SABARI GANESH

During the initial days of our college, conversations among a group of friends included various topics about girls, movies, lecturers, syllabus, and study material etc.. Girls in general and text books in particular may fade away but the only thing which remained coming up during those conversations again and again till the last working day is attendance.

When you start attending college, you come across several rules and regulations which should be strictly followed. In order to make students attend classes without fail, most of the Indian Universities and colleges conspired to introduce a mandatory attendance of 75% to every student.

This mandatory fulfilment of attendance gave nightmares to many of my friends. They were worried about their attendance and the dire consequences they had to face in case they crossed the limit. In fact the most visited page in our university’s website is Parents Corner where students checked their attendance.

Most of the times bunking the classes was a spontaneous act. In the midst of each semester every one of us calculated and planned the bunking procedure for the rest of the semester. We used to know the number of working days left, number of Saturdays which were working days and which weekday order they had. We planned our future with astrological calculations.

Quite often during the last 15 days in every semester, class rooms in my college looked fully occupied. Not for those interesting lectures, but because most of them are on the verge of crossing the magic number. They don’t even care for scorching sun and come running straight from their bed without taking bath.

In few occasions, lecturers used to ask few students suspiciously “Hey!! I have never seen you. Do you belong to this class? What is your name?”

There were few students who had more than 95% and one or two who had golden figure 100%. Sometimes lecturers used to read out names aloud in the class of those who had 100%. Disgustingly, names of those students who are on the verge of losing the magic number were also read out. That triumphant look on those 100% faces and scared look on <75% faces is unforgettable. My best friends and fellow classmates Tharun, Sandeep, Vishnu maintained 75-80 while Vivek created unbreakable records by showing 99% consecutively for eight semesters. Same is the case with my friends from other departments. But not as cruel as ours.

It was a common phenomenon in the corridors of our department where few students followed behind lecturers begging for mercy. Surprisingly, there were few persons with golden legs who in spite of sleeping most of the times in hostels, still retain the magic number through various incentives like OD, Medical leave etc.. In fact, luck of those particular golden faces frustrated few people.

Luckily, on an average I always maintained 88% which eventually gained me nothing.

As time went by, those beautiful days got vanished from the horizon. Finally now in the corporate world, we are showered with insufficient sick leaves, casual leaves, flexi holidays etc. It would have been nice if my company introduced the same 75% attendance for all employees in office for each quarter in a financial year. Let us hope.

Disclaimer: All facts and views expressed above are my personal. I don’t have any intention to hurt the feelings of those who maintained more than 90 and those who failed to maintain 75.