The Campus Of Blinding Lights I thought that the anticipation for the results of our first internal exam would be palpable. I had visions of our daily routine being replaced by tense apprehension. The happy-go-lucky attitude of my batch was now going to be replaced by the constant questioning of why we were here. Nope. None of those things happened. It was like we had never even had an exam. I continued to sleep in class, eat miniscule amounts of inedible gruel, lose weight, and be a constant source of laughs for my fellow batchmates. I thought it would have taken longer to get into a semi-regular routine at this place. But with me not even being cognizant of the fact, routine had settled in. I wasn't conscious of it. I just noticed it one not-so-fine morning. I woke up and got out of my bed to the tune of C.J. Lewis' "Sweets For My Sweet". I opened the door and stepped out of my cell. I took a few minutes to survey the scene. Across the way I saw Mike holding a bathroom mug in one hand and brushing his teeth with the other. What little hair he had left due to the constant poisoning of his scalp by hard water was sticking up in a pathetic afro that suggested that maybe he should wear a nightcap. Next door, Ajit's door was closed as usual. Ajit had a frequent habit of missing class due to a variety of ailments and infirmities. A popular one was the diarrhea. But since I had it so often, it became more and more difficult to justify missing a class for the odd case of loose motion (fobspeak for diarrhea). Other popular choices were migraines, stomach aches, and the clap. On the opposite side of me was Anil The Crazed. Since he was now a house surgeon (fobspeak for intern), he was never really around. This was quite the blessing because I pretty much couldn't stand the son of a bitch. He tried to dissect my forearm, after all. The early morning hour before class was a bustle of activity. Guys were up early to pilfer the one copy of the local newspaper appropriately titled, "The Hindu". Every morning the local thumbies (plural fobspeak for drones) brought a big canister of coffee for our enjoyment. Thumbies were like the little local gnomes who performed menial tasks for the average stipend of 5 rupees a day. Kathy Lee aint got nothing on sweatshop labor. Sadly, you had to wake up really early to enjoy a cup of joe. Once those fumes of freshly brewed java hit the air, it was like lions to the slaughter. The canister held about 2 gallons (give or take) of the brown brew for about 300 hostelites. Since I've forgotten high school math, I'm not going to break that down. Suffice is to say that there wasn't enough for everybody, especially since Mike had this huge glass beer mug which carried a liter of whatever fluid he sought fit. So every morning, he would fill that son of a bitch up twice before taking his morning dump. Some people require certain things to get the bowel moving. Mike required a buttload of coffee. Several doors down from Mike, Tolstoy was in his room reading his anatomy. No surprise there. Even though he was obviously a brilliant guy, Tolstoy never came off as a nerd. He was very adventurous. He told me of his frequent "tours" of places I had never even heard of. One of those trips reminded me of a scene straight out of "Stand By Me" when the boys are walking on the train tracks over the bridge and almost die because lo and behold, a train is coming. I had a great deal of respect for Tolstoy in that regard. Another reason I respected Tolstoy was because of his prowess at the game of chess. I got to play him twice before I started thinking better of wasting my time and his. The first time I played him, he beat me in two moves. The second time he beat me, he didn't even move any of his pieces. He actually REMEMBERED every single move in his head and the positions of each piece. That match lasted about 2 minutes longer than our first one, but only because he had to go to the bathroom in the middle of it. Now, everyone was used to the daily grind. I even developed a routine in the mess. Each day at lunch, I filled up my metal tray with rice, yogurt, and pappadam. After securing a seat at a table, I crunched the pappadam into little shards and mixed them with the rice and yogurt. After getting a nice little goulash going, I ate one or two fingerfulls before pushing the tray away. Lord knows I tried to eat more, but I just couldn't stand it. So after 2 mouthfuls of the stuff, I picked up the tray, walked it over to the dish bin, threw it in, freaked out about seeing a woman with a cleft lip and palate, washed my hands, and went back to the academic block where I spent my time taking power naps until the afternoon session started. On this particular day, my nap session was delayed by observing a group of my batchmates standing in front of a bulletin board on the third floor near the dissection hall. "Hey guys, what's all the commotion?" I asked to no one in particular. Nisha was one of the crowd and answered, "Our internal exam marks are posted." "So how did you do?" "I did ok, I guess. I got a 46." This gave me hope. An NRI getting a passing score on the very first internal exam was a rare occurence indeed. Maybe I had passed as well. Lord knows that essay on the median nerve was straight butter. I admit, tho, that the rest of my written exam had left something to be desired. But maybe I made up for it on the multiple choice questions. I