Disclaimer: It is strongly advised that sane people should not read this
blog. Vishal Gupta does not agree with any of the views or opinions expressed
on 3rd Fingers. The only reason Vishal Gupta is posting this series
is because his cow has been abducted by us.
I stopped by the bathroom mirror to see how I looked. After all,
there were pretty female juniors in my society. Like every engineering college,
my junior batch had the most gorgeous (and approachable) girls. Somehow only my
batch had missed out of the pretty ones. Anyways while I was doing my hair, I
saw Joose rush into the bathroom to find a cubicle to puke. This wasn’t a
surprise, considering the fact that his everyday dinner consisted of 3 pegs of
vodka in the main course and a shot of tequila in the dessert. But it wasn’t
his fault. The entire load of Illumination had fallen upon his small head and
he hadn’t been sleeping… at all. I wondered about his sleeping timings. He
couldn’t sleep in the classes because he didn’t go to any. He didn’t sleep at
night because that was the time when he taught the new generation of engineers
how to tie thick steel wires to bamboo sticks. And he couldn’t sleep during the
day because at that time he was in the market to bring steel wires (and at
times even bamboo sticks). He came out of the cubicle and looked at me with
eyes which could be mistaken for coal. Burnt coal. He looked thinner than usual
and if he didn’t shave soon I would plant a sunflower in the bushes he carried
on his face. His half-dead face looked at me. I thought this wasn’t the best
time to talk to him about my room’s broken window. I rather put my broken comb
in my pocket and rushed out of my Hall.
My college was going haywire with constructions. Supposedly there
was some big VIP coming for the annual function and it sent the management into
frenzy. For the first time footpaths were being constructed. I had gotten used
to the old street where a speeding cycle could go by hitting you and not stop
to regret. The footpaths would change that. Rumors were that a helipad was being
built and tried for that VIP’s entrance. Somehow, the roads looked cleaner than
usual and all the main societies of my college were asked to prepare
performances for his entertainment. Of course my society was not worthy enough
of being asked for a performance. For one thing, no one expected us to do real
work. For another, what would a bunch of book-freaks really do? Go on the stage
and recite a poem? Somehow, the administration preferred Salman Khan’s Dhinka
Chika to Harivansh Rai Bacchan’s Madhushala. And I can’t say that I did not
understand their logic. Also, all the in-campus eateries were to remain closed
on the day the VIP was about to come. This meant that either we’d have to eat
the horrible food in the mess or we’d have to stay hungry for the day. We only
later found out that the VIP came to the function for only an hour. He said his
schedule didn’t permit him to stay longer. I think he was just scared from the
protests against him in the campus. Most students believed that he should
resign from the chair. These were the students who love to make people resign.
But not all my college mates are such shallow beings. Most people didn’t give a
crap about whether he resigned, or stayed, or became an astronaut. They were
just pissed off because the eateries were closed. Where else do you go on a
Sunday when even the brains of mess-workers are on leave and they dump the
weeks’ worth of leftover stuff in our plates. To add to that, our mess system
had become more bureaucratic. But more on that later.
Finally, I got to the meeting and found my team patiently waiting
for me. As usual, half the crowd had not appeared. There were the people who
always came and did no work. There were the people who hardly came and hardly
did any work. And there were people who looked like they could work, but alas,
there was no work for them to do.
This was going to change. I and Ishenam had plans for this year. We had already
conducted a whirlwind of selections and despite my involvement, we’d chosen up
a fairly good team of idle to-be-engineers. It was good in a way. Bill Gates
says that lazy people always find out the best way to do things. However, that
rule did not apply to my team. Here, the lazy people never did any work. They
didn’t even show up for the treats! That’s lazy I tell you. After having
control of the team I had discovered that unlike other more “dramatic” teams,
mine did not have a chance for face-to-face interaction. I preferred a 24 hour
video chat involving everyone but Ishenam suggested a round table conference. I
agreed. It did sound more feasible. Problem was that though all of us did have
computers, we did not have such a big table. We settled for sitting on the
ground in a circle. Close enough! After we wasted 15 minutes in settling people
down, we began the meeting.
