The Comeback

REST REST REST

After three days I was back in business. The fever didn’t last for two days. But the whole mood of homesickness made me stay back for another two days. Friday I boarded a train to Pala. A new energy was inside me. I was confident to show to Manjesh sir and the rest of the world what a kid dynamite I was. Thus on my return trip I made certain strategies to please him.

In the mean time there were some drastic changes occurring in Pala House. Some people who couldn’t tolerate the toil vacated the hostel. In the vacancy some new faces came. Thus along with the new refugees came Vijesh, Hari and Amod. Vijesh was nested near Kesavan. While Hari and Amod were in the ground floor at the two edges of their study room. Room numbers 12 and 12-A.

All these days my life was more or less solely based on one single idea. To impress Manjesh sir. Somehow the second weekly test made me look like a bit stable. I jumped up big. From rank 70s to 20s. oh I was in cloud number nine for the following week. When Manjesh sir came to sign my progress, I didn’t  forget to smile at him. His facial muscles were all tense, refuting my smile. Before he passed to next room , he made another stab in the neck.

“Ippo kaanicha improvement eppozhum undavanam”

The next week my rank was in the early hundreds. I fell through quiet a good height. And the fall was back breaking. That week sir noted all those who fell from promising ranks. Of course I was not the only one who fell. But I can’t argue with that when Manjesh sir came to my room to slit my throat. Literally he did slit my throat. He just shut me up. Khallaas. So from that point I started two new practices.

I started to go to library and I started to sit for Reference (Secretely I started another practice. I made rendezvous to all other rooms during the night…. :))

Fact File : The Reference:

The whole phenomenon of going for reference is based on one gross idea. Self help is the best medicine. Of all the amenities we enjoyed at Brilliant, I think the most profound and benefitting one was the presence of a vast library. There we could sit till six and read any academic books. The reference section had many colorful books and the mere sight of them could enlighten us (A bit exaggerating….eh?)

So after a day’s class we would stay back at Brilliant and using our Library card we could borrow reference books, go into some classroom and sit there till night and study. This whole practice was branded under the name of Reference. A sir was always in charge of our reference. He used to issue us library books and when we were in place reading, he used to make rounds to see that law and order was in place. The sir, whom we saw exclusively on reference time, had a dark complexion (We couldn’t rule out the resemblances to singer Jassie Gift… Hence we called him Jassie).  Jassie sir was pretty serious and gritty, that even the mere sight of him, befell with pin drop silence in the classrooms (When he was not around it was Thrissur pooram). But in a matter of weeks all his rendezvous routes were understood by us, and more or less he was cleverly outplayed. We used to turn the place upside down when he was a way. But if we smell him near, everyone turned mute, as if we were practicing Buddhism. So in the matter of a few weeks the references were nothing but child’s play.

Evenings at reference were dry like parippuvadas. Nights were usual. The usual night routine is getting described in a coming article... so wait for that guys.

Everything lighted up at the canteen. We would crowd before Royichan’s TV set, watching Mtv or 9xM.

The times when Singh is king and Yuvraaj  hit the TV sets. We would almost always end up in disputes over changing TV channels. I would scream at the top of my voice when we go past some good song or movie scene. But it’s not always rewarding. The Hindi guys at the canteen (Hindi song lovers, to be precise), included me, Hari, Nidarsan, Thoufil, Renju, Richard and some others. Our chubby Nikhil.S fitted into the amphibian group (Hope he is not cursing me, reading this). Amphibians representing everything from Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi etc (later, we all were amphibians). Being a diehard fan of Harris Jeyaraaj, he was more like the publicist of groovy numbers. Any time in the canteen you could find him drooping over a plate of Masala dosa and humming  “Anbe en anbe” from Dhaam Dhoom or the Rahmaniac  “Ennavale  adi ennavale” swapping between the channels.

There were other clans also. The “Molluscs”  were hard shelled creatures for whom nothing but Malayalam songs (That  too “Lajjavathye” type…alas) went in. this included Amal Philip, Rohn Sam and others. Some had a palate for comedy programs only. Balu, Sen, Kiran (Moopan), Rahul (kazhappan) etc were neutral in channel disputes, except in days when there were cricket matches. Sibi, Mohammed, Jerin etc had a taste for any channel (I still wonder, if Sibi will dare to watch channels like Lok Sabha if it was being put).

The Time is now 7:30 in the night. The slow drift of a crowd from Royichan’s canteen to the Kizhathadiyoor Church.  All of them with bottles. Apart from waking us up in the morning (somebody is laughing and singing right now), the church gave us water to drink.  There was usually a pixel crowd in front of the cooler (Thank god it was Church’s property. Our hostel owner Joy was so much bill crazy, that he may charge us for every mouthful of water we drank, if he had a chance to).

Within a minute’s tussle in front of the cooler everyone would be back in the fortress named Pala House. Hari normally had two bottles in his hand and he used to juggle with them (Every time he tosses a bottle full of water into air, I pray to god that he catches it intact. 5 bottles per month, was the usual death toll). I hope by the end of the course each one of us had a circus trick learned, and Hari’s was his famous (rather notorious) ‘Water-Bottle-in-the-air (It was never ‘Water-bottle-in-hand’. It was either ‘in-the-air’ or ‘on-the-ground’, and the latter was not catchy at all).

There were times when we have to stay out at night on the verandah, punished by Biji sir for getting late from the canteen. Those were never the times of toil. On the other hand we simply enjoyed being the ‘outstanding’ person of the day. Rather than cursing Biji sir for such a punishment, we would secretly slip out into the canteen, to get a soda or lime juice, and be back in our standing position, and reain there. When sir shows up before us,  to scold us, we would be staring at him as if god had manufactured us as deaf mute.

And if we manage to get back into the rooms on time, we were almost ready to begin our night routine.

Believe me, every night was history…