By Rahul Pillai.
There are those days I feel like any average human being about how ‘Today is just not my day’. And then there are those that say ‘Wow. Today was made for me’. Yes, we’ve all gone through them.
There was another day in the life of a young college student that kept him puzzled about the way the world works. ‘God’ would be another usage in place of ‘world’ but it just pulverizes one’s ego to know there is a face and a form somewhere across the galaxy that’s mocking you in your face. So I take this opportunity to avoid that usage here, without the guarantee that I may not use it in the near future.
There was another day in the life of a young college student that kept him puzzled about the way the world works. ‘God’ would be another usage in place of ‘world’ but it just pulverizes one’s ego to know there is a face and a form somewhere across the galaxy that’s mocking you in your face. So I take this opportunity to avoid that usage here, without the guarantee that I may not use it in the near future.
Nevertheless, it did seem like the College Boy was a scapegoat in this event and would leave a third person pitying him. So it turned out to be an ‘Annual Fee Payment’ day for this College Boy, who, like any average human being, did not have the patience to drag the errand for weeks and pay it under pressures of a fine from the university. But ‘clarifications’ before doing anything was an embedded OCD in the mind of this College Boy. This, in a way, set the spark of events that spun the web of mockery by some divine form I spoke about earlier, somewhere across galaxies.
One fine morning, this obsessively clarifying college student walks into the office of the Chief of the Men’s Hostel Head (CMHH). Little was he educated to the fact that a student was not allowed to enter the office of the CMHH without a valid Identity Card, attached to a specific Tag, dangling from his neck and so very naturally, a short lived but mighty annoying fate, gripped him in its clutches. The security orders him to leave immediately and return with a valid card and tag.
Now, what does one such logically sane, impulsively instinctive and desperately human college student, do when he sees a hundred other students before him wearing their ID cards with detachable tags? This is where the right usage of the one word phrase ‘Duh’ finds its importance. Well, so the boy pounces at the nearest human being for help so he may enter the office of the CMHH without the arousal of conflicts, to finish his primary agenda of ‘clarifications’ before paying his annual college fee. There is a saying, ‘No good deed goes unpunished’. Here, the deed in its form of a fellow college mate asking for help resulted in one of the college boys lending his tag so the fee payment could be done.
The instinctive sense of thought in the boy, encouraging himself to borrow a tag seemed like a decisive idea but as there is beauty with the sparkles of fire, there is also the heat that comes with it that one must bear. Grabbing the opportunity, the security guard attacks the foolish college boy this time, noticing how the ‘good college mate’ lent his fellow friend, in the hour of need, a tag, worth a few bucks. He confiscates the ‘murder weapon’ from the student and also breathes out fire to the ‘good boy’ who’s ‘good deed’, indeed went punished. “How dare you?!” are the last words the college boy hears before his Identity Card and his good friend’s borrowed tag are snatched from him. It was the ego of a howling wolf that was hurt.
To add to the sting of guilt, our protagonist, Mr. College Boy is now asked to write an apology letter, requesting the CMHH to return the tag of his friend Mr. Good Boy as well as his own confiscated ID card, back to him. In a chain of events where nothing goes right, a paradox is sometimes hidden in the midst of it all, gaping at the actors involved in the play, mocking them like there was no end to their troubles. Here was one such paradox, where the boy simply could not meet the CMHH himself and offer him an apology, requesting him to return his ID card, because, (somewhere the master of paradoxes laughs devilishly) he cannot enter the office without an ID card!
So he pleads the security card to make life simpler, but it’s not like a hungry jackal is going to stop chewing into the meat of a wailing stag. The guard order’s him to purchase a new tag and present himself before him, so he could ‘walk free’ with his ‘identity’ in the university. Thus, the tedious task was put forward and our Mr. College Boy was sent across leagues, from building to building to the ‘Office of Purchase and Sales’.
Checking his wallet, he pays off whatever little is left to buy a new tag for himself. The man at the purchase counter signs a receipt and hands him over a brand new tag along with the receipt. With the expenditure of a small amount and a little sweat, a sense of satisfaction begins to take form and place in his heart as he walks back to the office of the CMHH.
“I’ll grab a soda on my way back at the supermarket and then get IT back”, he says to himself happily as he drags his feet over the pavement. Soon he finds himself sipping a soda and walking toward the office of the CMHH again, content there was no way for them to get at him this time. He crushes the paper glass containing soda after draining the last drop and throws it into a nearby garbage bin. He soon approaches the office as he sees the security in the distance. Staring at the guard in the distance, he puts his hand into his shirt pocket. ‘This time it’s gonna be like a boss’.
