Young Writers Society

4.

Mess Time I

After dinner, I went for a walk within the university premises. Lights were ON in few buildings. I was walking and simultaneously burping, I had eaten a lot and feeling little sleepy after a heavy prandial, so I had chosen the smooth and silky grass of univ garden for a small nap. After some time, I heard someone running scarily fast.

“Hey, why are you running so fast?” I asked after blowing a whistle.

He took a moment to calm down.

“Sir Rajan.” He marked a full stop after throwing two simple and familiar words at me.

“What happened to Rajan?” I enquired.

“Sir, help me, please?”

“Yeah, but, what happened? Why are you shivering?” I again enquired but this time in a more humble manner.

Nevertheless, without saying anything, he started running towards the hostel. I followed him and reached there in a minute. I blew away when I saw the pathetic condition of that grotty place. I could not even imagine that condition. On one side, such good facilities provided to the teachers but on the other side, the senior students were suffering lot of pain by living in that bull shit. I entered into the room, where Rajan was lying on the bed like a dead man. That room was so small for three people to live in. He was roaring in the severe pain.

“Call warden or security guard for help.” I ordered while analysing rajan’s fatty maw.

After hearing my question, everyone in that room started looking at their dumb faces. After getting no answer from them, I had sent two of his roommates to call the doctor who sat in the univ campus until 10 pm. After talking via expressions, one lad opened his mouth.

“Sir I am Avinash. Right now, we are coming from the warden’s office, he is not there.”

“What!” I exclaimed in surprise. “And what about the guard”

“Sir he never comes at night. He daily drinks and slams students who plead for help.” Avinash told me the entire story.

I was amazed. My situation was not good. I was not thinking straight. My mind generated lot of questions for me. I had totally lost my mind by seeing Rajan’s pathetic condition; it was going worse and worse. He started lifting his chest outwards. In addition, my heart shifted to my throat after watching him in this manner. He was acting as if someone had thrown the voodoo curse on him.

I encouraged him so that he remained with me until the doc came. After few minutes, his roommates came inside with terrifying news.

“Sir, Doc is not in his clinic. We searched him everywhere.”

What to do now, no one was there for help. I was paying the cost of being a teacher. Albeit, students were helping by putting their heart and soul in saving Rajan’s life and I had also appreciated the unity among the students. By watching the dedication towards their sick friend, my excitement level also raised up. I took that sick boy in my lap and reached the main gate. In the tensed state, we were finding the security guard so that he would call the doc who all the time claims for his twenty-four hours service (opened especially for the students). Everyone started the rescue mission to find out that bully security guard. After sometime, a giant appeared on the scene. He was six feet tall, muscular and looked like one of the relative of ‘Great Khali’. He was looking terrific.

“Stop, stop you little maggots.” He shouted.

“Hey hold on boy, no need to shout. We are not captives.”I tried to normalise that hulk.

“Who are you? Now you will tell me when I have to shout. Just keep your mouth shut otherwise I will cut your body into small-small pieces.” He again shouts but this time he took out his sharp knife. For a while, I made my mouth shut but I was a faculty and some cheapo gateman going mad at me. Suddenly my ego raised inside me. I started yelling at him.

“You son of a bitch, you know to whom you are talking to?” I was in a full flow.

“No, who are you, Son of Birla or Tata?” he started laughing. While laughing he was constantly showing his yellow decayed teeth. In addition, that horrid smell which was coming directly from his mouth had activated my medulla.

“I am faculty of electronics and communication department.” I showed him the real picture.

Suddenly a rapid change came in his attitude.

“Oh! I am so sorry sir. Please don’t make my grouse to higher officials.” He pleaded.

“It’s ok. Right now, call doc this boy is ill. May be he got food poisoning.” I ordered him.

He quickly ran from that spot and everyone stared at me as if I was captain America or something like that. However, my whole attention was towards Rajan, his body started burning up. He was fainted. I was losing my sentiments. Approx. fifteen minutes were past and neither that hulky guard nor doc came for that sick boy. I laid his body down and along with his roommate; I went to search the doc.

First, we rang the doorbell of his house. An aged woman opened the door.

“Who are you, beta?” She asked in a broken voice.

“Mam, I am Ratan I want to meet Dr. Chadda.” I replied.

“But, he is not here. Check the directors’ dream house at MBA block. You found him there.”

That woman closed the door and we marched towards the MBA block.

“Sir, will he get alright?” the boy asked in a shivering voice.

“Yeah, lad he will. We are doing the right job.” I encouraged him via showing him some sympathy.

“Sir, nobody will come. He has to die .We are not doing good job.”

After hearing that weird statement from twenty two year old chap, I got goose bumps on my hands.

“Gone mad or what!” I scolded him.

“In every SEM someone dies. Sometimes two or three, I know this hostel shit. You are unaware of what kinda things happening over here.” He said mournfully.

My heartbeat started beating fast.

“Sir, being a faculty why you are helping a student and by doing this what do you wanna show?” this time he asked by directly seeing into my eyes.

“Nope, I don’t wanna show anything. Right now, I am fulfilling my aim. That’s all.” I replied to the Einstein’s query.

“Your aim, what kinda aim?”

“To save my student’s life, that’s my aim. Got it you knapsack.”

After getting my answer, in the whole journey towards MBA block he remained silent. May be my last answer had satisfied all his queries. After few minutes, we reached our destination. We ran with the speed of bolt so that we catch the doc as early as possible.

As we had found the dream house, I told the boy to wait outside because house is for faculty members only. No student allowed peeping inside. Inside the house, everyone was dancing and enjoying their drinks including doc and that bully guard. No one bothered who was coming inside. Everyone was busy in fun-n-frolic. After watching all this shit, my blood started boiling. My face turned red. I approached the guard and smashed his face onto the table. He got half-dead. I was unaware that all the HODs were also there. My focus was on the guard and the doc. After closing the chapter of hulky guard, I approached the doc to end his life. At a sudden like a sankatmochan, fatso HOD of ECE department came in front to protect his beloved doc.

“Stop boy what are you doing?” fatso asked.

“Sorry sir I will not. I wanna kill this bastard.” I replied very aggressively.

“But he is our univ doctor and without any reason you wanna kill him. This is not fair.” Fatso said after consuming the lager.

“This is totally fair. One student at front gate is on the verge of losing his life and you all are doing party over here.”

“So? No one gave us the notice that someone is sick” fatso gave his clear explanation.

“I had sent the guard to inform the doc but this moron had not told him.” I said via pointing my finger towards doc. “Or may be our univ doc is not serious about his patient. I don’t think so that he had not given you the info”

“Hold your tongue young man. You haven’t any right to accuse me,” Doc gave me his first and last warning.

“Ok. So come with me.”

The doc’s eyes started searching some place to hide. His forehead got all wet due to sweat. I was assuming that might be all the problems of that boy shifted to doc. I know this is a very superstitious and hideous thought but at that time, it was not me, my anger was controlling my mind. Later the doc agreed and we reached at the main gate. Everyone was silent at the gate. No movements were visible in the crowd as we went near. After watching the gloomy faces of the students, I started getting a bad intuition about Rajan’s health. The doc also started his work. After analysing everything, he rotated his face towards me and said casually:

“The boy is dead.”

“Dead…? What are you saying? It is impossible.” I was broken into pieces after listening to this terrific news in a very casual manner.

I was not feeling anything my whole world gone upside down. My heart attached with his heart. Slowly, my eye shutters went down and after that, I had hardly seen anything, where they took his body.