the group fight

"They are participating, I heard it, heard them sing" Sallu said as she bustled in. "Wat ?" I asked groggily as I stretched my hand to pick my toothbrush from the lot. It was 8.10 am and the breakfast bell was due any minute. "Oh!! you ll know.... " she replied.
I dragged myself all the way across the corridor to the washroom. Dreamily I was following my daily morning schedule, when I heard 'THEM' sing.
"WHOA!!!! wtf" I said to myself. Wasting no time, I rushed back to my room.
"you don't need to tell ..... I heard it!!!" Chits told me when I opened my mouth to speak. Smiley was still lazing off on her bed. She walked out clueless regarding the discussion that was going on around her.
After a while she walked in and announced," People!! there is a bad news!! They are participating in the competition".
"Seriously yaar.... do u even hear to our talks??" sallu asked her.
"oh so you knew bout it!!" she replied sadly.
" I cant sit here and watch them win this thing" I conceded. "No matter what, but I am not willing to sit and watch our reputation being tarnished in such a ****** way"
"Lets participate too" said Sallu, who loved to sing as much as me."lets sing and win this thing" she said exuberantly.
" Ha ha ha ha, I can imagine us winning if I sing" replied chits in her sarcastic tone.
" same here" added smiley. Ume murmured something in fast malyalam which I was unable to grasp. Then she smiled and left the room.

In the above stanza, 'They' refers to our group rivals. Back in 2004, during our HSE, my friends and I had a fight with some other co hostelers (who were also our classmates), which gave rise to groups within the hostel. The 2 respective groups showed constant antagonism to each other. So it was really important for us to beat them at every thing. Academic performance was not an issue, as chits was the top scorer. And the rest of us were equally good too.

So finally after a long discussion sallu and I managed to convince Smiley, Ume and chits. The competition was on the next day at 4.30 pm, and we had only few hours to practice, as we had practicals that very day and also the next day.

We chose to sing 'neele neele ambar pe', as it was the only song whose lyrics was available at that moment. We practiced for hours in the night. We were so tired that we couldn't get our butts off the bed the next morning. As usual we got dressed up in our regular outfit (some stupid t shirt and jeans) and left for college. The competition was at 4.30 pm , so we came to the hostel a little early from the lab; ie, 4,25 pm. To our surprise all the other teams were dressed uniformly. we were the only odd ones out. 'They' were dressed up in yellow salwars.

"WTF man!!!" I whispered into sallu's ears. "Look at those gals!! How can we ever beat them at presentation".
I had heard them practice the song in the classroom, thought it was a kannada song (and I couldn't understand it) I had enjoyed it.
"We ll just do fine man!!! dun worry" smiley said.
I could feel the tension in her voice though. Chits was conspicuously nervous and I could see her fidgeting next to me during the first teams performance. Ume was quite the whole time.
Amid this whole mess, Sallu found the time to go brag brashly about how good we were when compared to 'THEM'. War, who was the meanest girl from our rival group said something rude in her malicious tone.

I wanted this never ceasing fray to end as soon as possible.

Soon it was their turn to perform. I must admit, they were good. But there was this final year degree's group who had given a terrific performance. Also another group, out juniors who were good too.

We gave our best shot. And were hoping to secure the third place.
We were quite sure that there the 1st place would be given to the final yr degree group and the 2nd to our juniors. Any other groups weren't that great. So the compitition was for the 3rd place.

So we sat there praying for a positive result.

finally it was time. The 3rd place was secured by our juniors. We lost the little hope we had.
"its ok yaar, there is always a next time" I told sallu.

"The second place goes to ........ " we heard them announce.
"Sallu and party"......

Whoa!!! that was unexpected. but we weren't jumping in the victory mood, we wanted be sure that the first place was won by the degree gals. And yes, We were right.

There!!! That made our day, actually our year.............
We were overjoyed. Loved every minute of it. That wasn't our only victory, we surely won the group fight.

The scooba split

hip hop style of dancing has always been my favourite, though I could never successfully learn to hip hop like a pro, it always helped me to buoy my sagging spirit. I never enjoyed the perquisite of learning the art of hip hopping. Though I learnt fascinating varieties of other dance forms, like Jive and salsa, it was Hip hop style of dancing that conquered my heart.

I got a few tips on HH from a flamboyant friend of mine. And that day I shifted my magnifier from music to dancing styles. The tips on hH surely confused me at times. " be blunt with ur body movements" ..... Now 'whats that supposed to mean ?'

Days turned to weeks, and then to months; I never practiced what i was supposed to.

Just a few days back, when I was going through some videos on youtube, I found this group performing hH for a body swaying music. Well I put on my dancing shoes and started imitating their moves. It was quite easy.

