And so we get here... By this time we are somewhere midway on the field-trip timeline. Let me then introduce that diabolical duo-their coming was predicted by the oracle at Delphi-the mean, the nefarious, the archetypes of hypocrisy-D. and A.
D. was nice, bright, always decently dressed, not a stitch out of place, cognizant of womanly manners, pristine (no carnality before the blessed state here)-in short an apotheosis of what every woman like me dreads becoming and every father hopes that his daughter is. Oh and also, she was a teetotaler-so there you go...
D. had been in a snowy, immaculate relationship for 6 years when this story opens ( I'm guessing that was the problem) and for 1 and 1/2 years we thought she was perfectly happy though not completely awake to the perils and challenges of a not-so-unblemished relationship.
A. was one of those men who you look at and you just know- prohibitionist (and not just about alcohol <nudge, nudge, wink, wink>), gets up in the morning and bathes in cold water, then spends a couple of hours on inane rituals because Mama-said-so and turns up for class with hair parted down the middle as if with a straight ruler; in short the kind of person you cannot look at for a few seconds before being overcome with the urge to give him a wedgie. He was also a vegetarian and one year our senior.
This not-inappreciable blemish on humanity was chosen by our supervisor as one of our chaperons; he would soon come to lament this rash decision. In fact, by the closing of the fortnight he would wish he had never even allowed A. into the program, let alone suffer him through six semesters.
A, of course had never had a girlfriend (who can blame the girls!),despite posting pictures of himself posing in a frazzled, slightly yellow undershirt on Facebook, I might add.
D. is not un-comely and to A's deprived state she must have looked nothing short of angelic. The first hint of sparks were observed in the rattling, drafty compartments of Magadh Express when D. transformed into a vulnerable damsel in distress, alone at the mercy of highwaymen, without hat or purse or a knight to call her own and informed us almost apologetically that she was mortally afraid of heights, even the 5 feet that separated her assigned bunk from that medieval plank that passed for a floor on Magadh Express. As it is, it did not make much of a difference which bunk you were on when the ability of the planks to remain attached to the rest of the train was chancy at best.
She was demurely suggesting spending the night sitting at the feet of another when A. rode in gallantly with the offer of his lower bunk so she could get the beauty sleep she so needed. D. of course conceded with a coy little head-tilt and gave A. a long, slow glance full of promises before drifting off to sleep. A. didn't sleep that night, instead he patrolled the 50 meters between the lavatories, chin up, chest out.
D's journey in woes and tribulations continued much to the delight of A's misplaced sense of chivalry and our frank amusement. Sure, the twisted ankle because of P. and the beast on the threshold was genuine enough, so you might say A's procurement of a raised plank on which D could sit and wash her dirty laundry in public (Oh, pun very much intended) was also legit enough. But the maiden seemed weighed down by malaise more and more everyday.
Note here that D seemingly being the apotheosis of immaculate womanhood, etc, etc had led us to believe she was very much in love and neck-deep in commitment.
You can therefore imagine our astonishment followed quickly by regalement when on our very first day on the field D. swooned in the throes of a migraine and spent nearly an hour resting in A's strong arms; this in a very crowded and rickety magical Magic with 20 pairs of eyes looking (in case of the prudes, fleeting glimpses) and 20 pairs of ears straining to catch every whisper.
Over the next few days, D. and A. seemed happily oblivious to the fact that the most stolid of us had cottoned on to their covert little affaire, if you will. Not that they tried to hide it, really; they just seemed to have implicit faith on the burdens and self-absorption of modern times that allegedly make people blind to what other people are doing and also render them incapable of comprehending what they see. Which just goes to show how unreliable modern times are; for we saw and we comprehended.
And as a result of this seeing and comprehending, focus shifted from K. and N. who had just started dating to these, more detracting plains. So, in a way, D. totally stole K.'s thunder. I will avenge you yet, K...
Things came to a pass one night when our Supervisor walked in on them;okay, so he was just walking, the fact that he walked in was because they were ahem... 'sitting on a tree' right in middle of the passage that led from the rooms to the broom cupboard we called a bathroom.
