Secrets Hidden In Time (Time #1)

19 | Dear Diary (04/05/2011)

The washrooms in the university hostels seem less like washrooms and more like production sets from low-budget B-grade Bollywood horror films, each corner sporting the habitat of a different species of rodents and bugs. By now, I am myself confused about whether I walk into the sets of 'Man Vs. Wild' or into the sets of an Indian horror movie every morning. As it turns out, I walk into a terrific combination of both.

Moreover, I can guarantee you that if ever the City Municipal Administration decides to conduct a study on the amount of water supplied to our university, they will definitely declare ICE as the Sahara desert of South India. Can't blame either because there is just 'so much' water here.

I sometimes suspect that the cooks of our hostel mess usurp all the water supplied to our university and then pour it into the yellow plasma-like fluid served to us as Daal in the mess.

And then there is the Hitler of my life—--my grandfather. That old man thinks of himself as Chanakya and myself as his disciple, Chandragupta Maurya, from 320 BCE. He is hellbent on molding me into the perfect head of his perfect Dogra Group. I might as well not poop tomorrow, and I am sure the day after tomorrow he'll place a call the first thing in the morning to ask me just one question: "Why didn't you poop yesterday, you brat?! An ideal Dogra man poops everyday in the morning."

Nosy Ancient Codger!

My roommate, whose own laptop had broken down a few days ago, borrowed mine the day before yesterday to complete an important soil mechanics assignment of his; at least that's what he told me. It turns out that that really important assignment of his didn't revolve around soil mechanics. Rather, it revolved around hearing grown gentlemen grunting and groaning like wild dogs and respectable young ladies moaning and screaming like abandoned blue whales.

'How unladylike.'

No, not me; this is what my grandfather would have said.

It was not exactly the most insightful sight to witness, and on top of that, suddenly Professor Vyomitra's shouts felt so much more euphonious to my ears.

Nevertheless, I inserted two pieces of cotton swabs into both of my earholes and tried to fall asleep, only to find my roommate flashing all thirty-two of his 'extremely hygienic' teeth at me sheepishly this morning, with my malware-infected laptop in his hand.

Curbing down the homicidal urges in my mind, I smiled at him. He grinned back. And then I wondered how he would look with two of his incisors gone.

Handsome, perhaps?

Who cares anyway?

Without brushing my teeth, I quickly rushed to our local computer repair technician, Guna, short for Gundeshwar Trichipelli, a fourth-year fellow from the mechanical department. The way he passed those side-eyed smirks at me while checking the internet history of my laptop—as if I were the one watching scantily dressed people wildly banging each other in the middle of the night—made me want to bang his own watermelon-sized head on his study table.

But did I have a choice? No.

With the last few pieces of coins jingling in my pocket, I could have easily passed for a roadside beggar, if not the legitimate heir of the multi-billion-dollar Dogra Conglomerate. My oh-so-sorry derriere couldn't even afford a banana, let alone the charges of repairing my laptop at a computer repair shop. I always wondered the reasons behind my grandfather hiding the beautiful faces of me and my good-for-nothing siblings from the outside world and from the scrutiny of the media until I entered university. Only after I entered this place did I realize that, all along, he was paving a path of security for us. Thanks to him, no one really knew me here; no one gave two flying ducks about my undisclosed identity. And now, I have grown to like this fact. For once, I am not Mahadevan Dogra; I am just Mahadevan.