Help, I am being paranoid here. What happens to logged in mails (I encountered difficulty with opening the mails) in safari after I turned it off or switched it to sleeping mode? If I turn back on, will it lead me to said logged in mails or will it lead me to gmail where it will once again prompt me for username and password? I am asking this because I just sent the ipad to my fren for repair. Thanks much.

Hard to say. The logged in status depends on whether you had the remember me button selected and a few other things.

If you are really worried about it, go into your Google account settings and change the password. Just don't forget it.

On iPAD, when you are moving from one App to another. The previous application is freezing , at the last state it was.
It is kind of a normal PC when you have 2 applications open, and you move from one to other.
Only different is, that on a PC it is called Multitasking, so the other app, keeps going. On iPAD you don;t have multitasking, so the other application just freeze. So I would assume, that when you come back to it, it will be open.
But why asking. Just play with it and come tell us.

I know I have 3 accounts. They never shut down. Always open and ready.

He can't play with it. It got sent into repair. I'd say the OP is worried that someone might log onto his gmail account and snoop. That's why I suggested changing the password.