The best college and its pool
- Part 2 -

By Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei *

The road was clogged with vehicles and they appeared to have come out only to honk and honk. I didn't go up to my eyrie I hurried toward the store to get some water. The undergraduate lady was there again in short skirt and a tight-fitting T-shirt. A lady in those clothes at night in Delhi was only inviting trouble, but she had been in the city for some years and must have read or come across so many rape cases. All the men, old and young, were ogling at her and she was oblivious.

I went back to the college; the man wasn't at the gate. But there were few men sleeping in the shade on the grassy lawn beside the gate; a few metre-long pits had been dug up; their pickaxes scattered about.

A man wearing a well-trimmed mustache was in the office sipping some steaming milky tea from a stainless steel glass, his eyes were fixed on the Plasma television, which he could see through the office windows, others seemed to have gone out. I asked him about the swimming pool, no word came.

I asked one more time; the man was irritated, but he spoke without disengaging his eyes, " on the left! A white building, you ask!" He made me feel like a senseless child who had annoyed the sensible, busy adults.

There were people working on the front of the building: two men on ladders painting with tiny paint brushes. Since they looked busy I didn't bother to ask them. A man was sitting at a table reading a Hindi newspaper and smoking a cheap cigarette in a "smoking free zone", and over his head the old, furry ceiling fan moved fast, subduing almost every noise.

And through the window behind his back I could see the drained swimming pool. I told the man about what I was told by the watchman at the gate, he chuckled and said, "That man! He doesn't know anything. I'm the person in-charge."

Angry though I was, I couldn't take out my anger on the man, so I told myself to get some more reliable information from this "in-charge man." The pool would open on the 1st of next month, people were still at work. He said he was certain.

I spotted a kiosk which was swarmed with students, they all looked rich with their expensive shoes and American clothes. Some of them were drinking the ubiquitous milky tea and some milky coffee. I got a cup of nice, cold lemon tea and stood near the kiosk.

Before I could finish my tea they randomly dropped the paper cups right in front of the kiosk and walked off giggling aloud. Where would they keep? There was no sign of waste bins around and the man manning the kiosk was a messy figure: unshaven face, the shirt colourless, his hands greasy and the long nails trapped with black dirt, and every now and then picking his nose and wiping the fingers on his grey trousers.

At night the lane in my area was packed with people dancing in Punjabi style and the band members, in bright red uniforms playing all kinds of musical instruments, were among the people. Children from the neighbourhoods rushed out and mingled with the crowd.

No one could pass through the crowd, on both sides the vehicles were honking, but the people seemed to be having the time of their lives. Though they had been honking, expressing their wish to pass through, no one came out or came down from their vehicles to tell the joyous crowd; the crowd jumped to the cacophonous music and the stranded vehicles kept on honking.

Suddenly the music ceased and the dancing crowd sloshed toward one gate, where a few middle-aged men, their heads bound in bright red sashes bearing the nagiri prints, started handing out deep-fried cutlets in paper plates. There were no lines, the dancers just scrambled; the stronger ones got first and returned for second plate.

At last, only children and veiled ladies were left. Some asked for two but were rebuked. The dancers now stood by the lane enjoying the rewards of their vigorous dance in ear-shattering music, and then the paper plates were all over the lane. The band members walked and started the music and few joyous dancers followed, but many stayed behind, as though they were contended with the cutlets. Finally, the unspoken motorists honked their way through.

The neighbours began installing cooling machines, there was indication that the temperature would drop. My wet towel-wrapping was still useful but it was rather uncomfortable. I began to think whether I should buy one as well, then I wasn't sure how long I would be in this place.

I had come to write. Just like that. I was living in the city possessed by that ambition. Ambition could be another name for addiction, but man without it would be nothing; he would be only living out a life millions had lived out before.

If man could be trusted every word he used and he was worth as much as his word, then the world would be a meaningful place. Sometimes, people just say things because they know words and in return for the words they get words. What are words to them when theirs are the same which were no different from the ones used by the people before; using words for the sake of using.

I returned this time with all my swimming gears after a long day of reading. I couldn't concentrate long on what was before. It was Monday, but the gate was closed. On both sides of the road along the college India's wealth was displayed: all kinds of imported cars in long lines, stretching for kilometres, with a driver for each and the bosses in clean clothes and their eyes behind shades and sunglasses.

Only a corner gate of the college was opened, it was manned by a man uniform. I asked if I could enter the campus through the gate. He wagged his head and tried to ask the "parpose." I had no patience for that; I rushed in playing in my mind the nice pool filled up with clean chlorinated water just ready for a dive.

The gate was opened and over the steps and over the ground a tiny black pipe ran. No one was inside; not even the desk, but the fan was at work. The pool was filled up half ,and surface was below yellowish tree leaves. Observing the quantity of water going down from the tiny black pipe I felt it would take another day to fill up the pool. Few more days or another few weeks could be spent on chlorinating the water, depending on the flexibility of their overwhelming lethargy.

Infuriated and knowing no channel which could be pursued I came out with a contemptuous smile on my face: mocking the people. On the walls and the pillars near the office there were handbills bearing big modern words, 'IT India", "let's look forward", " We can do it again!", " India, a superpower?"

People do love words, big words, and they must have them to feel big and different from others. The guard in uniform began firing words as I neared his place, " it'll take few days" rubbing lime on the tobacco in his left hand, " you should come when the office is opened to fill out a "faerm" , then you can swim."

He must have done that kind of talking to others several times before. I hailed a bicycle rickshaw and the man compelled me to bargain. I said he was driving away his passenger, his face blushed and turned his head to offer me a lower fare, still the double of the normal fare.

I thought to myself: maybe I should walk off the fury.

Concluded....

Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei

* Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei contributes to e-pao.net regularly.
The writer can be contacted at bobomeitei(at)hotmail(dot)com
This article was webcasted on May 12 2011.