Continued from Second Options - Part 5
It was one of those days in the life of an IITian when he slows down his fast pacing life for a while, looks up in the sky at the beautiful clouds and thinks, what is the meaning of life? What is he doing out here? Is he living for a better future? Is he contributing towards the great nation? Has he made it as large as he wanted to make it? Does he have a good girlfriend? Why does everyone seem to think that he is a jerk? Why did he have problems with all three of his roommates? Was he the problem?
It was one of those days in the life of an IITian, when an Aerodynamics test was waiting on the other side of the night and all I could do was to look at the watch, and then the calendar, sensing my pulses as the terror of time slowly engulfed my soul. I looked at my notes; there was a lot of scribbling and stunning patterns which could put even Georges Barbier to shame. Nonetheless, they could not help me in my test the other day. I opened some e-books which I’d downloaded earlier for reference, but after struggling with them for 15 minutes, I would find my true calling and get back to browsing through the junior batch’s girls’ profiles on facebook which would surely take much more than just 15 minutes. Slowly, I was reaching towards my goal and by that I mean the syllabus for the test. A girlfriend still seemed like a distant dream. Though there was a slight chance with… but no, I needed to focus on my test first. These things could wait (or so I thought). It was around 8 P.M. and I geared up for another night out when Jaishith entered to my room.
‘What are you still doing here?’
‘Ummm… studying? I have a test tomorrow!’ I replied.
‘So do I.’
I knew what was coming next. Whenever Jaishith too had the load, it meant load for me. I waited for him to continue.
‘Hindi drams. Netaji Auditorium. Now!’
I looked at his face. It’s not that I hadn’t guessed what he was coming at, but with the test the other day, I wasn’t sure if by guilt conscience would let me go cheer my Hall’s Hindi dramatics team which would surely take atleast 90 minutes of my precious time. I knew that in those 90 minutes the maximum air flow I would be able to study would have nothing related to my test. Still going would mean my guilt eating me up and compiling to Jaishith’s wishes, which I was reluctant to do. Jaishith was still staring at me while I was lost in my dubious thoughts. The sound of the “ping” from my laptop added to his advantage and my guilt. But it was another reason for me to stay in my room near my laptop. I told Jaishith I’ll come after sending an “important mail.” The truth, as you would guess by now was that I wasn’t going to go.
Ten minutes later I was carrying Satyaraghava on my cycle for Netaji. I still wonder how he talked me into it but as far as I remember, there weren’t very many words on his part in the conversation; and whatever words he used were distinct, clear, short, focussed and reminded me of the Jaishith of the old days. Even the empty wing and mess contributed to his cause. If I didn’t go, I’d be the loner who remained behind to mug while all his batch-mates went for a cock-a-maniac cause. It funny how at some point of time, the seniors train your batch-mates so well in tormenting you that the seniors themselves have to do pretty less to control your life. After all, peer pressure works way better than power pressure. The seniors were geniuses of this art and I was slowly learning the tricks of their trade.
My Hall occupied three full rows of the Netaji Auditorium. Satyaraghava set up his camera from the best angle possible and got ready to capture the history my Hall was about to make. It turned out that Jaishith’s ‘now’ had a different definition than what had been taught to me in primary school as there were still two Halls to perform their act. Jaishith came beside our rows, I wanted to ask him why he had called us so early but then decided against it. He commanded us to hoot at the time of other Hall’s performances and to stand in between the rows as bouncers maintaining proper decorum in the Auditorium when our act was underway. Somehow, he managed to give me a reason for calling me early without being asked. But this was certainly going to take more than 90 minutes. As I stood up to leave, Gambheer called out,
‘Something wrong?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Why are you standing?’
With 50 pairs of Azadian eyes looking at me, I replied, ‘nothing, something stuck on my seat. Manav can you shift a bit?’ And with that I gave in this night in the name of my Hall.
- After 3 Hours -
I guessed that since I waited for so long, it wouldn’t harm to wait till the results. There was a little dispute over the results. One Hall had performed a splendid act but left some mist in the air making it hard to see and breathe in the Auditorium. That Hall argued that technically, they hadn’t broken any rules but the judged finally gave them the penalty of a 15% which eventually cost them a podium finish. The judges, after a little studapa of their own, finally announced the winners. My heartbeats paced up as the bronze winner was announced. We didn’t get that. I could hear the blood in the veins of Tanmay rush up as the silver prize was taken away by some other Hall. Now everyone waited for the biggie. The judges, enjoying every moment of their footage took their time and then finally opened their mouth to announce the winner of the Hindi Dramatics. It took them four seconds to announce the results and in those four seconds, a plethora of emotions rushed through me.
‘And the…’ I looked at the face of Jaishith. I could see the fire in his eyes. This was the moment he was waiting for. HIS defining moment. The moment for which he’d worked very hard and he deserved the call.
‘winner of Inter-Hall…’ I looked at the Hall team. Weeks of hard work and missed sleep was showing on their faces. This was something they had earned. This was the moment they were actually alive in. They were living every passing moment of this.
‘Hindi Dramatics is…’
To be concluded
