Idiosyncrasies of The Neurotic World

Courtesy www.layoutsparks.com

Day 1

Morning sunshine at my face… warm and sultry… sharp and penancing… the rays exhorting me to forsake my slumber and get up… First of the five days of holidays were here… well… they weren’t actually holidays but a five day college fest which usually turns out more pathetic than Lady Gaga’s attires. So I was more than content to lie inside the vicinity of my hostel.

I came out my room, stretched those old bones and turned the radar for any signs of life. Surprisingly there was no detection. Except for the momentary sightings of stray dogs and a snoring watch guard, the hostel seemed desolate and grim.

“Not going for the fest?” a voice asked from afar, a stark and stalwart tone, the radix of it being a decently big man.

“Nah… Hitting the loo is more entertaining than this fest” I replied, “Isn’t it Classical night tonight?”

“Yup… the only reason why I’m going… Classical music is my passion” he said.

The guy came close, raised his right hand and gave the most eccentric of all high-fives. As the hands lost contact, he said ‘Click’ and then walked away, limping a little due to some recent collateral damage he received in a football game.

Big brawny man like him, being a classical fan… limping yet still having the zeal to jump for a high five, and that too an awkwardly bizarre high-five.

His neuroticism was donned in an attire of passion.

Seeing his enthusiasm, i tagged along with him to the fest that night, though the classical night turned to be a bitter pill to swallow; it was baffling to see the turnout for the occasion.

Apparently I didn’t share the same amount of ardour as my brawny friend and the others present there so I left a little early, before the mob dropped in. As I was making my way out a short timid little fellow appeared in front of me and showered me with the news that I was supposed to one of the judges of an acoustic contest the next day.

With a scowling grimace I walked back to my hostel. It was night. Expecting a painful day to follow, I slipped into the sweet embrace of sleep just to fight another day…

Day 2

Morning arrived a little earlier, as it was the only day which had the potential of being ‘somewhat’ good. Band performances in the morning, Acoustic contest in the afternoon and a stand-up comedy act in the evening.

The day began and I reached the band performance arena, some performances were badass whereas some performed like bad asses… the usual stuff, no surprise there… the names of the final selects were given out… the deservers got shit and the shits got what they didn’t deserve… no surprise here as well… welcome to my college.

Now it was my time to shine, my only tiny little bit of contribution towards the fest, the Acoustic contest. I walked in the area like an arrogant self-centred monarch, looking down on the lesser beings, treating them like imbeciles as I took my seat as the judge. It wasn’t soon that I realised I need another smug comrade to help me out with the judging, so I called in a Bengali/Marwari friend of mine who perfectly fit the role. He had dressed up in a Kurta for the occasion… looking the most contrary of the all those who were present.

When I asked him the reason for such aberrant attire he said…

“If i am to be a judge for an acoustic contest, I’d rather look like one… always wanted to dress up like a deviant judge”

And then he laughed like one as well, he was enthralled with the role I had given him.

His neuroticism was hidden under a veneer of deviancy.

Four hours of utter dominance and pride went by swiftly, with over twenty groups performing their hearts out in front of us.

As the day dawned, the stage was overtaken by a well-known stand-up comedian ‘Rivaldo’. We rushed to acquire the vantage point for the act and then ‘Rivaldo’ took the stage. He was hysterically hilarious from the onset, moving around vividly on the stage and cracking jokes about god, life, professors, juniors, seniors, girls, sex and even Newton. The perfect topics for us engineers.

When he departed, our tummies and jaws were aching. Some were still laughing in remembrance. I was totally fatigued after the acoustic contest, but the performance by ‘Rivaldo’ had healed me better than any divine medication.

Laughter is indeed the best medicine… except for the time you have diarrhea.

Day 3

Day three was a day many dreaded. A certain friend of mine even told me…

“It’s the night the faggots run loose”

Just the thought of faggots having a full night to themselves… and also having the allowance to run loose send tremors down my spine. After a little researching that morning I discovered that the event planned for the night was actually called the ‘Dance Night’.

I realised that the statement said by my friend beforehand was a tad bit disrespectful to the faggots… I mean… the dance group. So as a mark of my respect and to atone for my friend’s lewd remark I decided to go to the Dance Night… notwithstanding the fact that I ‘EXTREMLY’ loathe any brisk and intricate movements made by the human body.

