Delhi Trip

“what kind of person you are?”

“am not sure.. may be am not even a person”

“you are not a person… then who you are?”

“I don’t know.”

“you don’t know.. then how you know that you don’t know that”

I remained silent. Beause I don’t know the answer and I don’t want to lie or to be a fool further.

“if you are not a person, you don’t even exist.. if you don’t exist, how you are there in other’s thoughts and become a part of it?? I need an answer as long as you exist, you owe to give me an answer”

Am in trouble… am in agony…

Escape.

Beep.. beep.. its 6:30am.. I got an escape from reality, can be said, to some teeny tweeny world where am a visitor. Myself exiled for 9 days to visit capital of India from its IT capital. Our principal and our HOD call it as ‘Industrial trip’ and we are interested only in the later part of it, ‘TRIP’.


My cell rings, the cell that is on sale for Rs.150, the cell that got ‘airy’ as its ring tone, the cell that got a scratch on its 4th corner on its way to make the 5th corner. It doesn’t matter, but it still rings. That matters. It wrote something like ‘K Anthu.’(its KJC Anthu)
It started to speak to me, “hello da”, instead of ‘hello hero’, that strikes me odd. That means a lot. That means something important that need to be conveyed. If only I had an IQ of 140 or above, I could have interpreted that he changed his plan and coming with us. Both facts remained the same, 1. I don’t have that premium levels of IQ and 2. He is ON for the trip. He fixed his personal problems and ready to accompany us. He is good at fixing problems, either humane or electronic, both ways he is good at fixing them.


By default I have to keep it as a secret. Secret for 5 hours. What? It is not that he plan a terrorist attack or something, he is coming with us for the industrial trip. Simplest guy with complex-est problems; I should say, the must meet guy, the coolest of the lot; and I mean it.


I packed up everything putting tick mark against each item in myself prepared ‘things to pack’ list. Items include my 5-inch 5-kg shoes, inners with and without colors, informal formals etc. I took bath and emptied my intestine in such a way that I don’t have to use the latrine over those rails under any circumstances. I call it as ‘non-cooperation movement’ against those dirty cabins in those metal cages.


Again it started ‘airy’ing to me.


I fought back, “enthamma? ” (tell me mom)


“athe.. mone……. ” the typical kerala mom’s long advice mixed up with little bit emotions here and there like coconut crunch in puttu, in essence, ‘don’t take risk’ as if I am going for a war or something. In other words, it sounds to me as “never try to make your own world or your world big.” I could feel what she feels at that moment, but can’t buy those for myself as I don’t have that unsecure feeling. Please don’t blame me for that, blame my age, blame my gender, blame those hormones in my veins, technically it is in arteries. I wish the second gender with more confidence and secure feeling, so that the next generation will be more confident and assured. For each and every mom, their kids are the most innocent and fragile ones in this world, and everyone in their twenties think that they are the toughest in the lot. It is known as ‘sasi’s conflict’.


After that my door starts knocking, of course not electronically because there is no door bell, but some calories are converted into sound energy, calorie source is pathros ettan, our cook. Of course he is not there with food as there is no room service in our ‘PG: Daridravilasam’, but he came with a coupon book, its for some ‘saint’ named church. I don’t want to give money for the church for two very reasonable reasons, firstly, most of the churches are bigger than my house; secondly, I am very stingy. Even if you have points against my first reason, you have to agree with my second reason. While he was telling me about the proposed location for the church and its activities, I was peeping into the coupon book to find out the figure in a black star, because depending on that figure there will be a proportional loss of weight to my wallet even before starting our trip. Though logically and stingycally I am damn against this system of giving money to church, I like pathros ettan for his innocence and calmness, made my purse open at 180 degrees at the loss of a polished head.


I could hear chindu shouting at Stibin for something, here something means nothing. Sometimes he used to shout for that thing. Locking my empire I marched towards their kingdom. To my surprise their shelves were kept neat and tidy, as they were empty without cloths, also they decorated the floor as Jerusalem people done to welcome Jesus. Stibin is still in ‘mode: Confusion’ that to take a ‘small bag and a big bag’ or ‘two big bags’ or some ‘God only knows’ combinations of big and small bags. I kept silent as I don’t have a solution to offer him except a glass of milk for myself. Then there was all kind of processes like ironing, folding, sorting, spraying, breakfasting… finally we are done with everything that we can do in the morning except suryanamaskar.


We started for the college.


