Unfortunately, my final presentation as an intern (by mine I mean, the one I delivered) reminds me of the times I’ve slept during presentations. Now wait, its not that I felt bad for my audience today, rather I feel, sleeping during a talk is one of the most blissful things one can experience. I’ve had the experience countless number of times, and feel obliged to return the favor to the society; one of the reasons I became a teacher. Of course, once I was convinced that I had affected the lives of a few students by giving them what I had intended, I gladly left the job.

Anyways, today I feel like writing about a time, a very rare time, when I was actually caught sleeping in a class. Since I feel it is a bit derogatory to name the class and the professor, lets give them hypothetical names.
Professor: Prof. Yamraj. Class: Taking souls of innocent students for dummies.

Now this was a time when I was getting used to a new atmosphere, so whenever I used to give myself some time to have a nap, I used to console myself by saying: “Don’t worry man, you’re getting used to it. Once you get into the hardships, either you’ll be awake or you won’t feel bad anymore”.

One fine (bloody-hot-afternoon) day, Prof. Yamraj walked in with enthusiasm oozing all over. He enters the class with a terrific smile (or a snide laughter, whatever), runs to the podium, 5 of us already in deep slumber. Now hey, I am one of those guys who give a chance to the speaker to prove that he’s good enough, …… for me not to sleep till 15 minutes. Anyways, Yammu (now I’d rather give him an pet name, the full name is beginning to get creepy) turned out to be one of majority and I was dreaming about Alice in my wonderland in about 15 seconds.

I’ve always believed that my subconscious has been strong enough and of all the important things it has done for me, the most important was the one that enabled me to wake up at the slightest alarm of danger. I’m sure all of us relate to experiencing things around you even during a dream. For example, when the alarm is off, in your dream someone’s on the phone. Similarly, the speaker’s continuous ramblings used to foster my dreams and when they used to stop, I could sense danger. However, this time, things were a bit different. The phone call went off a bit late inside my head.

You can’t really blame me you see, me and Alice were really having a good time and the hot atmosphere made it all the more endearing. However, good dreams don’t really last long in my case, and when this one seemed to, I got the feeling, boss … something’s wrong.

For all those who’ve experienced, being the center of attraction when you don’t want to be is the worst feeling on the earth. I raised my eyelids slowly yet steadily, so as to not give the impression that I am shocked or rising from a snooze. For a moment, I wished I had not got the anti-glare glasses for my specs, but I guess this was not going to be my day. Again, I wished that somehow the prof would understand the whole scenario, and let me go or something. However, that was also not to be.

I somehow felt a bit obligated to stand up and apologize, but I wasn’t the great man then that I am today. So I decided not to be stupid, shut up, and act as if nothing happened. Here’s the dialogue that followed:

Me: (to myself) why the hell is everyone staring at me man ?
Students: (to themselves) Hehehe, you’re screwed man !!

Prof: Hello mister, what do you think you are doing?
Me (trying hard not to yawn): Attending to your lecture sir (why would you think otherwise??)

Prof: Is this what you call attending haan? Can you tell me what I was teaching right now?
Me: Sure sir, blah blah bleh bleh … isn’t blah equal to bloh, and according to patent no. blih, blah is congruent to blihbleh. (hoping that this was the correct lecture)

Prof: (seemingly confused to how he managed to get that idea through) Huh? Hmmm… Huh?
Me: (sporting a confident, yet my typical ‘suave’ look)

Prof: What is your name? What is your roll number? Where is the attendance sheet? Get out of my class, I’ll look at your grades, and some more threats.
Me: (Whoa !!! high alert, attendance sheet issue being raised, try something quick)

Unfortunately, in tight situations, I mutter some high grade utter nonsense.

Me: Sir, what happened? I think you misunderstood me. I was closing my eyes when you were turning to rub something off the board. (Oh My God !!!!!). I wasn’t sleeping sir.

I think the professor was very sensible and sensitive enough not to utter a single word after that, he gently picked up the attendance sheet, crossed off my name, looked at me and signaled me to get out. However, I wasn’t really in a mood to get out, Alice was probably still waiting, so I eventually convinced the professor that I would like staying inside, and this way he would use the precious time to teach others of the virtue, we all call,
: mein aaj lecture me kya tun ho gaya yaar !!!

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