Sweet Nothings

Staffroom

Ever wondered what it is like inside the revered Staff room. Where do your professors and teachers lounge between classes, and what do they do then? Let me take you on a little tour inside the one I sit in.

It is big enough to accommodate 16 professors at a time. There are computer machines across the circumference, with only two that work. During class hours it is a deserted place, with the few in it, working on their classes, or writing papers or just unwinding after a long lecture. It is during the breaks that the department gets alive.

Tiffin boxes open and a sir jumps into action. He reminds me of the Principal in the movie Bhoothnath 'Kya laye Banku'. Jumping from table to table, looking into boxes, deciding the best box to choose from. Ignoring the one with fruits in it, scanning through the healthy options and then finally opening his own box prepared with love by his wife. He loves to share and insists we eat a major chunk from it. Will not find rest unless everyone has pulled their chairs around him and enjoyed food from his box. 'No' is a very painful thing for him to hear and nothing makes him sadder than an empty tiffin box.

There is a very sweet female professor, what subject she teaches I do not know, but she ensures we have atleast a little fruit in a day. It is either a noble cause or the lack of a loving wife to pack a wholesome meal. Either way, most days, it is the only bite of fruit I would have had all day.

Another professor, whose loving wife, ensures he has healthy and tasty food. He is famous for having the best lunch box in the department and shares it with a free hand but ask for a recipe and you get the reply, will ask my wife and get back.

Now people with wives enjoy the delicacies packed and people without wives but husbands relish the fruits they cut themselves to sustain through the day. There is one senior professor who is out there with his belly out, doling dietary advice. Ensuring professors stay in shape by cutting down on the junk they eat (every Saturday is a Vada Pav party). He looks around hopelessly, contemplating on how to save these juniors from early cholesterol, and heart ailments.

While there are others who choose to eat their junk in silence and away from his watchful eyes.

The conversations that take place are equally fun. One professor loves to passive aggressively blame another and couples it with a long never ending preachy speech. It is exciting to watch grown professors arguing about how they missed accounting for a class, and trying to not actually sound like they are fighting.

Some are loud and patronizing. Shouting controversial opinions in the department about how 'mothers of rape victims should be paraded naked for letting their daughters alone' and getting validated for comments like this.

Though the absolute fun is students getting trolled. I enjoy sitting pretending I am reading a book, and watching the drama unfold. A Professor trolling students out of their folly. All join in, laughing at how the student answers back. It's a thrill to see the students reply back. How they are more witty and diplomatic than the professor yelling at them. The dynamic of the frustrated professor and the enjoying student is my absolute favorite to watch. I wish I could discreetly take notes and use all that I learn in handling my personal relationships.