Homeward Bound

It’s that time of the year again. It’s the festive season. I’m not gung ho about Ram killing Ravan or Dandiya though. All I’m looking forward to is 10 days of peace, quiet, pampering, good food, and TV. Somebody said this is my last Dussehra vacation in BHU. I tried to enter Ekta Kapoor mode and get a lump in my throat, but all I succeeded in doing was swallowing a huge blob of saliva. 10 days at home is a long time. If you stay longer, you tend to lose touch with reality. You start feeling like one of those Sooraj Barjatya feel-good characters (think Hum Saath Saath Hain and Hum Aapke Hain Kaun) whose lips are permanently fixed in that concave-upwards position. You might imagine the Director of IIM A licking your boots. You might also imagine Gayatri Joshi begging you to elope with her. Still, a few days help in recharging spent batteries.

This semester, though, has been pretty cool so far. Apart from the weekly TIME test trauma (where my total score is less than the topper’s score in one section) & the daily insect bites, things have been largely calm. Of course, there’s the attendance problem. We’re expected to maintain an attendance of 100% (for guys who use a calculator for 2+2, it means we’ve to attend EVERY class). So this is what the classroom looks like at 8 am:

1st row: Attentive students, who wake up early, bathe, and are raring to go. Typically, there are 0-4 people in this row.
2nd row: Semi-awake students, who wake up at 7:30 am, go through the usual brush-loo-tea routine, and whose interest in making notes lasts from 0 – 40 minutes (in a 1 hr class). This row has 9-10 students. It’s most likely you’ll find me here.
3rd row: People who just want a change of bed and pillow. They wake up at 8, run to class, sleep, and wake up during attendance. There’s usually a mad race for this row.

Perhaps the only blot this semester has been my ear drum. On September 14th, 2006 Dr.Meenakshi Singh said I have Haemorrhagic Rhinitis and asked me to use Fluticanose Propionate Aqueous Nasal Spray and Xylometazoline Hydrochloride Nasal Drops IP. If you’re the type whose knowledge of Organic Chemistry lasted from 1 hour before the exam to 1 minute after it, you’ve probably heard only of Nasal, Spray, Drops, and Aqueous. Anyway, it meant no music, no curd, and nothing cold. (I waited for her to say No Classes, but I guess she’s conspiring with my HOD) The ailment couldn’t stop me from my bimonthly trip to VLCC (Varanasi’s Local Cutters and Choppers). My barber does a wonderful job of strategically exposing my balding scalp without making me feel like an under aged octogenarian. On Sanjeev’s insistence, I didn’t completely shave off my Al Qaeda-meets-Ramdev Baba beard. I trimmed it for a Langda Tyagi look (you guessed it, they made it Behera Tyagi). My barber finishes the job with two scary martial arts moves:

1. He rams my head with both fists. Your head feels like a cricket pitch with Shoaib, Brett Lee, Dennis Lilee, and Jeff Thompson bowling in tandem; or like a TT table with those chinky Xing Ping Zhou-type of people smashing the ball ruthlessly.

2. He twists my head like Sunny Deol does to kill the villain’s sidekicks. (You know the sidekicks I’m talking about, right?- curly-haired, mid-20s chaps who try to punch the villain with an outstretched right arm, that looks more like an invitation to smell their armpits)

Anyway, I was talking about home. It can be taken for granted that mom will say I’ve become thin. She’d say that even if Adnan Sami would disguise as Akshay one day. Sis asks me if she’s become thin. I used to tease her earlier. But ever since she’s become an earning member of the family, I have to oblige her to get my hissa. Each time I go home, Dad tries hard to explain what mutual funds are and Grandad takes great pains to tell me the difference between stocks and stockings (obviously, I’m exaggerating, but GK is not really my cup of tea). Grandmom and I argue over every ball of every over of every cricket match.

If there’s one thing I hate about going home, it’s the journey. It’s not nice to start your day by waking up to a eunuch’s prod and giving away the 5 bucks you saved for coffee (you can call me a coward, but getting castrated isn’t my idea of getting Lata Mangeshkar’s voice). But I guess these are the hardships you have to face to justify the royal treatment at the other end.

I might not post while at home. Don’t ask me why. So all my faithful readers (hopefully I’m not addressing a null set here) have to wait till 10th October for a new post. That’s it, then. Bye, and if you’re not in a cyber café, and this article has not put you to sleep, please comment.