Fistfight between friends - Part V

Dear readers, Please accept my heartfelt thanks for showering few buckets of affection on my blog page.I must confess here...............that I am perplexed that how do people tolerate my nonsensical writings time and again.

Nevertheless,I am humbled .....what do I say here...simply thanks. Concept of blogging is a funny thing.It provides me all the data to monitor your reading habits concerning my blog. Last time,when I was leafing through the page view data country-wise....I found visitors from Singapore,Germany,Netherlands, Slovenia,Denmark,United States in addition to HongKong,Haiti & Dominican Republic where some of my friends are earning their bread. I do not know anyone from those countries....neither I have put my foot on their airports except Singapore. So, I became happy..very happy in fact to find out that I have readers in such a wide variety of nations. Columbus took so much pain, fought with oceanic disturbances in primitive ships to explore the new world....here I am spreading my word sitting on a revolving chair in my furnished Study room in a far away corner of the world......... Soul of Columbus must be turning in his grave....trying to find out why he, a great explorer was unable to do this which this boy is doing it few centuries later...........Yes , the spirit of Columbus also inherited the habit of travelling like his body. Columbus was first buried in Spain,then his remains were moved to Dominican Republic , then to Cuba & then again back to square one i.e. Spain. Old habits die hard ! No hard feelings Mr. Columbus.....I am simply having the luxury of using a medium of interaction devised by Tim Berners-Lee of Britain.....basically this fellow was a physicist but he developed the biggest entertaining device ever known to human race.This world wide web phenomenon is simply mind-boggling. Today,I was watching the streets of Singapore through Google Street View. Pictures in this system are gathered from pretty close range with a massively-pixeled digital camera.You can watch drawing room of a house hold in this City-State, if the window pane is made of transparent glass. India is also adopting this Street View monster......Imagine one fine Sunday morning,you are having morning tea bare-chested on your balcony in a brightly-printed lungi(loincloth) ......suddenly your school-going son comes to inform you that he is watching your belly button(paunch) on computer screen courtesy Google Earth ...in fact others also may be watching you around-the-globe. That's why I sometimes hate this technological revolution....................I wonder .... Columbus must be a happy soul now. That databank of blogger also told me 97 % of my users are using Windows operating system....Gates rules here...other systems were Android,Nokia I-pod,Samsung,Blackberry,Symbian,etc. But the revealing fact is that my users are using some browsers which I have never heard of.............. Version,Jasmine & NS8 are some unknown browsers for me.Here also Chrome rules with 37 % of lion's share. Interesting fact....just for introducing you to the main story which begins now.................. So, the days of happy -go-lucky type of image was a passe for me after witnessing the night-time mayhem in front of my Room no. 90 in A.N.D. Hostel.I decided to take corrective steps to initiate the process of deworming my hostel premises. It became a necessity after this so-called Kaushal gang started to assert themselves in day-to day functioning of Hostel. But,the big question was how to do it ? Nobody had an idea about groupism or confronting hooligans. From Aug.1999 to January 2002..we were simply a bunch of good-for-nothing boys. We knew how to make fun......whom to make fun & where. There were days during our hostel times that we used to play a game of cards constantly for 10-12 hours.....28 was the culprit ....it was addictive even for viewers...how can you leave a running game of 28 when you lost last game and know certainly that you are going to win the next game. Tiggi or Duggi was the ultimate goal of winners. But situation was worsening by the day. Tiwari,Naveen & Kunal had started the wave of buying hockey sticks in hostel. Several others followed. Iron rod or Bamboo lathi of various shapes and sizes were stored in the hostel rooms placed at strategic locations. So that, these can be obtained in no time during fight. On the evening of 22nd January 2002, a riveting game of Badminton was being played on the court in hostel premises. Here, an unspoken rule was followed by players.Losing team/players were supposed to hand over their rackets to next aspiring player & winner continues the game till he is beaten by a better player. Yasovardhan Asthana was a fine player. He used to win several games on the trot. Though, he possessed few incorrigible habits those days but was a fine gentleman. Abey,Abey was his favourite words. He was also a great connoisseur of food ...I think he had discovered the Rs. 20-priced Shalimar Biryani at Gadaulia in Benaras. Biryani here was mouth -watering, combination of rice & chicken could be so heavenly...I never imagined ......the good thing about Biryani is that it's taste doesn't leave your mouth till you pamper it with an equally-powerful Benarasi paan......................oh my god.....it even gives goose bumps to me ......so if you have not had both of these in one go then you are missing the spice in your life. Hyderabad can you provide you delicious Biryani...no doubt in this fact.....but what about Benarasi paan ? One solution ......eat in Hyderabd & consult Google Street View to have a glimpse of Benarasi paan wali gali and eat an ordinary paan. Feel the moment dear, this thought