An amateur attempt to share an interesting and life moving anecdote, I promised someone to write about it:
“bang, Bang, BANG”. Drop dead silence of the cold wintry night was broken with this heavy voice asking me to open the door. I was just dumb struck, who might it be. Though it was very common for someone to drop at our door at any given hour, as our “Peeli Kothi” was center for every activity, being just yards away from the institute. We were 4 idiots living in there, Bheda “the Bull”, Josh “the lazy perfectionist”, harry “the bespectacled intelligent” and yours truly “the lean villager”, “gawti” as they used to call me. We were very closely knitted bunch of guys at instii, as there were only 30 of us. So the “Peeli kothi” was free lunch home for every hungry stomach, it was bathroom for every stinking fellow, it was a playground for sports frenzy guys, it was bedroom for those afternoon naps, it was the booz bar for those unwarranted celebration of no occasions and above all it was answer to every question you can’t get answered at instii.
“Khol Be, warna darwaza tod dunga” [Open, else I will break the door], I collected my senses and answered in a very confident tone, who’s there?, I knew bull & party are not going to give any ear to this as I was the occupant of the front room of the kothi and declared “darbaan”[gateman] too.
So by the next morning, I was a declared mouse by Shonee, the night intruder, despite giving so many valid excuses, I was the talk of the tea sipping, samosa munching future managers that “gandhi, darr gaya”. All this didn’t go well with Tudu, as I was one of his favorite junior, and he was more than a mentor to me, he kept asking me, “is this all true” and I kept denying. But he was not digesting my excuses and reasons, all he was telling me, why I didn’t open the door on the very first BANG. I could see a deep silence on his face, I knew he was upset.
It was almost midnight, and I heard the familiar sound of Tudu’s MIG-27, his motorcycle. I opened the door and he said “chal, gandhi”. We never used to question him as there was no biological clock in our system at the instii. The motorcycle was running at a constant pace, the engine sound was, all I could hear in that dark wintry night. Suddenly the road appeared unfamiliar; I gathered courage and asked tudu “where are we heading Tudu”.
After about half an hour, we stopped in a dark dead desert. “it’s the old graveyard gandhi” he pointed to a deserted dark gate and told me to go to the one of the corner room of the place. Now I was about to faint, I said Tudu “are you joking, or what” but he was adamant. “If you were not frightened yesterday then show me your courage by going to the corner room alone and I will join you there”, before I could reply, he disappeared in the dark night. I felt numb, a sense of fear was gripping me, I tried to locate him but Tudu was nowhere visible. I heard the familiar voice from the distant room, someone was waving from the dark, “come on gandhi” and I head toward the dark figure.
There he was sitting in that small dingy room with one open window, there was drop dead silence and all I could hear was the cold air waves making deadly sounds. He made me sit beside him, “are you afraid, gandhi”. I try to saw outside the windows and immediately took my eyes away as I saw lot of dark figures out there. Well frankly speaking, I was with tudu and there was no question of being afraid, but to me taking unnecessary and outrageous risk was pointless.
“Why did you took your eyes away from the darkness” and he gave me most beautiful experience of my life. “Fear is always Unknown, just know it and you are fearless, more you take your eyes away from the unknown more you are into the fear of it, just face it and there is no fear”, and I again peeped out of the window. I kept my eyes on each and every dark object and suddenly the view outside appeared very normal, for the first time I could sense it was almost a full moon night and the moonlight was magical outside. The cool wind sound appeared musical to me and tude pointed to each and every object we could see together. He was right, the abstract objects were now clear to my eyes and there was no sense of fear inside. For almost half an hour we sat there and talked about lot of things, and I was clear about the fact “don’t try to run away from the unknown, just face it and you will be fearless”. We were heading back and I was thinking how beautiful all this was, unaware of the fact that life is going to take an instant test…….
My thoughts came to an abrupt end when motorcycle stopped with a screeching sound, tudu tilted the bike and a big stone passed brushing my ear. There stood an insane man with long beard and torn clothes. He screamed and threw another stone, tudu immediately got down from the bike and picked a stone and threw in the opposite direction, and the man ran away making obnoxious sounds. I knew, the confrontation instead of running away was the right thing tudu did. We both laughed and patted each other. I hugged him, I knew this time is never gonna come again and I wanted to live it forever.
