The Agony and the Ecstasy

I was never blessed with an elephant's memory.... but my father was.... It always made me look stupid in front of him...

So, at an early age I decided enough was enough! There were books piled in every shelf of our house.. (if riches were to be measured in books .. we would be millionaires ). I took one that befitted my age and pored over it till it was over .. Now, with the story fresh in mind i went to him with my bloated ego....

The Agony and the Ecstasy.. Yes, there I was, Michelangelo, onwards to carve a David out of Carrara marble.

Papa's query: 'Do you remember Michelangelo's granma's name ?'.......... What ??!!

I just read 400 pages about the greatest sculptor in human history and the first thing dad asks me is this seemingly insignificant question.

Now, Ma always kept saying 'He's insane' .... this was one time i agreed with her.

But thats my father. Each time I have finished a book and gone to him.. I have been bamboozled by something he would say (That 'something' which he had read 30 years back) about the same book which I did not remember coming across. I kept having these utterly humiliating, and absolutely demoralizing conversations with dad, chronically, till I accepted them as part of my ill-fated life.

My bloated ego was now doing a google search on 'Michelangelo's grandmother' and trying to commit her name to memory to escape future humiliation. Only later did i realise how important a role she played in the life of Michelangelo.


Well, what we remember is what we want to remember in our subconscious..... Not what we are made to remember.


I remember feigning stomach aches to escape Tuesday's bengali class at Don Bosco (where you got a knock in the head and a remark in the diary for not being able to recite 10 lines of bengali poetry). I dont remember a single line of those poems which i so painfully memorized. I also remember having to take a barium test because the doctor (and my dad) thought i was suffering from appendicitis (or may be a stone in my gall bladder), ... ignoring the fact that this 'appendicitis' kept popping up every Tuesday morning !

It was a heavy price i paid to keep my diary clean and my cranial bone unscathed. One huge glass of white chalk paste(barium) poured down my throat. It took two days to come out. Talk about the agony and the ecstasy !

I remember....

I remember the first time I left home.. I was 19 .. I remember the first time I had curd rice, thinking it was 'paesh' .. I remember my first trip to Shimoga, all the while thinking this must be the train to Auschwitz.. I remember never getting a prize for 6 years of recitation in Modern School.. I remember cracking my head.... breaking my left arm.... fracturing my leg.. travelling 'general' for 2 days to attend Thamma's funeral....... I remember...... Yes, I remember, a lot of things that may have been agonizing .. but has always stayed close to my heart.. and therein lies the ecstasy.

How many times have we seen 'Dont worry be happy' clumsily written on a heavy vehicle's differential and ignored it as the ignorance of the illiterate?

The ecstasy is not a psychedelic drug (as many would have you believe).. it is just a state of mind. What is agony today might be ecstasy in hindsight.

There are two kinds of people who have reached this far in my article.. to the ones in agony, the key word is 'remember' ... to the ones in ecstasy.. thank you for reading something that doesnt make much sense to you in your present state of mind.. but will, when life shows you the other side... so the key word again is 'remember' .

To the rest who are hanging in limbo .. logoff .. you can come back later when you have fallen off the tight rope. Michelangelo's perennial agony may have very well been instrumental in giving the world David. Therein lies the dichotomy of the agony and the ecstasy.

Time to be Ecstatic !!!! Cheers !

A Time of my Life : Part 2

This incident should have come before the last one. Somehow, it was lost in the cobwebs of my present. But, here it is.

This was Sem 1 at JNNCE. I had just moved to room 111 Tunga Hostel (yes, i had the unlucky Nelson on me since then :)

My roommates, Manish Chakravarty('borty' if you are a bong), Rishikesh Kumar (we called and still call him 'Thakur') and Priyadarshi (you ll get to know him as we progress).

Manish had stayed all around the country before landing here (his father being a senior man in the army), Thakur was from Muzaffarpur, and I was from Kolkata. Priyadarshi came from Dharwad and did not fit into the stereotype of a 'Northie'. Yes, thats what you were called in Shimoga if you came from above the deccan (from Gujarat to Tripura... its all North to them). A pleasant medley we were.

