And gave birth to that greatest of all date rape drugs?

Sweet Rolypoly, make my inbox immortal with thy presence.

It was one of those rare mornings when I stepped out of my room after a night of peaceful slumber and not a night spent in doing whatever it is that idle hostellers do while not sleeping in the nights while fitful gusts whisper here and there outside among the bushes half leafless and dry, and while stars look very cold about the Chennai sky. Keats, sonnet IX.

I am a bit fanciful as far as the outside world is concerned. I spend almost all of my time in tiny rooms, so I feel excited whenever I have a chance to step outside. My brain might have been culturally preprogrammed, but I like the feel of bright warm sun on my skin, and I like the way my hair feels when the wind brushes past my neck and my ear.

As I stepped outside, the coolness of the morning breeze filled my lungs. The almost dewy air touching my cheek felt like pricks, but they softened the sight of the bright sun rays. It looked almost as radiant as that bright morning scene in a Tim Burton movie where the hero, pronounced dead in the Vietnam war, had returned to kiss his betrothed. It was my first morning sun in two months.

To many the best part of waking up early in C** might seem to be the beautiful mornings. But as beautiful as the mornings are, to a more discerning mind, no doubt it is the breakfast in the mess which would be the best part, particularly when one didn’t have it in the past two months in spite of being charged for it. I guess all undergrad hostels are full of such optimists who plan turning a new leaf in their lives starting with regular breakfasts, but never wake up in time.

Since I had neither been pronounced dead nor was I engaged to any girl waiting for me to be kissed, not that I mind kissing girls I am not engaged to, I proceeded towards the canteen.

As I was making my way, I spotted Riya in the distance. The basket in her hand was full of Jasmine. Her white dress and the white flowers and her wet hair filled up my head, and I yelled to ask her if the spring had arrived. She stopped near me while passing and like always, bent her head slightly, looking at me from the corner of her eyes with a nice smile that always demands reciprocation. Usually she speaks coyly after this ritual acknowledging my existence, “Yeh tum ho kya (Is that you)?” But today she only offered me a flower and went away. I wanted to stop and tell her that she had made me a fine day, or a fine morning at least. After a moment of hesitation, however, I decided that not missing my breakfast was more important.

The first hints of grey clouds appeared in the horizon when Jay(ant)h stopped me while I was entering the mess and exclaimed, “What were you thinking?” I was going to observe that that he looked incredibly handsome, but he did not wait to hear the compliment. I realised that the question had not been literal. It meant there was something I did not know, something I should have known, something I must know at once.

I finished by breakfast as soon as possible and went to the lab to check my mailbox. There was only one mail waiting for me there. It was from Professor SS, who had no business sending any kind of mail to me. I opened it anyway. It had two lines, and all the letters were capitalised. It ran thus -

WHO IS THIS INCORRIGIBLE INTROVERT?

REPORT TO ME AT 9AM SHARP TOMORROW.

I noticed that the mail had been CCed to all undergraduates. It was true that I had attended only one of his lectures that semester, but that was not reason enough for such a rude mail, particularly when one considers my attendance in other classes. To the best of my knowledge, he didn’t even know who I was, because he had once chastised A(cha)l mistaking him for me.

Then I checked the mail it came in reply to, and my heart sank.

An(irb)it, whenever he is inspired to be kind to his fellow human beings, sends them spam. On the previous night, he had sent us a spam about some phoney Date Rape Drug called RolyPoly, and had warned us that someone might want to try it on us.

I found the suggestion extremely ridiculous, of course. For one thing, a significant proportion of the population wouldn’t even mind being date raped (yes, scarcity of girls can do that to you. it’s all hormones.). And who in his right mind would want to dope and date rape a C** student anyway?!

Before going to sleep, I said as much in reply to his mail -

Who in his right mind would want to dope and date rape a C** student anyway?!

For some inscrutable reason, An(irb)it’s recipient list had included SS, which I did not notice before hitting on the “reply all” button. That explained the state of the affairs that far.

My mail had been an instant success. Everyone who had considered me a waste of space before now wanted to give me all sorts of advice, and assured me that even though he lacked that thing called temper, SS was fundamentally a nice man. I couldn’t go through the corridor without being interrupted by people who wanted to know all about the affair. I was an instant celebrity.

I tried to live up to everyone’s expectation for a while and tried being miserable. After being miserable for some time, I went on to join An(shu)l in watching a movie in his room. That night, I went to bed early so that I could wake up in time to meet him. With a curious sense of foreboding, I fell asleep.

To Be Continued… (very soon)

But I couldn’t accuse myself of inartistry, simply because inartistic doesn’t have a noun form.

There is no entry for inartistry in the dictionary!

I don’t get it. Why not accept inartistry? There might be some pedantic grammatical reason for it after all, but my casual survey reveals nothing. It is only fair that the word should be accepted by the lexicographers, because there is no other word which expresses the idea with such precision and eloquence.