He asked us what their relationship status was like outside the classroom and we (okay, I) expeditiously apprised him of D's purported commitment and the details of her 6 year old relationship(there weren't many details given the squeaky cleanness of said relationship). At this point, (if you haven't guessed so already) yours truly comes out as the antagonist in this tale. In my defense and despite my propensity for sardonic roles, what happened next was decreed long before my awakening to my true potential as harbinger of deliciously scandalous times.
Our supervisor listened, then gave a resigned sort of sigh and said that he wished they had held back until the trip was over and their problems were somebody else's.
Around the time we are in this story, the haze was looming ever closer and then one morning the storm broke loose...
D and A disappeared for over 4 hours and left their cellphones behind. Our supervisor went berserk and search teams were formed, ready for dispatch. We tried to point out the futility of these operations and told people to be happy for D and A. After all, their ship had finally sailed, if you catch my drift. Those not of our sunny disposition remained un-amused.
One can understand our Supervisor's departure from his usually genial inclinations; as I have said before D was the daughter every father wanted, including her own and I think our Supervisor feared the repercussions should the union prove to be blessed.
For the rest, their lack of general good cheer can be attributed to a general lack of action for a fortnight. But I am not selfish like all others, I was happy for them and also I was really enjoying sitting back and watching the fireworks. Some beer and popcorn would have absolutely sealed the golden pyramid atop our joyous obelisk, but one can't have it all in life... So we reconciled ourselves to the chips and coke at hand and the gossip continued with renewed vigor well past the wee hours. You see, around this time we had started running out of things and people to bitch about and D and A breathed fresh live into our grapevine; which had been the point to begin with.
Anyway, D and A turned up sometime before lunch and then spent an hour ensconced in a room with our Supervisor while we took turns listening outside. There isn't much to say here, he basically told them to cool it till we got back home. After that he didn't give, well he didn't give anything...
A few days later we were sitting on the stairs that led to the terrace (beast and hag were nowhere to be seen, probably napping). We were just out of sight of D and A and their group of confederates and we heard them gathering downstairs and conniving about a secret trip to Varanasi.
It goes without saying that we stayed quiet as mice (as someone who has had mice living in her drawers, I assure you they are not quiet at all) and just took it all in.
Now this trip had already been proposed and rejected (a) due to lack of funds and (b) because Shivratri was upon us and Varanasi at this time is reduced to a drunken glob of tottering masses. It seemed although that this had done nothing to deter D and A's determination to prove that they were in the real thing and not just slaves to baser instincts. They also seemed to have accumulated a bunch of allies all of who had a dead resolve to be in Varanasi on Shivratri ; a resolve born of manic devotion. This assemblage of geniuses were planning to take a lone boat along the vast expanse of the Ganges in the misty haze of 4 o'clock in the morning. I don't know what their plan was for explanations when they returned or for any chance of obtaining their degrees.
Sometimes I wish we had let them go, but I thought it would be more fun to tell our supervisor. He seemed almost too tired to be perturbed; he called the coven to his room and told them that if they went forward with their plans, he would be forced to revoke their degrees. As they came out, a dejected sight, they came face-to-face with us. There was a very pregnant pause and then they filed past us and went to bed.
After this, things seemed to have reached an impasse. We stopped talking to them, they started throwing us burning looks of pure, unadulterated hatred. Friends became enemies and everything just blew down in flames.
Even after this episode, we were not entirely sure that they had completely abandoned their carefully planned undertaking. So, we took to sitting in front of the main door every night till the cock crowed, thus becoming the keepers of the door. We all heard hurried whispers and scurrying footsteps sometime or the other but we held our positions as the self-elected Night's Watch, ready and well-appointed with tubes of odomos, bags of chips and occasionally and for reasons unknown, boiled eggs...We could have made a fortune going into private security together...
For those of you wondering what became of D. and A., well D moved away to another University after this. I hear A also intends to move there soon. D hasn't broken up with her beau of six years either. Both A and aforesaid beau attended our graduation and farewell together; so I guess an amicable time-sharing settlement has been reached.
