There are so many books on espionage, counter espionage, there are even books on how to make an atomic bomb but no books on what I needed the most and that was art of skipping classes. It would have saved my ass big time. My timing sucks I guess because according to most of our parents we have to study hard during 12th and supposedly goof around during the college days, at least that’s the picture portrayed by our movies. But hey its me, how could I ever get it right so I goofed during my 12th and seriously studied during my college years.
Skipping classes is not a big thing; it’s the getting away that is. Regrettably I didn’t. My standard things in my school bag were a water bottle, a cricket ball, one towel. That’s it, no books no pens nothing after all those things wouldn’t be useful on our farm house. One another problem for me was that all my friends were in economics class and I was in Business Maths (B.M) class. Now because of good grades in 10th, my parents asked me to choose B.M because you have more chance in scoring in B.M then in economics. I am not saying that all those guys and gals in economics section were thick or vapid but of course in B.M, we were recognized as elite in the whole school and here I was among those creams of elite and instead of scoring in B.M, playing cricket. So coming back to my predicaments, there is something called attendance. I am sure you are all familiar with that term and you had had to fill your presence, at least on paper to count that you have actually attended the class. More familiar term is called “proxy”, which I know guys who share my point of view would know it better than anybody. So my friends in economics section didn’t have any such problem. There were lots of guys willing to cover for them, like filling their attendance sheet so that on paper it would be counted that they have attended the lecture. In my class, everybody were studious and no body was willing to fill my proxy because I guess they were afraid of outcomes if they get caught. Until now even I don’t know what would be the outcome if somebody did managed to get caught, I guess I should leave it to my imagination. So I said fuck that, still I am gonna skip classes and will play cricket. It was the matter of pride now.
So in the morning, we would gather around school and wait for the school bell to announce that school is in session, would grab our bikes and ride to our farm house and play cricket. Then again would come back to school, would mingle with those people who did attend the school and would find out if anything unusual happened or not like any announcement or something. This routine carried for a while. However the school people did found out that some of us are skipping classes, so they made mandatory to approach teacher’s desk in the first class and sign the attendance sheet instead of passing around. Damn now that is the problem because once in the class there was no way we could skip class with our school bags. I mean after all we have to get out of the school and the guard posted by the gates was not there just to shag but to catch people like us. Who says anything is impossible? It actually means that nobody has done it so far and we are born to break the limits. We found a solution, risky but you need to take some risk. We would sign up during the first lecture (god knows how I managed to attend the class without any pen or books, it seems enigma to me now) and when our first lecture would be over, there would be one guy on the ground floor whose primary job was to catch the bag that we would throw from our class window and to throw to another guy who was waiting outside the school. Then on pretext of going to the washroom, we would leave the class, scale the school wall and back to cricket. I wish school would have recognized my potential as a good wall scaler, I know some of those people who work at night and deprive sometimes people of their treasure would indeed have recognized my potential and I am sure they would have given me some sort of trophy. But life Is never fair.
So, this scheme of ours was working well until one day our P.T teacher (Physical Trainer) came to the ground and the catcher seeing him scampered. Now the guy who was throwing the bag didn’t know this so he threw the bag and holy shit, the bag hit out P.T teacher on head. He was knocked out for couple of seconds lying flat on the ground. I mean gravity was at work here too. What miserable luck we have, its like sitting in north pole during the world war, oblivious of the bombing and first Nazi inter continental ballistic missile got fired and during the process of elevation got itself short circuited, lost its projectery and landed right on top of us. What a mess, our P.T teacher saw which window was it, made some calculation and announced himself as Atilla the Hun. Mind you he was in a mean mood but I was lucky as I was in another class and I didn’t throw my bag so I was safe. What a close call but most of my friends got caught and I hate to think what happened to them.
Now normal people after getting caught would have stopped this shit, but no not us, we were plain dumb guys. We said forget the attendance lets go our own merry way and skip classes. There again we were doing the same old thing, waiting for the school bell to announce that school has started and then would go to play cricket. The worse thing was that my dad caught me when one day we were just chilling out at a café at 7 in the morning (during school hours) and my bad luck that my dad was teaching my sister to drive the car and first I saw the car, knew that it is familiar so saw the number plate and damn its mine and I saw who’s driving and my dad was staring at me and I was staring at him. It was love at first sight but this kind of love I hate to elaborate. My mouth was hanging open like fresh fish just out of from the water. You know I became psyche at that time. I swear I saw my future (that too without crystal ball or any tarot cards) at that time and believe me it wasn’t looking rosy to me at all. I was thinking of buying some heat resistance cream which I could apply before meeting my dad because I knew I was gonna burn in the hell. Later on my dad asked what you were doing and I had to tell that I bunked the class. I had no choice, what should I say I was doing at school hours wearing school uniform with my friends at café. I am so glad for my terrible memory that I forgot what he said but I am sure it wasn’t a pat on my back. That I would have remembered till the day I die. Also once I was bunking my karate class in the evening with my friend and his scooter broke down so we were under street light checking whether the petrol is there or not and all of a sudden I hear a voice asking what happened. Man I was chilled to my bone hearing that because it was my dad asking and I said we were checking the petrol and he asked what we were doing here because this is not the way for my karate class and I didn’t say anything. Would you believe my luck, don’t know what inspired dad that he took my bicycle out that evening to ride it so that he can get exercise. I swear to god after that incident he never touched my bike. This very day when ever my friend meets me he reminds me of that day asking was that the only time your dad took out your bicycle and why in gods name did he come there? Its like he came just to catch me. God and I had a private session after that.
Now whenever my kid would bunk classes and if he gets caught, I will let him read this article and tell him son, your old man also tried but I guess we are not favored with good luck when it comes to skipping classes so why fight the fate? Forget it and be a good boy. Hope that inspires him because reading this story, hmm leave it I fail to find more words here but if my son laughs reading this article in future, boy o boy he is going to get a slap on his face.
