Growing Pains

“I find my life is a lot easier, the lower I keep everyone's expectations.”
- Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson)

Childhood ambitions, according to me, are grossly overrated. I mean, who, other than our Abdul “the goof-up” Kalam, can think of anything beyond the neighbourhood candy-store at the tender age of six?
Sadly, my parents subscribed to a different opinion from mine. And so did the thousands of irritating ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties’ who came visiting when I was a kid, making monkey-faces and pinching my cheeks while slobbering: “Yumminiyooopiyoom konchipooo... you loooook ccchooooo chhweeet. Whaaat do you wannt to be when you groooow up, waawaa?”
And I, irritated at being subjected to such humiliation, would mutter something akin to “Hoobliglumchun... yurrraaa.. hey! Leggo!”
Not that I wasn't old enough to make coherent noises back then; it was just that nobody could possibly be expected to make himself understood while having his cheeks punctured in such a heinous fashion. Not I, at least.
Anyways, this had to stop ... so, one fine day, I decided to become a doctor.
But if you thought it made things better, well... think again. It made my dad come up with a new excuse to make me study: “You have to study hard to become a doctor! Throw that comic away and get back to your science books!”
No, becoming a doctor was not my cuppa tea. Who wants to cut people open and mess around with their medulla oblongatas anyway?!
I was a big fan of Major James Bigglesworth back then, and so I decided to become him.
When I suggested this to my dad, he was quite impressed. “But, you know, pilots need to know mathematics... and so, I need to see an improved grade when I next get your report card.”
I got the weird feeling that this wasn’t going to work either. A monkey was better at junior trignometry than me. So I decided to bring my dreams down to earth and become a bus driver.
Only it didn’t impress the 'aunties' much. And even as they let go of my cheeks (which had become a curious strawberry-red by then) with a sullen sigh, my parents tried to change the subject by offering them more tea.
That night, daddy-o towered over me and said, “You better try to become something reasonable. Or you might find yourself in a bus sooner than you think.”
This was seriously scary. I had to come up with a new job to have in the future (how stupidly ridiculous!!) or leave the house with my dog and a knapsack. I had to come up with something... fast!
“I KNOW! I’ll become a journalist! Like Tintin! Yeah, really! I mean it!”
Miraculously, my dad seemed to like the idea. And he left me to myself for the next few days.

Growing Up With Dad

I never was any good in school. Homework was usually copied from a friend’s notebook five minutes before the morning prayer, and — most of the time — the idiot would have gotten all the answers wrong.
Exams? Don’t even ask... answer sheets painted in red would invariably find their way deep into the earth’s bowels just hours after they were distributed in class.
And the fact that my dad was the school principal did not help. No sir.
Let’s see, the only time my parents seemed marginally happy with me in school was when I once bit a teacher on the hand.
This was how it happened. The lady, one Mrs Ahluwalia, had found out I had once again forgot to put in my homework. So there, she stretched her hand, caught me by the ear (hard) and started screaming into it: “IF YOU GO ON LIKE THIS,YOU WILL FAIL! FAIL! FAIL!”
Now, my ear was hurting something real bad. So, I did the only thing I could do in the circumstances — I grabbed her other hand, which was holding my face, and bit hard. By the time I was through, her hand seemed like it had been through a heavy-duty mangler.
She went hysterical. And seeing the way she was bawling, so did I. And the class watched spell-bound as Mrs Ahluwalia and I indulged in a grotesque wailing contest that could have put the Sirens to shame.
The commotion brought the other teachers, including my dad, by the horde. And Mrs Ahluwalia pointed a finger at me and screamed: “HE.... HE BIT ME WHEN I SAID HE WOULD FAIL!”
Of course, she had to skip the part about pinching me on the ear. How can one dare admit physical assault on the principal’s son!?
Though I was treated the choices swipes of the grand ol’ cane that day, I am sure that my dad was secretly pleased that I had gone so far as to bite somebody at the very mention of ‘failure’.
I did not have the heart to tell him otherwise. Or show him my strawberry ear.

The Twelfth Night

By the time I reached my pre-degree, I had proved beyond doubt that I was destined to go into the mountains and live like a caveman.
“Let him do whatever he wants,” I could hear my parents telling each other on occasions, their voices shrouded in disappointment, “We have done all we can.”
Now, it’s not as if I didn’t sympathise .... but hey, some people just aren’t meant to become Microsoft founders — I can’t help that!
But I did not know how much I had lowered their expectations for me until the results of my HSSC examinations came out in 1998, my marks averaging just 2 per cent more than what was needed to pass.
All the way from the college, I wondered how I would tell this terrible news to my dad. And finally, when I found myself face to face with him, he roared: DID YOU GET THROUGH?
“I got 52 per cent,” I mumbled inaudibly.
“DID YOU PASS?!” he roared again.
This time I spoke a little louder, “I passed... I got 52 per cent...”
I didn’t get slapped, there was no blood-letting either. Instead, my loving father roared with happiness and said: “He passed! He managed to pass! See, I told you he would pass! This calls for a party!”
Somehow, this joyful reaction from him depressed me even further. And feeling like a total scum, I went straight to my room and cried myself to sleep.

