My parents were in Delhi for a short short while before moving out again.  Till I was a day scholar, life was pretty circumspect, the only friends one made were on the U-Special that one had to catch at an unearthly hour to get to college.  And parents, feeling scared with their young daughter in Big Bad Delhi imposed curfew hours that had me in mental hysteria.  I mean …. when do I live?  I was ripe for rebellion.  There were no hills on which I could jog my angst away.

Notoriety to ho hi gayi thee.  As usual, I had cousins in DU, even in Hindu.  My mother’s family comprised of 3 brothers and 3 sisters, my father’s family was 5 brothers and god-knows-how-many sisters.  (They were the pre-family planning era), now if each of those siblings had a couple of kids, can you imagine how many of us there are?  I am reasonably sure that I can land up anywhere on earth and meet clansmen and clanswomen.  My main pre-occupation in college was to get into mischief and avoid clans people.  I succeeded pretty well in both.

O-o

One day, while coming back home on the U Special, the boy I was sitting next to got into a fight with two others.  It was pretty scary.  I thought they would fall on me.  A boy standing next to them asked if he could sit on that seat.  I quickly assented.  We got talking and hit it off ….. I married him.

The fight turned out to be pretty major.  During the next week the two boys who were fighting called their various back-up of friends and lawless elements.  In fact one of them actually shot the other one with a katta (home made pistol).  Unfortunately the katta backfired and took away the earlobe of the person doing the shooting.  Just desserts!!

Here comes the kicker!  The fight was about the honor of sitting next to yours truly.  And yours truly was having blonde bimbette moments – I was actually unaware of being the bone in contention.  It was much later that one person asked me, “Who is this Ritu from Hindu College?  I want to meet this girl who caused a shoot out and cost a young man his ear.”

O-o

I saw, for the first time in my life, a couple of girls smoking.  Well, I was fascinated.  To me they looked sophisticated and cool.  I told you, I have bad attitude and bad taste.  So I decided I wanted to be like them and went and bought my first packet of cigarettes … Four Square.

Then I marched up to the only sane senior student I knew (ex) and asked him to teach me how to smoke.  He looked at me in horror.  He told me that they would blacken my lips, spoil my teeth and even make me dark.  I yawned!

He told me that he would throw away the packet.  I put it in my breast pocket and challenged him to try and do that.

He told me, “Tere brothers ko bol dunga”

I told him, “Tere life ki ulti ginti shuru ho gayi boss!”

He caved in.  I smiled and thanked him.  I even fell in love with him.  The rest is history.

Both were bad decisions.  No my skin did not darken, neither did my lips.  I ruined my teeth though.  And I learnt one lesson in life – do not marry a guy you can successfully bully at first.  Just pause and consider why he let you bully him

P.S. As a teacher he sucked

I was a hilly billy.  Spent most of my formative years in Shillong and Imphal.  I love the hills.  I spent most of my time in the hills running uphill and downhill with my dog and poring through each and every book in the state owned library.  Sigh!  such idyllic existence …..

Well, I was healthy, lungs properly oxygenated, ate healthy fresh produce,  walked and ran till I had thigh and calf muscles that could actually repel bullets (just kidding), my brain was properly nourished by classics and other literary works.

And I was bored …. to tears.

The thing is that however lovely the scenery you can not eat it, and if things are so good and pure you want the bad.  I don’t know if you agree, but I seriously would have gone insane if I stayed in such a boring though beautiful place a day more.

Thankfully, I got good marks, and thankfully my parents decided enough of the hills (8 long years) were enough, and they accepted a posting to Delhi.  When we landed in Delhi, I took one deep breath of the pollution riddled air – and I was in heaven.  I know, I know, there is no accounting for taste.

Did you know even the air here smells of petrol fumes?  To me it smelled of freedom. …… the kind of freedom where your father and your school principal do not play bridge together, the kind where your mother does not know the mother of the boy you date, the kind in which you cut classes and no one rings home.  Yes, to me freedom means anonymity. 

Hello Delhi!  Here I was – barely fifteen and ready for life and mischief.  Stephens had turned co-ed that year, and I got an admission.  My Ma decided that a boys’ college was not a good option for her daughter and so I was enrolled into Hindu College.

Sadly it was Emergency year.  In my “bring it on” mood, I even wanted to be ragged.  The only ragging that happened was seniors whispering “Fuccha come here!” and then asking us to sing a song or tell them a joke.  How utterly lame!

Of course my foot in mouthitis kicked in – I told the group that was ragging me that I could do a better job than them.  So they tipped a imaginary hat at me and organized a donkey ride for the fuccha who thinks she is too smart.  I climbed on, hung on the donkey’s neck for dear life, even though donkey wanted to bite my hand.  Have you ever seen donkey’s teeth in close quarters?  Not good, not good at all!  They look like Paresh Rawal’s teeth magnified.  >Shudder<

But the donkey ride made me famous in the second week in college.  Good bye anonymity, hello notoriety.  Every girl had serious issues with me, and most guys had slept with me in their dreams.  Believe me, guys need to actually separate fantasy from real life.  The way they spoke.  One day I and a close friend calculated that if their tales were true …. I would have been making out every five minutes with a new boy – and I was in college for fourteen days – just fourteen days.  I never got to see so much action in my whole life

Instead of classes, I found the dramatics society more interesting, and of course the cafeteria.  More about that in the next post.