My First Bunked Lecture (My Story – Part I)

It was a day during my 1st semester at IIT Kanpur. Time was almost around 3:00 pm. I had to attend a lecture of TA101 (Engineering Graphics) at 4:00 pm. I was getting bored just sitting in my room, so I grabbed a sandwich from the canteen and sat down in the TV Room of my hostel (Hall-3).

One of the guys in there had the remote and was sifting through channels. As he stopped at a channel (it was either HBO or Star Movies, I can’t recall), we saw a few flashes of light followed by the opening credits, whose soundtrack I can still recognize in a heartbeat (Terminator 2). A movie so flawlessly fantastic that nobody in there changed the channel even during commercial breaks.

As it got closer to 3:45 I grew anxious and asked a senior of mine sitting there that when will it end. Apparently unfamiliar with the duration he told me that the Hollywood movies typical have a run of 1:30 hour to 2 hours. My lecture was of around 2 hour duration. I thought I could probably afford to be late by half-an-hour. Also the movie had me glued to my seat. So I decided what the heck, lets watch it.

At around 4:15 the movie didn’t seem to get any closer to its end. So I asked another senior of mine. He appeared to more knowledgeable. He told me that the movie was of roughly 2 hours plus the commercials make it a bit longer. By that time I was superglued to my seat.

I pondered over the idea of making a dash for the class as I saw the T-1000 chasing Sarah Connor, John Connor and the T-101 out of the asylum. Those breathtaking visuals were quite helpful in making the final decision for me. At around 4:45 I had made up my mind. Screw the class, lets watch Terminator 2.

Before this, for me a movie was something I would watch to pass the time when I had nothing else to do or if I wanted to avoid doing anything else .  This was the first time I saw a movie, and a class which I sincerely wanted to attend didn’t take precedence over it.

So I bunked the class, watched Terminator 2: Judgment Day on TV, and even today don’t regret a second of it. Thank you James Cameron for creating such a masterpiece and making my day.

This was first of the things that drove me into the world of science-fiction and was a key factor in influencing the topic of my book.

Also as promised, there is more to come. So keep looking…