But, All’s Well That...

Now, nearly eight years later, I find myself on the newsdesk of a reputed newspaper, working as a journalist.
I ain’t no Tintin, and I ain’t got no dog that helps me capture Al Capone, but hey! I love my job... and my life’s shaping out quite well.

Thank you, O Fate!

Journalist Immy and the horror of child-labour

Experience, they say, is the best teacher. And I agree, for the most part. But is it fair when you thrust your hand into the fire and somebody else gets to feel the pain?

It’s not. But then, life rarely is...

This story goes back to the time when I was still a journalism student in a small town called Kottayam. My school, the Manorama School of Communication (MASCOM), was the offshoot of one of the bigger newspapers in Kerala.

Well, I was still a rookie back then - with an attitude that was brash and a perspective that was all black ‘n’ white. And in my new-found avtar as a scribe, changing the world topped my list of priorities.

Every week, we were supposed to submit three story ideas to Mr Thomas Oommen, the dictator and supreme commander of MASCOM (I don’t say this in contempt. Mr Oommen is one of the most fascinating persons I have ever seen — and I intend to blog about him soon). If you didn’t have them, it was advisable that you go to him with padding down the ass of your pants.

On that particular day, I was walking down Kottayam, searching for anything to write about, when I saw a young kid with Oriental features walk down the road. This was not something you see everyday in a place as down-south as Kerala, so I ran after him to enquire.

He was just fourteen years old, and he had come down all the way from Assam to work in a neighbourhood rubber tanning plant.

Child labour, AHA!

He was real helpful. And happy that maybe, just maybe, he may feature in a newspaper article.

Over a glass of orange juice, I asked him if I could come over to his factory to check things out, and interview his friends as well. The boy (his name was Som, I think) agreed eagerly, and we fixed an appointment at his place the next day.

The next day

The factory was the dirtiest I had ever seen. Thick sludge, liberally contaminated with grease and chemicals, covered the floor as big rats scurried all over its walls.

And in the middle of the muck worked young Assamese kids — their faces covered with grime and dirt. But the way they were showing me the place, you would have thought it was some Japanese palace.

It was then that the supervisor, a five-foot Malayalee, saw me. “Who are you??” he almost screamed. And when I told him that I was from Manorama, he almost burst his top.“You are a journalist?! Not allowed in this factory,” he started yelling. The noise brought the factory manager around, and thankfully, he did not think that throwing me out would be the right thing to do at this juncture.

“Hi,” I said, “I am a journalism student from MASCOM... And I would like to ask you a few questions about this factory.”

The manager, a plump person with a plastic smile, said: “Sure... I know the place looks a little messy, but we were planning to clean it within a week. And get some new machines.”

I got straight to the point: “Aren’t the children working in this factory under-aged? Som is only fourteen.”

I saw the smile transform into an expression of disdain. He called the kid and asked him his age. A little over nineteen, Som said, a worried expression on his face. He was in for it now. For trusting someone from a newspaper. For acting stupid.

I had a bad feeling about this, so I left.

Black, White and Grey

It was on the third day, while I was sitting and typing out my story, that I received the phone call. It was Som.

“They are going to fire me and everyone else under 18 years,” he said, his voice threatening to break with emotion, “I don’t know what to do now. I have two sisters and my dad can’t work... who will support my family now?”

Never in my life had I felt so guilty. I had cost a family its only bread-winner, all for a stupid story and some misplaced views.

“Could you get me a job,” he asked, “In your newspaper office as chowkidar, maybe?”

I couldn’t, to say the least. I was not even an employee and, in any case, a newspaper cannot afford to take a minor on its rolls. Bad publicity.

That evening, I went over to a senior reporter I knew in Manorama and asked him if he could try and dissuade the factory owner from firing them. He said he would try.

Life went on.

A month later...

A few months later, I was reminded of Som while I was attending a guest lecture at MASCOM. The speaker, a venerable old socialist, was speaking on child labour.

“We just can’t go out and get children removed from their jobs,” he was saying, “Please don’t assume that children like scrubbing dirty utensils when they should be out playing... they do so because of certain compulsions. What would you rather see — a child working out there, or starving out there?”

