Author’s Note: Well, I know this one is hell similar to aru’s recent post about antz…….still bear wid me…..as for aru, b4 filing a plagiarism case, just consider that I am ready to pay royalty…so all comments (I mean brickbats, dats all wat I get….) on this post are dedicated to u….nd a treat at KNAGS promised…………………..
As I entered my room last afternoon after another gruelling session of four block lectures (I slept through most of them inspite of Kundu’s “hunkaars” and BSP’s bherification of the hard “diks”. I don’t have a grudge against block lectures as such but just that you have to change your sleeping position every hour. can’t they place all the four lectures in the same room. I tell you guya, IIT management sucks….) followed by such sickening food that sometimes I get a feeling that we all are just a part of some research work that IIT is carrying out clandestinely to develop “biological” weapons of mass destruction (Anyways, this is highly classified intelligence information, so please don’t leak the news else US might cancel the N-deal and Left would be left with nothing to do. Actually I like to see the embarassed look on my recently married cousin’s face as I ask him the headlines in the morning and he hides his face behind the newspaper reading “HONEYMOON OVER, MARRIAGE CONTINUES”.), I found a “Uromastyx hardwickii”, aka lizard or gecko, or our very own chhipkali (remember those stupid childhood riddles, “ek kali jo kabhi nahi khilti”) enjoying her (I’m as such not sure about her sex but I spent around half an hour analysing him/her from different angles and positions, switched on my lights, then switched them off, tried blocking the sunlight, which nature has so bountifully bestowed on my room, but to no avail. (Actually sunlight is one of the main reasons why I go everyday to attend the lectures, as I can no longer sleep in my room after 7.) But when it comes to perseverance and dedication, I am never found wanting. So I tried reading all lizard encyclopedias on Internet, but may be because of the recent feminist movement in lizard community, no discrimination was made between males and females. Still, me being me, I called up one of my friends in AIIMS and asked his views on this matter of national importance. Following his advice, I hunched down and tried to see her lower body, I mean the underside to check, what my learned friend chose to call, her/his contours. But maybe he had forgotten that I am in IIT and if contours were the sure-shot method of distinguishing between the wiser and the fairer sex, then you bet IIT has 100% reservation for boys. Anyways, I finally called up my driver (He has often told me anecdotes of how he used to pick the rats and lizards by their tails and enjoy himself (such a sadist, or was he being a masochist)) and asked him the same perplexing question which the brightest minds in IIT and AIIMS had failed to answer. He gave me a suggestion to take a pen and roll her/him over. Well, i am not exactly lizardo-phobic but playing rock and roll with a lizard is not exactly my idea of fun. So being a feminist (actually I m not. Who the hell ever thinks over such topics. just that it sounds kewl saying so to girls….), I decided that he/it was a she.))(I hope the parenthesis are balanced. May be I should first compile this article before posting) siesta on my bed.(I hope this qualifies as one of the longest sentence ever, or else the shortest paragraph).
I don’t remember I had ever put up a notice inviting room-mates to share my loneliness. But here she was, lying on my bed, her slender tail curled around in a seductive manner and I decided may be a little company would do me no harm. Hold on guys, before your imagination runs wild, let me clarify that I tried stomping my feet as loudly as I could, but when even Metallica blastin’ at full volume from my modest speakers could not disturb her, I decided to accept her as a roomie just to keep my ego satiated. Having accepted her as my new room-mate I decided to christen her Miss J (yes dear, it’s MISS not MRS). Though I had made all my efforts to get her up had fallen on deaf ears, still now as she was my room-mate, I decided to let her enjoy her sleep, put off the music and went to have a bath (Yeah, sometimes I do. Just for a change. I hope it doesn’t develop into a hobby or addiction). Bathrooms are an integral part of hostel life, though generally they are used for other purposes (minimum twice a day) than bathing (which is kind of a religious ritual performed once a week). With the onmi-un-present shower cap missing in all the three bathrooms, I decided to borrow a bucket from GMAT. As I approached his room, I saw a distant cousin of Miss J dozing off in his room as well but mercifully on his computer table. Anyways, I didn’t get the bucket, instead GMAT gave me a shocked look (as if I had accused him of shaking hands with Sanjay Dutt) saying “saale ********* abhi parso hi to nahaya tha, tabiyat to theek hai. Aur tune mujhe samajh kya rakha hai, main khud auron se maang kar nahata hoon”. The day before….just two days…and again I was thinking of bathing…..well not willing to become the laughing stock of the hostel, I gave up my bathing plans and went to the bathroom. After half an hour, when I got back to my room, Miss J had perched on my window enjoying the scintillating panorama (scintillating……yeah, the garbage dump below my room does look scintillating when compared to the condition of my room). With Minors just round the corner, I decided to ignore her for the time being and started studying one of the five sucking mathematics courses I am doing this year (see how innocently i have tried to pass on the information that I am doing five MAL courses this semester, in order to gain those respectful awes from you….i tell you, we IITians are the biggest sucking egoists…..), but she had different intentions. Seeing her darting around the room chasing mosquitoes (which again the nature has so bountifully bestowed upon this humble being’s room), her sleek artistically carved body clinging to the walls, as she effortlessly glided as in free space, I couldn’t concentrate on why a compact set in a Hausdroff space needs to be closed. Who the hell can?? So with due respect to Hausdroff and Kundu, I decided to close the book and rather concentrate on miss J only.
During weekends, when I invariably find myself at my home watching BABA RAMDEV’s stomach-churning-ballet-dance (what Baba does with his stomach, shakira does more elegantly with her hips…someone go show him the video….) with my dad, I always think who the hell actually follows what he preaches. But in my new room-mate, I found a true bhakt of baba ramdev (just to digress, Ramdev always reminds me of Mahesh Bhatt….both can’t keep off their asses from any matter, be it Indian cricket team or Emraan’s kissing spree…). With her hind legs (I don’t want to offend my lizard readers, but I wasn’t sure whether the front two limbs are called hands or legs…..) holding her firm, she was precariously (for me) attempting a “sheesh-otthan aasana” with her body and front legs hanging in free space defying all laws of gravity. Being a firm believer in Newton and Murphy’s laws, I quickly got off my bed, and positioned myself to be in a position of minimum risk in case….with my eyes focussed on her every movement. Her two black eyes, her “V-shaped” mouth,……awwww……it gives me a creepy feeling even wriiting this…..anyways the day passed off almost uneventfully, what with me always on the guard, with my door open, and stupidly sleeping on my chair rather than my bed (I was just being a little accomodating, in case she again felt like having a little nap). One of the main reasons why by the time I finally decided to go to bed around 2 in the morning with an aching back, I held her in high esteem is that she almost single-handedly ate all the mosquitoes in my room ( almost single-handedly…..cuz by now, the mosquitoes have got so accustomed to ALL-OUT that they rather like its fragrance). Given her kind act, I felt maybe we could enjoy a symbiotic relationship, so I decided to open the window to replenish the supply of mosquitoes in my room, but seeing another gecko on the outer window, I felt maybe over-eating would ruin her health. Anyways, I hadn’t been asleep for more than half an hour when a crawling sound awoke me. Miss J was now slowly moving on the window grill. For a moment, I thought that she is hot on pursuit of another mosquito (all so that her room-mate could sleep peacefully) and suddenly felt proud of her. I can tolerate mosquitoes but the constant “khash-khash” sound, ahhhh…gawd…..so I again got up and started watching her acrobatic genius (may be she can get us a gold medal in the next olympics. Ever since Chak De, everyone believes that only girls can do it).
(as always, to be contd………God knows when…..)
Impressions 