made my way to the front of the group and peered at the list. Next to my name was the number "22". Oh shit! I had gotten 22 on the MCQ's! But as I was looking for other numbers to add to this, I found none. Apparently, I got 22 on the entire exam. Since I was the type of person who never really panicked, I searched for the scores of like-minded individuals (i.e the NRI's). The one thing I can say after gazing at their scores was at least I was the best of the worst. I won't get into specifics here but Ajit and Mike didn't do too hot. Abi passed. Lekha got the best score of 59 out of the NRI's. Big Red and Manju both failed, but failed admirably. I didn't know whether to feel upset or disappointed or anything. Apparently, quite a few members of the local clan had failed as well. But they seemed to be taking it fairly well. "Hey, Da! Did you get the crackers?" I overheard one local asking Tolstoy. "Yes, tonight we will kuddy (kah-dee) thrash!" My curiosity was now piqued and I decided to ask Tolstoy about this verbal exchange, "Hey Tolstoy. Why are you guys so excited about crackers?" "Tonight is the Festival of Lights." "No shit! Where?" "All over India, Da. It is called Deepavali (I guess north Indians call it Diwali). We light crackers and watch them explode." I was not familiar with the combustible properties of saltines. Did Indian saltines have gun powder as one of their key ingredients? "Hey Tolstoy, what's the big deal about setting a cracker on fire? Why not just eat them with cheese? Maybe if you had graham crackers you could make s'mores." "I am not following you." "Crackers man! Why would you set something on fire that you're going to eat anyway?" "We do not eat these crackers! We light them and they fly through the air and then explode." Suddenly, it dawned on me that Tolstoy and I were not speaking the same language. Damn those local English colloquialisms! Tolstoy was referring to what we Americans call fireworks. They had a whole arsenal of these "crackers" at their disposal. There were bottle rockets, regular firecrackers, these loud ones called "goondas", and even sparklers. Apparently, Deepavali was quite an occasion to let loose. The whole city sounded like it was in the midst of a bombing by the U.N. Crackers were going off left, right, and center. It was a new experience for me, being the ignorant Indian that I was. I had no idea up until this point what Deepavali was. I was now experiencing an emotion that I hadn't felt in quite some time: Excitement! I couldn't wait to get out of class and go blow shit up. Luckily, the rainy season was still winding down so there were plenty of toads around as well. I'm sure you know what that meant. First things first. The countdown began at dusk. The sky was peppered with the smoky whisps of the entrails of expired bottle rockets. The sulfuric essence of the expired crackers and goondas wafted in the air like an evanescent spectre, a stealthy remembrancer of the merriment of the occasion. Several male students set up a launching pad outside the men's hostel. These crude mechanisms were fabricated by stacking flat rocks to form a sort of base to shoot the rockets at an angle (as I slowly panned in the direction the rockets were aimed) right....towards....the girls hostel! This was an ingenious way to use the festive holiday as a way to flirt with their sisteren. Night had fallen and the onslaught began. Bottle rocket after bottle rocket were launched in the direction of the edifice that was the ladies' hostel. More often than not, the projectiles lacked the necessary combustatory fuel required for such a distance. But, every now and again a dying rocket shell would smack against the concrete, eliciting a "Whoop!" and cheers from the members of the male fraternity. I surveyed the scene and chuckled to myself. The guys here had their ways of amusing themselves. They weren't robots. It slowly was occurring to me that even though I did not understand their methods of mayhem or amusement, I did understand the reaction. The laughter. The camaraderie. These were definitely emotions common to a lot of "herd" activities in America. I found it suddenly easier to join in the melee. Abi, Mike, Ajit, and myself joined in the chaos. We lit bottle rockets, rolls of crackers that sounded like machine gun fire, and many a goonda. Abi was in the process of lighting one particular goonda when the fuse went out. He gingerly stepped closer to the bomb to take a closer look. He tapped it with his foot and jumped back. No response. He moved closer and stepped on it. BOOM! Abi was now engulfed in a plume of smoke. "Abi! Dude, are you alright?" I screamed into the gray effluvium. "Hack, cough etc. Well, I guess that wasn't a dud," said Abi as he walked out of the smoke coughing and holding his ears. Those goondas were loud sons of bitches. Second things second. Now came the time to torture the amphibous residents of the men's hostel courtyard. There were plenty of candidates. I sought out the plumpest, juiciest toad and began the hunt for my unfortunate prey. After perusing the local selection, tossing aside youthful looking toads for more wisened, grizzled veterans, I found my guinea toad. I flicked it in the head to render it unconscious. Abi handed me a goonda, hopefully one that wouldn't explode if I stepped on it, and let me go to work. I stripped the fuse of the goonda so that it would burn faster. I