I could understand what he was saying. Abolishing child labour through force would be like throwing beggars into jail to end beggary.

After the lecture, I called the reporter and asked about Som. Apparently, he had spoken to the factory manager, who just kept giggling and saying: “Okay, Okay..”

I did not have any number to contact Som on and he certainly did not deserve another painful visit from the dumb-ass journalist from Manorama.

So, that was that. The blacks and whites had made way for the greys, and (probably) I had matured at the cost of somebody else's life.

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble

Earthquakes are real bad things, take my word for it. Especially if they mean business.
My childhood perception of earthquakes was a little different from the real truth, though. More than the shaking and crumbling, I imagined the ground splitting into two and gobbling up everything in sight. At least, that's what my early geography books made me believe.
My books also taught me that in Japan, where earthquakes are as frequent as evening showers, people built their houses from paper. This, I felt, may create hilarious domestic conversations... like this one:

Dad: Kwung-Choo... my son, get me a peice of paper, please. I gotta jot down this phone number.

Kwung-Chuu: In a minute, dad ... (and, a minute and several ripping sounds later) Here, will this door do?

Dad (very angry): Son! This is the third door you have wrecked this month! The next one's going to come from your NOTEBOOK!

No, but seriously ... though I must admit that paper walls crashing on you during an earthquake may not hurt half as much as concrete ones, what do they do if the place catches fire? As far as I can imagine, Kwung-Chuu's proud castle will be lighting up the place like a Japanese lamp.
Or, what would he do if the Big Bad Wolf decides to come and huff 'n' puff outside his door?
Now, I know that I have been making these conclusions without doing adequate research. For all I know, Mr Chuu must have treated his walls with some kind of anti-fire solution .... and maybe he kept a cannon behind his paper door to drive away the wolves.
Well, in any case, this post ain't about Kwung-Chuu or his paper mansion. It's about earthquakes. About the two quakes I had the good fortune to experience in the last 28 years of my life.
Why do I say good fortune? There are reasons...

Strike 1

The first one struck when I was residing in Gadchandur, about thirty kilometres from the railway track I had blogged about two posts ago. As fate would have it, I was in the bathroom - taking a shower even as I bathroom-sang a certain Mithun Chakraborty number.
At first, I didn't notice it - it was more like a slight vibration creeping up the walls, the sort you experience when you're on a bridge and a tanker's passing by. But then, the vibration started getting louder - until I could literally see the walls around me shake in their shoes.
Even as I heard my folks yell in alarm from the outside, I stood on the crossroads of an awful dilemma. The question was: Do I run outside stark naked and save my life, or do I stay in here and save my modesty.
And as I stood there, debating the issue to myself, the walls stopped shuddering and the floor under my feet seemed to go back to sleep. And that's how I managed to retain both my life and my modesty.
Indecision may have cost Hamlet a lot, but for me it seemed to have brought nothing but good luck.

Strike 2

My second encounter with the quake-guy happened when I was doing my second year (English Literature) in MCC.
It was eight-thirty in the evening and I was sitting in my room, reading a book. Suddenly the walls, the earth and everything around me started shaking ... and I jumped up with a full-fledged war-cry on my lips.
Everyone around me was running for the stairs. And even as I tried to join the great majority and reach for safety, I slipped on a pool of water on the floor and landed on the floor with a resounding SPLAT.
When I looked up, the quake had stopped and everyone was standing around me, giggling.

But the real action was happening at that moment in our hostel chapel, where a certain firebrand pastor was delivering his evening sermon.
Now, the Bible has a line that goes something like this: "Though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, I shall stand my ground - because the Lord our God is with me. (Psa 46:1-3)"
According to reliable sources, the pastor was explaining the meaning of these very words when the earthquake started. And even as the small congregation of students watched the walls around them tremble, our man picked the Holy Book and sprinted out of the building.
Maybe the Lord was trying to make a point there.
Ol' Mac was so busy conversing with somebody in a phonebooth at the MCC maingate, that he never even noticed the quake come and go by. I can't remember if Shain was around, then.

P.S: I must admit that the god of earthquakes has been quite merciful to me until now. But the next time he attacks, I hope he doesn't catch me with my pants down...

(Dinosaur sketch: Courtesy www.cartoonstock.com)

What's the name, again?

