Vagabonds of Punterland - IV

Vagabonds of Punterland - II

The Help 

‘Please, let me get this for you…’ Ayan requested. Sam and TJ joined.

He was headed to a woman across the street who, with a baby on her shoulders and what seemed like a week’s grocery on the other, seemed like someone wrestling with an octopus on a conveyor belt.

‘Thank you beta’, the lady smiled handing over all the stuff, careful not to wake up the infant. She watchfully made her way across the road to a Honda City and managed to open up the trunk.

‘I hope it’s not much trouble’, she seemed very modest.

‘I’d told you not to carry it all at once’, a coarse husky voice startled the three of them. They could not notice a man fast approaching the vehicle while they were busy adjusting the items in the dickey.

In the absence of street lights, all they could make out was a bulky six-foot frame wielding loads that could easily substitute weights in a gym. They realized he was the man whose ego they’d just bruised by helping his woman.

‘No uncle it’s fine’, TJ replied smiling, casually grabbing and pulling Sam and Ayan by their shoulders, ‘Good night aunty!’

‘It’s late beta. Come we’ll drop you’, she said getting into the car, glancing at her husband. The way he occupied the driving seat made it clear that it was not a request. They exchanged looks of 3 fellowmen attempting a base jump from Petronas Towers. They were already past 9 and too loaded to walk anyway. A little help wouldn’t harm. Ayan and Sam took the rear seats. TJ complied reluctantly.

‘Household shopping is an exploration here. You got to travel all the way across the place to get to this mart. And until last month, it wasn’t even an option’, the woman complained. They realized this store had just been opened, right by the university exit.

'Which hostel beta?’ the woman asked cuddling the infant who’d perhaps woken up.

The question made the three skip a beat. She knows! Although undergraduate student population was a clear majority in the place, one could not neglect the local residents which formed an influential subset of the place’s demography. This time the looks were of three inmates attempting a Prison Break. TJ held back Ayan who was about to answer.

‘Silver Jubilee aunty’ he said nodding at his friends.

‘SJ?’ Sam complained in a whisper.

‘You really want to be dropped at a senior hostel at this time of the night? Stop fooling around.’ Ayan wasn’t as quiet with his revolts.

TJ winked. ‘Just play along'.

‘3^rd year? All three?’ the man seemed older in the dim lighting of the car and oddly intrigued. There was no practical concept of entry time for seniors, although in theory it was 10. TJ, knowing the fact, had played the odds.

'Which branch?’ he inquired, eyeing the three in the rear-view mirror, lowering the gear to slow the vehicle considerably.

‘Eh… my name is Alok, Production Engineering. This is Karan…’ he said patting Sam on the back ‘…Information Technology. And he is Rahul…’ he said pointing at Ayan ‘…Civil Engineering’.

The lies were bang on. No one really knew students of the first 2 branches cause they barely had classes and no one worried about students of the third- the most feared department of the college- cause they could rarely ever skip any. To an absolute stranger in a car at night they should have been nothing but random variables and absolute gibberish.

'Oh! Civil? That’s nice. Then he would know Sir, right? Which course do you take, you say?’ the woman seemed pleased.

‘SIR?!’ the statement soaked the air off their lungs.

‘Yes, he should. Don’t you Rahul?’ the man replied, childish mischief reeking of his voice, or so it seemed. The question sent shivers down the spine of Ayan. Sam could feel the vehicle closing in around him. TJ could barely think, let alone lay an anti-thesis as a deathly silence descended upon the car.

The old man had called their bluff and won.

‘Sushil Kumar, Associate Professor’, he replied with an air of condescension, pushing the gas and revving up the engine now, as the Honda City creased into the dark night.

Vagabonds of Punterland - III

Basic Instinct

The cold drink bottle on his lips was tipped beyond vertical as TJ soaked the last few drops of Dew from the edges. How people like him could sustain the unbearable fizz while gulping the full volume in one go, had always been a source of utter amazement for Ayan. Sam sat scanning the menu card as if it was written in code. He had taken it on to himself for arranging the most cost-effective-cum-surfeiting one course dinner for the 3 tonight. 

Earlier, with an extremely vocal TJ, the 2 mile walk to the place had turned out to be shorter than expected and checking out of the main gate had hardly been a challenge- Walk like you own the place. 

The guard at the hostel entrance was paid to care while those at the university exit didn’t care to pay attention.

Meanwhile, the luscious aroma of spices and the sight of people gorging all around them, served only to aggravate the hunger. Located just by the highway that would get ironed with loaded trucks ferrying goods across major industrial centers established nearby, there was a titillating feeling about the place that night. The rhythmic hustle of the night train speeding across the railway tracks, at a stone’s throw from the place, would superimpose with the surrounding noises at times, damping the irritating shrieks of an over-used speaker blaring nearby. It was amazing how yester years’ chartbusters sounded like lamentations today.

‘I think one half Mix Veg should suffice. All paneers cost the same. But we don’t know which is better- kadhai, matar or shahi. Daal makhni is another alternative. So is aloo jeera. The problem gentlemen- as always- is choice…’ Sam declared.

For TJ, it never was. To him, within or without an examination room, ‘both A and B’ had always seemed the most appropriate option, especially when it came to matters of the tongue- no compromises. Ayan and Sam discovered nothing could shut TJ up as well as good food, not even good girls. The 3 of them fed on until the dishes were wiped clean.

The gentle breeze after a hearty meal made music for the ears before Ayan decided to make a point.

‘I still don’t see why we should risk a CP for just a little better food’. The reasons for getting a Conduct Prohibition were crystal clear to him. And for a first year, being out of the campus after 8 in his first month at college was somewhere around the top.

