Sans hunger

“How can Chota be closed now? Its only 3.30 for God’s sake!” I asked no one in particular and thus was answered immediately. “Yeah! Apparently these guys don’t have six assignments and four projects to submit tomorrow.” Somebody else pitched in, “you are forgetting the case-studies we have to go prepared with Dude, for six different classes.” A loser joined in, “what are you saying, I counted four! OB, Mark Ops, Brand and Retail, what are the other two?". The main concern was promptly forgotten. We had all gathered here hunting for food and Chota, the private canteen of our campus, was closed.
The conversation moved on to the numerous assignments and projects we had to submit everyday along with the mandatory readings and analysis etc. before classes. Someone even remarked, “Man! If we were paid two bucks per project and one per assignment, we would have recovered our tuition fee!” The third trimester has just started and we are already zonked. The 9-9 classes, group projects, individual assignments and projects, presentations, case-studies, mandatory readings and all, sapped life out of us. We have forgotten what weekends are, thanks to the visiting lecturers who make the most of the free day to teach. We have forgotten that 3.30 in the night is the time when normal people sleep and not wait on customers in the canteen. Off late I have started hating the dogs on the campus. While we are hurrying between classes or rushing to grab lunch in the 10 minute break these canines are in deep slumber in the middle of the road. They wake up to our noisy footsteps and give us loathsome looks for spoiling their siesta! These days I feel like killing anything I catch sleeping while I slog on with itchy eyes and tired limbs.
The rumble in my stomach reminds me that this is not the time to fret about the unfair thing called life in a B-school. I must get some carbohydrates to replenish my Adenosine-tri-phosphate levels, the energy currency of the body. It is irritating when biochemistry comes to haunt you at the most ludicrous instances. I cannot help being a Biotechnology graduate and thus come up with names of relevant molecules at the most irrelevant times! I never shared this with anybody lest I be deemed loony but my top-of-the-mind-recall associated with the word ‘sex’ is ‘estrogen and testosterone’! Anyway, I shove aside the adenosine thought and move on in pursuit of food.
Where do I start? Anumeha! That woman has her heart at the right place. She even keeps stuff that she can offer people when they ‘visit’ her room. The door is open and there are people on the bed, the chairs, the floor, discussing some case-study and gossiping. They welcome me like a blood-sister coming to join the gang, sniffing loose-talks in the air. I am also rewarded with the news of the latest break-ups and hook-ups in the campus. Somebody asks me about my neighbour and like a duh I answer that she is alright, as if they were interested in her health! Amrita knows me better and makes an eye gesture to others akin to- don’t ask her, she won’t notice a hook-up even if it danced naked in front of her wearing a crown lettered H-o-o-k-u-p. I let this insult pass and ask for food. Unfortunately, the women gathered there have polished off everything. Probably that explains the Kurkure ad. in which gossip starts flowing as soon as a fat woman munches on the snack! The Kurkure thought is making me desperate. I knock every possible door in Champa in vain. Ms. Jain opened the door and gave me a withering look, I should have remembered, all the hunger in Somalia combined is less important than her sleep.
Like a derelict I move to Gulmohar hostel to Veggie. She keeps Ayurvedic medicines for all ailments ranging from headache to foot-sprain, the corollary is, she must have something for the ailment called hunger-at-odd-hours. All I got was sympathy and an assurance that I might lose that flab if I spent some more hungry nights like this. Nobody dying of hunger would like to be pointed out the extra layers of fat she is carrying round her waist but Veggie might understandably be on a vengeance spree, she has had jaundice and is currently surviving on boiled vegetables.
