting livid once more. Chuckling to myself I once again lapsed into a state of ennui. My siesta broken and also not trying to push my luck further, I looked around to find my fellow compatriots in various states of inaction.
The Back-Benchers society is a self contained micro-cosmos having a life and intrinsic characteristics of it’s own. A plethora of disguised talents, misguided virtuosos interspersed with a multitude of jerks of varying intellectual faculty comprise our back-benchers society. There are also petenders who try to improve their social standing by forcibly ingraining themselves upon us.
Most of the people in my society walk more alive in their dreams than in reality. And those rugged desks and the peeling plasters of our archaic classroom sing a lullaby that can make you sleep like a log. Except for some rare occurances in the past history this tradition of ritualistic mass slumber has been interrupted very few times by our extremely qualified and ineffectual professors. The rollcalls are just minor footnotes in this epic ritual.
Bereft of avenues to show their artistic skills, some guys wreak their vengeance on the hapless desks and benches. Innumerable graffiti adorn them ranging from the banal to the esoteric, from doodles to protraits, from mindless scribblings to poems of longing. Dimmu Borgir shares the same space with the myriad imaginary girlfriends of Deepu and also the different clan names of gaming enthusiasts. There are also references into the linguistic depths of people who have taken pains to learn the slangs of every language and embellished the desks with their knowledge for all posterity.
The famed “addas” of Calcutta pale in comparison when there is a free period and the slumbering leviathans wake up to join the rest of the mortals. From the latest match of DOTA to the policies of Barrack Obama, from discussing the latest disgusting video to come out from the Ladies Hostel to whether one night stands are better than long term commitments,everything under the sun finds a place in the discussions.
There are also brief moments of action, glory and gory in the back benches. These are not flashes in the pan but rejuvenate us for a better tomorrow. The sight of Chatta at his frenzied best, the rustic humour of Deepu inciting everyone for a GPL to LoveAngle, the infuriating actions of Zondy, the group gropings of Umaga, the warcrys of Zhenga to the devilry and impishness of our sweet Gullu. We the back benchers survive each day to the memories of incidents as such.
I must confess I am really proud to be a member of such a group. Where else can you find a national level athlete, a world class hacker, a web designer, a photoshop guru, a robotics giant, magazine editors, a football captain, heads of a few clubs and not to mention the gaming fiends sitting all around you?
Before the bell rings for the next period, I also realisethat the back benches represent a mini-India with people from the far-off Andamans to the Khasi mountains, from our own babu-moshais to the shinde folk. Gultis and bhaiyyas, Uddus and Northies share the same desks with harmony. Quite a case study in cospolitan India, I think.
P.S. People of the front benches of my class who read this, Please read between my fingers.