Adventures in MGIMS quarters

[Guest guest]

ADVENTURES IN MGIMS QUARTERS

I had just returned from a white water river rafting experience in Rishikesh,

and I hardly expected to find adventure in my own house-in fact, my bedroom so

soon(patience...don't let your imagination race ahead before I tell you) .

10.30 pm. It looked like a calm Friday night. Yes it was drizzling outside, but

it had been like that all evening. There were occasional rumbles- but that was

the noise of Subodh's sonorous snores- which worried me these days only if they

were absent within an instant of his dropping his head on his pillow. I was

watching my favorite music show on television, wanting to criticize some of the

judges more than the participants. But having no one to listen to me, I kept my

thoughts to myself.

11.15 p.m. Subodh wakes up with a start and lying in a weird languid pose,

brings a look of terror on his face. 'Quick quick....bring some vessels from the

kitchen!' he pants breathlessly. Now if you know Subodh- when he panics, he

cannot be handled easily. But when he wakes up from what looks like a nightmare

and panics, he is both incoherent and illogical. Before I understand what's

happening, a shower of cold raindrops hits my face. I look up at the roof, which

now resembles the heavens. The whole roof is dripping and water is pouring right

over the bed. The languid pose is just Subodh aligning himself so that the rain

falls on him rather than the mattress!

The bed is too heavy to budge even an inch. I curse the time we decided to get a

bed made where we could store all our mattresses and woollens. The mattress and

sheets are dragged off the bed in a start. But they still look as if an army of

babies had strategically emptied their bladders in unison. We rush to the

kitchen, and out come utensils of all shapes and sizes. In three minutes there

are nine different items on the bed- there are pots, pans, saucepans and bowls.

The sound of rain, now thumping instead of dripping, into the vessels makes for

better music than the musical programme on TV. Ting, ping, trrring, pling,

plomp....the whole orchestra with the right ambience. I wished there was Gulzar

there to write lyrics to that rhythm. I could experience the wonderful pre

monsoon showers in my own bedroom. How many people have such luck!

But our efforts aren't enough. The bed is still getting soaked, and the

mattresses stored inside would eventually turn damp. Cover it with some long

plastic sheets- there came the next helpful suggestion. Brilliant. But have you

ever tried searching for plastic sheets in your house at midnight, when one eye

is still stuck to the happenings on television and the other drooping as it is

past your bedtime? Some weary shakes to our rusted memories later, we remembered

where they had been carefully stored. And in what looked like the end of the wet

saga, we managed to cover our bed with those plastic sheets.

What happens to the stuff stored in the bedroom will be seen later. But as of

now we have shifted with mat and mattress to sleep on the living room floor.

Pray that this roof doesn't drip like the bedroom too, or the kitchen will be

the only option left.

As I drift off to sleep, I remember a conversation I had with the colleague in

the evening. There were rumours that some quarters were roofless as the

engineering section was renovating the roofs since the last few days! I think of

those families and murmur a prayer in thanks.

But, thank God for these quarters in Sevagram which add to the drama in our

otherwise dull existence. Next time (which will probably happen much earlier

than we expect it), I think we should put up the plastic sheets above the bed

like a tent. Imagine the pitter patter sound of the raindrops and the real fun

experience of camping in a tent in the monsoon right in our own houses!

Anshu