High up, on a prominent branch of my family tree, used to live a balding uncle called Baby.
Neither was he two years old, nor did he possess any cozy, cuddly features of your average toddler ... in fact, he was more of an aged booze-gulching army veteran than anything else.
Now, the next question would most-probably be - why did everybody call him that? It's a short but sad story.
According to informed sources, the uncle was a hot favourite in family circles during his infancy. Whenever he wore his cute pink diapers and came tottering around - bawling for his usual share of milk, the elders would pinch his cheeks and call him "babeeeeee" and "bayboooo" in ridiculous tones.
And, as luck would have it, the name stuck. Years after my uncle had given up his milk bottle for a McDowells one and the pink diapers had given way to military fatigues, everybody still called him Baby. And for us nephews, it was Baby uncle.
Hell, I can't even recall his Christian name.
My homeland, Kerala, churns out thousands of such horror stories every moment of the day. Everyday, as babies are born all over that small piece of Malluland, they are mercilessly stamped with names like Laiju, Tijo, Baiju, Gaiju, Shoju...
I don't know if you can even begin to realise the gravity of the situation. Methinks there should be a law against this.

The animal connection

Okay, I'll quote another example to prove my point - right from the innards of my home in Mallappally.
We got this black daschund from an uncle. And my dad named him "Kitty".
Now, though I admit that a daschund looks more reptilian than canine, I think that naming it after a cat would amount to insulting doghood as a whole.
So, after repriminding my indignant dad, I tried to make a last ditch effort to rechristian him "Blackie". But it was a lost cause; the four-legged idiot just wouldn't let go of his feline tag.

The Fauxest of pas'

Similarly, I was introduced to a new aunt last year at a family gathering, when I went to visit my relatives in Chennai.
"Hi Jimmy... Meet her - she's Sissy."
I blushed. Then shook my head docilely and muttered: "Naah, you don't mean it... She's not - I'm sure."
The others around me stared at me with great bug eyes. "What do you mean, she's not?"
They were offended with me for some reason. So, I did what I had to and conceded meekly: " Sure, if you insist... anything you say."
The truth dawned upon me nearly an hour later, when I was standing at the juice stall and downing a cool glass of lemonade. Her name was Sissy - not she. And, ohmigosh... how silly of me! Women can't be sissies!
But the damage was already done. For all I know, the aunt must have gone and checked her name out in dictionary.com. Never heard from her again; I took great pains to ensure that.

Birds too?

Recently, I had the opportunity to work alongside a lady who happened to share her name with a certain kind of songbird.
Now, that was quite an experience, considering that I could actually walk up to her whenever I wanted, and without any fear of bodily harm, inform her: "Hey, you are Cuckoo!"

----------------

Note: The author is permitted to speak on this sensitive subject, particularly because he knows the hardships of having to go through life with a doggie name..

Lookin' back

Just a photo of ours from a few years ago, posing atop the Heber Chapel. There's Thangchin Mawi (the Sachristian), Mathew Alexander (a.k.a. Bones) and Roji (who is now conspiring to become a priest). I'm the one in the Lee T-shirt and the big guy in shorts is ol' Mac, when he was still in possession of some hair. Sandwiched between us (in the shadows) is P Issac, a.k.a Bhatinda.

The year was 1999. I was leaner then.

On The Wrong Track

Watched Stand By Me yesterday, with a bottle of golden ale by my side.

Now, though I would swear that I liked The Body (the Stephen King novella, on which the movie was based) much better than Stand By Me, there was one particular scene that struck me like a ten-ton battering ram.

Because it brought about a deja vu-like feeling. Or maybe it was more than just that, because, in my case, it was real.

This was the scene. Our four under-teen heroes are on the wrong end of a railway bridge, deep in the forest of who-knows-where. There’s nobody around but them, and the idea is to cross the bridge fast - before the next train comes around. Which would mean a grisly end. On the tracks or in the river under it.

Now, I wouldn’t want to tell you what happened next. It is a personal favourite (second only to The Shawshank Redemption - also by King) and I don't have the heart to do a dirty spoiler.

What follows is my story. About the time when a friend and I crossed a railway bridge. And a train almost ran us over.

I was doing my pre-degree in the Guru Nanak College of Science, Ballarpur. It was a small ramshackle of an educational institution where students who didn’t give a damn were taught by teachers who didn’t give a damn either. Most of the working days were single-hour ones, after which the students would take to what they do best - play cricket on scorched cotton fields or sit around appreciating the finer points of the opposite sex.

Behind the college was a railway track that trailed off into the forests of Rajura. Which was, simply said, the best thing about the place. Every day after college, Dinesh and I would walk down this track to the Ballarpur railway station — from where we could catch a private bus to our industrial township.

The beauty of these walks was an overwhelming sense of loneliness. There would be nobody around, save for the two of us, the trees, the birds and a long railway track stretching into the horizon. And even if we did see another human being, he/she would just be another small speck doing something vague in a great, vague distance.

