The Last One and The First One

May 16^th, 7:19pm - “Sir, please... please, make way for me.” I was wading through the crowd in front of me before the check-in counter. It took me some time to reach the check-in counter of Jet Airways with fewer people in front. I gave him my e-ticket and I-card. He worked on his computer and announced, “739 is closed, sir.” I was taken aback and then asked dumbly, “What?” “Your flight, sir - 9W 739… Check-in is closed. I’m sorry.” It took some time for the truth to sink in. ‘Oh, crap! What am I gonna do now.’ I told myself. “Is there anything that could be done?” I asked dumbly once again. But I knew the answer to that question.

Rewinding...

It was 5:43pm on the 16^th of May and the Delhi bound train stopped at the cantonment station in Delhi. It felt great to be on my way home after a tiring semester back at college. Me and my friend Keshav got down with my entire luggage. It definitely was a pain walking around with all four bags weighing more than 35 kilos put together. With one suit case that could fit a 7 year old inside, a smaller one with stuff more than how much it can handle, a travel bag with one of the shoulder straps snapped still stuffed with a million things inside that made me carry it on just one shoulder, and the bag that had my laptop I started walking down the platform. I tried different orientations of the baggages so that they did not interfere with each other and also not trouble me, but in vain.

We came outside the railway station. There was no sign of a cab. I had to get to the airport to catch my 8pm flight to Chennai from terminal 3 of IGIA. It was almost around 6:30pm by the time we got an auto-rickshaw. We had to pay a hundred and fifty bucks to get to the IGIA from the station. We tried to bargain, but the auto driver would not budge. We got on and reached the airport at around 6:50pm and we had to take a bus from outside to get into terminal 3. I was already getting tensed since time was running out.

The bus dropped us in front of international terminal 3. The worst part was, I did not have my ticket. I was relying on taking a print out from the terminal itself. I had to wait for a couple of minutes before I could give the person over there my ticket details and get it printed. Then I got Keshav’s call, “Man, where are you? I am waiting inside. Come on in. We still have time.” His flight was at 8:35pm, but mine was at 8. Probably, HE still had time I thought as I looked at the clock showing 7:15pm.

“Sir, please... please, make way for me.” I was wading through the crowd in front of me before the check-in counter. It was 7:19pm and my flight was at 8pm. It is common knowledge that the check-in counters close 40 minutes before departure. It took me some time to reach the check-in counter of Jet Airways with fewer people in front. The person in front of me walked away and then it was my turn. I gave him my e-ticket and I-card. He worked on his computer and announced, “739 is closed, sir.” I was taken aback and then asked dumbly, “What?” “Your flight, sir - 9W 739… Check-in is closed. I’m sorry.” It took some time for the truth to sink in. ‘Oh, crap! What am I gonna do now.’ I told myself. “Is there anything that could be done?” I asked dumbly once again. But I knew the answer to that question.

But, suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, he said, “Oh, we still have time, sir. There is still about a minute left.” ‘Thank, God! That is the sweetest thing I have ever heard!’ I thought. I kept my entire luggage except for the laptop for checking in. He pressed some numbers, checked the weight of all the baggages together and announced, “It exceeds the limit by 7 kilos.” Yes, it was showing 26 kilos with some decimals I do not remember. ‘Seven kilos! Merlin’s Beard! What am I, walking around with more than 27 kilos.. A porter or something?’ While this shock was sinking in time was running out and he told me that I had to pay a fine of a thousand bucks. Generally, they allow us to take two hand luggages if they are fragile or small. “Well, then.. I shall take this small suit case too with me as hang luggage.” While I was telling him this and was ready to take the suit case away as I told, he told me, “I am afraid I am not wrong this time. The check-in has closed now.”

Then something weird happened. The guy who checked me in ran ahead of me with my boarding pass almost until the security check. He stopped there, looked around and then told me, “Pay me the fine here and go quickly for the security check. Boarding is at 7:20pm. Go fast.” So, I gave him the money and ran helter-skelter. I got past the security check and ran towards the boarding gates. It took me sometime to find out how to go to the boarding gates. I started running like I was mad. My boarding gate was 42.

I saw a sign board saying gates something to something, but it was definitely way too far from 42. I ran once again, ran and ran until I came to gate number 42 puffing and panting. The security people over there stopped me. I thought I was late. ‘Oh my God! What is going to happen now?!’ Then in about a couple of minutes, the let me in. I thought, ‘Oh, I must me the last one in.. There is no one around.. Will I make it or will they shut the gate on my face and shoo me off?!’ Then I saw the air hostesses coming behind me.. ‘Weird!’ I thought. Then, I reached the gate and had to wait there for sometime, when I realized that I am going to be the first one in! ‘Again, weird!’ I thought.

