The Drunken Bacchanalia

Finally the first year of college was about to end and the ragging was over.  And from a ragee we were on the way to become a ragger, just as a minute tadpole on the way of become a filthy frog. The air was free, the sounds were lilting and the birds were again chirping with a zest. We were up and about in town ready to take up new challenges; the first and foremost of which was alcohol. We consulted the seniors as to where to get and where to wet. We got the place we had the bottles and we all were all suited up for a drunken bacchanalia.  We were fifty young nincompoops with 35 bottles of whisky. Nobody knew how to drink and most importantly, how much to drink. An amiable waiter in the highway dhaba guided us like a father helping a toddler to walk. The first sip was horrible, the second was less so and from the third sip onwards we bally well didn’t give a damn of what we were drinking as long as the glass was filled. Young boys were enjoying the much awaited manhood. After a few drinks we stood up to get some air, the heads were high, the chests were broad and the legs; well the legs were staggering. The one thing we never took into consideration was that alcohol has an aftermath, named pee. 35 bottles of 750ml each, while being emptied by fifty people would generate a lot of pee. After a while our outflow was more than our inflow. As a result the loos were jammed; people were standing in lines to wait their turn to pee. Some of us couldn’t wait in line and went for an al fresco approach. One of them was Roy. I saw him with my heavy eyes, oozing out liquid from wherever it was possible anatomically. Then I went blank, the next time I could open my eyes he was sleeping against the wall and as I was fumbling with my zipper I spotted a light in his eyes. I traced his line of sight and found a filthy black swine lying in the mud that was when I went blank again. Next morning somehow we woke up in hostel and Roy was nowhere to be found. We traced back and reached that dhaba. There he was lying beside the marsh, one leg in the mud, one hand on the pig, smothered in his own vomit and moaning with a headache. This was the beginning of his association with alcohol and the interesting effects it had on him.

The Horrible Night of Hunger

If any of you may have had the opportunity to live in a hostel and that too of a government educational institute, you might understand the plight of the food they serve. Their chapattis would be so elastic that one could tie one’s luggage behind car with it. Their daal would be a sort of yellow water of doubtful origin. One could never make out the identity of the vegetables they make and their rice would look like a cat’s vomit dried in sun and fried with rabbit droppings. It was due to this that the apatite was low but hunger was predominant. And at midnight after the seniors were done making a pig’s breakfast of our lives, the only sensation that remained was hunger. A few rooms were treated as repositories for biscuits and that would be our midnight meal. One such night, when the dinner was superlatively shit, nobody ate anything and after the seniors had gone, the hunger struck back. After much exploration it was found that the biscuit supply was finished. We sat and brooded, for very long. By this time another disaster was taking shape amidst the evil neurons in the brain that belonged to a pineapple. He rose like Gandhi preparing for Namak Satyagrah and poured out his brilliant plan. An idle mind may be the devil’s workshop as they say, but an empty stomach is the devil himself. We followed him to the mess store house that was filled with bread, butter and jam. Then and there I could imagine the elation of a western cowboy in times of gold rush, who had finally succeeded in finding gold. The plan was to take two packets each and leave promptly. But the magnitude of hunger didn’t permit this, so we plundered like a pack of lions attacking a buffalo, entirely unaware of the presence of the man who was guarding the store room. Half an hour later when we stopped to breath we were facing the hostel warden. The man was reasonable a little thrashing and he was done, about to leave when he spotted a boy still chewing over the left over bread, his hands bathing in jam and butter and his stance was to find more of it, needless to say it was Roy. This was enough to make the most reasonable men furious. An otherwise amicable old fellow, our supposedly protector from ragging broke all the rules and asked the seniors to fill in some manners in us. That night they came in like a blitzkrieg and we fell like the London Bridge.

The Chronicles of Roy - The Exodus

In the first year of college, the life was tough; we had to bear ragging in any amusing form it would present itself, assignments by seniors, crappy food, filthy toilets and not to forget the academics. We all perspired to be good students, in vain. It was tough to suddenly get used to the college setup when we were just out of school. In school, teachers were friendlier but here the porfs were a mixed breed of Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler. One particular prof, who taught microprocessors

The Chronicles of Roy - Love, Lever and Fart

The Pituitary gland, ladies & gentlemen, is the mightiest of all the things in the world, mightier that the God himself. It makes men do audacious things like climb mountains, cut huge rocks and make a Taj Mahal. Yes, it is the very bloody gland responsible for making one fall in love. And at 20, a young man’s PG is at its best, one falls in love every 5 days. I was no different; I too had an object of affection. She was a very sweet girl with big eyes and flawless skin. I wouldn’t leave any chance of being close to her, carpentry workshops, welding workshops and moulding and chemistry labs..these were heaven to me, ‘coz there I cud very effortlessly stand on her side and bathe myself of her presence. This went on for a very long time so much so that I was planning to ask her out any day now. One fine afternoon, while taking the lunch, I was contemplating my moves for the chemistry lab; I was going to ask her out. I discussed it with my chums; Roy being one of them and they gave me a go ahead. Finally the moment came, I was standing with sulphuric acid in one hand and my heart in another, my mouth was so pregnant with my feelings that they cud have come out anytime now.
But fate had something else in mind, and what he had in his mind involved me and Roy. The backdrop to this fatal idea of fate was that Roy loves to eat, and when he eats he stuffs himself; totally unaware of his metabolic capabilities as he always overestimated them. As a result of this, his butt has always been a serious threat to the well being of air in his surroundings. And that very afternoon, Roy had filled himself with a very spicy meal. So there I was standing with my amorous interest about to blurt out my feelings, when Roy came to borrow a beaker and very innocently let out the gaseous discharge he was famous for and left before the gaseous discharge could be detected. And as I opened my pregnant mouth, my nose sensed the the aftermath of the discharge and so did her nose. The reaction was obvious, I was held as a culprit for the pollution and she gave me the look that a lady of French aristocracy would give to the rotting plebeians. I could never make it up to her in the years to come while Roy’s butt was unanimously declared be the "Boforce" of the hostel.