Every now and then, trains would go by — and we would shut our ears while the world around us rocked to romantically rhythmic thuds. It was beautiful.

Well, on that particular day, we found ourselves free for the entire afternoon. And the bus was due only at seven-fifteen in the evening.

Dinesh turned to me and said: “Why don’t we go the other way today? We can follow the track till Rajura railway station and catch the bus from there...”

I was not so sure. For one thing, Rajura station was quite a long way off ... and, for another, we had never been into the woods. But my friend was more than excited about this, and he had already decided for the both of us.

So, we started off in the opposite direction — the railway track serving as our guide.

This route was more wooded than our usual one, and it was starting to get darker and, in many ways, scarier. With every step we took, the chirping and hooting of birds seemed to get increasingly louder and just when it seemed to touch an awesome crescendo, Dinesh tripped over a rock and fell.

Almost immediately, there was a deafening fluttering of wings and we stared dumbstruck as thousands of flying rodents erupted from the trees overhead, flapping their giant wings and screeching loudly as they swooped on us.

We had seen bats before, but never in a gang as big as this. And even minutes after they had left, we were still gasping with fear.

Meanwhile, the birds had gone silent. And though we were now scared out of our wits, the journey to the other end of the railway track continued.

Two hours into the jungle trip, we were still trudging along obstinately. Now that we had come so far, there was no going back.

“Look here...” Dinesh called out.

I looked down. Lying on the railway track was a green-and-yellow snake, lifeless because it had been cut into two by a passing train. The creature’s mouth was still open and its forked tongue was lying motionless on its side. A living creature killed by man.

However, it was fear, rather than pity, that troubled us back then. The forests were crawling with venomous reptiles and if anyone of us were to get bitten, medical help would be an eternity away. The initial excitement had worn thin; now we just wanted the ordeal to end.

Okay, I did not know Murphy back then — but I did know a little about his laws. And when I saw the railway bridge up front, I realised that the ol’ master of misfortune was up to his nasty tricks again.

It was a long one, stretching over the Wainganga river — which separates Rajura and Ballarpur. Unlike the modern bridges that have railings on both sides, this one was open — completely exposed to the elements. On both sides was a steep drop... stumble once and find for ever a watery grave.

“No way!” I said, “If a train comes along while we are on the track, there’s nothing that can save us.”

However, Dinesh pointed out that there was no other way out. We couldn’t possibly walk back to the college; it would take three hours, and our bus would have left by then. “Besides, there are these platforms on the side of the bridge,” he said, “We could always climb onto them if a train’s coming.”

Indeed, there were a few small steel platforms — meant for railway workers who come and check the tracks occasionally. Flimsy ones... but platforms, nonetheless.

Carefully, we began our journey across the bridge. Though we tried to walk across as fast as we could, we couldn’t afford to be rash... lest we trip and fall. Under us, dirty-green waters rippled — as if in evil anticipation. And every now and then, we would “hear” the sound of a train whistle, only to realise that it was just our imagination running riot.

Admittedly, Dinesh was the more courageous of the two. Even as I stumbled along — hoping to make it across in time — I could hear the dude humming to himself with hands outstretched, like that Winslet woman in Titanic.

That was when it started.There was no warning whistle, and certainly no noise of thudding wheels. Just a vague sound of vibration — running like electricity through the rails.

“TRAIN’S COMING!!” I yelled to Dinesh, who was walking ahead. He couldn’t hear me; the wind was carrying our voices around, I think.

“WHAT??” he yelled back.

I did not have to answer. The sound was more evident now.... the sound of doom, riding on steam-powered wheels to run us down. And even as the thudding of iron wheels drew closer with each speeding moment, we broke into a run for the nearest platform.

Which wasn’t there. Apparently, it had broken off and collapsed into the river a long time ago.

Cursing a then-unknown Murphy, we looked back.

The engine of a goods train was climbing onto the bridge from the other side. And even as deafening noises filled the air, we raced for the next platform.

It wasn’t that close a shave, actually. We managed to get to safety about twenty seconds before the train raced by, with an enraged engine-driver shaking his fist at us. But it was scary all the same, because this wasn’t some Bond movie... this one was for real.

Then we started laughing like madmen, the way you do after having smoked a rolled-up stick of dry hemp. Laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed ... and finally, when we could laugh no more, we sat down heavily on the flimsy platform. It heaved, as if it wanted to break.

But we couldn’t care less. The worst was over.

Later, we got off the platform, crossed the bridge and caught our bus home. And as we went about our everday lives, the incident became just another memory from the days gone by.

About nine years later, it has taken a movie called Stand By Me to bring it all back — draped in autumnal orange and gold. And, by Golly! I would sure like to watch it again!