The boys will not care to store any food I supposed. Most of the times they are raiding the likes of Anumeha but I have a Hobson’s choice. Chaddha offered me booze apologizing for the lack of food. Bose, my senior, told me a story to ease my pangs. It seems, in his first year he too faced this desperate situation. After scavenging for food all over the Campus he planned to return to his room, tighten his belt and get back to the numerous assignments awaiting his attention. Comming towards his room, from the distance he could see Mohit calling a dog and opening up a chocolate wrapper. Before Bose could shout ‘Stop!’ the dog had gobbled up the treat and Mohit delightfully crooned ‘Mera Baccha’. It turned out that Mohit fed the last available chocolate to the dog for the lack of a better palate and Bose resorted to his tighten-the-belt plan again. The story did not ease the pangs but I became smart enough to keep a look out for any dog-human interaction on the way.
Forlorn by now checking out the rooms for food had become a formality, and then, I get this surprising affirmation from an unlikely quarter. Saucy had food! He showed me the secret place in his room where he kept it. Digging through layers of books, clothes and books again I found a packet of Marie Biscuits.
“Ugh! This is not food! I do not like them,” I lamented. “Saucy, how can anybody eat this? What prompted you to buy something nobody wants to eat?”
As far as I know, I have not seen anybody jumping with joy at the sight of these biscuits. They are unappetizing enough to be left on the plate every time they are served with tea. Only old Bengalis or people with stomach ailments eat them! I have not come across a single person for whom these top their most-desired-biscuit list. I mentioned my analysis to Saucy while I helplessly swallowed them compelled by hunger.
The Guru of consumer insight spake thus- “Do you think I do not know any of what you are telling me? I bought them precisely because they are so undesirable. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have survived to quench your hunger at this hour of night, My Lady!”

Being a Psycho's Girlfriend

Nobody is talking to Tejas. Where ever he goes, people vanish off faster than the capacity of staying alert in Prof. Jain’s classes. He has only me to talk to, a person he has come to hate in the last few days because I am the only one who talks to him!
“I don’t like it”, he laments every now and then.
He almost cracked up when he went up to the water cooler in Chandni Hostel and Shyam and Anand furtively scooted from his sight. This was followed by a hush on the Badminton Court and even Ketaki, the one everyone feared, left making a sad excuse that she got to study. Tejas’s God like fearful stature is finally coming to haunt him.
“I am going to tell everyone if this gets unbearable! And listen, don’t you keep on following me as if I am going to crack up or kill Peggy any moment.” Peggy is the tail-less-bitch that has become a part of MICA landscape, so much so that our revered seniors have christened our Intra-net e-mail as Peggy. It has been rumored that Tejas chopped off Peggy’s tail and would murder her if he can. True, Peggy’s howling replaces the cock’s crow at wee hours of the morning when the majority finally gets to bed and we all have contemplated murder at some point of time or other but the tail thing is quite baseless, I swear. Tejas would have loved to chop off the tail if it had not been already.
I shrug shoulders and abscond from his sight to go terrorize the Facchaas. Facchaa stands for the fusion of ‘first-year’ and ‘baccha’ (kid). These are the first-year kids who have just entered the campus and we second years are religiously stripping them off their pride of getting through CAT and one of the best institutes in the country. We are making them humble and emptying those heads swollen with self-congratulatory bigotry. Some might argue that we are ‘ragging’ them but please note that our intentions are pure and there is no physical assault involved. We just give them assignments and projects related to management, tell them switch-off the lights and go to sleep at 10 PM and have ordered them to keep off the bucket-chairs and hammocks of the campus. And the whole thing has to be endured till the Fresher’s Party after which we become as friendly as we are within the batch. But, tell you what, the Facchaas are terrified of Tejas and by the virtue of being his girlfriend, they do not dare cross paths with me as well.
The other day a poor Facchaa happened to ask me the direction to one of my batch mate’s room and Tejas glowered at him like a raging bull. He was just about to charge at the clueless guy when I dragged him away from the scene. After that incidence the first-year guys stay away from me, Tejas or no Tejas around. I am enjoying the fearful aura around me. None of my batch mates have stopped talking to me like they did with Tejas and on top of that I get sympathetic looks from everyone for bearing the role of being his girl-friend so well.
