A phone call that flipped the world around!!

Its been three long years at the college.....We ...the back benchers were getting increasingly bored in the classes.... Attendance in classes were hitting an all time low... But it was very late when we realised that even the front benchers were hopping out from the classes after us.... All the slompy teachers who took classes with feeble voices and terrible vocabularies were provoked when the number of students who attended classes shrank to about 10!! Alarm bells rang in the staffrooms and all of a sudden the students of final year electrical engg beacame notorious all over the college....

All the juniors looked at us with awe...admiration...jealousy and all other divine feelings....

Myself and my room mate Vineeth took pride in calmly having a hot coffee over the newspaper, still clad in a lungi or tiny little Boxer shorts when all the other students were rushing for the classes.... (Yes, my dear friends from the north of India, this is the actual lungi with colorful stripes, spots and stars!! In our land, dhothi is spotlessly white or a creamy white with a nice border either in solid color or golden color or both together. I am a pure bred Malayalee, also comically called as Mallu elsewhere in the world. Mallu is an internet slang used to refer to people from the state of Kerala. Malayalam is the official language of the state of Kerala. Speakers of the Malayalam language are referred to as Malayalis. The term Malayali was shortened to "Mallu" for ease of typing and brevity of speech. And Kerala is a state located in the south-west region of India on the Malabar coast.) 

Then....one fine morning.......

Disaster stuck.....!!

There was a pretty big notice put up in our class room that fine morning..... It urged all the students to bring their parents to meet the HOD the following week failing which the access to classes to the next semester would be denied... And know what....the funniest part is that....i was the first person to read the notice....donno what prompted me to go to the class that day.....

Any way...i was half dead....half frozen...half eaten by fear by the time my fellow classmates reached......

"Man...i'm all screwed", I thought....what can be done?..... if mom or dad came....all my bunking classes would come to an untimely end.....i was in neck deep shit....

It was at that instant when i remembered my uncle who was at Palakkad....i had not visited him in a couple of years...I went.... In the evening itself......i somehow managed to sack him and he agreed to come the next week....

phew!!..i was relieved...but my Vineeth was still in trouble... He had not found a way out... We decided to present my uncle as his family friend...

This guy , Vineeth is the coolest dude in the whole world i have ever seen...cool in the true sense....rock solid...i had never seen him lose his nerves till the eventful day i am trying to picturise.

At last the day for the meeting came...i had a shave...[took off my villain sideburns]...just to get that polite look..dressed up in full uniform...[that too a first timer after the completion of my first semester]. and finally uncle came... from the time I can remember, I've seen him in his totally white outfit - white shirt and white dhothi (also called Mundu) with a solid border mostly. Spotlessly clean, rinsed with starch and Ujala - a kind of whitener, which gives a bluish tinge to whites. He used his regular leather sandals, again spotlessly clean, polished, bluffed and shining to perfection which made squeaking noise when he walked the through the vast college corridors.

A Mundu can be worn 'Full Mast' or 'Half Mast' like a national flag. A 'Full Mast' lungi is when you are showing respect to an elderly or the dead. Wearing it at full mast has lots of disadvantages. A major disadvantage is that your mobility is very much restricted. When you are wearing a lungi/mundu at full mast, the only known advantage seems to be for the female onlookers who are spared the ordeal of getting a glimpse of hairy legs.

Uncle used to fold his Mundu in half and tie it around when situation demanded. I've always wondered, this is so uncomfortable a dress when it comes to practicality. Whenever I had to wear it, my mobility would be compromised to a great extent. It restricts the free movement of your legs when you wear it around in full length and that's the reason why people wear it in half mast mode when more mobility is required. And adding to the woes, you are in constant threat of getting embarrassed in case the dhothi got untied and the world sees your prized possessions. 

