The perfect beginning.
It is just one of my many obsessions. Along with the flawless finish.
Be it my writing, a rough sketch or even a soliloquy of advice and pep-talk, for me, if the start involves even the tiniest of a stumble, the process is no longer worth half the effort.
Hordes are the wise sayings emphasizing the importance of the journey, sometimes more so than the destination, yet I subconsciously hold on to this compulsion, often slowing me down and stopping me in my tracks than help in any way.
College was little different.
Perhaps the fault lay in what I chose to mark as my starting point.
The entrance exam results, the seat allotment, the admission process - none of these figured in my concept of 'the beginning'.
To me, my campus life set off with my first day in MMC&RI, 3 days behind everybody else's schedule. All I could focus on were my shortcomings, my misgivings and unfounded fears.
Two weeks into classes, I gradually became good friends with many of my batchmates, though initially I had a hard time recalling everyone's names.
("Her name's Keerti, right? Oh, Kriti?"
"Hey Shruthi. No, Shilpa. Oops, Shwetha?"
"Bibi Najmus Sahar. What do I call you?!")
I grew closest to Samreen and Ashitha, in whose shared ground floor room I was to be found at all times, having to return to my own to sleep, as their crammed quarters had no space for me to crash in on the floor. The three of us found company in misery as we discovered some sadistic comfort in each others' homesickness and unfulfilled expectations.
Samreen and I were closer still thanks to the fact that we were the only ones from our year fasting for Ramadan. After an initial trial of surviving on bread and other off-the-shelf eatables, we got ourselves a tiny stove to master the hostel essentials of Maggi noodles, ready-to-eat soups and toast.
The fasting period also saw me, and eventually Samreen, brought under the wing of my final year mentor, Namiya Di (or Namiyatha, as we called her).
Those days me and Sam found it hard to juggle hibernation-inducing classes with a schedule modified for pre-dawn meals and late night talks, but the adversity we faced together then was what sealed our company tight.
Both of us were resentful how the cadavers in our dissection hall held more life than our campus; the fear of the unknown further aggravated our apprehension towards anything Kannada and we kept listing the merits of education in our own state every chance we got. We loathed the restrictions imposed upon us by the various departments, wondering what difference college had to grant from school life, except for the homesickness, loneliness and extra load of work.
Anything from an extra sunny day to the bland vegetarian food was enough to push us into another day filled with the blues.
So worked up was I that I kept pestering my sister in Trivandrum Medical College to look for prospective mutual transfers, and my parents to concentrate on the official website for our seat allotment just in case there was a third round of counselling.
After a much-needed bashing from Dad, it was clear that I was just making mountains of molehills, shamelessly ungrateful for all the obstacles I had gotten zapped from out of the way. I was simply stubborn not to look at the bright side of things, at my parents good intentions, at the larger scheme of things.
Slowly but surely I accepted my fate and it was a long time before regret turned into contentment.
Meanwhile, I, all my life having been closest to people from all over India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, had to land in Mysore to form part of an exclusive circle of Keralites, us six hostelites more a family than friends.
This close-knit mini-community didn't go unnoticed by the seniors as when Fresher's Day rolled around, a Final year student insisted we do something to highlight the 'Malayalee factor' or whatever weird idea she had.
As much as we tried out of it, due to the sheer absurdity of the suggestion, she stayed adamant.Unwilling to risk her wrath, we decided to go the easy way out by offering to perform a Malayalam group song, which meant no hassles regarding costumes, choreography or dialogs.
None of us were trained singers and thus no one was willing to lead. We had hardly a day to figure out the song, practice and perform alongwith a glitch that no one would let us open our mouths anywhere in the hostel, our tone-deaf notes sheer cacophony to their collective ear.
We managed to get hold of some karaoke music from a nearby net café to use in the background, and chose a personal favorite as what we'd be crooning onstage.
Copying the downloaded files into a CD, a pen drive and our cell phones for good measure, our next mission was to find a place to break into tune as clandestine as though we were robbing the Central Bank.
Settling for the moss-laden kitchen of our mess, we practised the song into the night, our throats hoarse after attempting notes never before seen by our larynges, a mobile phone providing the music we had downloaded earlier.
In line with the Mysore Medical College tradition, we freshers were ordered to wear saris on the big day hardly 48 hours before we were supposed to don the yards-long attire. Outwardly we joked we'd substitute saris with curtains or bed-sheets in case we ran out of luck, but scared of facing anyone's anger, those of us who couldn't get any from seniors or local guardians ended up buying them just for the occasion.
