A lifetime in law school contd....

Chapter 4: Hostile Hostel

The local bars in Nagarbhavi were where one normally spent one’s evenings. Small, seedy, dingy, smelly joints with Kannada film music blaring out of out-dated transistors.

Heaven – after a strong ‘boiler’, which was half a glass of Captain Jack whisky (Engine Oil for the uninitiated) topped up with Knockout beer.

And it was always likely to be at one of these bars that trouble brewed, seemingly stirred on by the terrible brew.

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I still remember the time Sad-Das (Sad-Ass, remember?) had once insisted on a ‘home cure’ when I was down with a slight fever. This involved us strolling over to Sarovara, the closest bar, and ordering whisky with Citra. He muttered something about the lemon essence doing the trick.

Sure enough, after a couple of whiskies with C, I was toasting the ingenuity of this Meatloaf look-alike. I was so far gone that I actually agreed on rooming with him the next trimester! Him being medically astute and what not…

But when we were allocated a room in the third trimester of our first year, it was a disaster. Our room was on the ground floor of Himalaya Boys’ Hostel, right next to the common loo, with windows that opened out onto the hostel septic tank.

Aaarrgghh!!!

I cursed the collective stench that ganged up and hung out in our room. It gagged you speechless and then clobbered you as you walked in. I cursed it to a private hell of its own where it would’ve had to smell itself forever.

Sad-Das appeared less tormented though and seemingly had a sanguine approach to Life. I had never pegged him as a philosopher, and a philosopher he had to be, for it took a detached mind to live through a summer in that room. Just goes to show, I thought. You never ever really know, do you?

After a hellish trimester in Himalaya, we shifted to another Hostel – Ganga, which was about a quarter of a kilometer away from Himalaya. We had to, for sanity’s sake!

And so, I was both flabbered and gasted when I discovered that the sinister stench had shown amazing perseverance by managing to stalk us to our new quarters.

Meanwhile, old Sad-Das hummed on blissfully, as he unpacked and settled into his new cubicle.

Christ! It was then that I couldn’t help but give Mr. What-Smell-Are-You-Talking-About, a long hard jaundiced look and an ever-so-slight snuffle.

That’s when I realized that all the whiskies and C’s in Nagarbhavi could never keep old Bad-Ass and I together as roomies…
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Naturally, I spent a lot of my time out of my room. And most of this time was spent in the room adjacent to mine.

Kabir Singh, Sundaram Surendra and Balvan Bhupinder were my obliging neighbours in Room 105.

“Power Structure” was Balvan’s pet obsession and his attempts at house-breaking Sundaram ranged from ‘extreme’ to ‘excessive’.

For starters, he called the biddable guy – Susu.

And so, “Susu, what the fuck is wrong with you?” was the common refrain of the room.

Also often heard were, “Why do you drag your feet when you walk about? Why do you wipe your nose on your palm?” And the classic – “Why do you have to breathe so loud?”

Meanwhile Cabby, crafty old fish, would snigger away in a corner, loving the conflict but refusing to get drawn in.
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The only time poor Susu got any respite was whenever B. Sampath walked into the room.

It was always ironic to see Susu team up fervently with Balvan whenever the latter tried instilling the virtues of an efficient power structure in B.S.
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Living in the hostel was annoying.

Waiting for an empty loo in the morning, only to get an unoccupied loo that wasn’t quite empty.

The constant noise. It could drive you to chew on your pillow after you were done gnawing on your mattress.

The ever-so-long queues at the mess for the kind of food that even starving Ethiopians would politely decline.

The rules. And the assholes who tried implementing them.
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And living in the hostel was fun.

Catching up with floor mates as we brushed our teeth or shaved in an extended L-shaped basin. In this regard, nothing could beat the time we watched Cabby talk to himself in the mirror and promise himself that he was going to be a movie star. Or the time Susu actually managed to give himself a slip disk while cleaning his tongue.

Adding to the constant noise.
There was this pesky little senior who lived above Room 105. We’d make enough noise to get him running down so as to shut us up and then as soon as we heard him settle into his cubicle above, we’d make enough noise to get him back down. He just didn’t get it…

Food fights in the mess when the electricity went off.
Balvan earned his stripes and was called the Curd-Surd, after he hurled a bowl of curd on an irritating junior’s face.

