any more late and i'd be coming tomorrow

Attendance was a big issue in this college. In any college. Even school. It always is. Has to be too. But especially this college, for this batch - our batch - what with V.D. bugging us and making a big fuss about not giving us our hall tickets and all. Oh, but that never stopped me from turning in late. Heck! It didn't even stop the rest of the class from their periodical bunks.

But I should have been early.

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Of course I should have. After all I didn't stay at Dahisar then. Almost everyone knew I was going to shift soon. I still remember the first thing Vijeta said once she found out that I was shifting. Now considering that its all the way to the other end of the city (almost 35kms away!), you would have expected something like: "Hey! Nice yaar! Now we can come together by train." Or something like that... Oh, but no. This isn't any ordinary batch. So there won't be any ordinary reply. So she said, "Hey! Sahi yaar! College saath mein bunk karenge!"
(quik trans: "Hey! Cool! Now we can bunk college together")
But the best part was when and how I used to give my attendance.

Oh! I was never on time

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And this was not much of a problem earlier at least. But even after V.D. had spooked us, and despite the fact that I used to stay closest to college, I was still never on time. You can ask any of my classmates. They will agree wholeheartedly. Infact, they used to actually wait for me to turn up late. And as soon as I used to enter - encore. But now this would have been a problem, since attendance used to be the first thing in class. Of course, sometimes if you're too late you're not let in anyway (depends on the teacher's mood), and sometimes two consecutive lectures would have attendance halfway through the two lectures.

So one fine day...

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When I was terribly late, albeit as usual, I arrived in the middle of the such two WEB/OS lectures. And attendance was in session. (She never left the room in between so no way to sneak in). But instead of knocking, entering, apologizing and attending the remaining half of the lecture, I went around to the window where my gang and I used to sit. (Q. Why sit there? A. Partly to watch butterfly babes, partly to blame 'weird noises' to be coming from outside the window). Jumping up and down, I first called out for Shiv, (whispering loudly), and asked him the status. Which basically meant what mood was she in. He told me that the attendance taking ceremony was going on, so I could just knock and enter for the second lecture. Instead a devilishly better idea struck me. Shiv's roll number was right after mine and since we both usually sat nearby, those two "present ma'am"s used to be heard either in chorus or one right after another. So I told Shiv to just tell me when my number comes.

And he did. And I yelled.

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It all happened so fast.
"228... 229... 230"
"Present ma'am! Present!", I yelled from out the window, (I had to jump a little to make it sound closer). And Shiv quickly followed suit, which helped. Because he didn't let there be a break in the flow of attendance. She must have thought I was inside the class because I was marked present for sure. Mukesh was prompt to check on it in the lab. And as for me, my lecture was spent in Oxford, reading Far Side by Gary Larson.

My body in Oxford, my mind in the Far Side, my heart in comics, my sole in my shoes but most importantly, my attendance in the register!