CHhOoOoOOoOpPPP...

Sometimes I wake up shy, Sometimes confident.
Sometimes I wake up naive, Sometimes  full of wisdom.
Sometimes I wake up serious, Sometimes frivolous.
And Sometimes I wake up Mad ,and I woke up Mad that day.

I opened my eyes and looked at the clock -- 7:58 am
 "F***" my first word for the day."I am late".

I jumped out of my bed.Didn't wash my face.Didn't brush my teeth.Didn't change my T-shirt;
just removed my shorts and wore my favourite pair of faded blue jeans(which were on the
floor)Then realized I wasn't alone in the room. Shanky, my roomie was wide awake
and saw something that he wasn't supposed to see and consequently had a wide grin on his face.
I picked up my shorts threw them on his face ,opened the door of my room and started running like a
street dog in pursuit of a car on the road.

It was mandatory for every student, in my college, to have a minimum of 75% attendence in every subject,
 else he wasn't allowed to  take the test of that subject that semester.Moreover, he had to attend the
classes of that subject during holidays, maintain 75% attendence and then take the test, these classes were
called "ORDIE"(or something like that)classes. I know how it feels like to attend an Ordie class, because in
first year of my college I had to attend one, and believe you me, its not a good experience. When everybody else
is at home, you are in college attending classes,maintaining attendence,taking tests and trying very hard to kill
time  (and sometimes yourself) after the class is over, because nobody else is there with you.In a nutshell,
an ORDIE was my college's version of a solitary confinement

Anyways, I had a lecture on Theory Of Machines' at 8am which I couldn't afford to miss because my attendence was mere 65%.If I had missed even a single class it would have been over.
My college was roughly about 800ms away from the hostel, I ran all those 800ms and finally reached
college(alas! There was no one to clock my sprint,cause it was some kind of a record for sure).
My class was on 3rd floor,I ran through all the stairs and blasted into the class without realizing that teacher
was already in there, and sat on the last bench of the class. Everybody was looking at me and so was the teacher. I was sweating Profusely, and breathing like an asthmatic patient

Teacher: You boy... yes you at the back
Me: F*****
Teacher:What did you say?
Me: Nothing,sir..
Teacher: (looked at his clock)hmmmm.. 8:07am

I thought to myself "WOW.. I AM FAST".

Teacher: Boy, you are too early for the next class.

Everybody burst into laughter.

Me :(quizzically) Sir?
Teacher : Please leave..
Me : (like a peasant in front of his master) Siiiirrrrr..
Teacher : please leave at once, now.
Me : (Like a man begging for his life) Siiiiiiiiiirrrrrrr ...
Teacher : Ok, tell me the reason, why are you  late.
Me : (thinking hard) Ummmm... Sirrr ... ummmm
Teacher : (at the top of his voice) GET OUT, NOW.

Oh boy.. he was angry now, his face told it all, I neither had the courage nor the reasons to ask him for forgiveness. I left the class at once . "Now I'll never get placed, no company will allow a student to sit for  recruitment  who has backlog and to add to that I'll have attend ORDIE classes (sigh)...AWESOME! I AM SCREWED"  I said to myself.

I was very upset and I knew there was only one way to get over it. I took out my cell phone and punched a number

Me : Hello, Hello Lalu.
Lalu : Hello
Me : CHAL PEENE
Lalu : (Sleepy)Abhi.. ??? Its 8:30am
Me : Chal Sham Mein Peene
Lalu : Arre Chal... Jab bol tab chalenge
(guys in the college ,especially mine are ever ready to go for a drink)
Me : Ask others to join us too.
Lalu : sure.

We went to a local bar at 6:30 pm . This was the best bar of the town and played some amazing music.
(For those of you who dont drink,here's a trivia:If the music in the background is good while drinking,the effect of liquor gets amplified ).
Lights were dim and music was aerosmith "DREAM ON" the ambience itself was intoxicating.

