Valmiki Jayanti @IITK

The write-up includes certain objectionble content, which maynot be suitable for people under-18 years. Reader discretion is warranted!

An idle sunday afternoon often muddles up thoughts of various kinds in your mind, some of these might be deep & provoking while others just reminiscence of times you cherished. While some reminescences could be painful ( but that doesnt mean I cry; I am a grown up girl, remember!), the ones which were fun never fail to put a smile back on my face. One such fun incident from my second year at IITK flashed across my mind today.

Late in the evening (not so late by IITK standards though), around 10 pm the gymkhana senate meeting got over. I was part of the meeting by virtue of being the girls repesentative (for those of you who dont know, since girls in IITK are a minority community they get a special quota representation in the students' governance body- the students gymkhana). While walking out of the meeting, some of us decided to catch up with coffee at the academic area nescafe. The cultural secretary Pathak and the president Neeraj, who were then great pals of mine decided to join me for the same.

As the farewells were being bid I heard one gentleman (atleast thats what I thought about him till then) shout out to all others( all of whom there were men, except me!), "aaj valmiki jayanti ka samaroh hai, bhoolna mat!". What followed were a few giggles & promises " haan haan, nahi bhoolenge!". I was quite dumbfounded on having learnt that there seemed to be a high profile cultural program on campus, the posters of which I had missed. 'Never mind!' I thought, since pathak - the cultural secretary was going for a cup of coffeee with me, I could always find out!!

Pathak & I began to walk towards the academic area, while Neeraj who had got stuck with some junta ( nothing new for those who knew Neeraj, and hung about with him) promised to join soon.

On my way to the academic area, I inquired from Pathak what the samaroh was all about. Pathak very non-chalantly described it as a cultural program that took place in Naankari, once every year on the occassion of Valmiki Jayanti. Since Pathak himself was wearing a smirk & I had already heard the other guys in SAC giggle about it, I was convinced that there was more to it; and of course I was determined to find out!

Here I will like to describe a little problem that I have in me- if you describe something to me in straight n simple words, no matter how indecent that maybe I will accept it without any further inquiries or suspicion, but the moment you try n fob me in words, you have just stimulated my inquisition cells. So here I was interviewing Pathak for the rest of the details & hence the complete story.

On asking him what kind of a program it was going to be, he just fended it by saying that its gonna be some dance prepared by the local inhabitants of Naankari village. Ok! I knew the keyword here was 'Dance'. So the inquiry went a step further, "all the guys seemed pretty excited about the dance, so who is the dancer going to be?". "I am not too sure!" said Pathak. I knew he was more than sure, but that jerk-n-half wouldnt let it out to me. So I said "seems like its gonna be fun, can I please join u guys for it?" At this, Pathak was completely taken aback, he gave me one of those expressions " do u have any clue, what you are talking about!" and i gave him back one of those looks "perhaps I do, but I want to hear it straight from you!". when he saw that expression he started his fobbing tactics "dekhiye Shubham, wo na.... ladkiyon ki jaane ki jagah nahi hai". To that I knew all I had to ask was "why, why & why?" till the time I had got a satisfactory answer. But Pathak, in matters of speaking straight is a hard nut to crack . In situations where he knows that his image of a 'decent nice guy' is under threatening, he would just beat around the bush till eternity or till someone came to his rescue!!

Just when I had pestered Pathak enough, Neeraj biked into the academic area, to join us for the coffee which he had promised us both. An irritated Pathak, on having failed to satiate my inquisition of their coveted Valmiki Jayanti samaroh, decided to blurt out the situation through & through to Neeraj. Neeraj began to laugh & Pathak joined him too. Poor me, had to wait till the two of them had done with their laughing. Neeraj, though not a very direct person himself, thought directness was the only way he could have avoided any more questions that could have embaressed both Pathak & himself. He told me that since Naankari isnt such a safe place to go to & since some of the dancers could well be hookers, it is hence not advisable for me to go. Now see, it was that simple, but if only Pathak understood the importance of 'simplicity as a virtue !'

So I went back to the hostel, having left them both to plan the rest of their evening. Of course I waited all evening thereafter, till I thought would be the appropraite time to call up Neeraj & find out about the proceedings of the samaroh...

what?? u thought I would leave it only at a point of knowing what might happen at the samaroh, and wouldnt delve into what actually happened!...rubbish!!
So a little after 1 am, I called up Neeraj, "so gaye the kya??", and he answered "nahi, bus sone ja raha tha!". Liar!

For those of you who dont know, a little piece of information about Neeraj. This guy was famous in the campus as a big liar, he was believed to be an amazing manipulator of words, and he was of course quite big a politician (a lot of b.tech students hated him for his political acumen owing to which he ousted CMT-the har-dil-aziz & my-dil-aziz too ;) candidate, for the post of President of student's gymkhana). But in the midst of all this negative imagery, he had managed to portray himself as someone who would never lie/manipulate/politicize lest it does good to someone else. Anyway, those are just euphemisms of defending: just as a pagal would never concede to the fact that he is a pagal; a liar would never concede to the fact that he is a liar. Pretty natural & justified too!!

Coming back to my phone call to Neeraj, I began to dig out the details. He told me that two prostitutes from Naankari village namely Komal & Kesar were protagnists of the show. I asked him more about the proceedings, he described not in so much detail, but he did repeatedly mention that Kesar danced pretty well. I could make out that he had developed some soft-corner for Kesar ;). So I asked him what kind of songs were playing. He told me that Kesar's dance on Kajra re was pretty good. And what followed was a 10 minute long amorous description of what an excellent dancer Kesar was. On the lighter side I wanted to add, " should we ask Pathak to make her the dance club coordinator of IITK". But his heart-touching description of the woman & her dance didnt permit me to make fun of anything. I must confess he described it more decently than a prostitute in any walk of life can be described. I dont know if he really meant it or was he just using Pathak's tactics of maintaining his image as a 'decent nice guy'.

Whatever it maybe, but I must say IITK guys have this knack of making even the gravest act of perversion sound like a noble deed of patronage.
Hats off to them!!...the JEE surely judges something successfully! ;)