Soiled Shirt

The little boy wouldn't have been a day over 8. He had a round face, with equally round eyes and hair that fell all around the round stopping just short of the eyes. He was uniformly dirty, a common situation when you're from one of those million families all over India where the one pot of water a day is better used for drinking than other unimportant tasks like bathing. His T-shirt had once been a light cream in colour, but now it was closer to brown. The brown was in patches though, unlike the uniformity of the dirt on his body. Possibly an effect of the previous day's rain which had washed down the stains, leaving areas of different shades of brown over the shirt. He had stepped out of his house, if it could be called that, in search of his mother. His little round eyes spotted her in the shop across the street, and like all kids his age who spot their mother after a search, started running towards her without a care in the world.

The Toyota Innova on that street clearly did not belong there. It was one of the automobile industry's greatest coups to convince Indians that there was such a thing as a city-friendly SUV. And SUV is not city-friendly. It is most certainly not side-lane, cross-street or gully-friendly. However, these are the most common connecting sections that are found in India, where first the houses are built and the remaining area is called the road. As a result of all these reasons, the Innova on this little street was finding the transit very difficult indeed. Hence, when the driver saw a sudden stretch of nothingness open up in front of him, he gunned the engine. And if there's one thing an SUV can do, it is accelerate. The car gathered speed, the driver intent on making up the most ground in the least time. Totally oblivious to the little boy running towards his mother.

The boy heard the roar of the engine too late. There was nothing he could do except turn away and cover his face instinctively with his hands, the commonest reaction when a human is face with any kind of threat. The car also had no option of slowing down, and even if it did, it didn't look likely the driver would take it. In a moment of blurring motion, the car dropped its left tires, both front and rear into the puddle left by the previous night's rains, covering the little boy in a mixture of water and mud, and sped on.

The boy looked up after the car passed, and gingerly ran his hands over his face, collecting all the mud and grime left there by the Innova. After satisfying himself that his face was clean, he rubbed both his hands straight down the middle of his shirt, to remove from his hand what he had removed from his face. Thus completing the transfer of the mud from his face to somewhere it would be less noticeable, the boy merrily ran on towards his mother and jumped into her arm.

After all, it was only one more patch of brown in an already soiled shirt.

Adieu

Life, they say, is a learning experience. Learning itself though is a life-changing experience. After having been through 21 years of it, this would seem about the right time to write a denoument for that chapter of my life. A point to stop reading and start doing. With a brief summary of how it's all been of course, the journey from a bumbling, salivating toddler to an assured, still-salivating (but at totally different things) man.

Of all the years of the 21, it's probably the 4 in college that have the steepest learning curve. For one, in college, you're pretty much on your own. You're past the totally arbitrarily-defined age where the society deems you an adult and are hence supposed to know what to do when a 'situation' arises. With this comes a freedom, one that you never had before and one that urges you to question, explore, understand and master things at a pace which you never could have before. For before now, the potter's hand that is the society and the family and the relatives was still closely around the clay that was you, restricting you from flying in all arbitrary directions so that you have one basic shape defined. That job done, the hands move away, and now the pot is ready to take any shape it wishes to.

The adult world brings with it,its share of emotions that weren't present before either. And thus form the feelings of 'me' and 'I' and other such things which are bracketed conveniently under the single category called ego. Ego is not such a bad thing, as long as it stays at self-respect. But it almost always does not. An inherent desire to assert one's views in a hall of equals is where it all begins, and there is no way that all opinions are going to be concurrent on any issue. On a minor scale, it is funny, and mostly people end up laughing. Sometimes it snowballs, and people become, well... others. And when such things happen, it's a scary, but timely reminder of how this is just the tip of the iceberg in the world that lies ahead. And at such times, you wish you never did grow up.

It's not all bad though. Experience, I believe, is truly the greatest teacher ever. You can read and listen and observe and note down a variety of things from any of the innumerable sources available to the techno-savvy person today, and yet, none of them would do anything to you as experiencing it first-hand would. Because if you don't try, you don't really know. And that is why the curve of four years of college has the slope that it has. It is a world which leads to innumerable other worlds, most of which you didn't even know existed. And you find that people of these worlds are not aliens either, they're just you, a couple of years ago, a couple of years hence, those you wish you can become, and of course, those you wish you'll never be.

The most important thing is what you take away from your experience and it is now that you take away only the good. You're still fearless, the world has still no scarred you so much that you are afraid to commit the smallest error in life, and you've just got into thinking big. Thinking big, that amazing feeling you get when your fundamental stance towards life changes from 'Why' to 'Why not'. Enlightenment is epiphanic. Experience just prepares you for it. And that moment on, you know you're ready to take on the world, and whatever it may throw at you.

There's so much more that affects you during the journey that is college life. New friends and acquaintances, trying out things you thought you could never do, going places, playing games, eating and sleeping together (in a strictly gay sense)... things you can be sure can never be experienced again. But then, that's what they say about the only thing constant being change and all that. Thus it is, that while the blood is young, the body is eager and the mind is willing to go out there and take over the world, one part of the heart knows, deep within itself, that these will be 4 years you'll never get back.

