2 men and an egg
All the extra-curricular clubs came to our hostel for their club orientation… well… sort of canvassing (and bullying and coaxing), as they got a major part of their funds from the membership fee we pay. The most memorable one was that of “Adventure Club”; they had come up with an idea analogous to “Who Dares Wins” program in AXN.
They have a packet full of eggs. One of them is a boiled egg. People should pair up. One person from each pair should take an egg and smash it on the other’s head to see if he gets the boiled egg. Those who get the boiled egg will get 50 bucks.
I decided to watch it from a distance, because I couldn’t stand the thought of messing up my hair (It was already too messed up and untameable) and clothes. Besides, I hated the stink (It’s S.T.I.N.K for me) of eggs.
I saw people smashing the eggs ruthlessly as if they had some past enmity with their teammates. And the victim wouldn’t leave the other one either. He would take some of the oozing eggwhite from his head and apply it on the other’s face or dress, whatever comes to his hand first, because the other one will now start running for his life. Well… If he ran like that straight into the Olympic stadium, he would have got the gold and quenched India’s thirst for an Olympic medal!! It seemed that they were happier getting the raw egg rather than the boiled one.
KP came to me and asked what was the probability that BG and Jithu, who were waiting for their chance, will get the boiled one. Apparently, he had done some calculations and wanted me to look silly if I couldn’t solve that particular “mathematical” problem.
I simply rolled my eyes and said, “The probability is 1″
He shot me a look,”What???”

Flashback: I was in a quiz competition in my 8th grade. This dude KP was also there. So was BG. Then the question came. There was a fort locally called Tipu Sultan’s fort in Palakkad. For those who don’t know, Tipu Sultan was a king of Mysore in India who had fought against the British East India Company in 18th Century. The question was to give the year in which Tipu came to this fort. We all guessed some year. BG guessed, “He has never come”.
So simple. Yet so brilliant. It was indeed the correct answer. It was, in fact, made by Hyderali, father of Tipu Sultan.

Back to Common Room: I said, “That guy BG is way too lucky. He will get the boiled egg. I am sure.. Cent percent”
And it came to be true. BG was lucky after all.
They got a fresh 50 rupee note in their hand and it was not there after 5 minutes. All of us literally carried them both to the canteen and ordered several Pepsi.
Deepu said, “Dude, if you wanna know how to spend 50 bucks in 1 minute, ask us.”

If you want to earn 50 bucks in 1 minute, ask Ferby
Ferby (not his actual name) was another dude who was responsible for this “inverse” devilish prophecy from Deepu the very next week. He was tall, dark and ahem… ahem… was he handsome?
He had such a dark complexion that we had named him IAS (Not Indian Administrative Service, duh!! It is Invisible After Sunset.) We used to joke that if you wanted to see him after dark, the only way was to ask him to grin.
He was also called Ferocious Kchraaaaw (sounds like a roar). (That name, in fact, was given by the Ayamees)
He later renamed (of course it was nothing official) himself as Ferocious Caligula, because he said he liked the Roman ruler Caligula. (If you’d ask me, I’d say Caligula was a total crackpot. Some say that he made his horse a consul. Check wikipedia for more details)

He earned some easy money one day by running with only his undies across the hostel wing. (So says Deepu. There’s no way to know whether it is the truth.)

A hidden talent
Debutante was the cultural event specially for the freshers. And it was the first time I was talking to girls from other disciplines. The entire event lasted 4 days. On the third day evening, there was no interesting competition to watch, so I decided to take a break. I saw that there was a creative writing competition in another 10 minutes and the participation was open. So I decided to write that. Problem was… I didn’t have a pen with me. And the hostel block was too far away…Way too far (say 200 meters) for my lazy feet to carry me to and fro. No problem…I asked a pen directly from one of the organisers. So unprepared was I for that!
They had kept some thermocol cut-out with a candle, umbrella and blah blah; which looked like some modern art or surreal painting or whatever. Those who are regular in my blog will know that I lack the writing skills of a literary mastermind. I’m just a normal writer. I was just myself and wrote whatever came to my mind when I saw that silly cut-out. The result was an essay titled

“Ways to catch the crocodile in Lake Placid”

(The cut-out looked like a crocodile for me). Basically it was very much like the Acme gadgets used by Wile.E.Coyote in “Roadrunner show”. They will be shiny and ultra-modern, but they always fail.
At the end of the day, they announced the results, and I got the first prize. For 4 pages full of poor jokes, these dumbasses gave me the first prize!!! I couldn’t believe my ears. I got a fair amount of fans from the fairer sex after that.
Besides that, I got first for Instrumental and Eastern Vocals.

Caligula strikes again
We had drama competition the next day, but we had no script. We thought of using the popular dramas (Shakespeare et al.) and tried to select one.
Ferby said, “We will make our own. I will write one. I have an idea.”
“Crap!”, BG verbalised what others thought.
It was 11 in the night on the previous day and the drama was at noon the next day.
Ferby went smug-faced to a corner of his room and started penning his drama. He completed it by 1 am. We were still arguing which drama to select (you call it “square one”) when he came to us and described his work.
“Brilliant!!!”, all of us said in unison, because none of us had understood any of it. The name translated to “Shadows”. It was the world of shadows. That’s the only thing I understood (to date). It looked like a typical art film. And the brilliance of an art film is in the fact that nobody should understand it.
We decided who all will enact the parts and started mugging up the dialogs. That was a full night out. The next day, we performed, and as expected, we got the first place.
Kudos to Caligula!!!

Rockmime
Rockmime is by far the best and craziest invention of NITC people. We would spend 2 days carefully making custom-looking guitars, microphones, keyboards and drums which would be a replica of those of the rock band we are miming, then shatter them to pieces in 5 minutes.
We would select a rock band and a song to enact, then prepare the replicas of their instruments using cardboard, thermocol, chart paper etc. (Lots of research goes into this…watching lots of videos of live performances of the band). Then we would wear clothings like the original band does and do the actions like they do when the song is playing in the background.
We did “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC. There was this tough part where the lead singer has to carry the lead guitarist on his shoulders when he is playing the lead. This was the toughest part.
Oh..I just love rockmime. One thing awes me however. We are completely exhausted by the time we finish our 5 minute performance jumping and head-banging. How the hell do these rock bands perform like this for hours on end??

More fun and frolic in the coming parts. Keep pinging….