didn't want to give my victim the false hope that escape would be possible. I placed the goonda on the ground and on top of it, I placed the toad with its ass positioned directly above the meat of the bomb. The four of us started our countdown. After about 10 seconds or so, the toad appeared to wake up and I could have sworn a look of abject horror crossed its eyes. The toad knew. In the next instant, toad and goonda went up in a conflagration of acrid, gray fumes. The toad didn't fly nearly as well as possible had I punted it, but flew it did. In a near vertical parabola, it did a few somersaults and flips before landing on the pavement with a dull THUD. We moved closer to the creature and saw that it was futilely trying to escape our wrath by maneuvering its only useful limb, its right front leg. Considering we blew the toad's ass off, I was surprised that it didn't shit itself. I decided to put Kermit out of his misery and gave him one last punt into oblivion. "Godspeed, Kermit!" I shouted as its fragmented body was swallowed up by the blue-black canvas of the night. Several moments later, Anil The Faker, who was carrying a large object obscured by a blanket, walked to the center of the basketball court for a better view of the ladies hostel. From this vantage point, the gateway to said prison was plainly visible. The gate was receded for the Deepavali celebrations in their own courtyard, which consisted of dark brown Indian girls with coconut-oily hair frolicking around in their nighties and twirling sparklers. Anil The Faker lay the shrouded article on the ground. He painstakingly unfolded the dirty, worn blanket to reveal a 3-foot long cardboard tube. On one side of the tube was a self-fashioned shoulder holdster with a handle for the trigger hand. Opposite this and a bit closer to the end of the tube was an orifice through which bottle rockets could be placed and lit and subsequently fired. It was a BAZOOKA! He took it out of the blanket, stood up, and lifted it above his head, as a playful gesture to the women of the hostel as well as to members of the men's hostel. "Watch this!" the bazooka begged to shout. Anil The Faker assumed the position while Binu placed a bottle rocket in the chamber. He struck a fragile wax-made match and lit the fuse. 3...2.....1.5.......1.25...1....FIRE!!!! The rocket flew straight towards the entrance of the ladies' hostel. I never thought that reubenesque women in long nighties could be so agile. He fired multiple rockets at not only the ladies' hostel but also the watchman's toolshed right outside the perimeter fence. In this ramshackle garrison was seated an old man of about 60. He had a long gray mustache that followed the curves and contours of his jowls and merged with Dolomite-like sideburns. His outfit consisted of shit-brown official-issue shirt and slacks with his very own cap! He was The Watchman! He struck fear into the hearts of millions.....of rats scurrying in the crevices and nooks of the bastille! The sound of his footsteps were enough to strike trepidation in the souls of his enemies, the stray dogs who ran rampant throughout the campus. Yes, you did not want to fuck with The Watchman! The constant barrage of rockets woke The Watchman from his slumber. He got out of his vertical coffin and had a gander at what was going on. The screeches and shouts of the inhabitants of the ladies' refuge caused a great panic in The Watchman. He jumped on his bicycle, The Watch-cycle, and prepared to accost us. "Day! Nyaan Principle report pannerra! (Hey! I'm going to tell the principle!)" "Podah, Myrray!(Get lost, pubic hair!)" we simultaneously screamed as more rockets were fired in his general direction, scaring him and causing him to lose balance and fall off his tricked-out wheels. Rockets continued to bombard his fallen ass so he ran back into the safety of his one-person shelter fabricated from aluminum sheets and wood. The next victim of our aerial pyrotchnics were the tea thumbies. In the morning, there were coffee thumbies. At night, just for the ladies, there were tea thumbies. The men could purchase their tea at the 24-hour canteen located a few hundred feet from the basketball court. But these women got preferential treatment. It was preferred that they not come out at night. As the thumbies were pushing the canister of tea on a rickety old cart, Anil The Faker aimed the bazooka right at them. Since there wasn't much to speak of in regards to lighting on the basketball court, we were not unlike stealthy assassins marking our prey. Fire One! The rocket honed in on the thumbies, the look of terror in their eyes swelling so much that their sclerae were the size of dinner plates. The rockets hit their mark and started buzzing and discharging at their feet, causing the little gnomes to prance and dance about like they were members of Michael Flatley's troupe. The second rocket was fired and the thumbies made their decision that their livelihoods were more important than chai for those beasts. They threw their hands up in the air, turned tail, and ran screaming like a bunch of dwarf school girls, the bottle rocket in hot pursuit, pardon the pun. The night was a blast, literally. It was so much fun firing rockets at the ladies, watchman, and thumbies. For a single night, we were lords of all creation. For a single night, there was nothing we couldn't do. For a single night, we were free men.