"Blog about your encounter with someone or something jiski #ConditionSeriousHai" read the contest description brought forth by https://www.facebook.com/cadbury5star. I have to admit I was pretty confused. You see, it was less Sophie's choice and more choosing a soup for dinner. The task of choosing one serious encounter from the sample space of constellations of frosty-nosed looks and gloomy arcs of the mouth isn't an enriching experience. Nevertheless, you try to shortlist the best of the best (worst of the worst, for the-glass-is-half-empty people). Then it hits you. An organization full of people jiski condition serious hai beats any one encounter with a single person.
Yes people, just try to remember your college days, and if you were in one of the more project-the-goody-two-shoes-image-to-the-parents colleges, you'd know what I am talking about. From the security guard at the main gate to the highest echelons of the educational food chain, every entity had a natural expression of an upside down smile.
Imagine yourself causally strolling in through the entrance of the college, and the conversation goes something like this:
Guard One (like G1 of Ra.One fame; not that anyone knows about him [G1, not the guard {I'm so sorry!}]) : Where's your ID card?
You: I left it in the lecture hall yesterday. I'll go and get it.
G1: Go and get it first, only then can you enter.
You: Whaaaaaaaaaat? It is IN the hall! How can I get it without entering the college?
G1: (repeating nonchalantly) Go and get it first, only then can you enter.
You: (sarcastically) Thank God you didn't become a professor of Physics.
Needless to say, rather than bending the laws of Physics, you bend the laws of the college and scale a tiny wall to get to your lecture hall.
Now that you have been delayed at the gate, there is no way in hell that you are going to reach the first lecture in time. Still, hoping against hope, you make a dash for the lecture hall. Being an agnostic, you still pray that the professor might be late because he might have forgotten his ID card too.
Wishful thinking, no doubt. You barge into the hall, only to find the meanest eyes staring at you from the raised platform.
Professor: "Why waste your dad's hard earned money? Stop coming."
No wonder it's called the lecture hall.
You: "Sir, the guard at the gate wasn't letting me enter. I forgot my ID here yesterday."
Professor: "Do you people have an omnibus of excuses or something? I'll have to mark you absent. Now go, get your ID card, and take a seat. Not that it would matter."
Now you are indignant. The one time you actually have a genuine explanation, they are not ready to hear it! On top of that, you have been marked absent and still have to sit for the class.
No amount of grovelling at the end of the lecture hour helps in getting the hallowed mark of a tick beside your name.
The day rolls on with the seriousness of one lecture after another. Through the middle of the day, you realize that you had to take a bona fide certificate from the college for a training you are attending. So you write a letter requesting for one, in your neatest handwriting, because you know that the value of the presentation is way more than the content itself. Not very different from a shallow guy choosing a girl.
Anyway, you head off to the college office, to get the chore out of the way. Everyone is so serious and yet lazy in the office. People are staring intently at sheets of paper and letting out silent albeit giant yawns. You try to approach someone with your request. She admonishes you, saying that you are so uncaring that you didn't even see how busy she was. You are told to wait for a half hour until she tidies up her work. After forty minutes, she's still sorting through coloured sheets of paper that already look sorted. You go up to her and request her to consider your request as you've got class soon. With a sigh of resignation, Sighhhhh.... (to which you so wanted to attach a 'girl look at that body', brainchild of the duo brilliantly named as LMFAO), she took up the letter you were so proud of until then.
Official: You want a bona fide certifiicate?
Thank you, Captain Obvious.
You: Yes, I need it for a training I'm attending.
Official: Did you get this approved by the necessary people?
You: Umm... Whom should I get it approved from?
Official: Your class in-charge, your department's HOD, the Vice Principal and the Dean. After that you submit this letter, and you'll get the certificate one day after the day of submission. That is the procedure, in order to avoid fraud. And please close your mouth.
Unknowingly, your jaw would have dropped to the floor after hearing the list of officials required to prove that you are a genuine student. It would take two days just to acquire those elusive signatures, what with all the "He's in a meeting, please come back later." or "He's busy right now, you can come in the evening." or maybe "He would rather watch cricket in his office than help you out with his signature. Please come back tomorrow." The last doesn't generally happen, but you never quite know, do you? You are not at the right end of the door to know for sure!
As the end of the day nears, you try to shrug off the tiredness. Ten more minutes of watching the professor and his animated expressions in front of some gibberish. Piece of cake. And out of the blue appears another professor. "You guys stay where you are. I have to take an extra class after this one."
A multitude of groans fill the already musty air. The portion to be covered in the extra class could have been covered the next day too, especially with around two months still left till the start of the exams.
So this is probably one of the most serious days that can occur, right? Wrong! This takes place half the time.
I don't know how much we actually got to learn because of the seriousness, but our ability at percentages did improve A LOT. Reason? Imagine this. You try to bunk some hours of the day, maybe a couple of hours each day, just so that you can squeeze in with the seventy-five percent attendance required by the law of the holy land. This was not to be tolerated by the Serious Shirleys. So marks were attached to the attendance percentages and as an icing on the cake, an SMS was triggered each hour you were absent from the class. Not each day mind you, each HOUR. So, if the hangover (because of the late night study sessions, of course) causes you to miss the first four hours before the interval, your Dad's SMS jingle would sound each hour for the four hours. Awesome or what? (Answer: what) And if your Dad too was all serious about it, I feel for you. I escaped on that account at least.
So you see, at the end of the day, Heath Ledger's joker would have a whale of a time around the campus. The number of times he'd get to utter the words "Why so serious?" would delight him no end. What follows those words, though, would be something to be serious about, indeed.
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