Second Options - Part 5

           Continued from Second Options - Part 4

           For the KGPially challenged population, I’d explain what Illu is. For starters, it’s NOT a song from a Subhash Ghai movie where a flower blooms in a garden and the insect sings “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

           Illu in IIT Kgp is far from it. Every year people residing in a Hall in Kgp get together to celebrate the festival of Diwali in a wonderful and unique manner. There is a beautiful show of lights stunningly drawn into carefully carved patterns depicting various scenes usually taken from a mythological story. But the catch is, we don’t take a Chinese light and wrap it around the Hall in a snake-like manner. We make the decorations from old school, i.e. with diyas only. Thousands of diyas are mounted over an array of bamboo sticks which are lighted up on the Diwali evening illuminating the Hall with patterns one can only see and feel proud of. However, that’s the last 15 minutes of the show. Before that there’s a pyramidal preparation which goes on for 50 days. Getting bamboos, painting them in patterns, making loops from steel wires, tying wires to the bamboo sticks, dropping fire-proof powder on the bamboos, setting up wind-sheets and a lot more goes into making 20’ by 60’ structures. People work in dangerous conditions and miss sleep and classes. Often, people work 15’ above the ground supported by only beds and tables taken from their rooms because they do not need to sleep in their rooms anyways with the work incomplete. Some years back, the festival of Illumination was turned into an inter-Hall event and Illu now became more than just a festival of celebration. It was now a struggle for victory and every Hall spent the last bit of their energy to win this. Personally, I was not in favour of such an event but the debate over the significance of Illu was as old as Rajnikanth’s grandfather. I once told Gambheer that Illu was just an inter-Hall event and should not get so much importance. He replied,

           ‘Just an inter-Hall? Just an inter-Hall. Vishal, it’s so much more than “just an inter-Hall.” I mean… that first loop. Oh! what a heaven that first loop is. The dildo, like a sesame freckle breast of an angel resting gently on the heap of pliers and cutters below, wires mingling in a seductive pas de deux. And then… a paintbrush! The most playful little paintbrush! Then a dip of dye, a flush of paint and a… a patty of design so exquisite, swirling on the bamboo, mixing in the can and separating again in a fugue of dark and light so… delightful. This is no mere array of diyas on a bamboo stick and wind sheet, Vishal. This is God, speaking to us though Hall.’

           That was the last time I ever debated with anyone over the topic of Illu. But as God would have it, the next month was dedicated to the festival of Illu. Everyday Juice and Gambheer would come at 9 pm banging doors and jugading junta. After a week, they didn’t even have to do that. They’d just come up to the door and smile at me as the devil does whenever another soul enters the gates of Hell. Once I was on my way to empty my bowels when Aanchal came to call people to work. He refused to believe my “routine excuse” and almost dragged me to the Illu ground. Sometimes, I would take shelter in the not-so illuminating Halls as it seemed insane to me to have an Aerodynamics test the other day and the only study of aerodynamics I would be doing was throwing useless wire loops on the ground and seeing how far they’d fly. It was also quite acrophobic for me to climb that grid of beds, tables and chairs and tie diyas around the border of the structure. But my limit of tolerance was crossed when the table from my room went missing one day as Gambheer just couldn’t say no to “his own feeling of responsibility.” I still believe that my feelings for my table were more than his feelings for the responsibility and that he should’ve asked me before giving it in but when I told him that he gave me the usual pre-independence response, ‘everyone has given it in.’ And I couldn’t fight with him now as his strength had increased. He had fallen into a symbiotical relationship with Shin Chan and they both seemed to agree on everything, especially on disagreeing with me! I spent the next few weeks without my table and it was never before so depressing. All I wanted was sleep, independence, freedom and of course, my table. I patiently waited for the I-Day ad it was here. I rushed home the first opportunity I got and missed the once in a lifetime moment again (as told to me by Akshay Goenka last year). When I returned, my table still wasn’t back. I had to search for her and finally find a suitable time when Gambheer was not in the room to bring her back. I still don’t know why he didn’t want her back. The next day I was going to class but I saw all the cycles in the parking lot heaped up as if two cyclones had just had a fight there. Juice came beside me,

           ‘Yesterday Jaishith dumped every cycle which was out of the shed in a heap so that the ground is presentable to the judges.’

           ‘But my cycle was in the shed.’ I replied.

           ‘Yes, the cycles which were dumped were dumped ON the cycles already parked there.’

Second Options - Part 4

Continued from Second Options - Part 3

Disclaimer:

All characters and names mentioned in Second Options are completely fictitious and imaginary, and any resemblance to many people senior, junior, sick or just purely out of work is unintentional and deeply regretted. Any ass… assilimators of funda commenting on Second Options are simply considered as big bas... baskets of knowledge and all such discussion should be restrained to the comments section.

