Life through the eyes of a backbencher

It’s a given fact that most people sleep in class. The frontbenchers do it with their eyes wide open and the back benchers with their eyes wide shut. No prizes for guessing who gets caught.

Hunger strikes you at the most inappropriate situations. As a frontbencher, you are subject to minutes of acute starvation. Dry chapattis and soggy chips never tasted better. Only a back bencher would know.

You strain to see the blackboard and hear what the teacher is saying. A lot of it never made sense, never has and probably never will. As a result, I can listen to music only at extremely high decibel levels and at some point of time have ended up with glasses. These are the sacrifices I have made to be a back bencher.

At times lightning strikes you suddenly and they say “I want to check your book.” The frontbenchers cringe that their notes are not complete. A black mark on their otherwise illustrious record. The back benchers are the ones with sense. Their record remains impeccable and their notes complete. We have all the time in the world to complete leftover work (food included.) Stress management is a myth. The key is to be last in line. That way, you see more, learn more and sleep more. That’s what they teach you in stress management anyway.

I was a back bencher all my life. The sad thing in a workplace is that you are seated in cubicles. If you don’t do work, you are fired. You don’t have the backbench to fall back upon. But all through the occasional moments of paying attention I realized one eternal truth.

The frontbenchers took notes, got high marks, got good jobs, took orders and went ahead in life. The others created revolutions to ward off the boredom. They were the back benchers.

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