RAILWoeS II – The Departed ;)

// Published in the jammag issue dated 15-29 May 2007, Vol 12, No: 16 

 

First time readers of the blog check out Railwoes I before reading this….

The train departed from the station as I fished out the 200 bucks from my wallet and handed it over. He was staring into the distance, and without moving his gaze, slipped the cash into a concealed pocket. For an instant he reminded me of a kitten lapping up milk from a bowl with its eyes closed, thereby supposedly blinding the world. One closer look at him and the kitten image was a thing of the past, and I’m not saying what follows because he took 200 bucks from me. :-“

He was wearing what appeared to be linen from an Egyptian mummy patched up pretty badly in the form of a wannabe white pair of trousers, a shirt which someone had doubtlessly puked on and a coat that had faded so much that even Leonardo Da Vinci wouldn’t be able to say what colour it had originally been. His hair was much like the Amazon undergrowth, and his facial hair looked like the bristles of an overly used toothbrush. Whether he was an ambassador of the surf excel ‘daag ache hain’ campaign I couldn’t tell, but he sure could be!

Using my superiorly developed intellect and deduction skills and due to sheer lack of something better to do, I figured out an explanation. We start with the saying by a great Greek philosopher “Greedy people are also stingy.” Don’t raise your eyebrows now there was a Greek philosopher who said that. What you think you know them all you conceited clown? Humph!

So here is what happened – as usual Mr. Thamarakshan Thazhe Edayil (um lets just call him TTE for short) woke up at 4 in the morning and squeezed the toothpaste tube which had served him well for three years. He used a little extra that day, what the hell thought him, the expiry date finished last week. After putting on his clothes sans the coat, he jumped into Mr. Shallow Joseph’s banana field and (b)lithely made his way over to the scarecrow, stripped it off the coat it was wearing, put it on and away he came to work. Ah elementary isn’t it? All it requires is a little logical reasoning. If someone from Scotland Yard is reading this, Thanks for the offer, but sorry I’m not interested 😉

With a heavy stomach, a light wallet and the satisfaction of solving the case without so much as lifting a finger, I settled down into my special seat. That’s when the kid next to me thought it might be fun to spill some motta curry on my new pair of jeans. Since it was the 2^nd of Jan and one of my New Year resolutions included not screaming at kids who spill egg curry on my new pair of jeans, I smiled- to say I was composure personified wouldn’t be stretching the truth. I got up to wash myself, but the composure was broken when I heard the kid wail “waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! How do I eat the appam without curry?” Sheesh!!!

Soon Naveen got in, and after sheepishly explaining to him the predicament we were in and praying in the back of my mind that one of his New year resolutions included not beating up friends who screw up train reservations, I tried to show him the bright side – we had a berth till Gudur where we were supposed to reach at 3, but since it was the Indian railways, we’d reach there only by about 5 (one would think!)

After some casual banter and the passing of Chennai central, I decided to call it a night and promptly slept at midnight. I had a pretty cool dream in Technicolor with commentary by Martin Tyler “ Manchester United have just completed the treble under their new owner and here is the captain handing over the trophy to Tony Sebastian… what a dream ….” And then it happened. The idiotic captain dropped the UEFA champions league trophy on my head! I was ready to fire him when I felt another impact on my head.

I forced my eyelids open and saw a little girl who was knee high to a grasshopper banging my head and singing the chorus of the sutta song and followed it up with other pleasantries. HINDIcapped though I may be, I knew she didn’t say “ What Ho! Lovely night eh?” I jumped out of her berth asking her to spare my life. I checked the watch, it was 1:30 in the morning and sure enough, we’d reached Gudur!

Mr. TTE I hope Shallow Joseph gets you with a shotgun next time you sneak into his farm!

I looked around and saw at least a 100 people and all of them seemed to know each other. I guessed a whole village was migrating. One of them passed by me and let’s just say I got a whiff of the reason as to why they were moving – Water shortage or may be even a lack of bathing bars!