I was feeling proud of myself as I seated myself inside the plane. Well, it takes some guts to check-in as the last person and board as the first one, doesn’t it? My phone was ringing and I answered it, “Ya, mom.. It was fine.. Ya.. Security, check-in all were fine.. Well, all except for that I almost missed my flight..”

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!!!

"I Know What You did Last Semester!"

10... 9... 8... It's here... 7... 6... 5... It's time to bounce back and show those nerds what I am capable of... 4... 3... It's time for a moral renaissance... 2... 1... 0 "HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011", I shouted out sitting in front of the TV and watching the new year countdown in a channel. It was the last week of December and I had been doing nothing for the past 10 days except for playing a simple but addictive game called Plants vs Zombies. It's just this: You have to protect your house from a bunch of Zombies and for that you use plants as weapons. "I had been very bad last semester", I told myself. "But I can pull myself together and bounce back." "I know what you did last semester", told my mind. "You are a useless bloody bugger. You cannot change yourself." "I will show you some change next semester. I will prove you wrong."

It was August 2010. I was proud that I had been attending almost all classes. Then came this damn test 1 series. Six days... Five tests... That changed my entire semester. After successfully screwing up almost each one of them, I came to the conclusion that there is no point attending all classes. Then the BITSian inside me tempted me to bunk classes. So, my daily routine was reduced to waking up late at 10 or 11, sitting aimlessly in front of my laptop, having lunch and dinner and going to Raag room and hardly attending any classes.

Then came test 2, with even more vigour. It helped me successfully seal my fate that I wont be making a GPA of even 7 that semester. The degradation was complete. I totally bunked all classes. I tried to do night-outs that proved to be worse than the idea of bunking classes. Deprived of sleep, and getting momentarily frozen everyday in a horrible winter, I faced compres with little hope that I would avoid a D grade in one of the most dreaded courses called "Intro. to topology".

I almost passed out worrying about my CGPA at that time. Compres were no better than the other tests. But a couple of night-outs ensured that I would get 2 B's and 4 C's securing a semester GPA of 6.67 that would make my CGPA to 7.81, falling from 8.05 by 0.24 units. "Now that 2011 is here, it's time to start afresh." After planning out this semester roughly and concluding that I need to get a GPA of more than 9.14 this semester, I am preparing myself to face a mammoth task of making amendments to the damage I made. I'll always remember what I did last semester...

Diwali!

Come Diwali, the festival of lights, it is all about the joy of sharing and having fun bursting crackers. It being my favourite festival, I never missed the celebrations even a single year, even while I was away from home for Diwali for the first time last year. And it promised to be as exciting as ever this time as it fell on the 5th of November.

It was 6:17am and I got a call from Yudha. I suddenly gave a jerk and woke up, "Merlin's beard! What am I doing?!" I was supposed to be there at the central lawns (C-Lawns) at 6am with a part of the crackers that was there with me. So, I hurriedly got up, answered the call, "Ya, ya... I am there in 5 minutes", and then got into my pants rushing into the bogs (common bathroom). Then, I got a call from home as expected. "Take head bath, dear", advised my mom as expected. "Haan, haan", I replied while I was thinking, "Damn it! I don't even have the time to brush my teeth right now. I shall have to rush."

"Jenishta bul hocchey", I muttered to myself and so did Pras as we were playing a sick game called 1up-1down on the eve of Diwali. Apparently it means, "The thing is going wrong" in Bengali and I began using it frequently since I learnt it (not that things have been going fine before I did so). The rule of the game is this: you play it till you find out how it is played. WTH?! Sounds exciting isn't it? But, it didn't for me. And that's why I suck at it.

We decided to meet at C-Lawns at 6am the next day to burst crackers and parted. Judee decided to come to my room and watch 'Enthiran - The Robot' that night. It was about 2:30am when we were done with it. Excited about the coming morning, I set my cellphone's alarm clock to 5:30am and slept off. The alarm rang at 5:30am and I slowly opened my eyes too. I was staring at it constantly, may be for a minute or so. There was a rush of adrenaline inside me. The alarm was ringing... Because, this is going to be one hell of a day. The alarm was still ringing... We had lots of crackers to burst. The alarm was still going on... We will spend sometime in connaught place for dinner. It was still going on... Then we will be bursting bombs that go off in the sky and give brilliant colours. This time I stopped the alarm. The next thing I remember was the call from Yudh at 6:17am.

