Sunday, April 29, 2012

The Celebrations - Then and Now

Then:

Get up early, touch everyone’s feet, may be let your body fall flat for a few to get the nice & warm blessings, perform the aartis (big, fat, long)... you learnt the concept of diffusion long back – spread of the mixed smell of milk-curd-honey-sugar-ghee, the olfactory lobes felt delighted with exotic smell of sweets.

Every year, on this particular day, there was a ‘session with the photographer’ where you were pushed into getting a picture of yours clicked so that tracking your growth/progress became easier for the parents to remember. When in good mood, they showed you your growth… ‘that was the year you grew the most, i had to buy clothes for you two times in the same year’ and you wondered in your mind ‘and still I wore trousers that were 2.5 inches longer than required and by the time, they became of my size, they were not worth getting into’... there were hugs and shoulder-kicks and when you copied the same, you were told ‘you looked like a rat when you were born and look at you now – a grown up man with my blood flowing inside you... it feels great when your heavy hands rest on my shoulder’ and then they cried and wept and at the same time – smiled and you could do nothing but to say ‘its okay, now stop being so emotional/sentimental’.

Back in College:

A cake is ordered to be dissected at 12 in the night. Names that you have no clue are mentioned on the same. They range from strange ones like ‘kedi’ meaning ‘naughty’ to ‘psia’ meaning ‘please stop increasing the averages’. The cake is eaten less and wasted more with the cream utilized for facials, the cherries for decorating your face and roses/cartoons from the cake are ripped off and placed on your head and where-not to make you look like a complete idiot. Then starts the actual drama.

Close juniors and seniors all gather up (so it’s not just who you are putting up with). Each one has their own intentions:

- “this fellow has made me sit through all the stupid movies that he watches, right time to give him back”

- “let us bump him to dust so that his next week is not just painful, but hell – that would be quite awesome”

Confession Sessions:

Sitting through them is a painful task in itself. There are some standard questions that one has to get prepared for:

- who is it that you are going around with, we no longer see you in room these days

- Now, if the guy is a shy little one – then the question is turned around like this – whom do you chat with, all the time, we don’t see you outside these days?

If you feel happy by escaping the above questions, you are thinking in the wrong direction – it simply doesn’t end there. In fact, it doesn’t stop – till you state a name. What’s the safest call in such cases – just use the name of some popular figure on campus, people laugh at you for a minute or so and the game is over. They never ask you a question in the similar lines again because they have already identified you as a fool to even think about the famous one. Its a win-win situation (friends are happy in describing you as an over-enthusiast and you are happy because there are not going to be troubles for the next one year unless and until you fall into something serious).

Truth & Dare:

The Q&A saga continues, the birthday guy has no option but to choose ‘truth’ that day

- Have you cheated on anyone and describe the incident (there is no such answer as ‘no’)?

- Have you been ever caught copying, what were the after-effects?

- Have you ever flunked an exam?

- What has been the most embarrassing moment in your life (don’t state crap like ‘none’)?

and if there was no confession session like above – then the most obvious questions are taken from there.

Treasure-hunts:

It starts with something of the following kind:

Every clue will lead you to a room from where you will get the clue to another room.

It is made sure that all the rooms in the wing (the crowd keeping up together so that they are not alone when trips are planned or movies are to be watched in Audi or to get help for courses where none of the classes are attended or when you are assigned the task of making wall-posters) are covered, sometimes even the washrooms and bogs (bathroom of graduate students – what a shady name) are :)

You finally get the clue to your room and that obviously is the last clue and you find a decent gift on your bed.

Everyone is tired at the end and after cribbing for a while about classes and profs and students who raised the averages last time, you go to bed. You can not sleep like every other day, the hits and misses on your back will not allow you to move an inch, forget lying straight. So you just stare at the white washed walls for a couple of hours imagining stuff and cursing all those who had hit you and you go to sleep taking a pledge that you will be ready, more than ever for the ‘tit for tat’.

High-thinker Groups:

They are a class apart, they celebrate with a much smaller crowd.

E.g.: People from the poetry club recite poems, quote some of their own, do some deep-meaningful readings.

The small crowd is very proud of their accomplishments, the other groups call them ‘boring’ but both the parties don’t care about each other.

The Likely Landscape:

They call it the ‘thirsty-day’, all the more if it is a ‘Thursday’ and drink and drink and drink till the whole group is split into a simple 3

- people who are aware of their bodies and know where to draw the line

- people with a pathetic show of chivalry – puking around

- people who repeat the same story again and again (‘n’ times is the minimum)

Examples:

Where is my room dude?

I think you are not okay (now this is hilarious Rolling on the floor laughing)

I feel so normal, my capacity is rising (ohm why not)

Now:

Phone calls (morning till evening): at one point, you feel irritated and feel like dumping the black gadget to a corner so that you can enjoy peace for sometime.

Treats and more… and that’s it.


Well, this is going to be incomplete without a birthday song (remember one from my school times)

‘Wish you enjoy your birthday, your birthday, a very happy birthday to you

clap again, clap again on your birthday, your birthday, a very happy birthday to you

tap again, tap again on your birthday…

clap again, clap again on your birthday…’

and, how can i miss the lovely chipmunks:

Enjoy!

4 comments:

  1. oh wow!
    Snehil didi.. wonderfully written.. i had no idea if it was you.. but browsing through the profile.. confirmed it..

    when did u start writing?
    and yes keep writing.. this bday post was wonderful!

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  2. Thanks Pratik.. nice exploration ;)
    If your question is 'when did you start writing as a blogger', i would say 'i wrote for 2 months in my last sem at pilani(2k8) and started again a few weeks back'. Time to visit your space now :)

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  3. This is great!
    Keep blogging.. would love to read more of your articles! :)
    (and please remove word verification)

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  4. Thank you for the encouragement :)
    Word verification - hehe... that's not in my hands. I can request the right person to do the needful though ;)

    ReplyDelete