Naveen and I sat on either side of his suitcase illustrating the proverb “ Oruma undenkil ulakka melum kidakkam” which translates to “if you’ve got a buffalo, you can recline on a stick”. Oops! Sorry eruma is buffalo, oruma is unity! Make the appropriate changes will you? Thanks.

Sleep deprived as we were, we recounted our tales of woe. Naveen told me how the chick we saw the previous week at the movies was Ms. South India or summat and that her name was Shana. She sure was a hottie, but then she was with a guy chiselled out of stone. Is that all gals care about? We wondered. I mean have you ever seen a gal go “oooooooooh he’s so hot, he makes cryptic crosswords!” well if you have, mail me the details at tony.crossie@gmail.com 😉

The train stopped almost as soon as it started. And we lay there not more than 10 metres after Gudur station for TWO HOURS! If I get my hands on that Coelho dude who said something about the universe conspiring in your favour I’ll, I’ll…..aaaaaaaaaaaaaargggggggggghhhhhhhh!!!

1000 mosquito bites, one broken back and a badly aching butt later, it was dawn. I caught Jijo ( a fellow college mate) by the collar and dragged him out of his berth and promptly crashed. I caught up on the dream “ Manchester United have the ball now. It’s a brilliant move, Smith to SHAAAAAAANNNNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! OH! BEAUTIFUL G(O)AL!!”

Life’s a B.tech!! ;)

“who says nothing is impossible?

I’ve done nothing all my life!”

-Found on a t-shirt sported by a NITian

It was a lovely October morning, the first rays of sun filtered through the leaves fluttering gently in the slow breeze, shining down on the peaceful populace below, the clouds strewn about in happy confusion like cotton candy on a smiling child’s face. The grass with fresh dew drops was an emerald chain with tiny embedded diamonds. The lark was on its wing, the snail was on its thorn and yours truly was snoring away to glory! 😀

WHOA! I can hear people say… or is it WTF? I can see the more hyperactive and/or sincere reader jump out of his seat, and there’s a lawyer getting ready to sue me. And yeah I know the question on all of your minds, the most painfully obvious one… “Tony, how on earth do you know the nature was all hunky-dory if you were licking Lindt in lullaby land? “ Simple, I don’t 😀 but with a bit of pleading, the sun, the leaves, the clouds (took a little bit longer there. Apparently clouds don’t like cotton candy, but nothing that a 500 rupee not couldn’t settle 😉 Sigh the pains I go through to give you classy litter-ature!), the breeze, the grass, the snail and the lark have all agreed to corroborate my story, so if you got a lawsuit honey, I say bring it on!

Well before this endeavour of mine meanders hopelessly off course, its my duty of course to bring us back to where we were n continue with what I’m trying to say. After all, they say time is money and I really shouldn’t waste so much of yours by making you read stuff that has nothing to do with anything. Although, that being said, I don’t think time or money is your most pressing problem at this stage. If you are still reading this, I strongly recommend you visit a shrink. Oh boy this is fun, I get to subject you to torture and I also get to abuse you! Why on earth didn’t I blog for so long! Alright alright, Don’t scream, I’ll get back! Sheesh can’t a guy do a little bit of um er ok please don’t throw stuff now, that’s really mean.

So where were we? Oh yeah diamond clouds & cotton candy on grass…ahem isn’t that what I said? Oh forget it! The important thing is, I was sleeping. As I slowly dug the sand out of my eyes and ventured to cleanse my dentures, the time was 9:55 AM. Nair was already getting hyper, and when I returned, he was positively screaming! “Dude its 10:05! Let’s go! “ said he. “Why what’s the hurry?” said I. “um we’re late? “ “ oh! What about the 8-10 class?” I enquired. “Cancelled”. “Nice! God bless Ravindar. Ok lets go half an hour late its Elmer Fudd’s class” ( for the uninitiated Elmer Fudd is the nickname for a department prof who looks like, well, Elmer Fudd! I mean it would be pretty stupid if we nicknamed him Elmer Fudd and he looked like someone else right? C’mon people! Please be a little sharper! Yup! Blogging is fun 😀 ) “ Are you out of your mind? “ Nair said. “hey it’s a bet. Loser’s pay at Nescafe” I said…

This is the way we go to class, go to class, go to class, this is the way we go to class so early in the…. Um… afternoon 😀

Fudd let us in at 10:30AM with a reminder that we weren’t there to watch a football match. Duh! I’d take my seat half an hour before the preview show if it were a football match! As proficient as the profs were at putting us to sleep, today was different, I was ROTFL!! Coz this was on the board.