A moment of distortion in space and time as his heart skips two beats. Empty shirt pocket. Trouser left. Empty. Trouser right. Except for wallet, empty. Grabs wallet. Skims through its contents. Only a few coins. No paper. No receipt. Trouser back pocket - new ID tag. No receipt. ‘Repeat the process’, a voice calls out far inside his head. Shirt pocket, left trouser , right trouser, back of trouser. All empty pockets. Wallet and tag in hand. Shit. Breathes heavily. ‘Receipt – only proof I bought a new tag’.
Mr. College boy dashes back to the trail he left behind, scanning every part of the ground as he searches for a little piece of paper somewhere. ‘Where all did I go?’, trailing along the pavement. Garbage bin? Soda Shop?...Only one way to find out. Rushing through the hot summer, staring at the ground he scans it feet by feet. Sweat trickling down his neck and drenching his chest as the sun heats up his head.
A glimmer of hope at a bush nearby. A paper on the ground. Could that be it? He rushes forward and unfolds it.
“Receipt Amount: $3120 (Towards hostel fees)
Academic Year: 2014-15
Name: Limo Bowfeng.”
‘Damn it’. A sunken sorrow deep inside his heart. But there was satisfaction in knowing that some guy called Limo was having a worse day. It doesn’t pacify one in any way. It simply gives the satisfaction that in times of despair there is at least one person who could feel for you. Some random guy in the university had already paid his fees toward the next annual year but there was no way he was getting a room without the proof of the receipt, which Mr. College Boy now held. ‘Throw it back and move on’, a voice spoke from within. A pause in continuum. A prick of conscience. ‘Help him. You could get it back some day’, another voice. The college boy folds the receipt and puts it in his shirt pocket. ‘What’s to lose now?’, the search continues.
Tiring but desperate, he scans the return path almost halfway through, struggling to remember when he last saw it. He did come through the park with it. It was that memory of a few moments, staring at the receipt with satisfaction as he paced back from the purchase and sales office that convinced him the receipt was lost after he had crossed the park. The heat drained his energy little by little, leaving him hopeless by a little after noon. ‘It’s gone’.
The boy walks back towards his hostel. ‘I’ll buy a new tag again tomorrow. Show the new receipt and take my card back’. Little was there hope for his day could get better as he crossed the pavement adjacent to the office of the CMHH. University rules were strict and no one would be taken for granted.
The boy walked by the pavement and stopped by a tree, looking at the CMHH building. His new tag in his hand as his fingers played along its thin fabric and metal clip at the end, lonely by itself, for whatever it wanted to be clipped at was in the building the boy stared at. The guard patrolling the entrance, not noticing the one soul across the road, having a bad day as he had the power to make it easier and better. ‘Ugh. The world is cruel’, whispered the boy as he was now bathing in sweat, only for the sake of a single $3 tag he held in his hand. ‘But it is also made of humans’, he says as he begins walking toward the guard. A march of hope. Several steps of desperation and a pause at the entrance as he catches the attention of the ‘fate holder’.
“Sir”, he says, lifting his hand up, the tag dangling between two fingers. A strong ray of hope from the skies illuminating the brand new entity he now held. The metal clip glimmering through the rays and the sullen gray textile of the tag emanating its freshness.
The guard walks to a table nearby, a register in his hand, a pen from his pocket. “Sign”, he says to the boy, who stood there wondering whether this was a victory or another shock. Takes the register from the guard.
A heading: ‘REMARKS’
A shivering hand, shaggy signature. The register is then returned. “Mustn’t happen next time”, four words from the guard, a subtle pleasure. A lift of the guards hand to reveal a mangy Identity card and even more mangy tag, borrowed from an old friend from the day. “Sorry”, he says, walking away towards the pavement. A sigh of relief from the boy as the clouds in his head seemed to have cleared.
