The Daily Chime

Does it ever work for you guys if run your watch, say, 10 minutes fast? It never does for me. I have tried it several times. You have your alarm clock 15 minutes fast, it rings at 7:30, you know its 7:15, sleep for some more time end up waking up at 8. That’s what I don’t like about watches, it doesn’t wait for anyone. If it is fast, it remains fast. If it is slow, it remains slow.

It works for my room neighbour though. He is kind of guy who believes in running with time and all, not running behind it. It is good in a way. He has his clock about 10 minutes fast, lives by it. The thing is, he is so engrossed in studies and all that he probably doesn’t know that his clock is fast. He could be one of them who presume others are also living by his watch. This is not good. It is obviously very irritating to be woken up at 7:10 when you want to wake up at 7:15. It happens every day during our quizzes. When I sometimes think about it, it is not as bad as it looks. I mean, all he is doing is pulling me up. At least he is not the Indian frog who is trying to get the other frog down or something. He is a very soft person. He really is. I really wouldn’t want to scold him early in the morning for waking me up early, I just thank him instead. I think it’s phony to do that. I don’t want to be that way. I appreciate those who freely express themselves. I really do. But I am not one of those. This is all society’s fault. What I mean is, law gives you freedom of speech and all, but society prevents you from using it. What good is such a law?

Sometimes I do happen to wake up at the right time. I run to the bathroom with brush in one hand and tooth paste in the other. I don’t know why I never carry them in the same hand. It is a lot easier that way. Anyway, in my defense, our brains don’t work at those early hours. After I brush my teeth, I run to the mess and gobble the stuff up and run to class. Same is the routine of most of my friends. My neighbour, however, doesn’t fit into this routine. We all then rush to the class on our bicycles and all. The day begins.

This routine won’t last long. I know. Our dean has an idea of a mega mess serving food to all the hostel residents. The building construction has already started. It will be completed by end of this year. This has been out dean’s pet project, much like Atal Behari Vajpayee’s golden quadrilateral project. He was looking forward for this from the day we entered the institute. If you have read other blogs of mine, you would know that I love to have something to look forward to. Dean loves to look forward to his project. It is very good. You cherish every moment of your life that way.

Back to mega mess, I and my friends believe that when the mess is built, going to our breakfast will be an adventure on its own. It is not as close as hostel mess. I don’t intend to say I hate adventures or something. In fact I love them. But you can’t face an adventure everyday of your life. The pace of the current schedule is lost. You can’t run to the mess. You have to park your cycles first, take your food, and then get back to the business.

We reach our class, usually five minutes late. Some professors don’t care while others do. That’s peculiar with Profs, you can’t predict them. Some of them smile when we are late, others frown. It would have been nice if their reactions had been left behind just on the face. But some Profs take it to their nerves. They really do. They arbitrarily wave their hands and all. I don’t follow the sadistic pleasure they derive out of this.

After some fight, we usually get our way and sit in the class. I don’t know if it is because they are old or something, Profs don’t realize that we are hardly paying attention to them. When they do realize this, they make their best effort to come up with a joke. All of us laugh; yes we do, but sarcastically. It is too phoney, but they deserve it. Yet again I fail to understand Profs; sarcasm just isn’t enough to tell them that their joke sucks. I don’t mean to say they are dumb or something, but that’s the way they are. Some of them talk about morality and all. Why??? All of us may not be morally straight. No matter how immoral we are, we don’t deserve to hear the lousy speech.

Day passes, we have our lunch, and afternoon passes. Those who have afternoon free end up crashing for an impending night out. I like having aftees free. It is not like I am million times more productive or something. But I like to have my own time, for instance, to write a blog.

Then the evening comes, sports kicks on. Activity level is the highest between 5 and 7. That’s what I love about sports. It’s addictive. What is addictive is fun. It is much like alcohol or cigarettes. There is a difference to point out, alcohol and cigarettes are acquired taste whereas sports are instantaneous, like a candy. All of us may not have sporting spirit and all, but that doesn’t prevent most of us from enjoying it.

Dinner is served right after. Yes, at 7. It is crazy, don’t you think? It is our Profs who made the decision. We are forced to abide by it. We are asked to respect our teachers. I don’t get the elders either. Why should we respect someone just because he is our teacher? I don’t mean they don’t deserve it or something, some of them really do. But they are one of us who happened to teach. They picked their profession just like all of us did. If they picked teaching thinking of the guaranteed respect package, trust me, they don’t deserve any of it.

Evening consists of all the activities. It is mostly senseless conversation though. Some of us play games over the LAN. That’s the beauty of technology. It brings people closer even when he is in the next room. Late night activity is usually individual with their computers, like me with this blog. As I end this I shall resume reading ‘catcher in the rye’.

# posted by Shankar : 1:16 PM