BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!
There goes off my early morning alarm at 6:30 a.m. The beeps ring in my ears seemingly perpetually. A hand, begging for mercy to stay in the warmth and coziness of that oh-so-nice blanket, reluctantly reaches out for that piece of digital madness which drives its beholder crazy every morning- and finds nothing but a badly placed glass and some other pieces of cutlery in its wake. Ah! Have I gotta get up and switch off that ruddy thing right now? As the temperature creeps up from its midnight nadir to a more acceptable 7.5 degrees (which I managed to catch from the corner of my half-ajar eye as I groped to switch that digiclock off), I stole a glance outside my window to see a foggy canteen alone, although the Met department says the visibility levels are pretty high for this time of the year. My groggy mind wonders whether to venture out of the cosiness of the blanket into the cold surroundings outside- the decision was pretty easy.
It's a Saturday today. No classes today but there's the dreaded NCC drill again. A new sem moved into its fifth day and NCC too made its comeback to every (so-called) cadet's grimace in the Bhawan (which is what our not-so-hospitable hostels are called). 8:30 a.m. My cellphone alarm now urges me to pull my lazy arse off that bed now (the digiclock has been drowsily put to rest below the table on which it fatefully rang two hours ago). A trip to the bathroom for a blind brush revealed everyone else in the corridor (contrary to my expectations) had succesfully fought off an urge to stay in the warmth of their blankets and get ready for another one of those long drills in the grounds. A bath is ignored (with disdain by most others) by me a little reluctantly- a daily bath seems to have become a luxury nowadays! I pull on that soily uniform on the same clothes I slept in (too lazy to take them off!) and walk to the mess for breakfast.
15 minutes, a (so-called) burger and a bitter apple later, I'm off (on a cycle with its owner on the pillion as no one would wanna give this overweight retard a lift themselves) to the grounds which (again, contrary to expectations) reveals around a 100 others ready for the drills (well, of course, although 350 are a reluctant part of NCC first-years).
10 minutes later, we're leaving for the hostel again (after uttering an army truck-load of abusives for the no-show of the usually on-time-and-demanding-of-the-same-from-lazy-kids officers), enjoying the winter chill, a view of that inconquerable fortress (the first-year girls' hostel) and a few wannabe Indian Idol voices along the way past the Saraswati Mandir (where a few offer their prayers) and the ABN grounds (where, already, a few schoolkids have started their daily dose of cricket). It's again a different story that we reached the drill grounds 15 minutes late but we still managed to show up, didn't we?
Back to the corridor, the other guys (who share a common penchant for not having a bath even when we have all the time in the world. Gosh, we haven't even got out of our uniform yet!) decide to begin a new game of tennis cricket (this country is so crazy about the sport, we Indians can make anything relate to cricket!), the last instalment of which had resulted in a badly fractured tubelight and quite a few lost tennis balls. I plainly refuse to join in (without being invited to play) and pull out my new Electromagnetics book to brush a few concepts I had missed out while on my regular mid-class trip to Les terres de sommeil. The catch- I couldn't bear the cold in my room so I walked into the sunlit lawns below. I had barely finished reading the name of the author and his university when faces started creeping in from all corners of all floors and questions and accusations flew in at 2.732N times the speed of saliva from a normal human being's mouth (N being Avogadro's number). "Oye! Aaj bhi padh raha hai? Tabiyat kharab hai kya?" (which literally translates from Hindi as"Hey! Studying today? Are you out of your mind?). A handful of seconds later, I was scurrying back to my room (not because of the shouts, but I was sick of repeatedly being asked to throw the ball back up to the pros playing tennis cricket in the corridor), and I reached the warmth and comfort of my blanket, but not before a few expletives and kicks to the behind by my dear comrades (who were decidedly angry with their "ball boy" resigning from his post). I sat in my room contemplating whether to touch that book again and go past the preface.
1:30 p.m. Back after a tiring but fun session of (you guessed it right!) tennis cricket (even I, the perennial cricket critic, couldn't escape its charm), I got ready to have that not-too-palatable lunch served in the mess (which stays true to its name). About the book? It sat on my table, gathering dust till the next time its new owner mustered the courage to pick it up again. And what was its owner doing?
HOWZZAT???
That was out, you idiot!
No, it wasn't!
Oh, you sore loser!
Loser, who?
!@#$%^&*.........
It was just another normal day. I love winter mornings.
5 weeks ago