Thankfully, a day or two before the event, my parents and little sister arrived in the Heritage city of Karnataka, lugging several sets of saris for the trio, like door-to-door salesmen. As backup, I asked my eldest sister to come down from Bangalore with her own collection.
The day of the disaster, Sam, Ash and I went over to the suite where my parents were staying and got busy being wrapped and packaged. We could see the impending doom looming in clear view and wanted to just get the whole thing done with.
My brother-in-law dropped us off in front of our auditorium, where bystanders were curiously eyeing the sleek black Honda from which three sari-clad girls, who obviously wanted to be anywhere else in the world then, shuffled out, trying unsuccessfully to stay invisible.
After the initial inhibition, we started clicking photos and complimenting everyone in sight, fishing for more than a few ourselves.
We quickly sought sanctuary of the hall, moving as fast as our heels and saris would permit.
Once inside, we found our seats right in the front, and sat through several speeches my mother was later raving about, but I couldn't, for the life of me, have cared to pay attention to.
An oath against drug intake or something along those lines followed, with the cultural programmes right ahead.
Only, we were 'approached' to perform first. Unwilling to be booed at first thing that evening, we cooked up some excuse and led our class boys to perform their skit instead.
Not that it bought us much time, yet in the slightest hopes the audience were still thinking about the previous performance, we ambled onstage after the sound operators insisted we give them the untried pen drive instead of a CD.
The curtains having avoided cycles of raising and falling in between performances meant that the audience could observe us from our first to last steps on and off the platform.
We proceeded centre-stage, the mic pointing in my direction, waiting for the music to start.
Taking in the sight of a half-filled auditorium staring back at us.
Waiting.
Trying to look for familiar faces in the crowd.
And waiting.
Straining our ears to hear beyond the chatter of the spectators.
Waiting still.
And finally realizing when a sudden high note started playing, that we were already halfway into the song.
The crowd went wild. This was simply hilarious.
Eight girls standing there in the middle of the stage doing nothing but smiling. Amidst all the howling and booing, we spontaneously picked up from where we had missed out and continued the song.
If the previous reaction was anything to blush by, the one that followed required a whole new set of facial blood supply to match their enthusiasm.
No one in their most ridiculous dreams had imagined an unprecedented attempt at a Malayalam song on Fresher's Day at MMC.
That goes for those few that recognized the language.
In the meantime, the folly of having never checked the file before playing it hit us, as it was a very different version that was accompanying our sorry efforts at stringing together a tune, to match up to the unpredictable background.
Caught in the middle of all that, there still were two things in our favor:
1 - 99% of the audience had never heard the song before and had no idea how bad things were turning out.
2 - The hooting was so loud and intense, even we couldn't hear ourselves sing.
So lousy was the situation, we never even understood when the music ended.
But what topped off the performance was the back rows screaming, "ONCE MORE!!!" repeatedly.
Soon as we escaped backstage, Sam and I burst out laughing. So memorably pathetic was the whole thing, we couldn't have asked for a better way to etch the day deep into our minds.
At first, we were quite hesitant to make our way downstage, still red-faced from the encounter. We peeked in to the hall and saw that everyone's eyes and ears were glued once again to the stage.
Only then did it dawn upon me that I had family in the audience.
Wonderful - there's fodder for a week's dinnertime gossip, I thought, as we made our way towards them.
Just as I was sitting down, the current item began - a band of 4 or 5, and 'fresh' as I was, I had no idea who were from our batch, and who not.
The lead singer was strumming the guitar, with a light accompaniment of the other instruments, as his lips slowly parted and he set about working his magic.
Boy, were we spellbound.
"Now, THAT's how you should sing," my brother-in-law rubbed in. I couldn't help but agree begrudgingly.
A couple of equally mesmerizing songs later, the band-mates were introduced, and it was a pleasant surprise to note that the only first-year student there was this guy, who I felt was blessed with the greatest stage presence, major talent and even good looks. Oh well, what if we couldn't shine, at least there are other gems in our batch.
Although we didn't have Rahul's fortune of presenting a stunning performance, there's no denying we did shock them our own way.
The last event of the day was a fusion dance by our girls, who pulled it off rather well, despite finalizing everything from the costume to the choreography barely hours before the program.
While everyone was just glad it was over, the eight songbirds were lost in thought - ours was the only show that flopped, the whole evening.
Yet, no one really remembered the catastrophe as much as we did, and nobody was as tickled by it.
In retrospect, I guess sometimes the worst experiences get spun as the best memories, just as how, often, the most beautiful moments are the most painful to recall.
Until the next session of pain and pleasure,
Ciao.
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