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‘When something warm and soft just passed through here,
It took the precious things that I hold dear…’
I hummed along with the lyrics of Porcupine Tree’s ‘Deadwing’ as I parked my scooter at the entrance to Base, my coaching centre for one of the innumerable exams we wrote in our 12th grade. Though the classes were depressing to say the least, I looked forward to meeting my friends every day. With them, there was always something to laugh about, something to like about the class, and something to DO; a welcome change from the rest of the day. Evening 5.30 to 8.30 could be torture or bliss; it just depended on who you sat with in class.
I entered the class, my eyes immediately seeking out my friends. There they were; Keshav aka Mama, Ashwin aka Midget, and Rahul aka Thangi. The story behind the name Mama is too long to write, but Thangi was because Rahul always whined a lot, and his moniker means ‘little sister’ in kannada. Midget of course was short. Another of them, Nikhil was absent today, but he did that a lot. We have other bunk stories with him, but this one is just us four. Technically I never got a real nickname, but you could call me Kengeri, a reminder of an embarrassing experience I once had.
So back to the story. ‘What’s up guys?’ I asked as I settled myself beside them in the bench. It was to be a long evening, and we were preparing ourselves for the gloom that was soon to follow. ‘AVS and SMH’s classes today right? Integration and carbocations, great.’
‘Yeah at least we don’t have GKR calling us all losers again’ Mama laughed.
So did we all, remembering the class when someone had whistled in GKR sir’s class. He got really ticked, and proclaimed that our lives were over, we weren’t serious and that we were all losers who wouldn’t do anything in life. Although we weren’t the perpetrators, we laughed at his manner of speech, funnier when he was angry. Yes, focus and dedication had become just words in the dictionary for us by now. There was still ten minutes for the teacher to come, so were just goofing around.
Thangi piped up, recalling a funny story he’d just heard. It’s always funny to see him start talking. He lazes around silently most of the while, and then his body just uncoils all of a sudden and he begins speaking urgently in this really funny manner. Though he tries hard, everything he says is really…sloooowww. Rest assured, we’ve made more than enough jokes on that.
‘Dude…that Arun guy jumped to the other building again to bunk and meet his girl! And he’s got 39th rank in this month’s IIT test man!!’
The Arun guy (I forget his last name) had become legendary in Base for this story. Though he was a brilliant guy, topper-type and all, many a times he’d climb over the wall to the right of our building, over to the parapet of the adjoining building and jump onto the street, from where he would go on to meet his girlfriend. The story never ceased to amaze us.
‘He bunked again…hmmm…guys, what the hell are we doing here?! What are we doing here??’ Midget spoke rarely, a contrast to me and Mama, but whenever he spoke, he’d mostly either utter some deep, enigmatic but unnecessary dialogue or give wise suggestions, like this one. He was a good laugher, but you wouldn’t bet a dime on him cracking a joke. We’ve been keeping count for the last few months, and last I remember, it was 14 good jokes.
‘No dude! Not today, I just want to study today man.’ We all laughed at Mama’s protests; he had spent one too many Base evenings playing football at Madhavan Park for us to take him seriously.
I was confused, so I decided to blabber until we reached a decision. ‘Okay, let’s rationalize. What do we achieve by sitting here? We can bunk and roam around till 8.30, out in the open. On the other hand, we might learn something important today, assuming we concentrate…what the heck, let’s go.’
I took my bag and got up. Something about the last word just got me.
‘Dude, we haven’t concentrated for months now. What you’ll start now?’ Midget laughed. ‘Come, let’s leave before AVS comes.’
‘Hey, we go with our bags, the attendant will notice man. What about that?’ Thangi asked. That we were bunking was a foregone conclusion by now, no one was debating that. ‘How about we leave it here and come back at 8.30 to get it?’
‘Bullshit, let’s just try to hide it with our hands, keep it to the left, and walk straight, walk quick. Before we know it, we’ll be out and free’ I said.
With a look to each other, we quickly took our bags and went to the class door. We peered out to find an empty corridor, an encouraging sign. We stuffed our bags under our left arm and prepared to take the brisk walk to the exit.
‘Remember no eye contact with the attendant or the guard’ Mama warned us before we started.
And we started walking. That was when I committed my first fatal mistake of the evening. Just as we were walking past the staff room on the way to the exit, my eyes flickered to the people sitting inside and I found AVS looking at me. Now let me describe to you the monster, the calculus fiend the world knows as A.V. Shivshankar.
He’s a short, very rotund man, with a bald head that catches the light rather brightly. He has a genial smile, but he is the archetypal example of the maxim, ‘looks can be deceiving’. He has a thick, loud voice that can be irritating in the confines of the classroom, especially when he is hurrying along with his endless problems. He expects a lot from his students, some would say too much, and we had absolutely nothing to offer him. And his seniority, his experience and his enviable record meant that when he questioned you or scolded you in class, being numb with terror was a common phenomenon. It was all his eyes actually, if you ask me.
And now it was those eyes staring at me as I hurriedly tore my gaze away before the panic attack set in. But in those milliseconds, he’d seen something in my wide eyes that told him something was afoot. Just as I passed the room and he disappeared from my view I heard him shout to the attendant.
‘Hey, stop those guys!!’
Oh by the way, I’m digressing, but there’s a story attached to that attendant as well. He was just as short and fat as AVS and just as uptight. The circulating joke was that he was AVS’s illegitimate son, and indeed we referred to him as AVS’s love child.
And so it was love child’s heavy tread that I heard behind us and I started panicking. Just as we reached the steps that led to the footpath, I couldn’t contain myself anymore and dashed down the steps, in an obvious attempt to escape.
‘Dude, don’t run its okay…’ Midget started to say, when he heard love child shout at us, telling us to stop. ‘Oh shit run!!’
And the dam finally broke.
There we were, right on the Bull Temple main road. Running helter-skelter, from love child, who was now chasing us onto the road. We took the first side-road to our left, and ran into different lanes. After about fifty meters I stopped and turned to look behind me, to find that I wasn’t being chased anymore. Love child had given up. In about five minutes, we all regrouped at the bajji shop. By unspoken consent, we somehow knew to meet there. It was where we always met if we bunked, starting the bunk with some hot bajjis. Not kidding, the guy probably sent his kids to school on the money the four of us spent on his bajjis.
‘Guys, we actually got chased by the base attendant!! We ran out of base like fugitives man!!’ I was thrilled and terrified at the same time.
‘I swear man! Surreal no? Okay, let’s have bajjis now’ Mama said. Food was always on top of his mind. ALWAYS.
Dissatisfied by his response, I turned to Midget.
‘Yeah man…love child probably lost some weight back there you know? Chuck man, don’t think too much. So now where?’ I grinned at him, fully aware that he had made a reference to ‘Fear of a blank planet’ one of our favorite songs from Porcupine Tree. One of the things we guys had in common was that we even loved the same band.
‘Flyover?’ I suggested.
All of us agreed unanimously, and dug into our bajjis with renewed vigor.
Little was I to know that the next three hours were going to be the craziest, funniest, weirdest and most aimless but awesome hours of my life so far. Once we were finished, we started on the long walk. A collective voice rang amongst us as we said together.
‘To the flyover then’…
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