Young Writers Society

5.

Mess Time II

After seen lot of bad stuff in college last night, I woke up from my unconscious state. As I opened my eyes, I saw Prof. Gupta was sitting beside me and his eyes were all wet.

“Where they took his body?” I said in a worried tone.

For the first three minutes, Prof. remained silent. After wiping all big tears from his face, he said:

“Congrats boy, you had done tremendous job. I am feeling so proud today.”

“Proud …?” I was not able to understood that why he said that proud thing.

He again started watching my face.

“Yeah it’s our first victory; albeit we lost our soldier so what war needs blood in place of the freedom.” He sounds very patriotic.

I was still solving the puzzle.

“Tell me Prof where Rajan’s body is?”

“His body is preparing to meet with the holy fire and soul to the divine god.” Prof. Gupta was sounding like a Mahatma.

“Be straight, sir”

“You know what was happened last night.” He said by pointing his finger towards the main gate.

“Yeah, it was a horrible night. I will never forgive that fucking doc.”

“Yeah, may be you not, but it will not hurt him. We have to know the exact reason behind Rajan’s death.” Prof. said looking into my eyes.

“Sir, he died due to the food poisoning, trust me. Have you not noticed the unhygienic condition of our univ hostel? I am cent percent sure. I have a full proof.” I tried to gain the confidence of Prof. Gupta. I wanted to know this hostel thing in detailed version.

“What proof, pal?” he asked by raising his bushy eyebrows.

“I know everything about this shit.”

“If you are so confident then at night we shall go inside the hostel to resolve this mystery.” He said in a secretive window dressing.

“Done sir, I am in” I said very enthusiastically. “But…..sir I wanna ask you one thing.”

“Yeah, go ahead boy.”

“Why have you said that war needs blood and why were you congratulating me on rajan’s death?” I asked while scratching my ass in search of the answers.

“Dig deep and get your answers.”

I stood still with my hand on my ass and he went after giving his philosophical answer.

………………

At 11: oo pm, we entered into the hostel without breaking the REM sleep of the security guard. Prof. Gupta was taking every step in his own James bond style. The entire hostel was lost in the darkness. We had switched ON our big torch to make the things visible. As we reached the mess area, we had seen the real portrait of that grotty mess. Now the entire picture was clear that why every year students die due to severe illness. There everything looked messy. The plates kept in the wrong side where everyone urinates. The frogs and lizards were playing on the plates. As we moved towards the food shell, I vomited. What a dirty smell that was.

“What are you doing Ratan?” Prof. asked aggressively.

I made an instant apology for my mistake and actively removed that vomit from that place. Prof. Gupta was like Amir Khan, Mr. Perfectionist. He disliked even an iota mistake in his work. Moreover, I made a huge mistake in his mission via vomiting. I got panicky after watching his ugly looking face in the torch light. However, I removed my eyes from his face and signalled him to proceed ahead.

“what the fuck these students consume here.” Prof. said in worried tone.

“Sir, this is the reason behind the Rajan’s death.” I said.

“yeah but we have to dig more. May be we get more info.”

Prof was getting worried and more worried because we were in the mess area and yet we had to explore many things. We hardly breathing in that food shell. We came out after suffocating a lot. Now, only water could remove our suffocation. As I lifted the lid of the water tank, I saw sand more than the water. A shiver ran via my body. I called Prof. gupta immediately.

“Sir, see I got one more clue here.”

Prof. was busy in clicking photographs of the mess and the food shell as if he was doing a photo shoot with kingfisher models. This time he heard my voice.

“What have you discovered?” he asked after taking a glance over my discovery.

“Water tank,” I gave an instant reply.

“Water tan……..” Prof had switched off his torch after absorbing the last word ‘tank’ in his mouth.

When I asked the genuine reason for this absorbance, he said:

“Time to hide somewhere. Run”

For a while, I thought that he was gone mad. He was acting like a psychic patient. May be it was the outcome of the bad impact of that smell which was coming from the food shell. Nevertheless, after few seconds the whole confusion was clear. I saw a light and a man’s voice heading towards the mess area. He was the warden of the hostel.

“Hey, who’s there?” Warden shouts.

We hid in bloody food shell after hearing that voice. It was too hard to control your breath over there. That fucking smell gained the full control over my head. Again, I started feeling crap. That smell was leading me near to death.

I started making some jerk noises in the food shell. Prof Gupta tried to normalise me in that situation but his attempt became useless. After hearing so much noise from the food shell the warden caught both of us red handed.

I was in very bad state; I was behaving like a mad dog. Prof. held my hand in the entire journey (from hostel to warden’s office). I took my seat in the corner my situation was very sarcastic.

“So what were you doing inside the mess area?” warden asked a straight question.

“We were just searching Ratan’s id. He lost it somewhere in the hostel’s mess area.” Prof. replied humbly.

“What his id doing in the mess area, eating paranthas?” Warden was in the mood to play KBC with Prof. Gupta.

“Sir, he is that faculty who helped your boy in the time when he was suffering pain in his maw.” Prof. shouts angrily this time.

The warden’s condition became pathetic at that time when Prof. roared at him angrily.

“Sir, I am so sorry. I got it. Ok, then tomorrow, I will arrange a meeting with director sahib. I want to give him a big honorable prize for his bravery and kindness.”

“Thank you sir, but I don’t wanna repeat the history.”

I was sitting in one corner like a mad dog and hearing their talks. Still, I feel crap when I recall this ‘history’ line of Prof. Gupta. It shows his good and caring character. He did not want to let me die. He loved me as my dad. That night I had seen his other side and I remained sitting like a mad dog but this time a bright smile was on my face and I was continuously looking towards Prof. Gupta.