It is tough being his girlfriend, though. Yesterday, it rained very hard and the evening tea was being served in my Hostel, Champa, for a change. The tea, the pakoras (bless the mess Bhaiyas) and the rains had made people utterly crazy and romantic. Someone started loud danceable music on someone’s computer and everyone including the Facchaas started an impromptu Rain-Dance-Party. I was at Chota enjoying a rare Tejas free moment immersed in an erudite discussion with Srikant and Kamini on the mad Tuglaq’s leather coin’s impact on the then Indian economy. All of a sudden we hear this distress call vaguely sounding like my name. The call for help was chilling enough to have all three of us running like mad and not mind getting drenched like wet dogs in rain. It came out that Tejas hearing all that racket in Champa, yes, the dance-music was racket to him, has gone berserk and somebody needs to contain him. I reached the scene to witness Tejas grabbing the wrist of a whimpering Richa asking her to reveal the rogue who started the noise. Sharma stepped in to rescue Richa and got promptly slapped in return. Even I had a tough time cajoling him to get away from the scene, it seemed he would not spare even me, this time. I took Tejas to his room and calmed him down. I suddenly saw Harkishan braving his way across Chandni escorting Priyamvada to her hostel, in full view of Tejas. Some people would go any lengths to be chivalrous to entice a woman! I so wanted to dance with the rest of the gang but I too was trapped with this boyfriend of mine. Everybody must be questioning my senility by now.
Tonight Tejas is going to work on his Brand Management project quite assiduously and thus my time has been booked by all the women of the batch for a special training session with the first-year girls in Gulmohar hostel. I really do not want to miss this one, managing Tejas has made me miss enough already.
Richa is in her full swing bossing around. Even Murugeshwari is giving orders! Paula is as usual getting cozy with Sneha, unable to curb their lesbian gestures even in public. We were accustomed to their ways but the junior girls gave a mixed expression of intrigue and distaste. The training session of the newly initiated was in full swing when Tejas bursts into the scene again. Friends signal me with a sigh, he can’t stay away from you, move along poor baby! But Tejas is climbing up the stairs of Gulmohar staring intently at the first-years lined up downstairs. The girls are obviously cringing at his sight.
I walk up to him and ask politely so as not to incur his wrath, “what are you doing here? It is an all-girl’s gathering. Come along, we will go back to your hostel.” No response, he is focused on the frozen scene downstairs.
I implore, “Tejas! You are not supposed to be here!” Finally some reaction, he tells me to come out of the congregation, he has something grave to discuss.
The situation is becoming desperate and I can sense Tejas losing it. He is not going to bear with it for long. It is a boon that the Fresher’s Party happens tomorrow.
“I am sick of being a psycho and sicker of you being my girlfriend!” He bursts out. “You know what, all the other guys are having a hearty look at the First-year girls but they scoot away seeing me. Even Harkishan has gotten that Priyamvada hooked and I am stuck with you. When this is finally over who is going to believe that you are not my girlfriend? I am jinxed now!! I can’t play this hoax anymore. Everybody is enjoying me terrorizing people but me. I feel so bad when the Facchaas get scared of me.” I gesticulated to say something but he went on. “It’s OK with Paula and Sneha, they are playing to be lesbians, so what? Nobody runs away from them and they already have boyfriends. But you have ruined my chances with the juniors. Nobody is going to believe that we are just friends!”
My heart went out for this guy. The traditional hoax we are playing for the juniors has demanded him to be cut off from the entire batch till the fresher’s party day, when hoaxes will get announced in the afternoon. I offered him to write and sign on a stamp paper that I am not and was never his girlfriend and as a gesture of thanks, Richa, the Fresher’s Party coordinator will personally introduce him to every girl of the new batch at the party.
Suddenly we see a junior passing by and Tejas snarls as if daring him to look at me and I know he will endure playing the psycho for one more day!