The Red Bathrobe

It lied there, sprawled on the corridor of our hostel wing, abandoned enough to get Tyagi salivating. “Can I trample on it wearing my slippers?” she begged to me and Kavita, as if we cared! It was that famous Red Bathrobe belonging to Nups, a quintessential sight that we have started relating with our microcosm for the last one and something year in Champa, an unlikely name for a hostel.
To understand Tyagi’s delight and trepidation about trampling that bathrobe, one does not need to read Freud. You simply need to wake up reluctantly at the unearthly hour of Eight in the morning and listen to the argument between the heroine of our story and the possessor of the bathrobe. Every morning Nups would get up with the birds and attempt to do Yoga. She would also maintain her record of being the first one to go to the canteen for a cup of tea and try to teach Bhaiya how to brew the concoction correctly. At this point I must mention that all these early morning trysts are here say, yours truly was never a witness to it. It is alleged (by Tyagi) that after this Nups came down to her real agenda of the day- no, not studying frantically to beat Ms. Mathur living downstairs, the agenda was to stop Tyagi from bathing directly after toppling down from her bed.
Our heroine is a simple woman who loves gossiping, studying, getting nervous before exams and claims to grow up to be a ‘kitty-party’ woman. Tyagi had apparently promised her mother that even in the hostel she would bathe assiduously every day. Nups is hell bent on sabotaging her solemn promise. Whenever Tyagi gets up, as explained, she would head towards the bathroom only to e stopped by Nups who claimed right to use it first because she was the first one in our wing to wake up! All through this routine argument of the past one and something year, Nups struck a ready-to-bath pose always in that bathrobe.
Our Professor’s futile attempts at making us branding wizards has at least instilled enough understanding in us to appreciate the fact that the Red Bathrobe is something that Tyagi has come to associate with feelings of being helpless, cheated, dominated and bewildered. Her attempts to trample the Red Bathrobe were probably a symbolic expression of ‘breaking away from the shit’ that she endured every morning. I could also associate it with the ‘Deewar syndrome’. For the uninitiated, it is a term coined by our home-grown advertising gurus who claim that any product advertising itself through a Mother and son relationship sold. This phenomenon is correctly portrayed in Shashi Kapoor and Amitabh Bacchhan’s famous interaction in the movie Deewar ‘Mere Paas Ma Hai’ representing the strength of the bond an Indian male feels with his mother. In Tyagi’s case it has extended to the fairer sex as well, after all, the Indian woman is emerging as a force to reckon with these days. I analysed, Tyagi felt quite strongly about that promise about maintaining her personal hygiene.
So there lied the Red Bathrobe, tantalizing our woman to step on its luxurious folds and smear it with MICA mud. But hey, our heroine stood there biting nails wavering between temptation and fear of incurring Nups’ wrath later.
“You guys won’t tell her, no?”
I repeat, as if we cared!
I must admit, being her next door neighbor and being separated with Nups by one room in between (Tyagi’s), I was psychologically closer to Tyagi. Not to mention, we had even drawn a window in her room using crayons, as a symbol of ‘being there for each other’. I even wrote some funny lines on her walls selfishly, because I would never besmirch my room, however witty the lines might be. And Tyagi not only did not mind, she had been positively delighted with the graffiti.
I even offered Tyagi to ‘do it’ for her but she was not going to forsake the most glorious moment of her life. For once, I felt proud of myself. It was as if I have influenced her to be reckless!
While the neutral duo, me and Kavita, were not only goading Tyagi to get over with it but also keeping an eye on all possible places from where Nups could emerge and spoil the fun, Ms. Jain’s good-morning happened. Getting to see each other awake was something like catching people from India, Australia and New York chatting with each other on Yahoo Messenger. Our time-zones were so different you see. While we expressed our mutual delight on being able to catch up with each other, Tyagi froze like a rabbit in front of a car’s headlight. She could trust her ‘wing’ mates, but she was not sure if her crime would be stowed away in the secret vault of Ms. Jain’s memory. Moreover, who trusts people who would not even recognize their best friends if threatened to be woken up at 12 noon!
As expected, I witnessed another triumph of caution over indulgence. But Tyagi, you did not have to be cordial to the level of picking it up and restoring it to the washing line!