Making phone calls to spread some rumors or wishing someone happy birthdays are some ways with which we “celebrate” April Fools Day. The uncreative media always writes some article making it appear that something catastrophic has occurred or something long rumored is true. It was funny the first time but its repeated usage, every year is ample evidence to the fact that creativity is almost dead in Media – maybe search for advertisement revenues makes them regurgitate old formulas as if it were Hollywood re-runs.
With an exam on April 1 in Operations, we were not exactly in the mood for being creative. But after the exam was behind us in the morning, we were more relaxed to try a joke on Luc (Advanced Marketing) during the afternoon class. We have long wondered whether professors really knew our names or only called us from the name boards that were in front of us. So, when Stefano came into our rooms and said that we mix up our seating so that we did not sit along with our name boards, we were game! The unfolding drama was unscripted and absolutely hilarious.
I walked into class and sat before Satya’s name board. Other also walked in and picked up their preferred seating. It was completely natural and there was no chaos or unnecessary noise. Luc realized that something was happening but tried to keep a straight face. At 2 pm, he took the floor. He introduced the case study and spoke for about 5 minutes to build the case. Then he opened the floor for discussions. I waited with bated breath to see what would Luc do now. Felix who was now sitting before Shyla’s name board, put up his hand to answer the question. Luc pointed at Felix and said with a straight face, “Okay Shyla, what do you say?”. The class burst out into laughter – Luc knew Felix’s name – well, who did not know Felix? He was the person who spoke the most in class after the professor and if the professor is not careful, could speak even more than the professor!!!. After the answer, Luc turned to the rest of the class and said – “so, who agrees to what she said”. Luc was playing along and more importantly, he was also getting the gender right with the name board, rather than the actual person who was sitting at the seat.
By this time, the class had warmed up. So, when Luc called Maria – Adrian who was sitting at Maria’s place, started to speak as if he were Maria – making the “swinging” gesture that Maria normally makes. Casey who was sitting at Dorothea’s seat, tried to speak like a girl. Aditya tried to speak like Stefano and Shyla, sitting at Yury’s place was trying to attract Luc’s attention using Yury’s trademark left hand under raised right elbow sign. But the person who took the cake and broke the semblance of order that people were desperately trying to keep up, without bursting into laughter, was Dorothea who was sitting at Sachin’s seat. So, when Luc called Sachin. Dorothea started off in classic Sachin style saying “In my previous company…..” and that was too much for the class to take and burst out into laughter and clapping. Dorothea kept a stern face through all this and continued ….”… we did moleculargastronomical study … blah..blah…blah…” Oh! That was hilarious … I was bursting my sides… We could not take this no more …. Luc was laughing – people tried hard not to fall off their chairs. After a few minutes, All of us composed ourselves and went back into our role mode for the whole session of an hour and quarter. This was the best one hour unscripted role play by 32 people (31 students and 1 prof) I have ever seen.
I later heard a comment - perhaps the only person who could have managed all the chaos was luc who had 10 kids – No wonder, he was able to keep a straight face through all this!!!
Now, that is something new for April 1.
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