Peee…peeee.. Surprise.


That’s Edpaul sir’s bike horn. We are surprised not because that 10 year old horn is still working but we never expected him at our PG gate. I thought the call is for Chindu as he is the trip coordinator, but he pointed at me to help him with his luggage. Am still not sure why he recruited me for that job, may be because my that part is small compared to chindu’s big boot space, need less space on his bike seat, that might be my USP. Its not jack or fat but a small one.


I have huge respect for this guy called Edpaul sir (Eddy). He is the ‘multi tasker’ of our college, the name given by our super seniors, he co-ordinates each and every events in our college. Rajanna, Nathan, champak and me call him Eddy. Biologically speaking, he got one head and two hands, but in effect it is 10 heads and 20 hands. He is cent percent committed to our institution. I really want to be like him, but not as a finance professor. Even though I sat/slept in many of his classes and written more impositions, one doubt remains unsolved, ‘why Eddy got married?’ I don’t have the courage to ask him about this for the time being. Want to know something; there is something common between Eddy and me, so called assets. Both of us have something polished and black, my shoes and his hair. Both of us lavishly spend hours polishing our assets.


Hey, this married Eddy is still waiting at our PG gate.


“am coming saaar,”


I am always with a sweet smile and helping hand whenever my teachers ask me for help, but it is not the same with all organisms I interact with, I will input those requests into my grey matter and process it, analyzing the pros and cons of the act and make a decision. What kind of person am I? am not sure about my species.
Anyway, nobody is perfect, am not that nobody.


After keeping my stuffs safe inside my PG, I sprinted towards his bike and we set for his house. On our way back to college, three of us shared his bike seat equally, 20 centimeters each, me, eddy and his suit case.


By 10:30am we reached the college, me, Stibin and Chindu. We called up people and they responded to our disturbances like this,


“ok..ok.. ok.. we are on our way.”


On their way to bathroom or what… God knows.


We stood there with our heavy luggage in our hands and kg-kid kinda pride in our hearts to reach the college first. My eyes just caught somebody called Fathima, she is not coming with us. She smiled at me the same way I done to her, assuming we both have same number of teeth. She is kind of reserved person made me feel more privileged talking to her, as if am talking to Arundathi Roy or something. This time she took that box with her, and started reading the first letter from it.


“deenu, Nobody came today, am the only person here to follow the rules.”


Am not sure that is a complaint or something else. Is she expecting some awards for her act? Or do she have our kg-kinda pride in her heart too?? Am not sure and so I replied something that not even make sense to myself. Why am I doing all these, am talking a lot of nonsense these days, being something that I am not is the worst part, the only reason for my nonsense behavior is my blue cap, will explain it later. But when it comes as a survival means, its acceptable. Because bread comes before principles in those priority lists as well as in my dictionary.


It starts drizzling, as a matter of fact for boys it is shameful to carry an umbrella to the college than get wet. ‘Wet guys always gives that macho looks and all’, this statement is supported by my second gender friends. My friends showed themselves with and without that shameful thing. But I don’t have a name list to tick who are without macho and with macho, or with umbrella and without umbrella; because I am suspended from my somekinda job for 9 days, by myself.


Damini was there chatting with two girls, who are strangers to me, but not to her. Damini introduced them to me as her room-mate and hostel-mate, to my relief both were keralites. I spoke to them in my pure manglish and in Malayalam. I said, she is the most sensible girl in our class or something and want to talk more, but I didn’t. I am nervous, because you know, still I am that typical kerala guy, fragile son, who took very little risk and keep his world smaller as possible.


We went to invite our principal, Pious-Reji-Siva sirs and Selvi maam for the prayers. They wished us happy journey and safe return and we promised them regular updates of our trip in return.


Our Principal said, “wherever you go, Be Jayathians.”
That means a lot, we can’t do that thing, we can’t do the other thing also, not even….. we have an another question in our mind, then why should we go??... there are a lot of answers and some questions… questions and answers are not matching… and so we are going… we are out….


We started towards our college bus, there were trolleys, there were suit cases, there were laptop bags, all kinda stuffs to pack our stuffs. We arranged them in the trunk of our bus the way trunk piled for a camp fire. In our college, MBAs are known for perfection but not for these kind of blue collar jobs. Here I really felt robots are better than humans for perfection in any work. ‘Yanthiran effect’ in my thoughts.. hmm.