But, when you see a Malayalam movie, you will come to know how versatile a dress, the dhothi is. You can show respect to your elders or parents by converting it from half mast to full mast. And it has to be done in front of the person if you want to show maximum respect. You can fold it around when you are in a fight or flight situation and show your manliness. In my humble opinion Dr. Lieutenant Colonel Padma Shri Bharat Mohanlal (Phew...) makes the best use of dhothi in Malayalam Film industry. He folds it in style and kick butts of all the bad asses in his movies with panache. He has even untied his dhothi in one of his movies, to wrap the head of a police officer and beat him up black & blue. 

Lungi provides good ventilation and brings down the heat between legs. A mallu is scared of global warming more than anyone else in the world.

To mention some other uses, you can wear it to your ration shop and use it as a shopping bag pitting things in the fold of the dhothi. Then, it may be used as a facemask while entering/exiting toddy shops/BARS!! Water filter while fishing in ponds and rivers, A lungi/mundu can be worn any time of the day/night. It doubles as blanket at night. It also has recreational uses like in 'Lungi/mundu pulling', a pastime in households having more than one male member. When these lungis/mundus are decommissioned from service, they become table cloths or window curtains. A mallu can play cricket, football or simply run when the lungi is worn at half mast. A mallu can even climb a coconut tree wearing lungi at half mast. "It's not good manners, especially for ladies from decent families, to look up at a mallu climbing a coconut tree"- Aristotle (or was it Mahatma Gandhi?)

I somehow liked the way his royal mirage colongue mixed with the odour of his Wills cigarette after-smoke smell though its hated by the rest of the population on the globe.

Vineeth presented his situation. 'Uncle, you have to help me'

'Hmm...', uncle said. 'How many back papers do you have, guys?'

"3...er 4...' we said. 

'Sons, clear them before you step out of the campus. otherwise, u'll pay for it.' Uncle said. 

'Yes, uncle', we said.

Uncle met the HOD, we went inside like the most obedient chaps in college, wearing an innocent look and an angelic smile. It worked for me, but alas, HOD insisted on meeting Vineeth's parents. And then, he blurted out the ultimate stupid lie I had heard in recent times. "Dad is sick, he cannot travel", he said. "OK", said the HOD, 'Make him call me on phone".

We got an auto for Uncle and saw him off. "Yes!!", we said as we reached home. One phone call, yes that can be worked out. No issues. We had our afternoon nap (ofcourse, bunked the afternoon classes!!) and in the evening, over a steaming cup of tea and ParleG biscuts, tried to remember all the faces which are connected to a mature voice. And then came Ramesh wearing his usual stupid smile and chali jokes (Chali = faltoo).

"Yes", we said, "there's our man!!"

Presented the matter to him. "I'll do it, Said Ramesh, "but, whats do I get in return?"

"A glass of rasna!!", we said.

"Done!!" 

The store keeper Krishnettan, smiled at us with his slightly yellow teeth. :One glass? You guys dont want?" I had dug all the piggy banks for 3 rupees to buy Rasna for Ramesh!! "No, Thank you Krishnettan, We've got sore throat!!" Ramesh however took a long sip and finished almost half glass in a go, then raised his eyes and asked "There won't be any issue, right?"

"What issue dude? Nothing will happen." I assured.

And we called the HOD, the drama was over in 2 minutes, FLAT...

We were caught red handed!! HOD told us, expect heavy consequences!! We won't be spared. Nowhere to go, we got worried whether Vineeth will get debarred or suspended or something like that. I prayed to God that day, after a long while. "God, don't let anything happen to Vineeth, there won't be anybody to bunk classes with me...Please God, Please..!!

Finally, Vineeth's Dad came, bailed us out. Both of us had learnt the lesson, the hard way. Scared the shit out of us. We changed, ever since. I stopped lying to any body after this incident. Even to console anybody, I have never lied ever since!!

This blog has stayed in my drafts for more than 3 years now. Thought I would complete it today. And here it is. A phone call that changed my attitude for life !!