The Dark 'Night'

03:00AM, 6th May: At a first glance, you would have thought I had gone crazy. But, of course, who would not, after seeing someone wearing the bathroom slippers on his palms and slapping them together in a dark room. I wouldn't have cared anyways, because my sole motto was a moth-massacre at that time. SLAP! There goes one! SLAP! Another one.. The annoying insects fell prey to my innovative weapon. But they were two many to handle. Should I go for the kill? Or should I surrender and retreat?! I was praying to God for an answer and courage to face the darkest night I have ever had during my birthday.

Three hours back- 12:00AM: 3.. 2.. 1.. Knock.. Knock.. I could hear the retarded call of Keshav from outside the room. "Come outside buddy! It's time to whoop some arse!", he announced. I opened the door and he greeted me with a birthday wish, "Happy birthday, macha!" "Thanks, man", I replied. Everyone had assembled outside my room for a 'kickass' party. I got a call from my home just then and was on the phone. After the call, I came outside and two of those guys lifted me. I didn't know what was going on. May be they were discussing ways to kick my snooty ass. Then Sud and Shounak came charging. My heart stopped for a moment seeing the heftiest guys in the wing running towards me to kick me. But then they stopped. It was Sud who went first.

"Sorry, dude!", he told me before swinging his leg back with full strength. Though being held by two guys by my hands and legs, I managed to mouth a few words, "Hey, it's alright! No need to apolog... OUCH!", before I stopped dead for a moment. 'Holy crap!', I thought. "Ya, now you need to apologise, buddy!" It was Shounak next, "OUCH!" Before I could realise, there were a couple of more blows. And by now, I thought, my bottom had swollen like that of a baboon! But they decided to spare me for a treat.

I met Pras at ANC and he started his usual cribbing about the semester exams, courses and grades. I was waiting.. waiting.. waiting for him to probably wish me but realised that he didn't remember anything about my birthday. So, I told him, "By the way, it is my birthday and I am treating my friends at ANC. You wanna join in?" There was a look of surprise in his face and he hit himself on the forehead. Then he shook my hand and said, "Sorry, man.. 6th may.. Yeah.. Shit, I forgot completely!" "Well, that is is the first time anyone wished me like that!", I said.

After having our fill at the All-Night Canteen, I realised that I had a test the very same day. The dreadful 'Measure and Integration' course was threatening to take away my pride of not making a D grade ever till then in my BITSian career. I was in Keshav's room and decided to resume my preparation for the test. Things were going fine before he decided to take a short nap forcing me to go back to my dreadful room.

My right eyebrow bone started throbbing in pain. That was an awful experience the previous day when I had gone to the bathroom to pee. I saw the floor flooded with water. I just started walking slowing, placing one step at a time in order not to slip. But the inevitable happened. But, one would expect that I would fall. I didn't, because I was lucky enough to grab hold of the wall in front of me. After a moment's satisfaction, I was rebounding due to the impact of suddenly holding the wall in the forward direction and hit it face-first. OW! With my glasses askew, I examined the injury in front of the mirror. It was paining like hell. It was 3am by then and I was just 12 hours away from the start of the test. The best thing I could think of at that time was to study through the night. I was walking towards my room.

Well, one reason for which I hated myself for the umpteenth time was my laziness to get the insect net set over the ventilator in my room. The electric bulb in the wing was straight in front of it. There were moths and insects of all size buzzing around it. They had a straight passage through the holes of the ventilator into my room. I opened the door and the tube light was already switched on. If I am not exaggerating, I could have traced the world map on my wall where all the insects were sitting, only that of a strange world.

I switched off the lights in my room and then, SLAP! SLAP!! SLAP!!! The corner of my room was full of dead insects. It was not the first time I had done this. An hour passed by easily and the one heck of an army of moths was never going to subside. I was too tired by then and I decided that if I needed to have the energy to sit through the test, I had to get some sleep. I kept the door open, the lights switched off and tried to get some sleep. It had not ended. They decided to bother me all night. Those annoying little idiots got on my nerves when they finally started finding way through my pants and started buzzing from the inside. 'Oh! Good Lord!', i was praying, exasperated.

06:00AM: Fortunately, the next time I remember being conscious was at 6am in the morning with very few insects around. I was in no mood to study. I opened my facebook account, while listening to music, and started replying to the numerous wishes I got for my birthday. It was around 8am when I realised that I had a lot more to study. But, I thought, effectively my 20th birthday was ruined.

02:30PM: I woke up after a short nap and rushed through the syllabus for one last time before facing the devilish paper. Fortunately, whether I should call it luck or good preparation I don't know, I found one part of the paper easy and solved most of the problems in it.

08:00PM: It was time to chill out after a hectic schedule of 4 exams in 3 days and I deserved some rest. I sat down coolly in front of my comp and started blogging. But, wait! There is a moth in one corner.. SLAP!!!