(PS: The photo is just something I pinched from the Net. The real bridge was longer and the water was deeper and dirtier.)

"I see them..."

Do you believe in ghosts?
I do. Because I am sure I have seen a couple since I was a kid. Or at least, I think so.
And as they don't have fangs or bloody nails (unlike the prettier ones that haunt your conventional B-grade movie), I am sure there must have been some more that I did not notice in the hustle-bustle of humanity.
Now, before the medics strap me up and throw me into a padded cell, I would like to concede that maybe - just maybe - I could have been wrong. But, still, I shudder to think of those times because - in all fairness - I could have been right, also.

My first encounter with the supernatural occurred when I was a kid, and asleep in bed with my parents by my side. There was these noises coming from the living room, which were not letting me sleep. The drip, drip, drip, drip of water trickling into the hall wash basin.
I got up. There was moonlight streaming in from the window overhead, and so I could see everything around. My dad was sleeping, snoring slightly.
Quietly, I stepped on to the cold floor. And as I tip-toed my way to the living room, the drip drip sound seemed to get louder and louder. Louder and louder.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw there.
Somebody was sitting on the sofa, reading a newspaper. In the dark.
I could not believe it, so I moved closer - expecting the apparition to transform itself into a bundle of clothes or a piece of paper flapping in the wind. But no, I was only getting closer to a person, some weird person who could read newspapers in the dark.
Fear wouldn't let me breathe. And even as I felt some kind of uncomfortable, warm sensation running down my heart into my stomach, the ghost lowered the paper to reveal a face engulfed in darkness.
I retreated back to the bedroom, too scared to wake anyone up. And there I lay with my face buried in a pillow, gasping, trembling - until sleep came and transported me to a sunny tomorrow morning.

The next day, under the glare of the hot Sunday sun, the sofa sat innocently bare. And nobody believed my story, of course...

The second incident occurred when I was in class nine, and sitting on my doorstep preparing for a geography examination. I always preferred to study sitting outside my house because, this way, I could exchange hellos and goodbyes with passersby and have fun getting distracted.
My parents took quite some time catching up with my ploy, but then - I was quite a coot back then.
Anyway, there's this guy I would see at four pm, almost every other day - Anurag Tiwari. And he would be skipping and hopping down the road to fetch milk from the nearby store, generally humming a tune to himself. He was doing the same on that day, too.
I glanced at him through the corner of my eye, just barely lifting a hand to show that I have acknowledged his presence. Anurag smiled, then continued on his way down the road until he became just another speck on the horizon.
I was still engrossed in my lesson when my cousin, Ann, came along. "So, who all did you get to meet today?" she winked knowingly.
"Oh, nobody," I answered absently, "Just Anurag. Maybe it's too hot for the others to be out..."
Silence, chilling silence, met my words. And when I looked up, Ann was looking at me through the widest eyes - her jaw nearly touching the ground. And even as my own throat ran dry, I realised what had happened.
Anurag Tiwari had drowned to death in a nearby reservoir just a week ago. The town police were still investigating into the matter.
Which means I could have been mistaken. Or not.
Mom, as expected, did not believe me. Instead, she accused me of falling asleep during my study hour.

My third brush with the fantastic was the scariest. It happened in my hostel room, during the fag end of my final year in the Madras Christian College.
It was a hot Sunday afternoon and I was sprawled on my bed. The idea was to just lie there without moving a finger. The idea was to achieve complete relaxation.
The door was open, and it was letting in a hot, humid breeze.
I never even realised when the man came in. He was medium-built, a hint of a mustache on his face. I cannot remember what he was wearing, but I'm betting it was some kind of a sweatshirt. The weird thing was, I did not even know who he was - but the man was looking into my table drawer.
I tried to get up and ask what he wanted, but I couldn't. It was as if my body did not want to respond to my brain. And even as I remained in that helpless position, weird , loud noises started filling my head - threatening to wipe out the very whisper of sanity in it.
The noises rose and rose until they reached the highest crescendo, my skull feeling like it needed to burst.
And then, suddenly, everything stopped.
I opened my eyes to see Kelly, my friend and neighbour from Room 156, strolling into the room with a bathroom mug. "Hey, why you sweating, da?!" he asked jovially.
I asked him if he had seen anybody leaving or entering my room, and he replied: "No... I was there drying clothes on the bridge for about ten minutes now, and I did not see anybody entering or leaving your room... Why?"
For ten minutes, I tried recounting my experience to Kelly - but it seemed quite a hard thing to do. So I left it at that.
Maybe the man was a man. Maybe he was the ghost that occupies Heber's haunted room (Room 134? Can't remember) . Or maybe he was just a bad dream.
Who knows?

