Man with the MARKER

        He’s the man. He’s got the marker. He’s the "MAN WITH THE MARKER". Thank him, despise him but you cannot ignore him. ‘Cos if you ignore him, time will ignore you. Yes, you guessed it right. He is the official time keeper of the class.
        Official time keeper, huh…. I wonder how he got this name. I think that was one time the CR of the class mentioned this to one of the teachers. I don’t know if he likes his designation. Seems like a time table. Keen to bang you up when your time is finished. People try to bribe him, intimidate him, threaten him but he has never defaulted on his time (at least he claims so).
        Lets go back in time and see what made him what he is today. It’s a long story, consisting of more than one full term of chipped markers and banged desks and yes, some scary looks and frozen faces as well. It all started when senior faculty of the college came to a conclusion that there should be a Oral Communication class in the curriculum of the first term. The name seemed a bit mundane. After some consideration, it was renamed as Managerial Oral Communication (MOC). It is supposed to be a support to the start of a life where you will be looking at the projection most of the time while the people in front of you will try hard not to go into a deep trance.
        With so many presentations to be dealt with, the subject needed a volunteer who could fight all the boredom and moments of desperate sleepiness to keep a track of the time during the presentations. There was this little guy with high ambitions sitting at one end of the class just under the AC (how he survives there, that’s a separate story). He likes to keep a digital watch with him as he likes digits. Surprisingly, this watch turned out to be the only watch in class which had a timer. Don’t know if the watch was happy to know that it was so lonely. After all, it had been more than 10 years since it came out of the factory. Wonder where it began its journey.
        This guy did not know what he was getting into. Time is a flowing concept. How can anyone keep it? He wondered. Due to lack of other volunteers, the task was assigned to him. “Great!! At least I am doing something for my class”, he thought. He did not know what to do, when to do, how to do. But with experience, comes deftness. With the Watch and Marker as his two well known tools, he had set forth on a journey of the time and terms. A journey, where he has to be the reference point to others.
        About the marker, it was a rather fat one; chosen as a tool to bang as it was robust and had the highest conversion factor of kinetic energy to sound energy. The bang of the marker was enough to stop speakers in between their sentences and bring out “Thank you” from the mouth of the professor. Sometimes it was softer, sometimes it was louder but it was always there to put forth a reference point in the short life span of the presentation. The Man preferred the Marker to be RED. Not sure if he liked red color or if he chose it as a sign of danger, the danger of crossing the stipulated time and losing out on marks. At least he was kind enough to give a warning bang and a hand gesture to indicate “Your time is almost up buddy!! Pack up as soon as you can”. Even videos are not spared from the time keeper. He times them all and sends it to the professor. He also notes down the time of each speaker so that no one may escape the heat (at least he himself escaped it under the AC :) ).
        One question which comes to my mind is that who kept the time when he was out there, stripped off his role as the time keeper, pointing at the presentation and trying to keep the audience awake?? Well he has got a few friends with whom he keeps sharing his responsibilities to provide them with valuable experience and expertise in the art of time keeping. Sometimes they take away his watch and marker anyway, but that’s what he considers his achievement, making the dull and boring job seem so interesting. I think that deep inside, he feels happy to be absolved of his duties for some time at least.
        Terms may come and terms may go but he and his team of friends will continue to bug each presenter, whatever topic the presentation may be. MOC has never been a boring subject in the presence of them who wake up the whole class with each bang of theirs.
        Finally, special thanks to the watch, the marker and yes, the big fat OB book (which had given a deep thud on being banged) which helped the time keeper in his efforts and made this blog a possibility. I think each one of us have a time keeper inside us, just waiting to be awaken. Do you have it in you? Kar lo MARKER mutthi mein!!!!