It’s 6:55am and I’m awake, there is a person right outside our home who’s reciting the Muslim confession of faith in a broken voice. He’s not mute but he is unable to form sentences, he is unable to talk but is capable of making certain sounds that don’t necessarily mean anything but sometimes scare the hell out of me as I wake up. To my surprise I find myself very much alive and I sigh with an immediate praise to the God.
My uncle lives a couple hundred meters away and every morning Beta— the one with a broken sound box, goes to their place, buys them bread and has a cup of nun-chai. For the rest of the day you’ll find him hitchhiking through the village or terrifying women. He lives up to his reputation and sometimes gets beat for it, I don’t know for the life of me what is wrong with him, although he does lean towards an autistic side of the story but that’s as far as I can guess. I can’t quite testify if he follows the same routine as of today, I am cooped up in my house for better or worse.
It’s Thursday, we’ve to submit our third semester forms, the date has been extended to 2nd July and ironically our classes: according to an official notification; began on 21st June. The forms technically came on the morning of 25th but it was discovered that the fee receipts had no account numbers written in the section where you’d normally find it. Monday was as much a waste of time, our college might someday turn out to be the same.
I left early, form days are the worst, they make us run marathons and stand in unorganized queues. I took the fastest cab; I sat patiently only to be tested by traffic jams and a half of destination still to be covered. I sat through the rattling doors of various minibuses, a sandwiched crowd thrown into fits when the conductor kept calling men and women alike; to get on board in a mess and as if hypnotized by his loud hollering voice. I sat through Batamaloo, the shore of banged up cars and enormous buses now turning into hotels cause the price of living is going up as the minute passes; the mud and grease wrestled into tar and fruit vendors raising the prices as they see fit; through the stale air of smoke and garbage; I made it to Lal Chowk at 11:55am.
Hondo called me, he asked me to wait around the corner where we have our cup of tea, and the refuge after the campus canteen served me a rancid patty. I had to print my form but there was no light around the area, which is a strange accident in this circumstance. It took him a while before he came and meanwhile I ate the Indian flavored lays as if to wake myself from the everyday existence where a larger force guides us and leads us to believe in free will. I knew Hondo hadn’t printed his form either, so I took him to the place I stumbled upon on Monday, around the wide and narrow Gogjibagh lanes till we were there. Blackbeard called to enquire if we were coming and I replied that we are, and will be in the campus in half an hour. I called Doodlebug in the same rushed urgency to ask her how long it would take her and she said she’d be there in an hour. We got our forms and walked back the lines we came, eating our way through the eye floaters and distant chatter.
We were expecting an overwhelmed crowd, a queue running through the gates of Amar Singh but the college was quiet and looked completely harmless. I like to have a strong sense of purpose, having vague and uncertain information triggers my self-diagnosed anxiety. Blackbeard and his best pal, who we now shall know as Gazu; were on the benches of the park that’s open to the disposition of all those that can talk for several hours altogether and can never sit still. Gazu is a quiet one with a fierce smile, the one who knows a lot but would hardly tell. He is someone with ideals, with a sense of right and wrong far more evolved than us. I don’t know him much but it’s as far as I go.
Their forms were signed and hence I ended up asking the same thing a couple of times for the lack of certainty on my behalf; we had to go around the staff room that has a staircase climbing up its rear. I’m very hostile to new environments to say the least, new people or a bunch of women sitting behind the desk can overwhelm my nerves. I wasn’t conscious about my behavior because one of them taught us for a couple of weeks so it instilled a trust right when I made eye contact with that teacher, so when we handed our forms and were asked what our subjects are: I stood there, frozen and amnesic to everything I ever entirely knew about the universe in question. I forgot my subjects! I could not remember anything, I was comically blank I tried hard to focus, I’m not a bad student but I just have terribly bad memory and it’s getting worse every day. This was a remarkable situation; it couldn’t have been more awkward I look at Hondo and I say:
I forgot my subjects!
“What!?” the look on his face was as if his gender was in question.
“What are my subjects!?” I ask him and he replies with one.
Functional English. Classic Hondo.
The teacher who taught me literature said the next and the one writing down wrote the third because everyone has it and I just stood there. That’s how I made a fool of myself but all things considered it was pretty hilarious. Hondo and I laughed way too hard while we were leaving and the trailing voices of women that witnessed my glorious episode sank back in their seats. We caught up with Blackbeard and Gazu to tell them about my misadventure, also we still had to deposit our fee and they had not done it either. Blackbeard was waiting for Doodlebug, so all of sat and talked until our stomachs were unbearably loud and demanded food. We decided to wait at the chai shop, Doodlebug caught up with us in an hour and we walked to the bank branch in Jawahar Nagar. On our way back, Hondo parted ways and left to sort something out. There was something on his mind, day before yesterday I tried to ask him but he wouldn’t tell so I let it be. Four of us walked into his brother’s café and shared a meal together. There was a lot of talking in between but I zoned out after a while and I kept getting further away until it was really time to leave.