Herein lies the story of a disinterested explorer exploring the wild wastelands of an exceptionally mediocre Indian Technology Institutes. You know, the kind of institute which makes a horrific accident involving multiple fractures and out-of-body guts seem like a pleasant dream. Needless to say, the faint of heart should look away.
When we last left our reluctant protagonist he had succeeded obtaining a much desired admission into a brand new and untested college. Of course succeeded is a relative term. And the irony wasn’t lost on R as he surveyed the under construction building which was going to be his ‘temple of knowledge’ for the next four years. He entered through the iron wrought gates and a chill ran up his spine. He had the distinct feeling that Hades was laughing at him from his comfortable throne in Tartarus while the Euphemides swooped ever closer.1
The college bore a deserted look. While this might have been because there weren’t many students to populate it, it might have been more likely that in his excitement, R’s father had dropped off R entirely too early. Which he had. And R had time to kill in a place he didn’t want to spend any time in at all.
R slumped down onto the landing at the reception. Sitting on the floor fit in extremely well with how his life was going. He considered his options. It didn’t take him long seeing as he only had one. All of a sudden a sound broke through the eerie silence.
A car drew up to him. Someone inside tried to open the door and failed. Someone tried again and finally figured it out. Someone got out of the car. R looked up dispassionately. Someone turned out to be this old, bald guy who, as R would later learn, had extremely foul smelling breath.
Now there are two kinds of old, bald guys with foul smelling breath. There are the kind and cute grandfatherly types who give you candy and tell you long and meandering tales of their childhood when everything was inevitably better than everything that exists today. The kind of guys you can take the candy from and then safely ignore. The other kind consists of those who believe that every younger person (which at their age is mostly everyone and their uncle) is a detrimental effect to society and should be purged as soon as possible. The old, bald guy with foul smelling breath who had just stepped out of the car was definitely ensconced in the latter category.
All this ran a rather fast marathon through R’s head as the old, bald guy came up to him.
“Stand up,” he said in a voice that can only described as a blender on its last legs trying its best to blend a potent mixture of nails and human intestines. Which as this chronicler belatedly realises is hardly a description at all.
R stood up apprehensively. The old guy looked at him up and down. He gave him a look normally reserved for those weird nameless, creepy insects which show up only after torrential rains.
“What are you wearing?” he asked managing to fit in more disdain in the query than one would think an old guy ought to have.
R looked down at himself. For a fleeting moment he thought that he had forgotten to put on anything to cover his lower body. From his perspective, limited as it was, everything looked fine. All despicable body parts were appropriately covered.
“Uh… clothes…” R ventured doubtfully.
The old guy snorted derisively layering R in a few droplets of foul smelling mucous. “Didn’t you attend the orientation ceremony? Didn’t you hear the rules?”
R tried to think back on the past few days. He did remember some sort of function at the college, but he had been characteristically indifferent to it. So while he did remember a bunch of important sounding people trying to piece together some sort of speech while completely massacring the poor rules of the Good King’s English, he didn’t really remember much of what they had said. Not even the little he had understood.
“What rules?” R asked a little defiantly starting to get annoyed at this strange old man.
“The dress code, you impertinent little rapscallion!”2 the old man bellowed spewing out even more of the mucous. “You are only allowed to wear formal shirts and trousers in the college premises.”
R let a faint grin break across his face. “You can’t be serious. There is nothing wrong with the way I’m dressed.”
“Yes there is, you punk. Its wholly indecent. If you are dressed the same tomorrow, I’ll personally chuck you out of the college. Consider yourself warned.” With this reprimand, the old, bald guy with the foul smelling breath stormed away.
R was a little taken aback but not really concerned. Old men are entirely within reason to be cranky and he didn’t mind. After all what could a random old man possibly do to him? He turned to a newcomer on the scene. A student by the looks of the bag slung across his shirt clad shoulders. R decided to be friendly.
“Who does that guy think he is?” he asked rhetorically expecting a grin and a shrug.
“Him? He’s the director of academics,” the student replied while scratching his thigh through his trousers. He didn’t even blink when he said that.
R started. He could see the portentous approach of the shackles of doom and reprisal. He sighed. He wasn’t going to like this college very much. Resigned to his fate he made his way into the college and began the quest to find his class.
1. Characters from Greek Mythology. Don’t expect this chronicler to explain. Wiser men have already done so if you’d only care to find out.
2. Of course none of this was actually spoken in true English. It merely consisted of Hindi with a few grammatically incorrect English sentences strewn in for good measure. The chronicler simply doesn’t want to sully his text with incomprehensible rubbish and takes refuge behind that stalwart defender of creative imagination called literary license.
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