Yes in bright white on a green board was written ASS ASS and BUTT JOINT!!! People who think I’m bluffing can check Ranjana’s notes to confirm or just ask her she’ll tell you the chapter, page, figure number and anything else you need to know. Besides it isn’t that improbable because according to the prof, ASS stands for Austenitic Stainless Steel. I don’t care I’m ROTFL.

Up next was negative (M.Hanumantha Rao I think, but well he’s got a black face, and white hair…photographic negative, you get the drift) And if you think we’re mean kids who just like to insult our profs with cruel nicknames, you are partially right. But it is more often than not necessary when you consider insanely, ridiculously long gult names!! Sample this… G.V.S Nageshwar Rao (I’m not expandin GVS coz I’ll exceed the character limit on this blog!) or GHSLV Prasad Rao. Sigh! And people think mallus have weird names! Oh wait, *scratches head* mallus do have weird names! I mean think of the greatest politician alive in Kerala who on forming a party on his own found it apt to name it Democratic Indira Congress (Kerala) or for short DICK!! Since he’s the leader, I guess we can call him DICKHEAD!! And the ridiculous obsession for the syllable JO is beyond me, I mean AJO , BIJO, CIJO, DIJO, EIJO, FIJO, GIJO, HIJO, IJO,JIJO, KIJO, LIJO, MIJO, NIJO, OIJO, PIJO, QIJO, RIJO, SIJO, TIJO, UIJO, VIJO, WIJO, XIJO, YIJO, ZIJO are all probable names of mallus you know! Oh and you can also mostly substitute JO with JI and get names of other mallus you know! And take for example Lousy! Yup Lousy is the name of a mallu gal! or how about Sissy? Man! why on earth are parents so cruel?? You think that is bad, well I just saved the best (or worst) for the last; this is the name of my friend’s friend who happens to be an unfortunate girl – Titty Thomas. No comments.

Enough meandering for a post I suppose, back to the topic ( if such a thing exists anymore on this post!). so well Negative walked in and promptly put us all to sleep, however only to awaken us with this “ My specimen is only 1cm long, so even if I quench it in oil, I cannot attain complete hardening!” ROTFLMAO!!! I could visualise next day’s newspaper headline “ Negative’s specimen trumps Fudd’s Butt!” This was the same prof who in last weeks lab class, checked my sketches and commented (I swear on my honour I’m quoting him verbatim) “ This is ok but next time, you ask the girls to show you their specimens, so that you can compare your specimen with theirs and understand the difference. If they say no, no we can’t show it to you, tell them I told you to ask and then they will show you their specimens”. No comments. And letters to the author seeking explanation or description of any kind of specimens will not be entertained 😉

By the time I stopped laughing the class ended and we got to know that the lab in the afternoon was cancelled. 10 Friends episodes, coffee at Nescafe (during which it was calculated that an engg student studies approximately 5 minutes, yes that’s right 5 minutes on an average a day! Priya Venkateshan said it perfectly -Engineering is a four year holiday!) , dinner at the dhaba and a coupla games of FIFA on LAN later, I joined Vibhu and Nair as they were trying to finish NFS Carbon which had arrived the day before. “dude don’t we have a lab end sem exam tomorrow? “ Nair asked… everyone was perplexed for a moment before Sarvesh came up with the inspirational winner “ One exam isn’t going to alter the course of my destiny! “

Onwards to Darius and the canyon duel!

“I’ve always thought there were two kinds of people, those who went screaming to their exams and those who went silently… then i met a third kind….”