‘A little better? The second Batman movie was a little better than the first. Dude, this is massive improvement…’ TJ’s love for the movie and obsession with food had almost nipped the argument in the bud but for the lack of wheels, it was getting late.

‘Cycles will save time. We should have tried a little more’, Sam complained, nodding to Ayan.

‘Well and you should have listened to me when I insisted on not writing our names on the stupid register while checking out, at least not real names.’

It was 8:44 when they reached the university gate and with the quantity of food in their alimentary canal, the 2 km walk back was becoming exceedingly impossible.

The next frame of image that was processed by TJ’s mind was Ayan rushing forward. It was a little instinctive decision that was going to substantially alter the course of the night for the 3 of them.

They should’ve known the founding tenet of ‘Chaos Theory’- how small changes in initial conditions can lead to vast differences in final outcomes. They should have known that the difference between adventure and accident is measured only by luck.

Vagabonds of Punterland - IV

Vagabonds of Punterland - II

These are 3 parts of what was supposed to be a five-part series, and one of our initial efforts. We'd written this some time in late 2012, a time when we used to be both 'unkempt' and 'sophomores' (now we're just unkempt). For precisely those reasons (and more), they always remained just drafts, often yearning for attention and closure. I now reckon they belong more here than in a folder on my laptop, for whatever they may be worth. We have abstained from making any changes to the original draft.

3 is greater than 2 

There are people who choose to take things the conventional way and play by the rules of life. Then there are those who like living dangerously and make their own. For the short time they’d known each other, Sam believed Ayan was a ‘Type 1’ guy, like him. They both knew TJ was the rare ‘Type II’, the ones who never learn from mistakes, until they make their own and blow them up into disasters...

‘Playing loud music and use of stereo is strictly prohibited in the premises...’

‘Inmates are not allowed to bring laptops, heaters, blowers or any other electrical appliances inside the hostel...’

He read the last of the ‘general instructions’ in the typical, hysterically croaky voice of the warden, known more for his unpredictable mood swings than his unconditional fury. The 2 guys on either side suspended their hearty laughter as TJ ripped down the sheet of paper from the notice board. Having been with him for almost a week now, Ayan and Sam had become quite used to the unconventional ways of their new-found friend and roommate.

While these sudden bursts of hyper-activity stemming from his archetypal Bohemian attitude- instantly made this prodigal son the principle focus of attention, it also made TJ the odd one out of the 3. With a perennially serious Ayan, a particularly sincere Sam and a perpetually sinister TJ, it had been a rare but pleasant amalgamation of the Conservative, the Liberal and the Radical under one roof in Room 7 of Tagore Bhawan.

‘Eat, pray and rest. Your ass belongs to me...’ TJ completed the mimicry. “Welcome to the Fox River State Penitentiary” he buzzed.

“What you just razed down was meant for 300 people” Sam pitched in, gesturing to the guard at the gate who was overlooking.

“Common courtesies man...” Ayan bitched as often, shrugging his shoulders. His ‘absolutely sober’ upbringing could not reconcile with the apparently rash ways of this instinctive guy. Sam on the other hand had grown quite fascinated by his spontaneity and outspokenness.

“It’s been 7 days”, he started, strolling along the veranda of the first of the 7 wings that housed their room. “And I already feel like running away”. Ayan and Sam tagged along. They stopped when TJ reached the day’s copy of TOI at the newspaper stand.

It was that time of the year when local and national dailies get swamped with statistics of students topping merit lists and coaching institutes flaunting their best kept nerds- the AIRs.

Looking at the passport size photographs of the supposedly smartest youngsters, Ayan felt a part of him perish. Not a day went by when Sam didn’t repent his ill-decisions made on that fateful second Sunday of April. TJ, meanwhile, had tuned himself to a different wavelength altogether.

“The lectures are farce, food barely edible, campus life non-existent after 7 pm. Curses be on our movies that promise colleges full of ravishing beauties and cafes packed with dancing youngsters”, he complained.

“The curriculum is a mess, labs complete hokum and hostel a pathetic junk-yard”, Ayan rhymed.

“Never thought I’ll smile at people who screw our lives”, lamented Sam.

“These are supposed to be the best years of our lives. I can’t spend them scribbling notes and finishing assignments.” Sam could sense TJ was up to something.

“Enough of this sitting-in like spinsters. We need to shake the shell pals. It’s time we hit the streets!”

Ayan and Sam stood transfixed but clueless.

“Lohni. Tonight.” TJ talked more like himself. Everybody in their freshman year had heard of this place but no one had explored it yet.

“I’m in. They’re throwing grease anyway for dinner”, Sam’s aversion to spinach was well known.

“Well they’ve also reduced the hostel entry time to 8:30. And you know how serious that beast is about miscreants. Count me out.” Ayan was reluctant.

“Come on mate! What happened to the ‘3 more than 2’ rule?”

TJ knew Ayan would always be the one to back down. So, he’d formulated what he called ‘the 3 is greater than 2’ rule for Room 7. It was about how outings were always about 3 guys on a riot and never about 2 getting bored. Persuasive as he was, he had forced the 3 into this strange covenant.

“We swim and sink together, remember?” TJ winked.

As it happened, convincing Ayan turned out to be easier than arranging 3 cycles for the 4 km back and forth journey. So, pretty soon, the 3 of them were out in the dark, headed to the dhaba, 2 kms outside campus- slapping the rules in the face was always fun!

Ayan didn’t have a healthy gut feeling about this. Perhaps he should’ve insisted a little more. After all, circumstantial decision making is like a house of cards, there’s only so much margin for error…

Vagabonds of Punterland - III

Vagabonds of Punterland - I