It was about 6:20am by the time I got into the bogs talking with people from home. My little brother was excited as to what crackers I have. "Is it a flower pot that you lit just now?", he asked. "No, I am peeing", I replied. After talking to the whole lot of people at home, I just took the bag of agarbathis and 600 wala that I had and rushed towards C-Lawns. "This is it!", I thought. "Diwali's here!"

A whole lot of people would be there, that includes people from raag (my club) and all the illads (tamil speaking people are called illads in BITSian lingo). I ran to the middle of the lawns and then noticed that it was deserted. What the hell was going on? Then I called Yudha. He told me that he is on his way. "Damn it! I came here running at 6:25am in the morning. I didn't even shit", I muttered to myself.

I went back to the wing, brushed my teeth, took bath (sprinkling some water on my head too to get the satisfaction of taking a head bath). After completing all morning rituals, I went to C-Lawns. Almost everyone was there. We started off with a mini atom bomb and went on to burst many of them and many others too. Initially, seeing the pathetic way in which the crackers were bursting, Shravan exclaimed, "I can spit louder than them." Even I thought, "Ya, I can fart louder than them!"

Dinner in connaught place in the evening was followed by a concluding round of bursting of crackers, particularly the 600 wala one and the fireworks that burst in sky. Judee was putting enthu with vengaya vedi (literally translates to 'onion crackers' from Tamil). Thanks to Shravan, Nammu, Preethi, Yudh, Neeraja, Judee, Ashwin and Juju, my Diwali was a wonderful one this year.

The night out

BANG! BANG! I knocked at my wingees' doors at 8:15am in the morning. Irritated because of getting rudely awaken so early, they opened their doors to find a smiling me proudly declaring, "I did a night out!" Much to add to their frustration, I asked if they are attending classes that day. Little did I realise in my excitement that their minds would have been picturing me getting thrown out of the Bhawan bashing the grill gates and getting landed right on top of the redi directly opposite to our wing.

My excitement was short-lived, as I sat staring blankly at the question paper after sometime in the exam hall. Then there was a sudden rush of adrenaline inside me as I spotted a few theorems that I had sleepily encountered during the course of the night out. I started writing out the proof and a few lines were over. Then the internal machinery experienced a black out. Working my mind backwards, I had realised that a few hours back I was dozing by the time I was at the fourth line of the proof. “Nah, this is not gonna help”, I thought and moved on to the next question. There was some progress, giving some scope for more partial marks. But yet again it was the same story. “All right!”, I thought. “It would be a nice idea to look into the progress of my night out to kill time.”

It was the last day of Oasis 2010. The feeling of Insomnia which was the theme for this International cultural festival organised by BITS-Pilani was never going to leave the minds of BITSians. But, there was only one day before getting used to the usual college life and to add to my misery, I had a test the first day after the end of Oasis holidays. So, to keep the spirit of Insomnia ablaze I decided to go for a night out that day.

I actuallt set out to ghot at about 10am in the morning with Sandy. Not even an hour had passed when I declared, “Yaar, dimaag kharab ho gaya. I am gonna sleep.” Then it was a long break till the evening. Kesh, my ghot-mate returned from home on the last day of Oasis holidays late in the evening. “Man, we shall properly do a night out today”, said he. How like-minded we were! So, we started after dinner at around 8pm.

It went well till about 11pm. Then the inevitable started happening. Taking turns, as if in a yawning competition, we started opening and closing our mouths at regular intervals. The internal bell rang indicating that it was time to go to ANC (The All-Night Canteen). After having a light snack at ANC, we returned at around 12am. I took out my book and resumed staring at it in regular intervals in between short naps in sitting position. Periodically Kesh poked me to make me realise this. There was a great struggle going on between my eyes and the book. Strange things started happening around me. At one moment I would be staring at my partner keenly going through the study material. My eyelids would close. And when they open again, he would be lying on the bed curled up in one corner. Then I would open my laptop and sign into my FB account.

Then there was this stupid moth that was buzzing around my ears annoying me for a long time. I took time out of my study schedule to corner that pest and have it smashed under my broom stick. Motherjane’s carnatic rock music kept me awake for sometime until food resources came from Kesh’s room. Hungry as we are, we emptied all the packets of biscuits and chips. By this time, it was nearly 5:30am. Somehow, I stupidly opened my gmail account and posted on Buzz, “My first ever academic night out in progress...” By that time, I had lost all hope that I would be able to finish reading the syllabus for the test.

It was 7am then, time to give to a concluding note to the night out. I dozed off.... The fight between me and the alarm clock started at 7:45am and went on till 8:15am, when I finally woke up to freshen myself and wake my dozing partner up as well. I came back to reality and looked at my watch. It was 9:45am, 5 minutes before the test concludes. I scribbled whatever I crap I knew gave the paper and came off...