Chapter 3

Now, the definition of the faculty being enemy was an interesting idea but most of the students got along very well on the idea that the faculty didn't know it was the enemy, and that was the best kind of enemy to have. In fact, attacking a dangerous enemy who isn't there is one of the
more attractive forms of warfare...especially in college.

And then there was the Principal who was god’s gift to enemies, any enemies and a walking encouragement to desertion of her own forces; in other words, namely ours, she was not the enemy, she was a nemesis, a perdition, an abomination, all by herself. Insanity did not quite cover the facts, somewhat similar to sequins trying to cover up a playboy center spread model.

The dogs of the hostel had a special howl especially set to music for the times when the Princi would venture forth on her nocturnal lunar expeditions.

The enemy, in short the faculty, wasn't the men, or women, or the old, or even the dead. It was just bloody stupid people, who came in all varieties. And no one had the right to be stupid when the student hostel motto was always to pick a bigger enemy, because he's easier to hit.

A show like that would have turned a full battalion of professors into gibbering mental wrecks, but the Law College professors were made of sterner stuff and were inoculated against madness by being a little bit crazy all the time. They do say that there is a rather thin line between genius and insanity and most of the faculty geniuses had fallen off it a long time ago.

With precedents set like this, there war hardly any holding back as each class attempted to break records set by previous years. Some batches loved physical jokes while others preferred to set their professors rooting out their hair and howling at the moon with subtler forms of torture.

By the time summer breaks were at hand, most of the professors had perfected their skill in running away, which over the years they had elevated to the status of a genuinely pure science; to them, it didn't matter who you were fleeing from or what, so long as you were fleeing. For them the first and last rule of running away was, never to look back.

Jokes on professors and the enemy (The faculty) were one thing, but things took a turn for the worse when the goof’s also tried their hands. Good jokes, well planned and executed were duly appreciated, but we had our share of Dumb attempts, worthy of the capital D.

A constitutional expert and an erstwhile prof (I'll call him Dr. B) had a habit of telling his students to "jump out of the window" when they gave dumb answers. One student decided to take the prof to task; the class was taught in a second floor room so the student practiced jumping out the window (with the help of an assistant who would catch his arms as he jumped).

The two got this down to an art, and one day provoked the "jumping out of the window" comment from Dr. B. The student said, "Okay, if you say so," turned around, and leapt out the window. His partner (who was supposed to grab him but say, "oh God, I missed him!") did miss, and the jumper fell and broke his ankle.

As a result of this episode, the department head had to file an accident report. One line of the form requires the Head to outline, "What actions will be taken to prevent future recurrences of this accident?"

The Head replied, "In the future, all of Dr. B's courses will be taught in the ground floor classrooms."

We were done for. The Faculty had joined in the fun and had climbed aboard the fabled bandwagon.