While we drank we poured our hearts out, we discussed everything ,our sorrows, faulty education system,politics,universe god,society, Pakistan, China, love, betrayals, girls,sex, Suman Saurabh(DPS,BSCity),  everything. Within 4 hours each one of us(the engineering students) present there were transformed into philosophers.

Uncle's (a friend) cell rang abruptly.
Uncle : hmm ... What?. When?..  How?. Where? Who?  How Many? Ok Ok .. just wait we are on our way.
Uncle : CHAL MAAR HOGAYA HAI. Pandey ka phone aaya tha.

No one asked a single question. Everyone just stood up and and started warming up. I felt as if I were in ancient times and this was a war, everyone was thirsty for adversaries blood, and as we marched  Winnie(another friend) turned back and said something, something motivational and at the end of his speech we shouted in unison         "AAAAAAHHHHOOOOOO",   "AAAAAAHHHHOOOOOO" ,"AAAAAAHHHHOOOOOO"   3 times like The Spartans(from the movie 300). Though, I am not sure if it ("AAHHOO" thing) really happened, I was a " little " drunk you see.

The moment we reached the battle field, I started doing my maths(though I am not good at it) ,I pointed my finger towards them and started counting "1 ,2 ,3... umm 4.. 12 um..", before I could finish somebody pushed me and I lost the count.When you are drunk its very difficult to do maths, so I stopped counting but as far as I remember, on the basis of my cursory  inspection I feel they outnumbered us. I was slowly but gradually slipping into the state of trance,but then I heard a loud voice which woke me up, somebody just said something filthy about one of my friend. He was the leader of the other group
and was marching towards us aggressively with a stump in his hand, he then again opened his mouth  and said something filthier this time .Before anyone in my group could react I pushed myself through the crowd and jumped right in front of him.
I squinted and then widened my eyes just to figure out who he was, but everything was so blurry, he was just a big  6 foot 2inches Bulky Blob for me.

Seeing me standing in front of him, didn't deter him (well.. this was no surprise, how on earth can anybody be detered by Me). Infact I charged him up even more and this time he vomited out the filthiest thing one can think of. It was too much for me to handle ,I was already filled with rage and courage (DUTCH COURAGE Of course, otherwise who would want to mess
with a guy of his size).So, I jumped up, held him by his collar, looked straight into his eyes, bowed him down to my level and shouted at the top my voice  

CHhOOOOoooOOOOooOoOoOPpPPppPP...


That was it, he was shaking, I dont know how but I broke him down. He started sobbing like a little girl.
"Wait a minute.." I said to myself "I know that expression very well", but I was not able to recollect where had I seen it. Bye the bye within 2 minutes The Blob guy and his gang retreated. Everybody came to me , patted my back and said "Great Job Buddy". I didnt reply , my mind was occupied. I was still thinking about his expression. Then suddenly somebody slaped  me on my the back of my head  and I said "EUREKA!!!".
Yes, I remember it now

 FLASHBACK  JULY,1994

MUMMY : CHhOOOOoooOOOOooOoOoOPpPPppPP...
ME : (Sobbing like a little girl)...

It was my mom's  scolding style. This is how she used to scold me everytime I did a mischief or misbehaved or did poorly in my exams et cetera. I never had thaught ,even in the wildest of my dreams , that I would use the same phrase one day in situation like this and chase a Big Blob and his whole gang away. What amused me the most was the fact that this phrase worked even on a guy like the Big Blob. I just cant imagine what would've happened to that guy if my mom would have said that phrase to him .Probabaly he would've died!!.


Life is strange.. isn't it? You can never predict the source of your inspiration.

                                 
                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                         ABLAZE

                                                     CAST
Shanky ----  Ravi Shankar
Lalu ------- Saurav Singh
Uncle ------- Ritesh Kishore
Pandey  ------ Vibhor Pandey
Winnie  ------- Ashwini Kumar
         And
Suman Saurabh  ------- Suman Saurabh