Unfortunately for Amit, the aftershocks of the night’s adventure spilled over to the next day. It was 2.30 by the time he finally managed to fall asleep. The first class the next day was at 9.15, which meant he would have to wake up at the latest by 8. Only 5 ½ hours of sleep! Oh no, I’m dead, thought Amit. He needed at least 7 hours of sleep for his personality to function properly.

  As a conspiring destiny would have it, the first lecturer was Professor Borman, whose name begged the nickname Boreman. At the best of times, it took a lot of will power to stay awake in his class. Amit used to keep himself awake and entertain himself by drawing cartoons of superhero Boreman, whose superpower was the ability to bore people to death. Criminals so hardened that even sodium pentothal – the truth serum – didn’t work on them, would wet their unbranded innerwear at the mere mention of Boreman’s name. Once he started interrogating them in his droning voice, interspersing it with deliberations on sociological terminology, criminals started begging for mercy and spilling all the beans, including not only information on the next consignment and the location of Shakaal’s duplicate drugs & smuggled goods godown, but also irrelevant information like their mother’s favourite brand of whiskey and how many times they’d seen Ram Gopal Verma’s gangster movies.

  Boreman’s costume was what would happen if Superman, the Phantom, Spiderman, Batman and Mandrake the Magician all gave their costumes for washing to Ganesh Prasad, possibly the most violent dhobi in three districts, and he made a mess by mixing them all up and leaving the iron on till some of them got burnt. Superman’s ‘S’ had been wrung into a ‘Z’, symbolizing the ‘zzz’ used in comics when someone’s sleeping. Only the black webbing of Spiderman’s arms was there, the fabric having dissolved because of some super-strong locally manufactured detergent soap, possibly named Bhim Bar for its strength. The bulletproof kevlar in Batman’s cape would have dissolved too, causing the poor guy to get a rude shock the next time he tried to shield himself with it. As for headgear, only the rim of Mandrake’s top-hat remained, the rest having fallen apart because of violent patak-patak dhobi dhulai. The most prominent feature of the costume was the legwear: Phantom’s striped underwear on the outside, but no pants – they had been vaporized by Ganesh Prasad’s Bhillai steel iron.

  That morning, however, Amit was just not up to the challenge. He was in deficit of 1½ hours of valuable sleep. Trying to battle Boreman in this weakened condition was too much to ask, so he decided to take the easy way out – sleeping on the last bench. The class was in a lecture gallery, so he wouldn’t be seen, and no professor ever came walking up the stairs. Amit asked the guy sitting next to him to wake him up when it was time for attendance. Then he took off his shoes, lay down on the bench, and dozed off, although not into deep sleep. Boreman’s amazing powers still penetrated through to his subconscious.

  Professor Borman was in a bad mood that day. A couple of wild kids on a bike ogling at HandiqueCollege girls had nearly caused him to have an accident. His mood didn’t improve with the sight of students struggling to keep their eyelids up, for Amit wasn’t the only victim. Two more boys, unseen by Boreman,  were sleeping on the last benches of the rows on his sides.  Several others, most of them backbenchers, were also locked in a futile fight against Boreman’s superpowers. Some were sitting with one hand on their brow, trying to hide their closed eyes. A few had their chins propped on one hand. And a few other daring ones had openly given up the battle and surrendered with their heads nestled between their forearms on their desks.

  Around 20 minutes into the lecture, Boreman lost his temper at the sight of all the inattentiveness around him. He cut short his discourse and said, “All those sleeping in the back benches – stand up!”

  The extra volume roused Amit. Through half-open eyes, he saw through the underside of the desks, a couple of boys in the bench in front of him stand up.

  “All those sleeping at the back – stand up!” ordered Professor Borman again.

  Now, Professor Borman couldn’t actually see the ones who were lying on the benches, but one of the nitwits who had been sleeping on the bench beside Amit, in his dazed and confused state of mind, thought that Boreman was referring to them as well, and the dimwit stood up! Amit, whose faculties of reasoning were still dull from the semi-sleep, saw the poor fool stand and thought they’d been discovered, and he, too, stood up. Seeing him, the third guy also followed suit.

  The instant Amit saw Boreman’s shocked expression – where were these guys popping out from? – he realised his stupidity, and felt like kicking himself and the first guy who’d stood up.

  “You – you good-for-nothings! Sleeping in my class!”

  Of course, sir, thought Amit, it’s the sleeper class. He found his own joke so funny that he nearly chuckled, and had to really make an effort to control himself. He simply hung his head like the others, feigning repentance.

  “How much did you get in this paper last year?” asked Boreman of the first sleeper.

  “46, sir.”

  “46! Fantastic! Sleep some more, and I’m confident you’ll succeed in getting even lesser next time. What about you?”

  “55, sir.”

  Boreman didn’t pass acerbic comments on the 55-er. Amit was next. “What about you?”

  Amit hesitated, then mumbled, “Frtyn.”

  “What?”

  “Frttynn,” mumbled Amit again.

  “I can’t hear you. Be louder.”

  The whole class was staring at Amit. He wished he were Invisible-man. “Sir, d’you have to do this?” he said pleadingly.

  “Shut up! Answer me. How much did you get?”

  “Sir…41.”

  “41! Brilliant! 41! I suppose sleeping in class is the secret of your success. Get out, all of you!”

  Amit was not one to let go of a chance to escape. Without another word, he walked out of the lecture theatre and went in search of an empty one. One of the Physics department galleries was empty, so he took his place in the farthest bench and resumed his date with sleep.