Batman and Robin........Pandian, That Is You think you know now, but you have no idea. I certainly didn't have a clue. Seconds meandered into minutes which flowed into hours which swirled into days. Being bombarded with knowledge that was futilely being regurgitated by a lowly tutor certainly had a way of slowing the tempo down. I'm the type of person who reads the textbooks, discusses with like-minded individuals, and learns. Class here in Virginia ranged the gamut from stimulating to soporific. Classes in P.S.G. were invariably of the latter variety. Eventually, all classes in India became a duel of the fates. Consciousness lost 9 times out of 10. The one time it did not lose was whenever CDS taught. It was true. The man's hearing was so acute, he could hear a mosquito fart from 100 feet away. Or, so he claimed. Unfortunately for me, on a number of occasions, I had trouble staying awake in the torture chamber that was his lectures. To this day, I am probably the only person that he caught sleeping, TWICE IN 10 MINUTES. Even he was shocked. He didn't know what to say. I think that was the day that he realized that I was average than your smarter bear. When I wasn't being bombarded by his vociferations, I bore the brunt of his quirky sense of humor. I say quirky because I was a fat bastard when I got to India and he took advantage by going "Russel Peters" on me. On one such day, Beulah Cow was taking attendance in dissection when Pandit Dali sauntered in and whisked the attendance register from her. He meticulously perused the roster and started calling out names. "Abilash. Ajit. BOBBY! (They actually called me by my proper name which I can't really stand being called so kindly adjust)" The three of us slowly rose from our stools and straggled to the front of the hall. I was trying to think what the three of us had in common besides good looks, brains, and charisma. Why was CDS calling us up? Surely it couldn't have been to commend us. He thought I was nuts. He thought Abi was a moron. And he thought Ajit was a bit old to be hanging out with punk-ass 18 year-olds. He looked each of us intently in the eyes. I swear it felt like he was burning a hole straight through to the other side. "Where were you three boys yesterday? SPEAK!" By this time in my medschool career, I had learned what to do when confronted with a query like this. "Sir?" I said sheepishly, with my face turned down and my eyes turned up in the puppy-dog style I had perfected. "You were not in dissection yesterday. WHERE WERE YOU?" After subjugating the ringing in my ears I answered, "Sir?" I could see the steam stemming from his external auditory meati. Surely this man had never met a guy who had tested his patience like me. Or maybe I truly puzzled him. I sure don't know what it was. "I will ask you ONE LAST TIME. WHERE WERE YOU." The jig was up, "Sir, my Aunt left yesterday for Australia. I just went to the airport to see her off." (I was quick on my feet, wasn't I?) After the look of incedulity washed from his face, he looked me up and down, squinted his already beady, atheromatous eyes at me and said, "Why didn't you go with her? Don't they take cargo?" I didn't hear Abi and Ajit start bawling. But I glanced askew and saw them with their heads down, lips tightly closed causing the suppressed laughter to make them spit up a little, and their shoulders undulating in a rapid manner. I didn't dare look around for fear of incurring more of satan's wrath. But my senses told me that the joke was successful in terms of a response. I didn't see what was so funny. By this time I had lost 30 pounds in three months. Atkins ain't got shit on giardiasis. But I digress. I never had a problem laughing at myself and the barmy things I've done in my #life. The only things I was sensitive about was my weight. When I left for India, I weighed 220 pounds (100 kilos for those of you keeping score at home). Now I was 190. The big, fat, Bobby slowly started melting away and revealed a long-hidden, somewhat attractive Bobby. That was my issue. I wasn't really fat anymore when he made fun of me. But then I realized that compared to a lot of the beanpoles at college, I was still enormous. That's what you get when you only get to eat chicken hearts, livers, gizzards, and kidneys three times a week. But as long as people got a laugh out of it, I was all good. I soon realized that I had become a sort of quasi-class clown. I rarely did anything on purpose to get attention. My ability to induce giggles was based mostly on fate and impeccable timing. Case in point. Morning lectures were tedious at best. Our three main subjects in first year, first semester were anatomy, biochemistry, and physiology. Morning lectures worked on a three day rotation of said colloquia. One physiology morning, we were being taught the magic of the coagulation cascade (my mnemonic was Foolish People Try Climbing Long Slopes After Christmas Some People Have Fallen) by an associate professor named Gautham. Since aurally the American enunciation of his name sounded like the city, we dubbed him "Batman". Midway through class, as he was detailing an indecipherable algorithm showing the intrinsic and extrinsic pathways of coagulation, I was paid a visit by Mr. Sandman. He brought me a dream. I was seated in the fifth row of the gallery. As you walk into this classroom, you have to take a couple steps up to get to the fifth row. Each step had two rows of benches with attached seats which made the feeling of being trapped omnipresent in the institution. I was seated in the second chair from the center aile. To my right was Robin. He was a rather peculiar fellow with a big nose and a very wannabe British accent which just couldn't hide the fact that he was from anywhere BUT England. As I put my head down to sleep, the last thing I glanced before getting some shuteye was Robin with his head tilted down, furiously transcribing notes from Batman's somniferous ramblings. "YOU! I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS! ARE YOU SLEEPING IN MY CLASS?" You might as well have painted a red target on my butt. The dense howl from Batman jarred me from my slumber. I was bent over the desk with my arms folded and the left side of my face using my now relatively gangly forearms as a pillow. I was cursing myself for getting caught. I peered up through the corner of my eye and saw Robin giving me a smug look. "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT? I AM TALKING TO YOU! WHY ARE YOU SLEEPING IN MY CLASS?" It suddenly dawned on me, as well as the rest of the class, that I wasn't the subject of Batman's rage. It was an instant with irony on multiple levels; Batman yelling at Robin, Robin getting yelled at for "sleeping" when it was I, right next to him I might add, that was dozing. I guess it dawned on Robin too, because the look on his face said it all. He stood up diffidently, with a look of abject stupefaction on his now smugless mug. "IF YOU EVER SLEEP IN MY CLASS AGAIN, I WILL THROW YOU OUT!" The shouts of Batman were almost superceded by the laughter emanating from my classmates. I looked down at where Mike, Abi, and Ajit were sitting. The expressions on their face let me know that I had made their mundane day one worth remembering. I'm sure Robin hasn't forgotten, either