Thought Crimes

I drank tonight. And not water or juice or any of the other beverages. The real stuff. And not mere tasting or surreptitious sipping of the Blue Label that everyone at home was raving about. I drank to the point of feeling light in the head. It would be too harsh and decidedly untrue to say I was drunk. But it would also be stretching the truth to say I was completely sober. I was in the condition where I certainly shouldn’t have driven. But I was in control of most of my faculties. To confirm the same, I cycled to and fro a bit almost in a straight line, gave a near-flawless rendition of ‘Johnny Johnny Yes Papa’ and could recall that the capital of Chad was N’Djamena and that of Burkina Faso was Ougadougou.

I’ve held out against alcohol for quite some time now. However, unlike smoking against which I feel very strongly, I never saw the point of being a teetotaler. No harm in socially drinking. Plus you miss out on a whole world of liquor tasting if you choose to abstain. And I’m always one for new experiences. Moreover, the alcohol in question had been thoughtfully brought from Europe by bosom buddies and you don’t get Danish Vodka and German Whisky everyday.

The light-headedness has worn down now. I didn’t throw up and am quite certain I won’t. Others, after having danced to ‘Main Talli ho gayi’ a dozen times, have retired to sleep. And though not drunk, I’m still in a bit of a haze and it occurred to me that it would be dashed good thing to have a go at the keyboard.

Having downed 3 shots of Vodka (neat), 1 of whisky (equally neat) and 1 mixed, not to mention a couple of very diluted pegs, I spent my calming down hours sitting in what used to be fondly called the Farmhouse. Melancholy was gradually stealing over me and the sight of my once lush green home didn’t make matters any better. Ever since I’ve returned, everything around me seems to portend, and rightly so, that my days at R are sadly numbered. There was a mass clearing out of the hostel last year and it just doesn’t seem the same. The familiar corridors are dotted with unfamiliar faces. Happy memories of days gone by manage to break through the armour of stoic nonchalance that I’ve tried to create and leave me craving for those days again. The hostel is young again; the newbies will soon develop their own culture and make it a happy home, but for now I’m stuck in the kind of limbo in which Hewitt managed to sneak in a Wimbledon title.

The damage done to the farmhouse has specially been heartbreaking. Those calm nights of endlessly gazing into nothingness while silence spoke comfortingly to me will never occur again. The Farmhouse was equally comforting to Lefty when he was struggling to scrape a respectable B, when he was looking to while away sleepless hours and when he was brimming with bouts of confidence which admittedly were few and far between. A monstrosity of pillars and foundations stares at me now, with the profs’ quarters glaring malevolently from behind. The little tranquility that remains in the wee hours is but a hollow vestige of an era gone by.

The air is thick with the news that my time is all but over. These losses are small, soft and subtle yet sudden and shattering. The farmhouse is one of the first of the things that I’ve had to forego and coming after the mag, it is now certain that the wheel of losses has turned into a relentless juggernaut. The rat race for CAT, XAT, GRE and the dozen other exams intensifies with each passing day. Placements begin in December, turning friends into foes vying for the limited places in the limited dream companies. DC leaves at the end of the year. And then the scramble will begin to say good-bye to every nook and cranny, to cherish the last of the moments spent in this long forgotten town before life becomes miserable ever after.

# posted by Saagar @ 2:53 pm