Retards.

Dedicated to: The retards that keep my day going - Sushritha [aka Specimen] & Thamizh Selvi [aka Pondicherry Rowdy]

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There is this random line that I read somewhere: ‘When I say I miss college, it actually means I miss my friends, not my college.’ The line holds truth enough in it that no one can disagree with it. College has this indescribable magical charm about it that simply grows over you through the years spent there. And in due course, the best of the memories that you will have of that place will definitely be of those spent with retards – jumping in the rain, bunking classes, counting to the last rupee to share a cup of coffee, movies with barely more than 10 rupees in the pocket apart from what went in the drain for the tickets, drawing doodles on the last page of the notebook - and the first and in the middle, making conversations in small notes, watching song videos on the phone with the volume off during class, passing knowing looks to each other and tearing each other apart, to name a few.


Luckily, I should say that I have been blessed with more than enough number of retards to keep me amused during every minute in college, save for the 2 month holiday they each take in a 4 month-long semester. After what seemed like a never-ending boring holiday, college finally re-opened and I was all excited to get back to being active all day and getting myself involved in anything but hogging, sleeping, T.V and the computer. ‘Redemption!’ I scream, at the top of my voice and go around all excited, calling up and messaging everyone possible, waking them up from their hangover slumber. I smile at every random person, including the auto-driver and suddenly, life seems so interesting when I get a text from Sushritha saying, ‘Come soon, it is so boring! FIVE boring hours at college today! I just don’t know how to while away the time!’ I roll my eyes and delete the message, deciding to punch the idiot on her face and trip along the road to my block. 


I hug Thamizh Selvi and keep my bag aside, sitting on the bench to survey all the faces I had missed to see for the past 10 days - all sleepy . A few classes, as expected, go emptily. We just loaf around and some go off to the canteen. But what happened between all that, now makes me write this post. Somewhere, sometime during a boring hour, Sushritha decides to throw something at Thamizh and like every other time, Thamizh aims her return missile at her, which gets wonderfully entangled in my head and leaves a constant humming sound inside my ear.  Before I can stop the after-effects of the same, the war continues when they decide to toss around my bag at each other, and I could almost swear that my heart skipped beats every time my 700-worthy beautiful bag flew in the air right before my eyes. In a flash, I also see Sushritha’s mobile sky-diving across the bench – her 8^th, I must add. She seems to be least bothered though. Slowly recovering from the zumming, no, humming sound inside my ear, no head, maybe both, I turn around only to see Thamizh using all her strength and jamming Sushritha against me and I was this mere flat little thing with hands and head flashing wildly, lips barely being able to shout for help. The angel friends that I have sure seemed to be having the time of their lives, barely being able to catch their breaths between all their laughter.


Somehow, Sushritha seemed to have gained strength and pushed Thamizh on the other side of the bench and Thamizh being the stronger one dragged Sushritha down the bench. Kicking up her leg dangling at some odd angle, Sush comes back with all vigor and they are at each other’s throat all over again. I do a ‘whatever’ with my hands, and go under cover, using my bag for protection and Sush jumps on the other side of me and pushes me towards Thamizh, demanding me to ask for ‘justice’ from Thamizh who in turn pushes me back towards Sush with even more horrible force. I wail, whine, beg, all in vain.  I suspect strands of my hair standing perpendicular to each other, judging with the way my hair clips seemed to have moved across my head. Before I can reach my hand towards any of them, it gets twisted behind my shoulder, courtesy Sush or Thamizh I fail to recognize, and in a minute I see my consciousness slowly dizzying into a whirlwind filled with what seemed like twinkling stars and a few bottle green butterflies. They then decide to jam me between their shoulders and my lower jaw fixes itself somewhere beneath my right eye very specifically.  I remember collapsing into what seemed like a pile of bags.  At about 4:45, they shake me awake and pack up my things, and goad me towards the parking lot. 


Sushritha tries to get her bike and in the process digs a hole some 5 feet deep in the ground, thanks to her back wheel rolling and the front not budging at all. Consequently her bike ends up depositing a considerate amount of mud all over the pink scooty nearby. The girl who owned it came along and with one look at my haphazard head and Thamizh’s evil laughter, combined with Sushritha’s adamant try at getting her bike across the huge stone slab in front, without a word, the girl wipes away the mud and runs away, dragging her bike along. They deposit me on the bike and honking some 10 times enough to awaken the whole neighbourhood, Sush kick starts the bike and we ski on the lane now filled with bikes and cars of students getting back home from college. Thamizh and Sush are now yelling some crazy joke at each other and the racket that they create is enough for all the people to rush out of the bike’s way to safety. I hold on to the side bar on the bike for my dear life and I get down hastily at the bus stop.


As I start moving away from them as quickly as possible, there they come, yelling, ‘I love you! I love you!’ non-stop, right back of me. The whole bus stop is looking at me, eyebrows raised. I try running away and Sush screeches her bike even more quickly and dramatically every time and both of them chorus a ‘I love you!’ at the top of their voices. The auto-driver in the stand nearby yells at me, telling me not to play in the road. I apologize and beg them to leave. They only seemed to begin enjoying it all the more. Thamizh then brings on more drama by telling me that she can no longer withstand any sort of separation from me and after satisfactorily pulling off a leaving-with-the-hands-losing-touch-slowly kind of a scene like in most of the bollywood flicks [If you didn’t understand that, never mind. It doesn’t even matter], they scream away together to their hostel on the bike, with me running for cover where people wouldn’t stare at me.


I limp my way back home, the buzzing at a different pitch and note inside my other ear – not particularly sure which - and here I am, staring at my computer and typing this down, my head still aching like crazy, body screaming in pain and my stomach dying with hunger, writing about the both of you. No, I haven’t forgiven either of you for what you made out of me today – a squash, to say the least – nor will I ever. But let me give you this: College sure wouldn’t be what it is without the both of you. Continue to wreck around and make life fun for me, but I would appreciate not being made into a squash, a sandwich, a shapeless cartoon and an unconscious piece of pancake all at the same time.


P.s: Sometimes, the best parts of life are the tiny things that make us smile through the day.

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[Picture Courtesy: Deviatart.]

- Just Someone.