Liquors and Lingering goodbyes

I think every time we charitably proclaim "People are shades of grey: you can't always classify them into stark shades of blacks and whites"; there's a part we don't speak out loud. It's the fact that while we do earnestly believe this for others, we don't quite reduce ourselves to the same standards. By "people", we mean other people. Not ourselves. We expect ourselves to be the purest shades of white. we expect nothing but the best from ourselves. We lament mistakes made by our own hands a hundred times more than we judge the same mistakes made by others. We curse our sins more profusely than the exact sin committed by somebody else. It's a cruel game of glorifying everybody but our own self; but also setting up an unattainable high throne and being narcissistic enough to desire absolute sheer perfection. Putting somebody up on a pedestal is a sin, I suppose, but a greater sin is putting yourself up on a pedestal. 

I am no better. The standards I hold myself to could often be considered "prudish", and rightfully so. I don't expect other people to uphold the same standards that I do in a purely hypocritical move. If anything, I most often find myself dissuading most from setting themselves up to the untouchable goals that I pick my hair apart every day to achieve. And I despise making mistakes on the way. I tell others "It's normal. It's human. Everybody makes mistakes"; yet I don't leave room for myself to make the same faults. Making mistakes have always been hard for me; ironically enough, not because of the fear of repercussions, but simply because of the shame it has made me feel. And recently, I have been learning to unlearn this shame.

And thus, on a random Tuesday after the end of our End semester exams, I decided I might as well try out alcohol, a mistake I had sworn to hold off for the entirety of my first year. 

The past week had been hectic. Amidst swirling heat waves and scorching summer, our exams went by in a rush. There was barely any time to breathe between the end of one test and beginning of another. But that's the good thing with horrid days, I guess- while they are agonizingly dreadful to anticipate, they also rush by in a hurry. 

And then suddenly it was Monday. We had one more test to take the next day, but the exhaustion had already started creeping into our bones. As we returned from the exam hall, me and S took a short stop at the canteen for a treat of bread pakoras and chicken fries. Dark clouds had already begun scudding across the evening sky. I went to sleep for a little while after returning to the hostel, owing to the tiredness that had seeped under my skin. I was however woken up from my nap in about an hour by an excited S screaming, "Jhor utheche bhai!" (There's a storm outside, bro!) I jumped up in a split second and rushed out to the common balcony, where my friends were already dancing amongst the strong gusts of wind. Exhilarated screaming ensued as the girls held hands and spun each other around and launched into happy dances. We watched in wonder as the breezes picked up speed and the numerous campus trees swished and danced along. When I broke into a song, others joined along; truly, one ought to experience something so thoroughly adrenaline-inducing as this at least once in their lifetime. 

Sometime later, we decided it would be stupid to stay in, so three of us rushed out of the hostels onto the streets, laughing like mad women.(Somehow, none of us comprehended that it was a stupider idea to go out in the midst of lightning and thunder, now that I think about it.) As we walked along, I was struck by a brilliant plan. There were numerous mango trees in the campus; and the ripe fruits ought to have fallen in the storm. We decided to go on a mango picking rendezvous. Numerous long sticks were gathered, and we went in search of the good trees. Half an hour of shoving and prodding later, we finally had four handfuls of heavenly-smelling mangoes. J shoved two handfuls into the pockets of her shorts and we skipped back to the hostel, ecstatic with joy. The storm raged on in our wake, and the petrichor drifted into the common room beyond the closed windows. Despite my new-grown aversion to studying now that it was storming outside, I forced myself to sit and read for the test next day. Amidst giggled conversations, and short trips to the balcony to witness the lightning that brightened up the whole campus for split seconds, the night passed away. 

Biology ended quicker than usual, and with that, our end semesters concluded as well. It had been pre-decided that some of us girls would try out cocktails on the day. The preparations were in full force, despite the conversations being whispered. Since most of us girls did not have direct access to alcohol, we depended on the guys  who had made it a steady ongoing-ritual after all semester exams. The arrangements were super hushed, and near midnight, when J told me that I was being called to my room (which I had charitably given up to be the site of our debauchery), I barely had any idea of what was about to happen. I entered the room, and the door was immediately shut behind me. Everything had been set up on my bare cot (it was devoid of a mattress, since that now rested in the common room). In the center sat the primary interest of the night, a 750ml bottle of Bacardi white rum, and surrounding it was every other accessory possibly required to enjoy a drinking fest- Limca, coke, and a bunch of other snacks. I was handed a drink after a few minutes, and we began the party. S had abstained from participating; she sat in with us however, in case things got out of hand.