I have already used it in one of my earlier posts for the want of a better word (the first word of fifth paragraph), but nobody seemed to notice it.

It will be delightful if any of my readers could shed some more light on this matter.

I am an awkward man. I have struggled with myself for some time trying to decide whether to write you this mail or tell you in person. I have not been much of a conversationalist, however, so I decided to write this mail.

Forgive the folly of a man who doesn’t talk much about himself when he finally talks about himself, for this mail is going to be long.

I am aware of the impression I have made on you and those around you in general. My apparently apathetic and indifferent disposition, however, comes from my own innate paranoia of rejection, the fear of not getting talked back to, the fear of not getting a smile back. It’s not an air I intend to put on, it’s just how I come across after my over-active imagination compensates for my lack of confidence.

You were one of the few to smile at me first in spite of what has been described as my unfriendly appearance (it happened early in college, you probably don’t even remember). I wasn’t in love with you back then, but still you made a deep impression; very few people ever smiled at me without having known me for some time first. It was a nice gesture from you, one that had made me immensely happy, because I didn’t consider you as a friend back then. It’s just a silly irrelevant detail, but this is probably my only chance to tell you what a big difference it made.

Inartistry in the name sensibility would be no fit tribute for you, and though much less I must say than what I mean, much more I must mean than what I say, for what is the man who insists on calling a spade a spade but a farmer? I am no farmer, but the want of sensibility and the risk of being mistaken for mockery with my flattery restrains me.

Bad literature, more often than not, is an expression of genuine feelings. That alone couldn’t have stopped me either, but the social cynicism fashionable in this place ties my tongue.

Besides, I don’t think I could do enough justice to what I have to say no matter how long I prepared for it or how sincerely I said it.

So I’ll simply say this – you are the prettiest angel I have seen in my entire life, and I love you. I have loved you to distraction, with all my desperation, to the point of utter misery and bitter happiness from which I never made it back. You have been the woman of my life.

I am hopelessly in love with you.

I barely know you, it is true, but it has been too long to give any name to what I feel for you other than love. Idiotic, I know, but love is such a blind fool!

I had a hope, for some time. I hoped to know you better. I hoped to spend some time with you. I don’t know if I tried enough or not, but all I could manage to do was sweating profusely in front of you while nervously waiting for others to finish their conversation. To my relief, you have always smiled at me, and at times I have felt that that is more than I could ever take before being overwhelmed and melting at your feet. You have no idea how much your smiles have meant to me.

Time has run out, I guess, but not before I finally told you of what I felt, and I am glad for that. I have probably made a colossal fool out of myself!

My only excuse for writing this letter is my faith in the epigram that women forgive adoration. Please don’t be offended, all I am offering you is my admiration, and I am not asking you anything in return. I have been thoroughly miserable all these years being in love with you, and I assume I couldn’t ask for any more happiness than that given our
circumstances.

Please don’t get mad at me. And anyway I won’t have the courage to come before you after this ever again.

So goodbye, and good luck in whatever you do in life.

Truly yours,
Incorrigible Introvert

W. B. Yeats

This reminds me of another beautiful story by R N Tagore, called Aparichitaa about a guy who doesn’t marry this girl because of dowry issues (actually, he is submissive kind of guy and it was really his uncle who was responsible for all that) and then falls in love with her in a train journey (they had never met). I think I’ll write about Tagore next.

I did another night-out yesterday. I watched another morning, another sunrise. Another sunrise from behind the hostel. To watch the warm sun in a beautifully coloured sky and to breath in the cool morning air, to look at the foggy air and the world in a subdued colour, and the patches of colour between radiant clouds, oh what crap!

I.

No one’s serious at seventeen.
–On beautiful nights when beer and lemonade
And loud, blinding cafés are the last thing you need
–You stroll beneath green lindens on the promenade.

Lindens smell fine on fine June nights!
Sometimes the air is so sweet that you close your eyes;
The wind brings sounds–the town is near–
And carries scents of vineyards and beer. . .

II.

–Over there, framed by a branch
You can see a little patch of dark blue
Stung by a sinister star that fades
With faint quiverings, so small and white. . .

June nights! Seventeen!–Drink it in.
Sap is champagne, it goes to your head. . .
The mind wanders, you feel a kiss
On your lips, quivering like a living thing. . .

III.

The wild heart Crusoes through a thousand novels
–And when a young girl walks alluringly
Through a streetlamp’s pale light, beneath the ominous shadow
Of her father’s starched collar. . .

Because as she passes by, boot heels tapping,
She turns on a dime, eyes wide,
Finding you too sweet to resist. . .
–And cavatinas die on your lips.

IV.

You’re in love. Off the market till August.
You’re in love.–Your sonnets make Her laugh.
Your friends are gone, you’re bad news.
–Then, one night, your beloved, writes. . .!

That night. . .you return to the blinding cafés;
You order beer or lemonade. . .
–No one’s serious at seventeen
When lindens line the promenade.

— Arthur Rimbaud