The first memory I have of this day is the throbbing pain in my neck and teeth – No, I was not biting my own neck – it is just the way I end up sleeping when the early part of the night is uncomfortable and my slumber is interrupted too often.

The previous night : at about 9 p.m.

Sourabh : Kal Morning me Motibagh pe milte hai 8 o’clock, Trevor se baat kar lena. Uske saath gaadi me chalenge.

Dinesh : Haan, Good idea.

Obviously Trevor never answered the phone.

The morning of 12-05-07 

So, owing to the infinite loop (of turning and twisting) I executed at night, I woke up at the auspicious time of 7:52 a.m. My first thought – 52 minutes late – body hurts – seems to be just another regular day (long thought). Usually my first thought in the morning is ”haah-aah-bloouaarraaaoo”.

So after I opened my eyes – completely – I proceeded to hunt down my phone and dial Trevor’s number.

Miracle

Trevor answered !!

Dinesh: Hey, you answered !!

Trevor: Eeyeah, I think so.

Dinesh: When are you leaving for college ?

Trevor: I am just going to leave my house, Sourabh se kal baat ho gayi thi, motibagh pe milna hai.

Dinesh: Damnit !! I am late again.

Trevor(Unsurprised): Ok.

Dinesh: Alright you go ahead, I’ll come on my own.

After 15 minutes and a few calls back and forth, Trevor was still ‘just leaving his house’, Sourabh was obviously waiting at Motibagh and I was thinking to myself – “haah-aah-bloouaarraaaoo”. After claiming that it would take me just 5 minutes to get ready but 20 to reach Motibagh, Trevor offered to pick me from my place, to which I had to concede that I needed an hour to get ready and 20 minutes to reach Motibagh.

The Journey

After a failed attempt at co-ordinating a joint bus ride with Soumya and one 511 (which fortunately lumbered on till Dhaula Kuan) and one 479 and one 910 (pvt.) i.e. one and a half hours later I reached A-4, Paschim Vihar at the glorious time of 11:00 a.m. – 2 hours behind scheduele – reaffirmed my faith that it was just another ordinary day.

Waste of time

After checking and rechecking the severity of the viva – I hopped across to the ‘Net Lab’ to look up the definitions of most things that belonged to the realm of ‘questionable’.

Obviously the ‘Net Lab’ was closed.

So a trip to the nearby cyber cafe at the nearby Bon-Bon Market followed. (The hip-s-ters call it –> B-Marks)

As I was embroiled in the vast reservoirs of mostly worthless information available on the net, I realized that the clock had ticked to 12:45 p.m. and my bill had swollen to 30 Bucks !!

30 goddamn Bucks !!

So I made haste. At, 12:50 p.m. I was outside the Chemistry Lab awaiting my turn at “faking it”.

Screw You

In essence that is what it meant.

Listen ICE 1st year

“The Viva for the third (read as third-rate batch) batch has been postponed till next week because we have to conduct the CET-2007 for a thousand courses (MBBS, B Pharma et all) in our ‘pre-mices’ .”

Thank you, fir aana, agli baar khaana kha ke jaana.

Like a pack of stray monkeys we were shooed out of the ’pre-mices’.

After running all over the campus (short walk) for photocopies and books with Ashu (read as Achoo) we turned towards the Chhole Bhature wala at Punzabi Bagh.

It was evident that half the gang already had their ‘ Spirits ‘ lifted and were planning to ‘ Fly a little higher ‘ so I decided to exit stage auto-rickshaw with – a recovering from fever - Sourabh and - decent chap – Varun.

Homeward Bound 

One ‘Beedi’ and two ‘Paan Bahars’ later I offloaded myself at Dhaula Kuan.

After struggling to get onto a ‘Bihari Mudrika’ and fighting to get a ticket, I reached home, hungry and confused.

One packet of Top-Ramen, some taunts from Siddhartha, Capsicum-Potato, Dal, Three Chappatees and salad were on the menu.

I saw a drab cricket match and swallowed my lunch. Wandered on the net, put up a strange post and tolerated some music. 

It is almost 7:00 p.m., dreams of eating a good dinner (only dreams), a drab dinner, a drab few hours of news channels, some more music to tolerate will follow.

So, until next time, this is your captain saying - “Goodnight and Godspeed”. (I actually said that). 

P.S. In case you are wondering, the auto-wala had the ‘Paan Bahars’ and smoked the ‘Beedi’