Somebody turned something in clockwise direction that turns us into vibration mode. Our college bus started to move. Our high pitched “settle down please” and taking the head count ceremony are there by default. A long journey starts with a single step, here it starts with a simple revolution of bargained and proudly delivered MRF tyres. There is a long story on these MRF tyres told by our KJC Kotler, tell you later.


“Something great is going to happen in these nine days.” Everybody believed in this unwritten statement and kept it as a secret as though we believe in Satan or in some black magic. Hope drags our thoughts and directed our words and actions, because there are people committed, non-committed, semi-committed, on their way to break the commitment… all kinds of people, but with common objective to be happy. Everybody tries to be good to others as a part of creating a positive environment to milk the cow of happiness. Those milky smiles on everybody’s face provides my heart with less vicious&viscous liquids, that put my heart-beat rhythmic.


Taking pit stops to collect our friends on our way, we reached the railway station at 12.30pm. I don’t know whats wrong with the sky, might be jealous of us, it started crying or _eeing, am not sure about it, but we got drenched for sure. A very few of us, guys, have that shameful thing with us. we offered our Umbrella service to guys praying they would reject it and helped the other gender whole heartedly. It taught me the fact that, “it is a blessing to share an umbrella with the opposite gender and a curse to share it with the same kind”. It is called ‘Mann-mark theory’.


Neenu, the coolest girl in our class, stood there with two people, the same way strangers to me, but mother and brother to her. She introduced me to them as her class-mate and I was about to talk about neenu as the most popular girl in the class and her numerous jokes, she said, “ok dinu, nee nadanno..” (you can leave)


“illa, njan paranju kazhinjilla.” (no, am not done.) said it in my mind and pumped blood to my feet.


Do this stupid girl got sixth sense?.. may be she predicted my behavior from her past experiences. May be experiences taught her lessons that many Ph.d valas could not do. She played a typical kerala girl for ten more minutes and then started with the “what the hell…..” dialogues as they have left.


We took the head count of people, not discriminating them on ‘with or without hairs’ OR ‘with or without brains’, and marched towards our respective platform and coach number. By the time the awaited guy came whistling and dragging those metal cages as a kid who got a new whistle. After doing all kind of show-offs with his pipe he paced down to match our pace, zero km per hour. Then, we ran with our luggage to get into the train as if it is the last chariot to heaven or something. Soap, cheep, cheap t-shirts, everything and anything accompanied us to our heavens, heaven with tri-colored flag.


Our bags placed next to each other under the seat the same way we were sitting on the seat. The only, difference is, we can move and they cannot. There are many other things that we can do that bags cannot, we can chat with each other, we can act like samosa valas, we can fight for window seats, we can take lunch and so many.


Its lunch time. There was something that altered our cheese spread lips a bit straight, our tour operator will be catering food only from the dinner. We took that in a sports manz spirit and sprinted for the lunch outside. We shared, stole, tested and done everything possible with the railway food. Even then, our Mathayi’s cup noodles is not yet cooked. 90 percent of the noodles find its way out while checking it. cooked or not, by the 51 testers. Uncooked Mathayi is wearing something, ‘something worth doing is worth undoing’ t-shirt kept my mind occupied with things that I could do if am not going for the trip, and recalled the recently updated ‘cold feet’ phrase. I don’t know why am so crazy about things that will never do, but plans and thinks a lot about it. These thoughts sounds like an enemy to my new mission of reducing the gap between thoughts and action, taking away the laziness and carelessness sandwiched between them. I call it as ‘mission: BUS’. (BUS means Beat-Up the Sandwich)


While I was roaming around, Prasoon ran to me and asked,


“where can I do a single purpose?”


“you can use our train’s toilet.” totally ignorant me


“it is against the law to do it in static train. I can’t do it.”


Taking that extra risk I confessed,


“I done it just 2 mins before.”


And I expected him sue me for that. Surprise!! He replied inhaling some pride in and exhaling something in a searching tone,


“where can I find a moving train?… ”


No surprise, he is a true ‘Jayathian’.

That big boy with loud whistle again started with his show-off activities. This time he is about to leave it seems. We all once again rushed into his metal cages. We sat there like trapped parrots making every sound that we can, but not trying to fly.
The wheels cuts the radians and the train started sliding on the rails, and our dreams floats in the breeze without the body that trapped in these cages… exactly I don know how to conclude or stop this, am lazy to write more.


We spent the eight more days in milking our cows of happiness. I will be reporting on it if time permits.


Thanks for your time


- Anthappan