One last drink, and that’s it...

Everything must pass, and that includes the good ol’ days.
It was the summer of 2003, and I was sitting on the bridge connecting C and D block contemplating about the days gone by.
The sun, an unusual brilliant red, was slowly setting behind a silhouetted Heber chapel. And except for the cries of a few kites winging their way across the moody sky, everything was silent. Nostalgically silent.
Yes, I spent my last real evening in Heber alone. Because sometimes you need to be by yourself and talk to the wind.
In the distance — in the centre of the lawn — I could see the famous natural pond. Its water was still, obviously because nobody had been ducked for sometime in the near past.
Five years had passed since I was first cast into that stony pit full of man-made urea... because I did not know which department a certain senior belonged to. I had cried then — cried in shame — and vowed that one day I would be avenged. But that changed, with time.
The pond became a loving symbol of the hall, where I spent almost 1,553 days and enjoyed every moment of it. What’s more, at the end of it, I found myself justifying the act of ‘ducking’ before a college lecturer who could not understand why an ‘educated’ kid like me would approve of an act as barbaric as throwing someone into a pond full of pee.
But then, I had been there, done that ... and I knew that the view was a lot different from the inside.
The first year was spent in fear — the kind of fear you would like to savour, let tingle down your spine and hope that it doesn’t get over all too quickly. The fear that some zombie senior may hear you tip-toeing down the hallway in the dead of the night and decide that its time he let somebody have the infamous ‘upside-down’ (In this form of torture, they hang you headfirst from the rooftop — giving you a Man-Bat view of the world). The fear that the worm they have sent creeping down your shirt may actually have poison pinchers. The fear that you may, at any moment, have to go underwater just because some senior wants to see you play blue whale.
Back then, I hated every one of these moments. But, forgive me, I was just a boy then — too juvenile to know that I was having the time of my life.
And that day of June 2003 hailed the end of my stay in paradise. The beautiful friendships, the long walks to the maingate for a Muthappa tea, the nights of singing-along to the strains of a strumming guitar, the drunken brawls over that last drop of Old Monk, the cussing and screaming and head-banging while Pentagon played Ugly Kid Joe, the wall-scaling antics after a late night in the city — everything.
From the next day on, my life was going to be a whole new one. Maybe I would get a new job, maybe I would study further ... but whatever happened next, I knew it would never match the one I had in Heber.
“Hey! How about coming out for a tea?!” I looked up, pulled rudely out of my thoughts.
It was Fela, wearing his favourite orange T-shirt. I lifted myself up and we slowly walked to the maingate — and then to Star Wines — where we boozed ourselves senseless.
It was dark, and the crickets were having one hell of a time.

Entering MCC

The year was 1998.
I was standing right in front of the entrance of the Madras Christian College, where I was supposed to spend the next three years of my life. Beyond was a whole new world; it sure looked green from the outside, but then - who knew what the insides held for me.
The guys at the main gate would not let my auto in. So I lugged my stuff out of it and held out a couple of tenners for the driver, thinking that I shall let him keep the change. The guy looked like he didn't know whether to laugh or get pissed - nobody dismisses an auto guy away with just twenty bucks in Chennai.
Of course, I did not know that.
"Eighty," he mumbled menacingly and started taking off his shirt. His chest had a big tiger on it.
I gave him the money and started edging away. Tigers are not nice, especially if they are tattooed on someone who looks like Schwarzenegger's meaner brother.
Looked back only after I had crossed the gate. The guy was chugging off in his yellow monster and I could swear he was saying something about someone up my family tree.
I sighed with relief and walked down the Thomas Hall road. This certainly didn't seem like a good start to a whole new life.
MCC was beautiful - and scary! Huge trees stood on both sides of the path, their green boughs forming a wide roof over my head. Shafts of light cut through the air to form yellow botches on the weathered tar road below. And the sounds of birds were everywhere, like I had stepped into some weird wildlife sactuary...
Humanity, in general, seemed to be absent from the scene. Down the road, under the Zoology water tank, I saw - naw, it couldn't be - maybe a lean cow or something. But then, there came another - a smaller one. And yes, they definitely WERE deer.
What kind of place was this?!
Now, if you guys have ever been seniors in college, you would know how to spot greenhorns. They are generally the ones with shaven faces and well-combed heads - searching confusedly for the water fountain or the stairway to the second floor with 'I'm Lost' writ large on the face. Which, in this case, was me.
Somebody tapped me on the shoulder, making me look up.
It was this tall scary-looking guy with shaggy hair flowing down his shoulders, and there were six (or maybe seven) rings on each of his ears. By his side was this woman who would have looked more like a woman if she hadn't been so liberal on facial hardware. As such, she looked like one of those extras out of Van Damme's Cyborg.
"What's your name?" the he-monster asked.
"Jimmy," I said, almost in a whisper. The scary duo glared at me as if I had committed some unspeakable offence.
This time, it was the she-monster who screeched at me: "What?! Don't you have anything else to go with it? Are you a b*****d?!"
Now, where I come from - the 'B' word is taboo. Calling someone the 'B' word is equivalent to asking the dude for a swift kick right where it hurts. Therefore, I bristled and prepared to lash out in a fit of righteous anger.
But good sense prevailed, and I didn't. Probably one of the reasons why I am alive enough to be blogging about this today.
"Jimmy Jacob," I mumbled, hoping that this nightmare would end. And thankfully, the monsters seemed to have become quite bored with me already. They let me go, but not before giving me a look of utter disgust.
My destination came into plain sight. At first, it seemed like nothing much to look at... just a spread-out yellow structure with 'Bishop Heber Hall' written above its entrance. Little did I know then that five (not three) years later, I would be walking out of it with a tear running down my cheek.
My luggage and I crossed the hedge and it was with great anxiety that I climbed the steps to the main hall. Staring at me from the other end of a giant outdoor hall was a plaque with these words painted on it:
Nisi Dominus Frustra.