And breaking the Student Discipline and General Management Committee Rules made all those inane rebellious teenaged stunts worthwhile.

After all, our battles against the vapid, evil minions of the SDGM were all part of the glorious war that we waged on Law School – for being the place where we were forced to change our inane rebellious teenaged ways.

A lifetime in law school contd....

Chapter 3: B. Sampath

“Hi, I'm Sampath.”

Twackk!!

Violent slap administered by violent auto driver.

Introducing B. Sampath.

It’s amazing how South Indian names have initials with no real name assigned to the initial. (No, I’m not misinformed. Village addresses don’t qualify as names.)

And so with B. Sampath, it was always just B. Sampath.

Of course, it was a different story altogether that he didn’t quite get a chance to explore the nuances of Tamilian naming ceremonies with Babu (no initial given), the violent auto driver.

But wait. We’ve gone too far.

Introducing B. Sampath.
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To understand B. Sampath, you must picture a handsome, South Indian boy.

See, now the chances are that you are picturing one of B. Sampath’s many hidden pictures of handsome South Indian boys.

Try keying in ‘Homely, Sheltered South Indian boy’ instead, and presto! You’ll get tons of image hits for B. Sampath.
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Don’t get me wrong though. B. Sampath was not gay; it was just that he loved Cabby.

So when Cabby and his roommate Balvan Bhupinder were off for dinner that fateful night, B. Sampath insisted on tagging along.

The three of them took an auto to this sorry excuse of a restaurant about 10 mins auto time from the Boys’ Hostel.

Here’s a tip for all those of you who intend on taking an auto ride in Bangalore: Concede the double meter argument to any auto driver double the size of you. Do it sportily. With sangfroid even. No sense in brooding over the issue like Balvan.

For old Balvan brooded on the matter of extra payment. And as if that weren’t enough, he dwelled on it.

Auto drivers in Bangalore are an amiable lot. That is, when they aren’t confronted by brooding passengers who dwell on matters of extra payment. They tend to get agitated when this happens.

And so when this particularly bulky auto driver reached out to grab Balvan’s shirt, he was more than agitated when Balvan decided to push him down and run across the road.

Now it was Balvan who showed Enterprise in his decision to leg it. Cabby and B. Sampath, however, remained transfixed to where they were.

When the auto driver recovered and looked at these two in the eye, he did so while they were both being suspended in the air – one in each paw.

Here’s where B. Sampath’s sheltered, homely mind decided to intervene. “This is all so wrong”, it reflected, “all remediable by effective communication and pleasantries.”

[You really ought to skip back to the beginning of this chapter right about here.]

Well, after both B. Sampath and the auto driver introduced themselves to each other, albeit using different techniques, B. Sampath decided to set out to look for Balvan, while the auto driver decided to introduce himself to Cabby.
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Balvan had managed to hide himself on the second floor of the building that housed the restaurant that they had intended to visit. And with his beakish nose stuck out of a small window, he watched the events unfold on the other side of the road.

The eye-opener that wrinkled Balvan’s nose, was the sight of B. Sampath heading towards the restaurant – his shirt in hand, and his banyan and hair in a mess.

When B. Sampath finally made it up the stairs to where Balvan was cooped up, he explained in his slow Carnatic accent that the banyan was a disguise.

Having thus placated his curiosity as to the case of the missing Surd, B. Sampath decided to go back and investigate on the state of the dangling one.

Balvan begged him not to. “He’ll make you tell him where I am,” Balvan bleated. “Don’t go back!”

But B. Sampath had his disguise on and nothing could stop him.

Approximately 3½ minutes later, Balvan watched on timidly, as B. Sampath, (still in disguise) with his right arm twisted around his back, led the visibly agitated auto driver up the stairs to Balvan.

“Balvan… a word of advice,” B. Sampath muttered to Bhupinder, “…take the beating…”

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Things were never too cheery with Balvan and B. Sampath after the whole incident.

There was a certain lack of reliance in the manner in which Bhupinder surveyed B.S.

Almost as if he half expected the latter to vanish at any point and return, complete with disguise and raving auto driver.
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