The event started and the stage got overwhelmed by a horde of raring participants, all eagerly awaiting their chance to palpitate their pulsating posteriors for the judges.

Males and females in the crowd, of all forms and sizes, started to swivel their bodies to the music that kicked in. For an individual like me the aura was nauseating… abhorrent… obnoxious. But to them, it was rekindling and captivating. Frolicking, dancing vivaciously, holding hands and hopping around like hypnotized hares. This was not the world I had imagined… not even close.

Their neuroticism was disguised in a façade of vivacity.

When all of this was over, I went over to some comrades of mine who were smoking nearby, all disgusted by this grotesque display of human vibrancy.

“I feel… defiled” one said.

“Don’t worry, there’s always tomorrow” another said.

“You don’t need to rub rhetorical bullshit in his face” I said.

“Not being rhetorical dude, I mean it, tomorrows the night we ‘scribe’ METAL on the faces of these losers” he replied.

A vile smile travelled across our faces.

“We shall ‘scibe’ indeed”

Day 4

Day four was here, and didn’t we need it. In the noon that day, a guy asked me about the event scheduled for that night. My hand slowly went on his shoulders and I said in a deep and serene voice…

“Tonight… my friend… we meet SCRIBE”

Scribe, a metal band from Mumbai and probably one of the biggest one to come out from India’s womb, was destined to play in our college that night. We all expected it to be a dirty, bloody and painfully bewildering night.

I arrived a little late because of a certain Bengali/UP-ian friend of mine whose sluggish accompany stalled my arrival at the venue. We took our stand just in front of the first barrier below the stage.

And then the moment hit us like the rampaging ‘Katrina’. Scribe took the stage and bombarded us with staggering riffs and throat ripping vocals. Their quirky getup and onstage traits clearly depicted a high dosage of narcotics gushing through their veins; seeing them dead baked and stoned we didn’t hold back either.

A fog of smoke and dust emerged above us as we screamed, moshed and head-banged till our necks kissed the verge of snapping… till our throats reached the limit of rupturing… till our limbs went comatose… and till the moment our ravenous hunger for heavy metal wasn’t satiated.

In a painful retrospect, I recall being head-butted through a vacant chair… the attacker showed no signs of remorse and eyed his next victim. A bunch of other guys were invited on stage to head-bang with the band themselves. The atmosphere was chaotic and menacing, only true men could hold their ground. The feeble were crushed and buried. There was an ominous killing rage in the eyes of every individual that night.

Our neuroticism wore no disguise, nor was it hidden… it was pure and raw… exposed and storming under that maddening moonlit night.

Day 5

The last day of the festival scorched in on our aching backs. None of us wished to move an inch… the pain was unbearable. Broken teeth, missing toenails and necks as stiff as a horses’… well… you know what.

The last day of the festival... Our last day of a college festival… we wished to get the best out it for good memories sake. But what was planned seemed nothing but pure ‘rain on our parade’.

This famous Pakistani band called ‘Jal’ was readying themselves to take the stage that night. We had people from afar coming to see them perform live… an audience of 10,000 mindless organisms was expected.

Tattered and broken i somehow managed to get myself present at the venue. Restless multitudes of living and breathing humans were already there banging at the entry gate.

Finally the crowd got inside and ‘Jal’ took stage. I found myself a quiet and desolate spot in the arena along with some other guys. I looked around and found some other ‘metalheads’ standing peacefully aside, gently caressing their aching necks.

Why were they here? I didn’t know… neither did they. They were probably there because it was the last time they would gather up like this in a college campus… one of their last moments together with their good old bunch of friends… spending a carefree, buoyant time together with the ones that mattered.

Those special ones who cared enough to share their last smoke… who cared enough to save that last bit of Maggi for you … who cared enough to save for you that last 30 ml of Old Monk… who cared enough to carry you back after those ridiculously drunk nights… the ones who simply… cared.

I looked around that moment and saw that there was exactly no one I was not going to miss… Each and every one with their weird and eccentric quirks… some with an accent, some with a weird walking style, some with hilariously disfigured bodies, the obese ones, the anorexic ones, the dwarves, the trolls, the ducks and the swans…

A neurotic and idiosyncratic world I would call them, finding each of them peculiarly awkward... never realizing that it’s these unique idiosyncrasies which they possess which make me love them so much… and now I am going to miss them all a little bit.

The world is neurotic…

The world is idiosyncratic…

… And i never want it to change... never ever...