Rendezvous with Death..

The 1st year of engineering is probably one of the most excruciating year’s in a student’s life. Finding an engineering student who has not been “ragged” in his 1st year is about as difficult as findng a house wife who does not watch Ikta Kapoor’s soaps. I was relatively lucky in this respect, and somehow managed to wiggle out of 1st year without being ragged to the same extent as my batchmates. Before I entered college, my brother had challenged me to pass through the 1st year without being slapped by a senior. I somehow managed to achieve this quite remarkable feat. But today, I remember the most mortifying incident of my life, an incident which I would easily make it’s way into any Bollywood pot-boiler, an incident which I am sure to tell my grand children one day.....

It was the that dreaded 1st month of college, when ragging is at it’s grotesque peak. I used to live in Raipur, and commute to my college, which was in Bhilai, by bus. By doing so, I used to violate one of the tenets laid down by the seniors of Raipur, which stated that every fresher from Raipur has to travel by train to Bhilai. And during the train journey, the freshers used to get royally ragged by the seniors. I had decided I wanted none of it. So I traveled alone by bus. But I knew that the day any senior finds out about my blasphemy, I would be taken straight to the guillotine. I needed to be extra careful to make sure that no one sees my getting into, and out of the bus near our college. So, I always took the usual precautions of reaching Bhilai well before college timings, and getting in and out of the bus about a km away from the college gates. But the sinking feeling that I might eventually be caught one day never ceased to be at the back of my mind. And one day, my worst fears came true.

One evening after college, I boarded a bus to Raipur, and nestled into a comfortable window seat. Just about 15 minutes later, a rowdy fellow on a bike began to ride along the road, just in front of my window. After staring in my direction for a short while, he suddenly exploded into the most vulgar slang attack. While riding his bike, and staring in my direction, he began to utter the most obnoxious profanities I have ever heard. I knew it now, this was a rowdy senior from Raipur, who had seen me getting into the bus, and was now hot on my trail, wanting to scare the wits out of me. But I thought that as long as I was inside the bus and he was on the bike, I was not in any physical danger. He would soon veer off and go away.

I was wrong.

Suddenly, the guy accelerated and overtook the bus. Then, most unexpectedly, asked the bus driver to stop. Soon he was rushing into the bus, anger raging in his face. I knew now, that I was done for. It was time for me to say my final prayers. As he charged towards my seat, I knew that I was seconds away from being pummeled into smithereens. My misadventure of disobeying my seniors had gone fatally wrong. The rough had now reached upto the seat before me. And then, looking at the guy sitting an chewing "pan", on the window seat in front of me, shouted at his highest pitch, “You f****** a******, can’t you look once on who is on the road, before spitting through the bus window!!!”

Phew!!! I had come back from the dead! I felt like someone whose death sentence had been cancelled after the firing squad had taken it's aim! It was the luckiest day of my life! I had lived to fight another day.....