Present mam...

ATTENDANCE- THE REAL APPROACH

Recent events have been teaching me a lot of things. In particular ‘attendance’. There have been many incidences in the past one week relating to this thing, Attendance… What does this mean?? Attendance- it is all about giving your presence, where it is needed!!! For a college going guy or girl attendance means a lot. In our ‘Glorious GCT’ and till our batch, we have to get a 75% attendance to write exams. That’s it. And that is why we go to college here. Else who wants to go the hell here? This year we got a good HOD, who wanted every hour to be engaged. All of a sudden all hours started to be engaged. And obviously, our guys got a little angry, frustrated, annoyed, vexed, disappointed, irritated and dissatisfied. I was after everything, laughing for crazy things happening. Lecturers who had no idea if the classes were square or rectangle in GCT; if there were more than 50 students in class (They just want the benches to be filled); if students had any idea about the title of their subject. Some are even good that they don’t know if they have a class this hour. But, when they come, it’s tough time. And many time some silly ladies who do masters in their stream in this college do things as if they are principal of this institution. Let me explain this with two excellent examples!!!

First, let me start this with the permanent staff thing. It was last Thursday and I was getting ready to go to the laboratory half-heartedly. I actually had no plans of going. Then somehow, making my heart agree with the brain I went there. It started off well and all of a sudden, there was a call for all guys. Excluding those very few ‘Mr. Perfect’s all were standing on the other side. As I didn’t write the observation notebook that day, I was still standing outside the room where they all stood!!! I had still to decide, if I should go in or to the Hostel. Then, when I went through the other door, it was closed! Alas! Now my only hope was to go into the room. I went in. The problem there was that students were present without proper uniform… My case was ok! I had no belt, shoe, had not tucked in the shirt, etc. But, Venkatraman was out of count for wearing brown shoes. That was the top of all accusations. Our dear lecturer marked absent for all but four boys and one girl. Girls were also wearing cut-shoes, canvas… But, that’s a golden rule. Girls are exemplary creatures. They never sin. I didn’t tell this, it’s pre-told. So, finally all but few were marked absent and we were told to sit in the lab for three hours i.e. till the end of lab hours. This was one incident that wasted my half a day leave. In GCT casual leave supplies our living. And, my half-a-day’s leave was gone.

Another incident happened, one of the ladies who does masters in ’power electronics’ in this college, handles a subject that only god knows for what this 63 are studying. In fact only god knows why the previous set studied this; why it is still in syllabus from 2003. And she comes to class taking some papers and she makes us write everything she has written in her sheet. Her grammar is too good. You want some examples...? here are some

“From this, you can understood that…”

“It can be able to easily solve…”

“It has been occurred…”

“We will be going to scan the program…” [Mind voice: Where??? Ithaca??? Or Albania???]

“It will moves on…”

Now, after an hour of this sort of English, I don’t know if any English would be left within us. I’ve read my brother’s English paper and felt very sorry for those staffs… They had to study English to correct these papers that had no life and flesh. Coming back to story of our lady- her grammar is too good. So, it’d be as if all are listening. And writing down around 3 to 4 pages in a 45 minutes class. Isn’t that too much??? She tells every word in it. I don’t know the objective. Is it to teach us about the subject or to make us go for a ‘short-hand’ writing course? Amidst all this a complaint has landed in our class teacher’s ears. It came from her mouth. It’s that we are not allowing her to continue with this sort of a class. And coming back to the main story, I went to her class, late by 40 minutes (I’m sorry telling you that the class is for 50 minutes). I asked her attendance. I’d not have in normal cases. But, as I came to know that she was standing in front of the class, all that 40 minutes correcting unit test note-books, I wanted a present. She said, “How could I???” My mind-voice was telling, “Who gave you Bachelor degree??” and I just smiled, my lips starting to say, “F off” and came to hostel to sleep the entire noon.

These incidents made me think a lot on the definition for attendance. Oxford told it as, “Being present somewhere for a purpose” So, what is the equivalent for attendance if there is no purpose???