needs to stimulate your brain which in turn will stimulate you taste buds. So, I was describing the badminton game on the fateful evening of 22nd January 2002. Ajitabh,who was a room-mate as well soul-mate of Yash won a game. By rules, loser had to leave the game but Kaushal insisted on taking the racket of Ajitabh by intimidating him.Game was cancelled but the aroma of confrontation was slowly being visible in the cold air of that January night. B.H.U. had a system of having Senior Professors as Proctors who were like the S.P. of campus. They were watchdog of sprawling BHU campus. Their primary task was to seize the electric heaters used by hostellers and to ensure that no hanky-panky is carried out in University premises. That night, around 1900 hrs,Proctor visited the hostel,he found the ambience pretty studious as most of the hostellers were behind closed doors.Some were studying genuinely while Kaushal group was planning their moves. Proctor remarked in the hostel lobby that this hostel is one of the finest in BHU and hostellers are pretty good in studies. But this dear Professor didn't knew that this was the eerie silence before the storm. I had my dinner in Mess around 2030 hrs and came out of the Mess. On stairs in front of Mess,a small group of hostellers were digesting their dinner.AS far as I remember Navin,Kunal,Tiwari,Ajitabh and few others were sitting. I joined and huddled with them.....We decided to fight the hegemony of Kaushal group on that day itself. Hockey sticks,rods,lathis were placed near the stairs. I borrowed a sweat shirt of Yash as it was pretty cold out there. Around 2130 hrs, Kaushal group came out in the open ground in midst of two opposite blocks of hostel. Someone from this group locked the front door and sent the night sentry away. They obviously didn't wanted witnesses. Dhiraj switched off the main halogen light in the premises as well as other sources of light on Verandah. This fact simply enraged me to the core. Here in this our combined hostel, a smart alec was behaving like he owned the hostel. Such a professional approach to the gang fighting ! I still appreciate the strategy of this group, if you are being beaten you won't know from which direction danger is coming. Then, Chandan approached us and called "Dilip, why you boys are ganging up against us". what an irony ! Kaushal,Sharad,Shukla ,Dharmpal,Raghwendra,Dhiraj as well as few outsiders were just behind Chandan. I carried a hockey stick & approached Chandan and used a simple Indian language abusing word ...he charged towards me and said "maaro"..........this was the spark I was waiting for ........ I used my hockey stick with full force diagonally across his face.But ,this poor stick broke in two pieces so I was forced to use my bare hands till i snatched a weapon from someone. This was the beginning of a full-scale fisticuffs among various members of the groups. Every one was using all sort of weapons to hit each other. Naveen broke several hockey sticks.Tiwari showed exemplary fighting capability and Kunal turned as Brick- man.....he used several bricks to outlast the opponents. I noticed Vivek Shukla using a Khukri very adeptly. He fought like a Nepali warrior. He injured some of us and still avoided getting caught. I confronted him and got a hold of his Khukri..but unfortunately I chose the wrong side...the cutting edge......but a hold is a hold.....why to abandon it in the middle of a raging bullfight.....I used my right hand while still holding Khukri by left hand................ snatched it and tucked it in my jeans near my belly button. By this time, Kaushal group started retreating..they were simply overwhelmed by the ferocity of the retaliating attack.We started chasing them towards main gate of the hostel.Now ,it had become a free-for-all fight. Other hostellers who were neutral earlier also joined the party and started beating them black and blue. Kaushal and someone else had fallen on the middle verandah of hostel and he was being beaten wildly by a crowd. In midst of this melee, Sharad fired a bullet in the air from indigenous pistol.... we used to call it Desi Katta those days....... I noticed him and followed him to the front gate of the hostel.....he tried to took aim at me and warned me that " You will be shot at point-blank range if you dare to move forward".................here this gentleman of few kgs with an hour-glass like figure was challenging a hulk................I laughed at the joke and asked him that "this pretty weapon of yours is not an automatic one,so you need to put another bullet in barrel to use it again & I won't let you do that"....I charged towards him......snatched his Katta,tucked it in backside of jeans above my posterior & handed over this boy to the crowd. By this time ,blood stains were splattered on my pink Levis-branded round -neck T-shirt......blood stains ruined it...I still regret the loss of one of my favorite T-shirt. During the fisticuff, someone spotted a Splendour parked majestically on the Verandah.......he used a heavy stroke of rod to destroy the petrol -tank of the 2-wheeler.It was also battered by rods. Poor bike parts bore the brunt of human anger ! Someone suggested that ,we need to put it on fire by using a Tikka matchstick......but better sense prevailed and we didn't make a bonfire of the splendid Splendour. Later on, I guided Raghwendra along with Splendour safely out of the hostel premises........ So, what do you think.....too much to digest for a single reading........... Then your wish is my command...... Write another day instead of Die Another Day by James Bond......... see you next week ..same forum....may be same day..... Till then.....happy reading...........