Last few Classes!!!

I would be done with the classes in my college life in a few more days. Right now, I'm in my seventh semester and my eighth semester is a project semester where we don't have any classes. I'm not one to hate classes either in my school or college. I've always loved lectures about technical subjects. There, I've said it!

Most of my classmates don't like classes. I don't know why. I've always loved the way a lecturer takes his/her class, starting from the introduction where we get a glimpse what we would discussing the next hour or so. It is similar to the lovely smells that waft towards you when your mom prepares some delectable dish( that is why, I hate the electric chimneys! Though they are efficient and are most useful from a grownup's point of view, they don't give a person the fun of expecting the sumptuous dishes and becoming more hungry in the process... They just take off all the fumes and don't give a chance for our noses to enjoy the process too! Anyway!). Then comes the actual lecture. The professor slowly unfolds the process and helps the students to know the subject exactly as he wants them to remember it for a lifetime to come( the methods you learn in a classroom stick to you and you do it that way even if you find a better method later in life! Maybe because it is comfortable! for example, I learnt multiplications the normal way. Then, in college, one of my friends taught me the way it is done in Vedic Mathematics(I even brought a book about it)! Though it was simple, easier and faster for calculation, I still do the multiplication the old way!). Then comes the grand finale where the professor makes us understand the importance of what we have learnt and helps us fit it into the scheme of things with which we are familiar. That is the most difficult thing to do as our mind can process new information and old things separately but it cannot connect one another easily. The way the professor connects it is like connecting two exquisite embroidered work with threads that live in the background and yet make the entire work a seamless one! That should be experienced to be understood.

Though I wouldn't say that all the lectures I've attended are of the above sort, there are some professors who can make life a pure pleasure for a whole hour and keep you begging for more. There are subjects where I would touch the notes just an hour before the exams and still get an 'S' (the highest grade in our college). There are subjects where I've searched the net and scoured the library for more information in it for the pure fun of understanding more on that subject. I should thank all the professors and teachers who have given me such an experience. Some of the most memorable ones in that list are Ms.Roselyn John(my algebra teacher, who made algebra the most interesting subject for me in Maths. A terror in school, she was the best of all my middle school teachers), Ms.Anne(my history teacher in 8th. She was one who showed that history is actually fun and honed my debating skills(it helps me even now.. I can never stand the temptation of a good debate on any subject especially history, politics or religion).We discussed everything in her class.There was no taboo subject.),Ms.Vanamala(my Geography and english teacher, who saw to it that we learnt our maps right and could mark all the rivers of India correctly even in our sleep. Her grammar classes were great with the entire class wrestling with the hundred and one things in the famed "Wren and Martin" book. She was so good at it!), Mr.Govindarajan(my Maths sir who is a terror among students but who could make maths so delectable), Ms.Prethija(a teacher with a style of her own in Maths. She was great with Calculus and made us know the true powers of Calculus), Ms.Joy Violet(my Chemistry teacher who made the dry equations come alive in class and who saw to it that we loved the phenolphthalein and benzene formations as much as we loved Tendulkar and Schumi.Only in her class did I know that chemistry could be so much fun), Dr.Jayakumar( who unfolded the beauty of Physics in college),Ms.Kalpana(my Circuits teacher who showed that to succeed in ECE, what was needed was a proper understanding of fundamentals and not mindless learning of facts. I always learnt circuits only half an hour before the exam and still got an 'S' all the way through. We were so thorough with the concepts!),Mr.Sarita Kumar(a sir who made microprocessors so simple yet so powerful and found me my true love in ECE streams). There are a lot more teachers(from Ms.Magdalene to Mr.Sudhakar) who have made school and college life fun with their teachings. I could go on and on about them.

There are also staff in whose classes I've checked out my watch once every minute, yawned in front of their face and not understood one word of what they teach even if I put in my best efforts. It is kind of easy to segregate the staff into these two streams. You listen once to their class, then you'd know what grade you would get in their subjects. There are times when none of us in class would understand a word of what is being taught but would not show it for the sake of decency. But then, there are teachers who have taken this to be encouragement and have gone on and on. God forbid! in those cases :) We would take to passing chits and having fun right in front of their noses and they would be blissfully ignorant of it all. Some of my more industrious friends would finish off all the record work, obsi work and assignments during these boring lectures. They usually come with nil prep for the labs and bank on these staff for taking classes.Then, the whole class would have to bank on the notes of other class teachers. But in cases when all classes have teachers of this kind, it would be utter confusion and fun during the exam times. None of us would know what to learn and we would be as good as not having prepared anything at all. We would turn the books once and go to the examhall. We would then pray to all our Gods to pass us off in that particular subject because the entire paper would be a disaster and we would even write whatever we felt was remotely connected to it. My only thankfulness is that I've not had such staff many times, maybe once or twice(like Ms.S who took maths in 3rd semester or Ms.R).

Now, I want to attend all the classes that we have till the end of semester. Who knows if I would ever get the opportunity to sit in a class again and listen to lectures of any kind? So, now that the time is limited, I'm having an insatiable hunger to attend all the classes :) If all goes right, I might have classes in my Masters in some univ in US. If not, I would have to work in office and forget about classroom scenario for sometime. Till the time when we didn't know the end, we were bored with classes and wanted to finish them. But now, knowing that I have only a handful more classes to go, I want to make the full use of it. One more time to rise up when the prof comes in, one more time to scream your number for attendance, one more time to see a proxy being given(and a lot more sometimes),one more time to pass the chits(sometimes entire notebooks) among friends, one more time to hear SRR commenting on one and all, one more time to have small talk with AG,HI,CR,KV and AB, one more time to see AS nod off,one more time to see P and Rapri messaging to all and sundry, one more time to see AN take notes diligently, one more time to sleep when the OHPs are used, one more time to whisper answers to help friends when asked questions and one more time to close the note in relief. One more time to have all this fun!

Though I know that life goes on and that we have to move on in life, these things will always bring a smile on your face whenever we think of it. I'm sure each of us would have had great fun in class whichever age we were in. I love both my class of 10th and the class of IVth year though they are as different as chalk and cheese. I'm actually sad that I'm going to miss all of them(had someone said this to me some months back, I would have laughed in their faces!)I'm ready for the real world yet a part of me would still love going to classes(as I've done for the past 16 years). These things would forever remain in our memories. They would still have the sweet fragrance of our youth even when our hair turns grey and finally, white. A part of our souls would remain with our classrooms even we have passed and gone. Ok! now, I've got to go into another of my last classes. Ciao!