D. was nice, bright, always decently dressed, not a stitch out of place, cognizant of womanly manners, pristine (no carnality before the blessed state here)-in short an apotheosis of what every woman like me dreads becoming and every father hopes that his daughter is. Oh and also, she was a teetotaler-so there you go...
D. had been in a snowy, immaculate relationship for 6 years when this story opens ( I'm guessing that was the problem) and for 1 and 1/2 years we thought she was perfectly happy though not completely awake to the perils and challenges of a not-so-unblemished relationship.
A. was one of those men who you look at and you just know- prohibitionist (and not just about alcohol <nudge, nudge, wink, wink>), gets up in the morning and bathes in cold water, then spends a couple of hours on inane rituals because Mama-said-so and turns up for class with hair parted down the middle as if with a straight ruler; in short the kind of person you cannot look at for a few seconds before being overcome with the urge to give him a wedgie. He was also a vegetarian and one year our senior.
This not-inappreciable blemish on humanity was chosen by our supervisor as one of our chaperons; he would soon come to lament this rash decision. In fact, by the closing of the fortnight he would wish he had never even allowed A. into the program, let alone suffer him through six semesters.
A, of course had never had a girlfriend (who can blame the girls!),despite posting pictures of himself posing in a frazzled, slightly yellow undershirt on Facebook, I might add.
D. is not un-comely and to A's deprived state she must have looked nothing short of angelic. The first hint of sparks were observed in the rattling, drafty compartments of Magadh Express when D. transformed into a vulnerable damsel in distress, alone at the mercy of highwaymen, without hat or purse or a knight to call her own and informed us almost apologetically that she was mortally afraid of heights, even the 5 feet that separated her assigned bunk from that medieval plank that passed for a floor on Magadh Express. As it is, it did not make much of a difference which bunk you were on when the ability of the planks to remain attached to the rest of the train was chancy at best.
She was demurely suggesting spending the night sitting at the feet of another when A. rode in gallantly with the offer of his lower bunk so she could get the beauty sleep she so needed. D. of course conceded with a coy little head-tilt and gave A. a long, slow glance full of promises before drifting off to sleep. A. didn't sleep that night, instead he patrolled the 50 meters between the lavatories, chin up, chest out.
D's journey in woes and tribulations continued much to the delight of A's misplaced sense of chivalry and our frank amusement. Sure, the twisted ankle because of P. and the beast on the threshold was genuine enough, so you might say A's procurement of a raised plank on which D could sit and wash her dirty laundry in public (Oh, pun very much intended) was also legit enough. But the maiden seemed weighed down by malaise more and more everyday.
Note here that D seemingly being the apotheosis of immaculate womanhood, etc, etc had led us to believe she was very much in love and neck-deep in commitment.
You can therefore imagine our astonishment followed quickly by regalement when on our very first day on the field D. swooned in the throes of a migraine and spent nearly an hour resting in A's strong arms; this in a very crowded and rickety magical Magic with 20 pairs of eyes looking (in case of the prudes, fleeting glimpses) and 20 pairs of ears straining to catch every whisper.
Over the next few days, D. and A. seemed happily oblivious to the fact that the most stolid of us had cottoned on to their covert little affaire, if you will. Not that they tried to hide it, really; they just seemed to have implicit faith on the burdens and self-absorption of modern times that allegedly make people blind to what other people are doing and also render them incapable of comprehending what they see. Which just goes to show how unreliable modern times are; for we saw and we comprehended.
And as a result of this seeing and comprehending, focus shifted from K. and N. who had just started dating to these, more detracting plains. So, in a way, D. totally stole K.'s thunder. I will avenge you yet, K...
Things came to a pass one night when our Supervisor walked in on them;okay, so he was just walking, the fact that he walked in was because they were ahem... 'sitting on a tree' right in middle of the passage that led from the rooms to the broom cupboard we called a bathroom.