Priyadarshi used to go for Maths tuition (M1) to Dr. Shantarajappa's house at 6a.m every morning. The rest of the hostel came to Thakur....... Thakur being a Bihari had inherent maths skills running through his veins. We all respected that and reaped regular dividends.

The other things about Priyadarshi were,
1. he was always tensed regarding his studies(once he lit a torch inside his mosquitoe net and covered himself with a chaddar with a book inside ).
2. he went to any length to get silence in the room (which was impossible with Manish around)
3. he had an exceptional high baritone voice (that could scare people to death) which belied his lean structure, and
4. he always slept early (a fact left undisputed by other hostelites due to 3)

So, one fine night around 2am

Thakur was preparing to go to bed, Manish as usual was busy (doing something technical ) and I was reading a novel. Priyadarshi was sleeping, with the alarm set to 4.30am (remember, he had a class at 6). Manish got up to reach his wardrobe for something, and banged a couple of our side tables on the way( 111 was a really small room .. a dungeon more or less). This woke up Priyadarshi only so much so to ask 'Hey Sapto what's the time ?' .. I dutifully told him it was 2 and went back to my book.

And then the Devil struck in cognition.

I looked at Manish.. and I knew he was thinking the same. We slowly went to Thakur's bed. Woke him up. As usual Thakur thought we were conspiring against him. We managed to convince him that for a change our plan was targeted towards Priyadarshi. I went and slowly set Pri's timepiece to 4.15am. Thakur was so excited he could barely stop laughing. Somehow, he managed. We planned that it was best for him to sleep ... else he might give away our brilliant idea with flashing teeth. Manish used to be very health conscious then and was in pretty good shape. He said he would wake up at the stroke of the alarm and get ready as if to go out for an early morning jog... and I said it would not look surprising to read a novel late into the morning, so i would just stay up and take the responsibility of dutifully waking up Priyadarshi at 4.30 (i.e 2am actual time, remember).

No wonder, the time piece started screaming in 10 mins.. showing 4.30 to the dot. We had not reset Priyadarshi's biological clock, so he was just moaning and turning around. I could see Thakur vibrating under his blanket. The ass just could not stop laughing. Manish was peeping his head out of his quilt every other second. I kept calling Priyadarshi to wake up but to no avail. He just kept moaning... Now, i got up, changed the clock hand to 4.45am and started shaking Priyadarshi.... 'It's late man, get up .. you are going to miss your class !!" .. sure as hell he sprang out of his bed, looked at the clock.. shouted a few expletives and ran to the washroom with his brush. Mission successful..... or at least it seemed so.

Manish got up and he also went to brush (just to make things more normal for Priyadarshi).. i could hear Priyadarshi asking him 'Hey man whats wrong .. why are you up so early ?' (Priyadarshi had this loud way of saying 'Hey man' which resounded through the corridor).. this again sent Thakur vibrating under his chaddar. Anyway, i went back to my book, thinking, when to break the truth to Priyadarshi. I knew he would be angry but then he would laugh too.

Manish came back and put his shorts on and his shoes.. and i think he did a couple of free hand exercises too and commented something on the advantages of early morning exercise and jog.. slightly louder so Priyadarshi could hear.

But Priyadarshi was so focused on getting ready, he really did not care. Only once he asked.. 'Hey Sapto.. you read that novel all night or what ?' ... I said ya it just got interesting as the night progressed.. so I want to finish it :)

Then something happened.. he took out his wristwatch from the cupboard and looked at it... 'Oh s*** man this watch is not working properly' ... and with that he changed his trusted wristwatch's timing from 2.30am to 5am (as per the time piece on his table)...... Manish and I looked at each other with our jaws hanging out like teller machines.... and then it happened again... Thakur started vibrating. This time Priyadarshi saw him. He said .. 'Hey man this guy is laughing in sleep !' ... we needed no further ideas..... I said 'yes i think he has that problem, yesterday he was talking in sleep too'.... under the blanket , Thakur was so stunned to hear this blatant lie, that he stopped shaking.