The Chronicles of Roy - The Night at the Platform

Ragging, as I told you was an integral part of hostel life for the first year. And the favourite time for ragging for a ragger used to post dinner hours. When we ragees (the ones being ragged) noticed this pattern we made it a habit to promptly step out of the hostel after having dinner and spend the night at some god forsaken public place like a park, an under construction building or the most favourite place, the railway station. Railway station was a paradise to the absconding ragees like us; there we had food, tea, coffee, cigarettes and a bench to sleep on.
One winter evening we had our dinner and went to the station with our blazers and sweaters. All was going well, nice double egg omelettes, half fried egg sunny side up, nice hot coffee and a satisfying smoke. When all of a sudden a wandering idea that was searching for an apt mind to strike onto finally found an apt mind and it straight away struck the mind of our Roy. He put on his black blazer, tidied himself and announced that he will pose as a ticket checker. We said alright lets watch it. A train waiting for the green signal for last 2 hours was taken as the ground zero for action. Mr. Roy the TC entered and started waking up the passengers inquiring about their tickets at 3 Am in the morning. All was going well and Roy was getting more confident with each waking passenger till he slapped on the butt of a middle aged man snoring on a side lower birth and asked for his ticket. And as we watched him doing this through the window we instantly knew it was a wrong move. As it is always a wrong move to exchange butt slapping pleasantries with the very person one is posing as. Yes, Roy had woken up the real Ticket Checker. The TC, agitated at this, opted to play it by the books, he asked for the Poser’s ID card and Roy very confidently waved the college ID card. We, watching through the window sensed a chill running down our spines. One thing followed another and 11 of us were sitting on the floor of the railway police room. Every 5 minute a constable would come and curse us with a heart pouring out magma. This continued for few hours when suddenly we found ourselves alone and noticed an unguarded door, we sprang up and ran towards it like a buffalo making for a water hole, we ran and ran and ran. And as an aftermath of this night that black blazer was taken in custody and cut into pieces.

The Chronicles of Roy - The Beginning

It was a lovely August morning and the clouds were leisurely strolling over the city, confused, to pour or not to pour that was the question. The G8 hall at the ground floor of GEC Raipur was flooded to its capacity with new idiots dreaming of becoming engineers. There was chaos, there was snafu, there was trepidation and there was anticipation. Boys mingled when they found someone of their type. We were slowly gathering in groups. The Hi's the Hello's and the where-are-you-from's were being exchanged...and then we came across an odd little guy. One look at his face reminded all of us of a pineapple, the ears like onion ring and a nose like the woodpecker's beak. He was not a one look guy; anyone who saw him had to had a second look at him. But unlike us...he was totally calm, at ease as if he has been through it all a million times. as we talked to him we realized he was even more horrified at the prospect of living in a hostel and going to college than any one of us...Now that passed and came the first night at the hostel. The thing is, when you are going to an engineering college is that you are mentally prepared for Ragging, an integral part of living in a hostel, and so were we. Anybody who whose face was not familiar was considered to be a senior and was avoided neatly. but not Roy, he loved meeting new people, at least he love until he met a real senior, was taken to a room, stripped, made to do different cung-foo poses in that sartorial condition and was slapped 30 times on the same cheek, as he tells us. When finally they let him go, the idiot instead of going away sat in front of that room and kept calling our names. We heard and we didn't know what to do so we ran for him and the moment we reached there the door opened again and we saw a whole battalion of seniors staring at us like the Roman army would have stared at the Gaul. But unlike Gaul, we couldn't fight, so we were taken in and believe me what they did to Roy was only a trailer of what they did to us.

The Chronicles of Roy

Roy, ladies & Gentlemen, was not an ordinary kid; he was an anti ordinary kid. When he was born he looked cute, like little newly born baby pigs. And what was anti ordinary about him was that unlike other kids who also resembled little newly born baby pigs, he grew up only to be a bigger pig. In his teens his passion was filth, while other boys played football in mud, he just played, in mud. Legend has it that whenever he went to the loo, he would stare at the toilet seat in curiosity about what was inside it. That said and done, he finally grew up to be a ban (boy who is about to become a man). But old habits die hard; that is if at all one wants them to die. And then one fine August morning, he met me and others of us. And we embraced him with all his ultra ordinariness. Little did we realize that that one single event would change our lives forever; alcoholism, accidents, tight spots, police lockups , hospitals and getting thrown out of the hospitals...everything followed since that very day, so much so that it has now become an integral part of our lives.In these chronicles I shall try to throw light upon every single conk up that Roy managed to administer, sometimes inadvertently. I hope that the people who don't like filth and outrageous things would pardon me for my attempt.