A few minutes of walk down the pavement and then back in hostel, away from the heat and away from two tiring hours of nothing productive. His legs aching as he looks at them with each step he takes on the pavement. He crosses the bushes, a few trees, the garbage bin. A pause and a jolt. Another distortion in time but a brief moment of limbo as the boy looks at a piece of paper beside the garbage, lying lonely on the dirty grass. He picks it up and unfolds it. Another receipt. A smile on his face as it read:
“Receipt Amount: $3 (Towards purchase office)
Academic Year: 2014-15 “
A smile widening from a sweaty face of a college boy, standing on the pavement and now looking upward at the sky as the sun burned from above, emanating a strong presence. Even in the heat of the day, he felt the spirit of a cold laugh of mockery from the skies. He looks down again at the receipt. His other hand touching his shirt pocket as it felt a piece of paper within. A mental note- ‘Must facebook search Limo Bowfeng and tell him it’s a message from his guardian angel’.
A pair of eyes then staring into the receipt.
“ Name: …”
One fine morning, this obsessively clarifying college student walks into the office of the Chief of the Men’s Hostel Head (CMHH). Little was he educated to the fact that a student was not allowed to enter the office of the CMHH without a valid Identity Card, attached to a specific Tag, dangling from his neck and so very naturally, a short lived but mighty annoying fate, gripped him in its clutches. The security orders him to leave immediately and return with a valid card and tag.
Now, what does one such logically sane, impulsively instinctive and desperately human college student, do when he sees a hundred other students before him wearing their ID cards with detachable tags? This is where the right usage of the one word phrase ‘Duh’ finds its importance. Well, so the boy pounces at the nearest human being for help so he may enter the office of the CMHH without the arousal of conflicts, to finish his primary agenda of ‘clarifications’ before paying his annual college fee. There is a saying, ‘No good deed goes unpunished’. Here, the deed in its form of a fellow college mate asking for help resulted in one of the college boys lending his tag so the fee payment could be done.
The instinctive sense of thought in the boy, encouraging himself to borrow a tag seemed like a decisive idea but as there is beauty with the sparkles of fire, there is also the heat that comes with it that one must bear. Grabbing the opportunity, the security guard attacks the foolish college boy this time, noticing how the ‘good college mate’ lent his fellow friend, in the hour of need, a tag, worth a few bucks. He confiscates the ‘murder weapon’ from the student and also breathes out fire to the ‘good boy’ who’s ‘good deed’, indeed went punished. “How dare you?!” are the last words the college boy hears before his Identity Card and his good friend’s borrowed tag are snatched from him. It was the ego of a howling wolf that was hurt.
To add to the sting of guilt, our protagonist, Mr. College Boy is now asked to write an apology letter, requesting the CMHH to return the tag of his friend Mr. Good Boy as well as his own confiscated ID card, back to him. In a chain of events where nothing goes right, a paradox is sometimes hidden in the midst of it all, gaping at the actors involved in the play, mocking them like there was no end to their troubles. Here was one such paradox, where the boy simply could not meet the CMHH himself and offer him an apology, requesting him to return his ID card, because, (somewhere the master of paradoxes laughs devilishly) he cannot enter the office without an ID card!
So he pleads the security card to make life simpler, but it’s not like a hungry jackal is going to stop chewing into the meat of a wailing stag. The guard order’s him to purchase a new tag and present himself before him, so he could ‘walk free’ with his ‘identity’ in the university. Thus, the tedious task was put forward and our Mr. College Boy was sent across leagues, from building to building to the ‘Office of Purchase and Sales’.
Checking his wallet, he pays off whatever little is left to buy a new tag for himself. The man at the purchase counter signs a receipt and hands him over a brand new tag along with the receipt. With the expenditure of a small amount and a little sweat, a sense of satisfaction begins to take form and place in his heart as he walks back to the office of the CMHH.
“I’ll grab a soda on my way back at the supermarket and then get IT back”, he says to himself happily as he drags his feet over the pavement. Soon he finds himself sipping a soda and walking toward the office of the CMHH again, content there was no way for them to get at him this time. He crushes the paper glass containing soda after draining the last drop and throws it into a nearby garbage bin. He soon approaches the office as he sees the security in the distance. Staring at the guard in the distance, he puts his hand into his shirt pocket. ‘This time it’s gonna be like a boss’.
A moment of distortion in space and time as his heart skips two beats. Empty shirt pocket. Trouser left. Empty. Trouser right. Except for wallet, empty. Grabs wallet. Skims through its contents. Only a few coins. No paper. No receipt. Trouser back pocket - new ID tag. No receipt. ‘Repeat the process’, a voice calls out far inside his head. Shirt pocket, left trouser , right trouser, back of trouser. All empty pockets. Wallet and tag in hand. Shit. Breathes heavily. ‘Receipt – only proof I bought a new tag’.
