80. Sweet Diwali Memories

Diwali is an Indian Festival. I am not going to detail on the history of the evolution of Diwali. You can use Wikipedia or any other search engine for that matter. This post is about the most unforgettable Diwali I had in my life. Rather than narrating the incident in a prose format, I would like to present this story in an Incidential format. For those who do not know what an Incidential format is all about, do not panic; because even I am going to know about it only after this post is drafted.

In the year 1999, I was a fresher in an engineering college. Fate played its part in me being dumped with a Branch of engineering called "EIE". Apparently late in the summer of 2004, I realized that EIE was actually an acronym for "Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering”. Soon after I joined engineering, I came to realize that I was selected as the captain of the team that was going to participate in a month long sport event. My batch mates later told me that the name of the sport was "Ragging". As days went by, I realized that being the captain was not an easy joke. The seniors in college really liked me so much as I showed enthusiasm in participating in the sport.

Soon I was hanging out with the seniors in college more than hanging out with my own batch mates.Soon Diwali came. It was time to celebrate. Me and my seniors devised some plans to celebrate Diwali in a big way. We jotted down some points and finally decided to execute three major points.
1) Find one girlfriend each before Diwali
2) Getting into the good books of our professors &
3) Surprise the hostel warden by lighting crackers in his room.



We had only one more week left for executing these three decisions that we made that night. I wanted to carry out one plan at a time. So I set out on a mission to find a girlfriend.I thought of using the advancement of technology to find a girlfriend for myself. I was new to the internet world. I started a yahoo messenger id. To make it really appealing, I registered myself with a name
“Iamtheguyurdadwarneduabout”. As a first pitch attempt, I tried to search for a girl friend in one of the Chat rooms. I came across a chat room named Romance. It had sub-chat rooms, viz- adult, teenage, bicurious and gay. I misinterpreted the word “gay” for happiness and me being a very happy guy, I entered that chat room. I started my chat session with “Icanmakeyouhappy”

Iamtheguyurdadwarneduabout: Hi, Are you free to chat with me?
Icanmakeyouhappy: ASL please
Iamtheguyurdadwarneduabout: ?
Icanmakeyouhappy: Are you a male or a female?
Iamtheguyurdadwarneduabout: Male
Icanmakeyouhappy: @#$K off. You @$$ #0!*

She must have been really sad, I thought to myself. Soon I realized that it was not easy to chat in the chat room. So I started a new id “ Shilpasweetgirlchennai”

Shilpasweetgirlchennai: Hi. Care to be my friend
Priya24us: Hi ASL?
Shilpasweetgirlchennai: 19/F/Chennai (By this time I figured out that ASL stands for age, sex and location)
Priya24us: That is great. I am 24/M/Chennai
Shilpasweetgirlchennai: oh. I am male too
Priya24us: @@##$ $%## up your @$$

I never visited chat rooms again.

Even after five days of hard work, I did not have a girlfriend. So I decided to fulfill the second and third decision made by me and my seniors. I thought of impressing my electronics professor who happened to be the wife of the HOD of Computer Science department. I did not know that she was his wife.

Me: good morning ma’m
She: Good morning Chriz
Me: Ma’m you look awkward in this saree (I actually meant awesome)
She: What do you want? (She was fuming with anger)
Me: Sorry ma’m. I did not mean to say that. I just wanted to get into your good books
She: All you have to do is study well, be obedient in class and stop asking stupid questions in class
Me: Ok ma’m. I will do that. By the way, Do you have any kids ma’m?
She: Yes. I have two kids
Me: What are they doing ma’m?
She: The elder one is in class two and the little one is attending a crèche.
Me: Cool ma’m. I love kids. By the way, Are you married ma’m?
She: Get lost. You fit for nothing,scoundrel.

She mistook my innocent mind for a scoundrel. I left that place with a saddened heart. Considering the twin failures that I had with the first two decisions that I made with my seniors, I wanted to fulfill at least the last one.

I bought some crackers and proceeded to the warden’s room. The warden went for his usual rounds. So I sneaked into his room and placed some crackers under his bed and tied the end to an ignition powdered rope. The plan was well drafted and the rope was well concealed behind the wall paper and the end of the rope finally landed outside his window. I had earlier planned to light the rope after warden goes to sleep. But before I could get out of the room, I heard footsteps outside the room and I knew that it was the warden coming back to his room. I did not have a way out. I finally ran and hid myself under his bed. All my friends had a wonderful Diwali night with their new found girl friends and they also found their way into the good books of the professors.I spent the night under the wardens bed. I learnt that it was not easy to sleep on the floor, under the warden’s bed without creating any sound that too after catching a glimpse of the warden’s royal posterior when he changed his clothes while slipping into his night dress.


-Chronicwriter.