And that's why there's that lump in your throat when you realize that this is where it ends.

The Chronicles of Saarangia: The lines, the (sand)wich and the Wardrobe malfunction

Same time two years ago, this came out.Clearly a case of juvenile excitement and childish yearnings (not that I'm all Zen now.) But two years down the line, cynicism has entrenched itself firmly in every part of the system, the rose-tinted glasses have become grey and Saarang is no longer a free-for-all Swayamvara. Well actually, you still hope the fairy-tale sequence of 'bumping into hot girl-spilling your coffee-apologizing-getting talking-doing things with her-doing her' within the 5 days of Saarang happens. But mostly, you're just concerned about getting through the day without collapsing right in front of the stalls just from the force of the sound waves of their speakers. And of course, if you do collapse, a concerned, helpful damsel, again necessarily good-looking, will immediately come to you aid, and then... You know. Hope lives.

This account encompasses a time period of 120 hours in which I got exactly 19 hours of sleep. Hence, there may be a fair bit of extrapolation in parts, to make up for parts of my memory which have got Eternally Sunshined. A few incidents, such as the above mentioned ideal cases actually happening, may even be hallucinatory. You are therefore advised to proceed with a pinch of salt. Or cocaine, whatever works for you.

The allusion in the title is of course to the famous series by C.S.Lewis. Ironically, this was the book that dealt with Gluttony, of the seven sins - something that I can hardly be accused of during Saarang. My staple diet was a cycle between 3 types of Veg. Sandwiches at a stall imaginatively named 'Sandwiched' Apart from being the least messy and quickest to eat, it was also the most compatible with my digestive system, which, for some vague reason, would work at only 1/5th its usual capacity. This is an interesting piece of study for all those medics out there - Effectiveness of the digestive system (or lack of it) as a function of sleep lost. So anyway, none of the Biryanis or Noodles or burgers or even good old Venpongal would go down (the oesophagus) without a fight. And since I'm a peace-loving person, I mostly brought them out the same way I put them in, at the slightest hint of a fight. And then surrendered to the Sandwich-Effect diet.

So, I participated in 8 events, missed the finals of one as it was clashing with another, went to the finals of another as a replacement for another person who had a clash (what goes around, comes. And all that) and placed in the other 6. In the course of which, I would've probably made up enough lines with innuendos and double and treble and quadruple meanings that Shakespeare would be turning in his grave thinking 'I should've done Stand-Up'. The thing about lines is you have to time then so they come just at the climax. As with any other line, this one is left to the imagination of all you pervy people to interpret in any which way you want, but you get the point. Take your daily Orkut Fortune, add 'in bed' at the end, and it's pretty much your daily dose of One-liners right there. Like this one- 'A well-directed imagination is the source of great deeds'. Some are even prophetic, like after-the-fact accomplices- 'Happy events will take place in your home shortly'. What I'm basically trying to say is, funny lines and Dada's cover drives are the same. It's all in the timing.

Now that we're done with the lines and the sandwich, you would naturally expect me to expand on the wardrobe malfunction part of the title. But this is where, like all those ads that claim to be offering 50% off and then put a line in fine print 'on select products only', I claim that it's mostly only about the wardrobe. Mine, to be more specific. And the mess that it was in over the 5 days of Saarang. So, wardrobe malfunction, see? The only thing that could be conclusively determined from looking into my wardrobe after all of Saarang was done was that sweat can also drain the dye off clothing, and spread it nicely on the rest of the stuff in the pile. So now there are 5 uniformly pink vests and one very dull-coloured shirt which used to be red. Apart from that, I only remember thinking that the wardrobes of all the members of the fairer sex during Saarang were functioning very nicely indeed, and nodding appreciatively.

So, now you know, what really goes on behind all those stories, pictures and numbers about the largest student-organized cultural festival in South India. Blood, tears, sweat and toil. And sandwiches, one-liners, dark circles under the eyes, stained shirts. AND, one great big feeling of satisfaction.

Quotable Quacks

I know it's been a while and all that. So, by popular demand (even the title is not original!), a small look into my verbal diarrhoea @ Saarang '08. Just so some of you don't feel lucky that you were spared this...

JAM
- Camels are humped. Horses are ridden.
- Too many wives spoil the froth.
- If at first you don't succeed, try second base.
- My mother likes eighteen year-old girls... as daughter-in-law (this is the one that got misquoted all over the papers, I know what I said!)

Extempore
- Perhaps the grass is greener on your side ('Kurt Cobain' to 'Fred Flintstone'. Discussing grass, of course)
- When you say Moods, most women are thinking- PMS
- Silicon is NOT 20th century's greatest invention. This is because it was invented in the 19th century.

Not to forget, Ranjiv's now-immortal quip at Extempore 'There has to be cummation for summation'

And just to prove there is humour in everyday life as well, couple of days ago, this was overheard from a chap who'd just got a lift from another chap till his hostel-
'Macha, thanks for riding me da.'

Thank You ladies and Gentlemen, that will be all for now, I promise I'll be back with a booker-winning post soon.

Adios!