He asked us what their relationship status was like outside the classroom and we (okay, I) expeditiously apprised him of D's purported commitment and the details of her 6 year old relationship(there weren't many details given the squeaky cleanness of said relationship). At this point, (if you haven't guessed so already) yours truly comes out as the antagonist in this tale. In my defense and despite my propensity for sardonic roles, what happened next was decreed long before my awakening to my true potential as harbinger of deliciously scandalous times.
Our supervisor listened, then gave a resigned sort of sigh and said that he wished they had held back until the trip was over and their problems were somebody else's.
Around the time we are in this story, the haze was looming ever closer and then one morning the storm broke loose...
D and A disappeared for over 4 hours and left their cellphones behind. Our supervisor went berserk and search teams were formed, ready for dispatch. We tried to point out the futility of these operations and told people to be happy for D and A. After all, their ship had finally sailed, if you catch my drift. Those not of our sunny disposition remained un-amused.
One can understand our Supervisor's departure from his usually genial inclinations; as I have said before D was the daughter every father wanted, including her own and I think our Supervisor feared the repercussions should the union prove to be blessed.
For the rest, their lack of general good cheer can be attributed to a general lack of action for a fortnight. But I am not selfish like all others, I was happy for them and also I was really enjoying sitting back and watching the fireworks. Some beer and popcorn would have absolutely sealed the golden pyramid atop our joyous obelisk, but one can't have it all in life... So we reconciled ourselves to the chips and coke at hand and the gossip continued with renewed vigor well past the wee hours. You see, around this time we had started running out of things and people to bitch about and D and A breathed fresh live into our grapevine; which had been the point to begin with.
Anyway, D and A turned up sometime before lunch and then spent an hour ensconced in a room with our Supervisor while we took turns listening outside. There isn't much to say here, he basically told them to cool it till we got back home. After that he didn't give, well he didn't give anything...
A few days later we were sitting on the stairs that led to the terrace (beast and hag were nowhere to be seen, probably napping). We were just out of sight of D and A and their group of confederates and we heard them gathering downstairs and conniving about a secret trip to Varanasi.
It goes without saying that we stayed quiet as mice (as someone who has had mice living in her drawers, I assure you they are not quiet at all) and just took it all in.
Now this trip had already been proposed and rejected (a) due to lack of funds and (b) because Shivratri was upon us and Varanasi at this time is reduced to a drunken glob of tottering masses. It seemed although that this had done nothing to deter D and A's determination to prove that they were in the real thing and not just slaves to baser instincts. They also seemed to have accumulated a bunch of allies all of who had a dead resolve to be in Varanasi on Shivratri ; a resolve born of manic devotion. This assemblage of geniuses were planning to take a lone boat along the vast expanse of the Ganges in the misty haze of 4 o'clock in the morning. I don't know what their plan was for explanations when they returned or for any chance of obtaining their degrees.
Sometimes I wish we had let them go, but I thought it would be more fun to tell our supervisor. He seemed almost too tired to be perturbed; he called the coven to his room and told them that if they went forward with their plans, he would be forced to revoke their degrees. As they came out, a dejected sight, they came face-to-face with us. There was a very pregnant pause and then they filed past us and went to bed.
After this, things seemed to have reached an impasse. We stopped talking to them, they started throwing us burning looks of pure, unadulterated hatred. Friends became enemies and everything just blew down in flames.
Even after this episode, we were not entirely sure that they had completely abandoned their carefully planned undertaking. So, we took to sitting in front of the main door every night till the cock crowed, thus becoming the keepers of the door. We all heard hurried whispers and scurrying footsteps sometime or the other but we held our positions as the self-elected Night's Watch, ready and well-appointed with tubes of odomos, bags of chips and occasionally and for reasons unknown, boiled eggs...We could have made a fortune going into private security together...
For those of you wondering what became of D. and A., well D moved away to another University after this. I hear A also intends to move there soon. D hasn't broken up with her beau of six years either. Both A and aforesaid beau attended our graduation and farewell together; so I guess an amicable time-sharing settlement has been reached.
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