I was excited, and wished to learn more. So then I found this video in which a boy demonstrated the scuba split ( a hH move). It was simple, except for the split.

So I tried the scuba move. Continued doing so. I wanted more, wanted to learn the scuba split.
But in an attempt to learn it, I hurt my little finger and now i find it hard to move it (i can still type though).

So no more scuba splits......

The BEP syndrome

For those who are unaware of this syndrome, BEP syndrome is a complex neurological and psychological disorder in the presence of normal cognition in young adult individuals. The symptoms include highly increased mental performance and spontaneous action. the susceptibility to this syndrome depends upon the individual's taste in music.

It was a sad day for me and Baggy. The Black Eyed Peas were giving a concert in blore and we were not able to go there cause we were stuck up with classes.
"Man this sucks!!!" I said as we entered the class at 7.55 A.M .
As usual the First bench students were missing. It was business law class and that was the only subject everyone loved to bunk. So following my daily schedule, I fell asleep at 8.05 after my name was called out for the attendance.
"Excuse me sir!!!" Came a voice from the back. It was 'miss late comer' , surprisingly she was only 15 mins late. I was dreaming about the concert. "Damn it!!" I thought.

I leaned sideways and whispered it into Baggy's ears,"Do you think we can still make it to the concert?". She looked at me with an "I dunno expression" on her face. Somehow I survived the class. The next hour was supposed to be fun. It was my favorite subject, not coz i loved it (Man!!! i hated it) but the lecturer who was taking the class, Rush-me maam, was really good at her work and she somehow managed to make it interesting. She is not just an amazing lecturer but also a very sweet and understanding person.

She entered the class, read out the names of the students from the attendance register, walked to the board and wrote "BEP".

"WTF" i heard baggy murmer. "Is she a fan too?" Wow the class was getting more and more interesting.
"Break Even Point" said Punch bag aloud.
" wat the F*CKIN Hell is that" I asked Baggy. "I have no idea" She replied.

'Its easy yaar, I ll teach you" Punch bag told me 30 mins later. Though those words were supposed to sound comforting, every single time punch bag told me that something thats meant to be hard to understand, was actually easy, it made me more nervous.
Kutti who was sitting in the 2nd row, turned back and gave a an expression conveying "Its gonna be ok, dont worry".
Then the class continued. Rush-me maam repeated the abbreviation BEP more than 50 times. After the bell rang and she walked out of the class, I stood up and asked," people.... I am going to Blore for the BEP concert, Anyone wanna join???" I got an instant yes from Archie and Baggy.
"Hey the concert is at 7.30 yaar. We ll never make it on time." said Punch bag. " I am not going to sit here and dream about the concert. I don't care if we don't reach on time, but i want to go, U wanna come , please do" said baggy. That was the first time I had seen baggy all set up in a mood to do some mischief. She had never bunked a class in her life nor had she done anything like this ever. She was a free bird now that she was staying at the hostel.

" so what??? shall we go ???" I asked kutti, smiley, Bird and punchbag. Got 3 NOs and one yes from punch bag.

So me and baggy rushed to the hostel, put on some hot outfit and went to the near by city(which was 340 kms far from blore) with archie and punchbag. We checked make my trip.com to see if any flight tickets were available. But unfortunately it was way beyond our budget. So finally we found ourselves standing in front of KSRTC bus.

We just couldn't go back to college. Our own classmates would mock us.
"now what" said archie, "It was your idea na. Lets go to Goa. Lets go anywhere, but not to college. It s gonna be embarrassing... F*ck Man!!"
' I didn't force you to come" i claimed.
"make up your mind, the bus to blore will leave in 5 mins" Said punch bag intervening the fight.
"lets go" said baggy. "but..... " i said goggling at her.

"cmon, move on .... get in" she said and we followed her instructions.

We were in the bus. Last seats. Supposed to be an AC bus, but then where was the dust coming from!!!

We spent hours in that bus discussing about the concert. The tickets were arranged and everything was going to be fine, if we reached there on time.

It was 7.30 P.M and we had not reached blore yet. We were some where in the outskirts. I was gazing dreamily at the passing street lights. It looked beautiful. We were all excited.

Finally we reached the ground where the concert was being held. Baggy, archie and I were not acquainted with the city. So Punch bag had to take the lead. We reached the ground, had a nice time.
The rest is history.

We boarded the bus back to our coll at 11.45 P.M. Reached our college at 10 AM next day. We were so tired and messy. Went to the hostel and took a shower. We had to cut our nails to get rid of the dust accumulated in it.

Finally we met up again near the coffee shop outside the girls block to discuss further plans of dealing with our HOD. We took religious advantage and told the HOD that we had to attend some Pooja. Though he didnt believe that, he didnt punish us either.

Thats it!!! tat was my strangest concert experience.