RingChen

(Memory triggered by Priya’s mentioning of exotic Sikkim pickles way back in hostel)

The funny thing about college is that I dont really remember attending classes all that much. Nor do I remember that many lecturers who used to have time of their life torturing my ignorance of the technical world. I can think of only two reasons why I wouldnt remember my classes/teachers. Either I’m just getting past my initial stage of Alzhimer’s or else I didnt really attend classes all that much as I was supposed to. Considering that I had attendance shortage in almost every alternate semester, I’d say the second option was more accurate.

What I remember very vividly is spending some of the most memorable times of my life in the Ladies Hostel (LH). I was ragged in the very first few days of my arrival at the LH. There was this big haired, wicked witch in the final year whose voice was like whiplash and who shot daggers whenever you happened to catch her eye. I dont remember her name or else I would have gladly printed it here, trust me. I’m not trying to protect her identity and be a nice person or any sort of such foolish thing.

Anyway, I never understood the logic behind ragging. Something about facing the person with the real world and blah blah. What I personally think is that it was a major opportunity for sadistic, evil people to bridge their insecurities and make fun of potential threats. And all one can do is rave & rant about it in her blog 10 years down the line. Nothing else much.

Deep breath. Realization strikes that I’m digressing. Back to good memoirs. Repeat mantra three times (along with fist pump) - No anger against fools. No anger against fools. No anger against #*@#&*# fools.

A way of dispelling early homesickness was by haunting the post office for much awaited parcels from home. My dad used to be such a sweetheart and send me stuff like L’Oreal hair colour, in burgundy, sweets and pickle. My favourite pickle was this exotic pea one, which my dad wrapped it up in layers of plastic and parcelled all the way from Gangtok to Calicut one fine day.

When I went to collect my parcel at the post office, I was summoned to the Post Master’s cabin. He then pointed to an oil-stained parcel lying on the floor and which was pretty much soaked through & through with yellow oil. I got a big lecture on how my oil-leaking parcel went on to destroy so many important letters and so on and on and on.

After about 20 minutes of strained lecture from the Post Master, I ran away from the post office, holding on to my pickle-parcel all the way to the hostel. I retold the story later on to my friends, while eating dinner alongwith yummy, exotic pea pickle just arrived all the way from Gangtok. We laughed & laughed not caring one bit about important letters getting destroyed by getting soaked in pickle oil.

Such pickle incident happened twice in the entire duration of my stay in the hostel. The staff at the post office then started smiling the moment they saw me henceforth.

I wonder if at the end of this post, some people are going - “Ohhh… thats why I got yellow oil-stained letters that particular day…” Yes, I’m afraid to say, that was me.

I once took part in a play in college. I was the mother with the powdered white hair. Although looking back, it seems I was always chosen to play the mother, dunno why. So anyways, this play was put together at the last minute which meant that nobody actually had any time to practice their lines or remember a long list of never-ending dialogues.

A classmate graciously offered to stand in the shadows, holding the script and prompt whenever the characters on stage forgot anything. With that infallible concept in hand, we headed towards enacting a most unforgettable and thoroughly laughable play in the history of that particular stage at least.

The scene was supposed to be a dramatically sad one; the dead body of the son is brought home and the family weeps at the loss of a life so young. When it was time for the mother’s speech of lament, luck had it that I remembered only two sentences which I stupidly repeated like about 10 times. I dont remember now exactly what misfortune befell the prompter but either she took just that time to take a break or she spoke so low that I couldnt hear any of my other lines.

So the white haired mother lamented thus - “Bartley, my son Bartley… now that you are gone, who will feed us and look after us?” That was the first line that I remembered. The second one went something like this - “Bartley, now that you are gone, who will fish for us and bring bread on the table“.

Later on, a friend in the audience told me that the mother came across as being only concerned about where her food is going to come from and for her, that was a tragedy even greater than a son dead.

Bartley, on his part also did his best to have the audience in splits. Although he was supposed to be dead, his eyes wouldnt stop blinking and his feet kept twitching for a dead body. We, the cast ourselves had a hearty laugh when we heard of the shenanigans that happened onstage later on.

And to think we got third place for this play. Maybe the judges gave points for all the laughter. And for the semi-dead Bartley perhaps. I’ve not had the courage to participate in any other play after that.

I applied to join the CREC community on Orkut but the owner still hasnt approved my membership! I wonder why.