Which...things did, in the next three quarters of an hour. Credits to me being a beginner, I wasn't permitted to drink much, and most of my alcohol was diluted with hideous amounts of coke, which in rearview, wasn't such a bad idea. The effects however, didn't evade me. I had started feeling slightly spaced out, and uncomfortably hot in my face in about half an hour. I have been informed later that while I insistently claimed that I wasn't the slightest bit high, I was doing it in so loud a voice, it kind of nullified my point. Most of us were however still holding our alcohol really well, except one of us, and for convenience, we will name her X. She was completely inebriated, and was so in the truest sense of the word. The conversations changed topics in leaps and bounds; we went from claiming sobriety by doing integration problems to discussing why men were god's most sinful creations to dancing atop cots on item song beats. When I checked my phone a few moments after collapsing from hideously bad dancing, there were missed video call notifications from the boys' hostel. A parallel booze party was also happening there, obviously, and the returned video call was received by three of them, whose physical alignments at that moment forever remain a mystery to us girls. The phone passed on quickly through their room, mostly fueled by curiosity as to what a bunch of drunk girls would look like. I refused to acknowledge the call and passed it on to others; the dizzy high was too precious to let it be ruined by a certain someone's face. I remember sitting quietly, as drunk conversations and raucous laughter ensued in the virtually separated rooms, but the familiar hollow feeling had already started settling in my chest. 

After the bottle ran empty and all of us were drunk enough, we decided to take a walk out in the campus. One of us had to visit a senior, and as it was drizzling outside, it was decided that J would accompany her. To avoid appearing drunk together, J and her left first, which left me, S and a thoroughly drunk X in the room. She was physically incapable of sitting up, and both me and S struggled to pull her out of the room. I gave up after a few; the rain outside was far too enticing to my drunk brain. I left the hostel, caught up with J and the others on the way and after dropping them off safely at the night canteen, started on my way back. My phone rang on the way, and it was one of the guys calling to tell us that they were out of the hostel too. I met them at the intersection between the girls' hostel and boys' hostel. After another hour of extreme drunk tomfoolery; most of which I am inclined to say that I remember VERY clearly, I decided it was time for bed around 3am. One of the girls led me back to the common room, and after I had changed, I collapsed. I was dead asleep in a few minutes.

I hadn't really expected a hangover the next morning, and was relieved to find out that was indeed the case when I woke up. I felt perfectly normal, even as J slept on till 11am on the mattress by mine. My phone had a couple of missed calls from the guys, and I called them back to learn that a very drunk X was now asleep in my room, after having vomited a couple of times last night. I was instructed to make sure she takes a bath, but when I went in to check, she had already left the room. I came back to the common room, to now find J awake and siting up with red eyes. As it turned out, she had also vomited last night on her mattress (somehow I was so deep in sleep, I failed to hear it). I sent her off to clean her sheets and take a shower. The rest of the day passed by in a blend of indulging in sheer lethargy and catching up on every possible recreational activity I had missed out on during the endsem weeks; a large chunk of which mostly just consisted of sleeping. My room mate had an early morning flight to take next day, so my room was a huge mess, and I mostly kept to the common room. 

I was to leave by evening the next day, so the morning went by in packing. There was barely any time for sentimentality to creep in between having to fit in a shit ton of stuff in a single wardrobe and managing to do so while maintaining my sanity. However, when the almirah doors were finally shut and locked up, rendering the room almost as barren as it had been the day I first came in, the realization finally dawned and slowly, sunk in.

Freshman year was over. It still felt surreal; I remembered the day I had stepped in through the college gates as clearly as if it was yesterday. And then two semesters went by in the blink of an eye, and before I could realize it, I was sitting cross-legged on a bare cot, staring somewhat wistfully at the familiar walls as a storm picked up outside. I switched on some music, and sat quietly, embracing the solitude and sanctity of the room covered in a blend of lights and shadows. A part of me refused to accept that the next time we returned, we wouldn't be first-years anymore; that a whole new bunch of people would be taking up our places. They would be sitting in together just like we did, while we would only have some of our classes together. It was some parts strange, but most parts sad. I suppose no course on general relativity I would ever take will ever explain why time seems to rush by when things are perfect.

There were goodbyes to be said, and despite texting the ones I wished to meet one last time before I left, I couldn't pull through it. I replied to all the texts with a cryptic "Never mind" as I locked the door to the room. A formal goodbye would inevitably linger with a hundred unsaid words, and that would make the sadness even more real. Thus, in a classic avoidant me fashion, I left with S for the station, even in midst of the menacing grey clouds and strong gusts of wind; bidding the campus a last adieu.

I have been home for the past week, and it has mostly gone by in meeting friends, a couple of unexpected encounters, cooking,  and conducting a post-mortem of each end-semester result that comes out. I have a Bangalore summer school to do next month, and I suppose I'll be seeing y'all then?

Toodles!

Signing off,

Shaona