The Butterfly Effect

It is said that the flutter of a butterfly wing can lead to a storm at a completely different faraway place….

The flutters:

The first one was of course the mock fight between me and Sankar which destroyed the class furniture and almost made the only girl in the class to discontinue her course. This story has already been told.

The second one is a bit more interesting. Our first year class was in a long hall with asbestos roof and separated by 3 walls. The electrical Engg: class was in the room adjacent to ours. We used to enjoy ourselves during boring lectures by throwing chalk pieces and paper rockets to the electrical class through the gap between the roof and the partition wall. One day during civil class Venu threw a paper rocket to the next class. But it hit the partition wall and fell on the teacher. What happened next was dramatic. We have been doing this for a couple of months but this was the first time we were caught. Teacher picked up the rocket from the floor and turned to face the class. It was pin drop silence. Everybody was trying to figure out what would happen next. Venu started sweating. The teacher with a very angry expression came a couple of steps forward and asked in pure Malayalam “ aaranu ee Vanam vittathu”. The whole class was silent for another fraction of a second and then…everybody burst into loud laughter. The teacher was stunned and so were we, but nobody could stop laughing. This made her angrier and violent. She again came forward and shouted above the sound of our laughter” enikku ippo ariyanam…aranu ente methottu vanam vittathennu..”The sound of laughter only increased. There was utter chaos for the next couple of minutes. The teacher was standing in front of the class holding a paper rocket in her hand. The whole class was laughing, vegudu was clapping his hands due to extreme happiness, and venu who was ducking under the table to escape being caught, was lying on the floor and laughing.

In this commotion nobody noticed the teacher leaving the classroom. We really felt bad for her but any class full of teenage boys would have done the same.

The third one happened a couple of days later. After the vanam incident, throwing things to the next class almost ended. Venu used to throw a couple of chalk pieces just to show everyone that he wasn’t afraid. Now most of us resorted to the most common past time ..sleeping. In one such class, I, Sankar and Poocha were peace fully asleep in the last bench. One of our classmates was trying to impress the teacher by asking a lot of questions. He was interrupting the lecture and also our sleep. After a while I was completely irritated. I woke up Sankar and Poocha and said “ da oru Samshayalu irangittundu, we need to do something immediately or else my precious sleep for a good couple of hours is going to be disturbed”. Sankar looked up and said “athu nammude pashu alle, onnu paranjal avan mindathe irunnolum”. But pashu was not turning back for even a casual glance. He was sitting on the second bench on the left corner of the class near to the window and we were in the middle row last bench. Poocha tried throwing a couple of paper pieces but didn’t succeed. We were all looking for something else to throw and suddenly pasu stood up to ask another question. We were searching on the floor to find something to throw and through the corner of my eye I saw Sanker take something from a bag. I sat up straight thinking it was a pen or a piece of chalk. Pasu had finished the question and the teacher was just turning to the blackboard to explain. This was our moment. Sanker stood up and took aim and suddenly I saw what was in his hand. It was a small glass bottle in which somebody brought curd. Before I could stop him, he threw it..There was a large sound. I thought Pasu’s head broke. I didn’t have the courage to look but then I realized that the sound was of breaking glass. I looked up. Pashu was safely seated, his speed saved him, the glass window near him was completely shattered, the teacher was looking directly at us and … Sankar was still standing there in Parasuraman's pose enjoying the outcome of his throw. It took a couple of seconds for him to realize that the whole class was looking at him. He looked at everybody, then at the teacher, smiled and said “sorry miss, I missed”. The teacher couldn’t say anything and she quietly walked out of the class.

The storm

All these small innocent flutters (might not seem so innocent to others, but it truly was) was causing a great storm to build up in a place we least expected..in the principals mind. She was a task master and strongly believed that the Mech department was responsible for all the disciplinary issues in every Engg: college. All our senior Mechanicals up to the then final years were typical proof to her theory. The last two batches were relatively quiet and then we came. And all these incidents brought her violent attitude towards Mechanicals back with a vengeance.

All professors were asked to teach us a lesson. Anything and everything we did ended up in suspensions. In total 23 of us (out of 40) got suspensions that year. She suspended 5 of us for unruly behavior, then 17 for disrupting a lecture, 5 of us were suspended for copying in the series test. Our session marks started touching single figures. I and Poocha were among the lucky ones who got 2 suspensions during the period and our parents even considered taking season tickets to meet the principal. This continued through the first year until the Principal was transferred.

Tail peace: A notice on one of our suspensions was put up on the notice board and while I was passing that way, I saw oolan staring at the notice board. I thought he was depressed because of the suspension and went near to console him. I told “Da this is nothing..don’t worry, I have been getting suspensions from 4^th standard and so don’t feel bad about this”. He gave me a strange look and said “ poda m***e. I have always tried hard but this is actually the first time I am being officially suspended from college. I was thinking about how to open the notice board lock so that I can take the suspension notice with my name on it and keep it as a souvenir”.