A Fight

It was just a couple of months into our long RIT journey. We still were not acquainted with every body in class. One of my first friends was Sankar, because we traveled together from Trivandrum. There were other guys from Trivandrum, like Pothen, Pichathi and Poocha but they had to sit through the long journey listening to Oolan's 'Quarters' stories and vegudu was always getting ragged by mostly our batch mates and girls.

One day I and Sankar was walking to college and saw a couple of our friends trying to fight, like its done in films. One person was swinging his hand a mile away from the other persons face and the other would sway his head in the direction of the hand and cry out. This was supposed to look like a real hit to the face and I cant explain their facial expressions as they were repeatedly acting out the oldest trick in films. We walked on and saw a second group doing that. By the time we reached our block we saw many such groups. Every body was busy practicing the trick, in class, in front of the labs and a select few, even in front of the electrical class to impress the girls. We went to the nearest group and asked what this was all about. Somebody told us about how Oolan and one of his senior friends did this trick during freshers day and fooled every body. He told me that oolan is still going around teaching his newest trick from 'Quarters'.

On our way to class Sankar told me “ Da we will show them what a real fight is like. Its time we stop Oolan's Jada”. When we reached our class there was about 10 or 15 studious members of our class and Makru. Sankar looked at me and said “Lets start”.I pushed him on to the front desk were Makru was sitting. He fell over the desk. Every body was startled with the sound. Makru shouted and ran back. Sanker got up, jumped over the desk and pushed me over the teachers chair. I picked up the chair and threw it at him, but made sure that it fell far away from him. I threw him on the black board and it broke off from one side. Foul language and threats were exchanged all through out. In about 10 minutes a good crowd had gathered around the class, almost all the classroom furniture was in disarray, the black board was broken and Makru was crying. I was trying to hit him with a broken piece of furniture. He got hold of it and whispered to me “Da I think its enough, its better we leave now, professors may come soon”. I pushed him to the floor and stormed out of the classroom. Later we met up at Hobnob and laughed almost for an hour. We were happy that we fooled every body and this time it was better than oolans filmy trick.

The next day I got ready, caught the college bus and went straight to the hostel. (classes were obviously not the first in my agenda) . As soon as the I entered the hostel, a couple of 8^th sem Mech's caught hold of me and started asking me about the previous day's fight. I told them all the lies I could make up within that short period. Then as I was walking into a room, some other guys came to me and introduced themselves as Jesus youth members. They started advicing me on the importance of controlling my anger. I was fed up of all this and went to Hobnob for a cigarette. A couple of second year Mech students was there. They were trying to convince me that I should join Solidarity party and they needed people like me to take on SFI in the campus.

The excitement of the previous day had worn off and I was confused. I was sitting there alone and still smoking when Sanker walked in. He seemed happy and excited. He asked me how my day went and I replied that I was getting fed up with all the advices and we wont even have the fun of fooling any body now, since nobody is going to believe that it was a joke. and I asked him why he was so happy. He told me “ If advices come from the right places you can actually enjoy it”. He continued “ You should learn to cash in on opportunities. You are a fool, you went to the men's hostel after such a show and what more did you expect. I asked him “ where were you? He said “ I took a couple of rounds by the electrical class and the advices I got, was from those beauties. I am already friends with some of them . He continued “ OK I am leaving, have to meet ----- near LH. I hid my disappointment and said “ Ok good for you”. On the way out he said “ Da I am planning to continue the counseling sessions for a couple of days more, so we’ll not let anybody see us together for the time being. 'Pinne' u don’t have to get disappointed. Even if you had come to college today you wouldin't have got as much attention as I did”. I asked “ Why” and he replied “ninakku ente athrem Soundaryam illallo”. I wanted to kick his ass, this time for real, but by the time I got up, he was half way down the road to LH.