            By the time I reached the Hall the results were already being announced. It happened that the seniors locked themselves in the common room and counted the polls. Now I’m not saying that the election results weren’t fair but I just couldn’t overlook the fact that the polls were not counted… “transparently.” But alas, nothing in the Hall ever is (except for the empty beer bottles in the bathrooms in the morning). Just when I stepped in the result of the entertainment post was announced and the winner was Satyaraghava. I couldn’t hear him but apparently the first word which left the mouth of the newly-made Ent Seccy on hearing his triumph was a tiny little four lettered word whose deduction I leave to your intelligent guesses. I saw how people were slowly bounded to a new world of responsibilities which they would pedantically deliver no doubt. However, the milestone point in my life came when the 5 Maintenance Seccys were announced. Though I had not contested for the post, that single event in the history of this planet changed the whole shebang for me. I didn’t realize it then, but for the next few weeks the Earth below me was going to be shaken, unravelled, and after putting me six feet deep, would be filled again. The 5 Seccys were

·         Juice

·         Aanchal Bal (it’s a boy)

·         Praveen

·         Manav Mohi

and last but definitely not the least (you’ll see why)

·         Gambheer

            God knows what the seniors saw in this guy, but he was made the fifth and final Seccy (Sorry! The seniors didn’t “choose” him. He was elected not prelected). But I realized what the implications were when the inter-Hall events began to start. Now IIT Kgp has been gifted with a plethora of events ranging from tying diyas to bamboo sticks to making a commercially sustainable product for a market of differently abled population. It was Gambheer’s duty to bring human resource to the event, whether to participate or to see didn’t matter to him. He just focussed on his job, i.e. DTJJ (Darwaza Tod Junta Jugad). As they say, charity begins at home; he began by throwing me out of the room. So I’d have to go to every event whether it be seeing an elocution in a language I’m challenged with or be it tying steel wires around dildos. I had to be there. And if I was seen sneaking out of the Hall when such a mellifluous event was taking place, he’d make sure that I had the G. Sec waiting whenever I came back. Now even the prospect of living outside the Hall was not an option as I did my planning in my room, he’d know exactly where I was headed to and it was already pretty troublesome planning the trip outside the room where 4 other Seccys and G. Secs’ could be roaming around. I believed that the worst of my days had come till one day Mr. Hallenstein came up to me looking very happy. I hated it when he was happy. Him happy meant another Hall event where I’d either have to go and play watchguard, or have to go someplace in hiding again. But there was no running away from what was in store for me today. Before I could plan on killing his smile forever by putting a hacksaw in his mouth, the mouth spoke.

            ‘Illu.’

Second Options - Part 3

            The next two weeks were spent in hiding. Even though the “dark days” were finally over, the terror was not. Every time Jaishith would see me in the Hall he would ask me in the same deep voice,

            ‘Met any panellist yet?’

            I’d tell him that I had met a few, most were left. Truth was that I hadn’t met any. After finally the declaration of independence and a complete night of torture, I could not think of seeing another small-brained large-egoed senior again. Much less going to him myself with tobacco to help him burn his lungs. If I really wanted to help a senior in this matter I’d be happier in burning him alive in his room rather than just cementing his throat with soot.

            On some days Jaishith would come to me and tell me, ‘The SOP is on for tonight. Don’t think of disappearing from the Hall.’

            And that would be my cue to disappear. I would wear a hooded jacket and my emergency bag which I’d already kept ready for the situation. I would then sneak out of the Hall when no one was looking and call my friend in another Hall that I need refuge for a night. After confirming my visit I would turn off my cell phone and now I was “off the grid.” Untraceable. I would spend a blissful night in this friend’s room and leave for my classes in the morning (yes we too indeed do have classes to study here at IIT). Then I’d come back in the afternoon as if I were coming back from my class thus my deception would be complete. Afterwards I would ask my “fellowmen” what had happened the last night. Either the SOP had happened and the seniors, being dissatisfied with the responses made by the candidates available, issued a “Re” for the post. Or it could happen that the SOP did not happen at all because the seniors were too busy creating a balance of pollution in Kgp’s usually clean atmosphere and killing the bacteria in their livers by liquor. In both conditions candidates had to go and get advised (read screwed) by more panellists and I would have to live in constant fear. It also meant that I’d have to go off the grid every time there was a doubt of an SOP happening. This happened for a full two weeks. By the end of the first week Jaishith had realized that I hadn’t met any panellist and thanks to Gambheer (@$$+*|#) Jaishith realized that I was hiding out of the Hall during the SOP times. After that he tried hard to catch me. I don’t know why he was so bent upon making me a Seccy. He said he saw the talent in me but being a Seccy did not require much talent apart from the tolerance of getting yelled at during the SOP. The SOP did terrify me and I did everything in my power to avoid it. Finally the date of the election was announced to be five days later. I realized that once the elections were done there would be no more SOPs and the bad time would finally be over. I prepared a bigger bag and that day I went out of the Hall and spent 5 full days till the election with my friend. Though I admit it was quite odd sleeping with him on the same cot for 5 days, but I thought it was better than being gang-raped by every senior who’d question me on my “robust desire” of being a Seccy. I waited patiently for the e-mail which Juice finally sent to me on the night of the election.

            ‘Elections done. Counting in progress. Come soon for the results.’

            Finally it was now time to leave this Hall. Though it was starting to get quite cosy here, my time had come. I’d specifically asked Juice to mail me this because I wanted to know the person who was slammed instead of me. I didn’t ask Gambheer to do it because he’d mind as well send me that mail as a ploy to bring me in the Hall and make me sit for an impromptu SOP. I trusted Juice better. So I merrily cycled back to my Hall to witness the announcement which would soon tell us which person was chosen to be screwed in what office. Soon, I’d be free again.