Story Of A Back Bencher

School time is considered to be the best time of our life and if you were a backbencher then you have enjoyed it all. Backbench was not only a place to sit but our playground, movie theatre and food complex. Backbenchers used to do everything other than studying. Ranging from gossiping with friends to finishing tiffin boxes of others without their knowledge, from sleeping in the classroom to texting with our girlfriend, from deciding nicknames for the teachers to making funny noises to disturb the teaching progress and drawing "genitals" on benches with our compass while the teacher is teaching without getting caught.    

  

In school, the bench you sat in, demarcated your strata in the classroom society. If you were a frontbencher, you submitted your assignments on time, if you were a middle-bencher, you never submitted your assignment on time and if you were a backbencher, leave alone submitting, you didn't know about the assignment only.

 You were a frontbencher if you studied throughout the year, you were a middle-bencher if you studied on the last night before the exam and you were a backbencher if you were completely relied on the topper to pass you the exam but if you were a sly backbencher sitting in the corners, you stole the notes of frontbenchers so that they would also fail with you. 

I remember first benchers topping the class with 97 marks but then also cribbing about losing out on those three marks but we backbenchers would reach cloud number 9 if we passed our exams just by 1 mark. 

After the results came out, parents of frontbenchers used to give them gifts for topping the exams while parents of backbenchers used to give them 'flying Paragon chappal' for failing exams.    

The most common thing about backbenchers is that we are always a gang, a gang somewhat like gangs of wasseypur which had complete control over our territory(classroom) with police (teachers) being our biggest enemy and getting encountered by the police (call to our parents) was always our greatest fear. Like gangs of wasseypur, we too used to do laundering in desi terms "hafta wasuli" in terms of lunch box from each student. Just like gangs of wasseypur used to smuggle guns, we used to smuggle phones inside the classroom.

From bunking classes to flunking school to watch first-day first-shows of random movies, from getting beaten up while saving a friend's ass in a fight to being punished outside the classroom in a group, we never realized how our bond of friendship got so strengthened. 

The bonds of friendship that we made, was not only restricted to the classroom but will remain with us till our hair grows white. First benchers might have fetched a lot of marks and prizes for topping the class, but we, the backbenchers, made prized memories which we will cherish till we go down to the grave.