All dressed up and ready, Priyadarshi took his cycle and went off towards the hostel gate ..onwards to Dr Shantaraja s house.

Now, this was first year. For security reasons our hostel remained locked. It opened only at around 5am and Suresha was the Hostel boy who did it everyday. He lived by the first room to the left and was a great guy. Priyadarshi used to wake him around this time everyday 'coz he had to go to his class... Suresh never complained.. for one, he was a great guy, and two, I told you about Priyadarshi's voice.... right?

I swear to God, we thought this was the end.... because Suresha's watch must be showing the right time.. it was 2.30am.. a good couple hours before daylight. The moment Priyadarshi left the room, we switched off the lights and waited with bated breath. Knowing he was certain to come back in a minute and raise hell. In my mind I was preparing my apology speech.


Priyadarshi knocked at Suresha's room and eventually he must have got up. We heard two voices from the other end of the corridor. It was in Kannada, one was trying to convince the other of something and the other was just blasting away. Eventually we heard the hostel collapsible gate open.. close ... and then there was silence .

in the dark .. three pairs of eyes looked at each other...

Instantly, we ran out of our room and started shouting Priyadarshi's name. We went to the gate and kept shouting.. till Suresha came out ... instinctively we asked him 'Why did you let him go ?? It's 2.30 in the night !!' .... He replied..'That's what i was telling him, but this guy wont listen. He showed me his watch and said it was 5am and if I didn't let him go he would complain to the principal that I made him miss his tuition !.. So, i let him go'

This was doomsday. The road which Priyadarshi used to take went straight through the heart of the antisocial world, it was the land of the Mohans, Narasimhas and the Dattatreyas (all legends in their own rights), a place called Navule where dead corpses came afloat in the swamps in the morning. People who have been there will know that I am not exaggerating. It was a 30 min ride to Dr. Shantaraja's house and this guy was on a cycle... with his watch, wallet and everything. We were not even thinking what was going to happen if he survived the ride and rang the bell of Dr. Shantaraja's house !

The three of us sat quietly on the stairs of our hostel. Everyone was sleeping.. we could only hear the humming of the water cooler. It was the longest morning of my life, waiting for Priyadarshi.. praying every moment that he reaches us safe.. realizing full well that I was actually praying for my butt.

We waited for around 2 hours. Thinking at times to tell everyone and go all out searching for him.

..and then... he came.. the thin man with a toothbrush mustache.. angry as a wild boar..... not at us .. but Dr Shantaraja !!! Suresha opened the gates (poor him) and in came Priyadarshi with his cycle.. targeting his acrimony at Dr Shantaraja ... "What's this man .. he should inform if he is not taking the class .. I waited for one hour and nobody came .... I thought of knocking at his door but no other student was there, so I came back ... bla bla bla"......... we were thanking our stars for giving him the good sense not to knock.

... and then it struck him " Hey man .. what are you guys doing here ... why are you three roaming around here at this time?? "

The answer we gave him is not so important for you to know.

What is important is we got him back. We also managed to click a photo .. the background shows the hostel gate and the darkness outside (it still wasn't sunrise)... The 3 culprits and the victim .

Oh .. it's not over yet !

We somehow convinced him that after he left, I slept (Thakur was already sleeping).. and Manish discovered that his timepiece had been rigged .. and we suspected that it was Kakati who had come to our room and done it while we were unaware. (Pinakjit Kakati lived across our room and had a reputation for mischief... so we pinned him ... and Priyadarshi completely believed it.). The first thing we know in the morning, Priyadarshi shouting like he does at Kakati ... and Kakati just could not make anything out of it. He was completely flabbergasted! I think we too joined in the assault.

Gradually, we let everyone know the truth.. but I think Priyadarshi came to know the truth about 2 or 3 years later.

Believe me, it was a night to remember.. or should i say morning :)

So much for Priyadarshi's 'Northie' friends .. enough reason to start a hostel war .....but not him .. he is as good a friend i had :)