When I went `bump in the night'

It was a hard day's night and I was as sleepy as a log (not to mention as hungry as a hog) and I really wanted to get back home to my cozy little bed... and well, the leftovers kept in the refrigerator.
Dame luck had been positively grinning at me throughout my office hours and I had made a reasonable cute little page for the newspaper I work for ... the News Editor had complimented me (for once) and all was well with the world.
I had no idea what a bitch the stupid dame could be sometimes. Coz that's what lady luck is. Smiling like Pocahontas one moment and smirking demonically the other.
So I jumped on my trusty ol' horse (that's my cute li'l motorcycle) and took off through the streets.
It was 2:00 am in the morning (that's when my office lets me out), there was a cool night wind blowing across town (well, mine's actually a city .. but town reads better. heh) and I was in lovely spirits. And as usual, there was a good ol' tune reverberating in my head (think it was Lucille, Cant remember) and I was positively feeling like Superman.
I pumped up on the gas and my bike purred satisfactorily in return. Wow. And like the wind I flew, beyond all cares, sorrows and whatever else plagues 'em poor mortals.
There were no policemen around, no jaywalkers to make me ease my pace ... and no Shain behind me to yell: HEY HEY ... YOU GONNA GET US KILLED, YOU MANIAC!
I closed my eyes, feeling the wind beat against my face ... the ground rip by under me ...
Something had to bring me back to earth. It sure did, and how!
It was a barricade; something that the idiot traffic cops in my city keep on the middle of the road to slow regular speeding dolts and kill the more drunk ones.
I did not notice it until it was too late. And too late was just about three seconds before I took a shot at Davey Jones' locker. The barricade was a long iron piece of wrought iron, about five feet in length and four in height. It was a dirty yellow in colour and there were large letters in blood red painted on it: PLEASE GO SLOW. SPEED KILLS.
Nice advice. Right. But I got it quite late in the hour, you must admit.
I hit the barricade with a dull thud and for a moment, everything went blank ... and then I could feel myself flying.
Flying, yeah. But not the way I wanted to. I was superman for about five seconds, until I found myself hitting the ground with a muffled splat.
Amd there was my dear ol' horsie .... scraping away from me at fifty miles an hour, lighting its trail with sparks.
The world was spinning around me. The stars were not shining that bright anymore, the cold air seemed more annoying than romantic.... and the barrier was slowly tilting - losing its balance... and about to fall on me.
With the last of my energy I jumped out of the way and the dumb piece of scrap metal came crashing down ... right where I had landed.
Reality took some time to dawn. Ask my friends, I m slow (and they kinda remind me about it all the time) but on that very occasion I was acting like I had finally lost my noodle. I crawled my way to the side of the road and squatted like a dummy, looking desolately at my poor ol' vehicle - tough boy that it was, brought to the ground by a discoloured piece of metal and an idiot who mistook himself for Kal-El.
A couple of cars whizzed by, scarcely interested in whatever circussy stuff I seemed to be putting up.
Finally, I found my bearings and pulled my bike back to its feet. A large dent featured on its left side and paint had peeled off from quite a few places. Me? Even my bruises had bruises.
Tamely, I sat on it. The engine purred back to life and the headlights came on.
It was alive. Wounded, maybe ... but alive, nevertheless.
I mouthed a silent prayer to God and started off into the night again.
A lot slower this time, though.