“bang, Bang, BANG”. Drop dead silence of the cold wintry night was broken with this heavy voice asking me to open the door. I was just dumb struck, who might it be. Though it was very common for someone to drop at our door at any given hour, as our “Peeli Kothi” was center for every activity, being just yards away from the institute. We were 4 idiots living in there, Bheda “the Bull”, Josh “the lazy perfectionist”, harry “the bespectacled intelligent” and yours truly “the lean villager”, “gawti” as they used to call me. We were very closely knitted bunch of guys at instii, as there were only 30 of us. So the “Peeli kothi” was free lunch home for every hungry stomach, it was bathroom for every stinking fellow, it was a playground for sports frenzy guys, it was bedroom for those afternoon naps, it was the booz bar for those unwarranted celebration of no occasions and above all it was answer to every question you can’t get answered at instii.
“Khol Be, warna darwaza tod dunga” [Open, else I will break the door], I collected my senses and answered in a very confident tone, who’s there?, I knew bull & party are not going to give any ear to this as I was the occupant of the front room of the kothi and declared “darbaan”[gateman] too.
So by the next morning, I was a declared mouse by Shonee, the night intruder, despite giving so many valid excuses, I was the talk of the tea sipping, samosa munching future managers that “gandhi, darr gaya”. All this didn’t go well with Tudu, as I was one of his favorite junior, and he was more than a mentor to me, he kept asking me, “is this all true” and I kept denying. But he was not digesting my excuses and reasons, all he was telling me, why I didn’t open the door on the very first BANG. I could see a deep silence on his face, I knew he was upset.
It was almost midnight, and I heard the familiar sound of Tudu’s MIG-27, his motorcycle. I opened the door and he said “chal, gandhi”. We never used to question him as there was no biological clock in our system at the instii. The motorcycle was running at a constant pace, the engine sound was, all I could hear in that dark wintry night. Suddenly the road appeared unfamiliar; I gathered courage and asked tudu “where are we heading Tudu”.
After about half an hour, we stopped in a dark dead desert. “it’s the old graveyard gandhi” he pointed to a deserted dark gate and told me to go to the one of the corner room of the place. Now I was about to faint, I said Tudu “are you joking, or what” but he was adamant. “If you were not frightened yesterday then show me your courage by going to the corner room alone and I will join you there”, before I could reply, he disappeared in the dark night. I felt numb, a sense of fear was gripping me, I tried to locate him but Tudu was nowhere visible. I heard the familiar voice from the distant room, someone was waving from the dark, “come on gandhi” and I head toward the dark figure.
There he was sitting in that small dingy room with one open window, there was drop dead silence and all I could hear was the cold air waves making deadly sounds. He made me sit beside him, “are you afraid, gandhi”. I try to saw outside the windows and immediately took my eyes away as I saw lot of dark figures out there. Well frankly speaking, I was with tudu and there was no question of being afraid, but to me taking unnecessary and outrageous risk was pointless.
“Why did you took your eyes away from the darkness” and he gave me most beautiful experience of my life. “Fear is always Unknown, just know it and you are fearless, more you take your eyes away from the unknown more you are into the fear of it, just face it and there is no fear”, and I again peeped out of the window. I kept my eyes on each and every dark object and suddenly the view outside appeared very normal, for the first time I could sense it was almost a full moon night and the moonlight was magical outside. The cool wind sound appeared musical to me and tude pointed to each and every object we could see together. He was right, the abstract objects were now clear to my eyes and there was no sense of fear inside. For almost half an hour we sat there and talked about lot of things, and I was clear about the fact “don’t try to run away from the unknown, just face it and you will be fearless”. We were heading back and I was thinking how beautiful all this was, unaware of the fact that life is going to take an instant test…….
My thoughts came to an abrupt end when motorcycle stopped with a screeching sound, tudu tilted the bike and a big stone passed brushing my ear. There stood an insane man with long beard and torn clothes. He screamed and threw another stone, tudu immediately got down from the bike and picked a stone and threw in the opposite direction, and the man ran away making obnoxious sounds. I knew, the confrontation instead of running away was the right thing tudu did. We both laughed and patted each other. I hugged him, I knew this time is never gonna come again and I wanted to live it forever.
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