Part deux
Apparently, Mr.Silver bullet was chilling out in skt. Kaushik I mean. Besides him was Arun chandrashekar. But nobody in the wide world called him by that name. he was better known by pseudonyms which mocked at his appearance, like Motu, fatty, Gunda and all sorts. You could guess easily now that he was munching his way through some bizarre poultry product which was exclusively skt-made.
Rahul tried his luck with Kaushik.
“hey man…any luck this time dude?”
“papers? Are you kidding? Don’t ya remember how that f**king Adi f**ked with our microcontroller paper last time? You still dreaming huh?”
Hmmm…this guy has been listening way too much Eminem raps or so, I thought.
Motu gave us an insight on “how to smuggle papers yourself” for five minutes. We weren’t interested in that either. Our purpose was pretty abstract and clear cut.
To get the question papers or die.
Any elementary guy would think why should we be bothered about doing all this rather that just sit and study for the exams. But all this setup had a larger than life story woven around it. More than good marks, placements, under world connections, raw deals. It was a war to protect our egos.
The modus Vivendi out here was, three days before the exams, the profs would dictate us all the would-be questions, we would note them down happily, study those for the exams and “pass out with flying colours”. This was so regular that it almost became our second nature. But, an engineer’s mind aint so static. Its always on the lookout for problems to existing solutions. So he began to automate this process also. In other words, junta started taking chits for those predestined questions also. As a consequence, exams were a test for your copying skills, like how much syllabus could you cover in a single bit of paper and other such “nanotechnological” feats. People came out with smart solutions to such problems. The earliest ones made hell a lot of hay while the sun shined. Soon even the dumb ones, like me followed suit. The fittest passed on the art to the next generation, to their favorite girl friends and so on. Soon, everybody was covered by this radar. The college, was surprisingly oblivious to what was happening. They thought that the students were working real hard and churning out original stuff….until one man cane and broke it all.
Adi. His name spelt terror in the minds of the people. The story of how he curbed all this, some other time. But, whatever he did, it was a death blow to the life of everybody studying for exams and monthlies. No wonder Kaushik was so verbose in abusing him.
More than everything else, we had to defy him and bend the rules imposed by him. Indeed it was a war to protect our egos, to re-establish our Hellenism, it was our birth right to….
“hey are you pass on that cigarette or not huh??”
My chain of thoughts were interrupted by Kicha.

9.30 am, some anonymous morning (which I could barely remember)

It’s been six weeks since I was conferred upon with microwave assignment. Wait a sec. did I say “assignment”?? worst part of all, it was, as usual the last day to submit it. I just rushed to the bathroom and found out that there wasn’t any water, which was not so uncommon. Not a big deal, it was just the 3^rd consecutive day I was going without a bath. Still a long way to go before I beat Kaushik and my other peers hands down….

Rahul, the male chauvinist pig, was still asleep. Last night had been a movie galore. Not a single movie had been left unseen. I just fished out a crumpled dirty shirt from out of nowhere and wore my blue jeans for the 12^th time maybe. Rahul just landed in the stickiest, sweatiest and driest bathroom of the lot, apparently for a bath. Even his bathroom search ended in vain. We marched with vanity and ruffled hair towards college. God destined that let the first period be microwave. Also, he destined that we be late. But that never stopped us from going to skt best and having a smoke or two. Out attendance at skt best was 78% more that the college’s.

We entered the hallowed electronics block which was a walk away(well, quite a walk)….but wait, first some prelude about skt best for the layman….

Skt best was a roadside tea shop cum everything owned by a band of brothers whose past is more deep rooted than the history of the pandavas. It meant more than a roadside tea shop for most of us. That’s where we used to hang out, have a tete-a-tete or jabber, break and rebuild our love lives, study for exams…even chalk out tangible strategies for copying in the sem exams.

…and now back from the small flashback. Mr. Selvaraj, handled microwave for us. He looked like a guy who’s about to die of a rare disorder in a couple of days. And his ego was taller than himself. He thought that he was a smart handsome and a brilliant young man who’s wit and talent was wasting away in a dusty college in south India. Fortunately, he was too oblivious to notice us slip through the door in broad daylight. We waved at Prince and drew something in the thin air indicating to drop in our respective attendances. He nodded his head profusely, but didn’t seem to care. We weren’t either, after five minutes.

Now this wasn’t an easy trick to play, to get yourself marked present in spite of being absent. You shouldn’t be too noticeable enough to make your absence felt, nor should you be absolutely stealthy like a spy agent. We cultivated the tao of this subtle art(if you call that one) over days of practice and patience.

I was munching the occasional cold samosa in the canteen, and rahul cooed in.

“Baddu, we have monthly coming monday….”

“………and I have no clue what we’ll be doing this time.”

Two things are indicative of an approaching monthly. First, you get f**ked up with life and time. Second, you lose your syllabus book (along with your interest). I could imagine the smell of the poor quality kerosene Xerox(oops, Xerox is a copyrighted word, and I’m too lazy, btw, to type Photostat.), the endless terrace sessions and the cramming creeping up behind me. This time, we needed a silver bullet. There wasn’t an iota of doubt about that. Just then, the interval bell rang, and the canteen was flooded with hungry information junkies and the aroma of oily puffs. A horde of girls came in to empty the shelves of their contents, followed by a horde of boys who came to be emptied of their purses (thanks to the girls’ appetite). We were bored of this happening, and we legged our way back to skt, thinking of the silver bullet which might save us