Mr. College boy dashes back to the trail he left behind, scanning every part of the ground as he searches for a little piece of paper somewhere. ‘Where all did I go?’, trailing along the pavement. Garbage bin? Soda Shop?...Only one way to find out. Rushing through the hot summer, staring at the ground he scans it feet by feet. Sweat trickling down his neck and drenching his chest as the sun heats up his head.
A glimmer of hope at a bush nearby. A paper on the ground. Could that be it? He rushes forward and unfolds it.
“Receipt Amount: $3120 (Towards hostel fees)
Academic Year: 2014-15
Name: Limo Bowfeng.”
‘Damn it’. A sunken sorrow deep inside his heart. But there was satisfaction in knowing that some guy called Limo was having a worse day. It doesn’t pacify one in any way. It simply gives the satisfaction that in times of despair there is at least one person who could feel for you. Some random guy in the university had already paid his fees toward the next annual year but there was no way he was getting a room without the proof of the receipt, which Mr. College Boy now held. ‘Throw it back and move on’, a voice spoke from within. A pause in continuum. A prick of conscience. ‘Help him. You could get it back some day’, another voice. The college boy folds the receipt and puts it in his shirt pocket. ‘What’s to lose now?’, the search continues.
Tiring but desperate, he scans the return path almost halfway through, struggling to remember when he last saw it. He did come through the park with it. It was that memory of a few moments, staring at the receipt with satisfaction as he paced back from the purchase and sales office that convinced him the receipt was lost after he had crossed the park. The heat drained his energy little by little, leaving him hopeless by a little after noon. ‘It’s gone’.
The boy walks back towards his hostel. ‘I’ll buy a new tag again tomorrow. Show the new receipt and take my card back’. Little was there hope for his day could get better as he crossed the pavement adjacent to the office of the CMHH. University rules were strict and no one would be taken for granted.
The boy walked by the pavement and stopped by a tree, looking at the CMHH building. His new tag in his hand as his fingers played along its thin fabric and metal clip at the end, lonely by itself, for whatever it wanted to be clipped at was in the building the boy stared at. The guard patrolling the entrance, not noticing the one soul across the road, having a bad day as he had the power to make it easier and better. ‘Ugh. The world is cruel’, whispered the boy as he was now bathing in sweat, only for the sake of a single $3 tag he held in his hand. ‘But it is also made of humans’, he says as he begins walking toward the guard. A march of hope. Several steps of desperation and a pause at the entrance as he catches the attention of the ‘fate holder’.
“Sir”, he says, lifting his hand up, the tag dangling between two fingers. A strong ray of hope from the skies illuminating the brand new entity he now held. The metal clip glimmering through the rays and the sullen gray textile of the tag emanating its freshness.
The guard walks to a table nearby, a register in his hand, a pen from his pocket. “Sign”, he says to the boy, who stood there wondering whether this was a victory or another shock. Takes the register from the guard.
A heading: ‘REMARKS’
A shivering hand, shaggy signature. The register is then returned. “Mustn’t happen next time”, four words from the guard, a subtle pleasure. A lift of the guards hand to reveal a mangy Identity card and even more mangy tag, borrowed from an old friend from the day. “Sorry”, he says, walking away towards the pavement. A sigh of relief from the boy as the clouds in his head seemed to have cleared.
A few minutes of walk down the pavement and then back in hostel, away from the heat and away from two tiring hours of nothing productive. His legs aching as he looks at them with each step he takes on the pavement. He crosses the bushes, a few trees, the garbage bin. A pause and a jolt. Another distortion in time but a brief moment of limbo as the boy looks at a piece of paper beside the garbage, lying lonely on the dirty grass. He picks it up and unfolds it. Another receipt. A smile on his face as it read:
“Receipt Amount: $3 (Towards purchase office)
Academic Year: 2014-15 “
A smile widening from a sweaty face of a college boy, standing on the pavement and now looking upward at the sky as the sun burned from above, emanating a strong presence. Even in the heat of the day, he felt the spirit of a cold laugh of mockery from the skies. He looks down again at the receipt. His other hand touching his shirt pocket as it felt a piece of paper within. A mental note- ‘Must facebook search Limo Bowfeng and tell him it’s a message from his guardian angel’.
A pair of eyes then staring into the receipt.
“ Name: …”