B’day Bumps

Since this is my first hostel stint, for the majority of my 28 (sigh) years, I’ve been relatively ‘sheltered’ from birthday celebrations. Yes, there have been incidents when pepsi, watermelon juice, chocolate cake, pizza, and god knows what all substances have been rubbed into or poured over my hair and face. Ugh!

 

However, all that was pretty innocuous, when compared to my 28th b’day, which was about a month ago.

 

I was (peacefully) sitting in my room, and playing a (violent) computer game, when I heard what sounded almost like a recording of me singing. Because it was a rather terrifying sound, I didn’t bother to investigate. However, the source of the sound came closer and closer, and ultimately, I discovered that the sounds were being made by a mob of people who wanted to ‘wish’ me.

 

So, after hastily said goodbyes to all those midnight callers, calling to wish me, I prepared myself for the worst. (As it turned out later, I was hopefully underprepared.) I was almost dragged to the common room. (At times like this, one thanks one’s lucky stars for the extra tyre that one carries around one’s middle. If not for that, numerous human rights violations would’ve been committed that day.)

 

To my surprise (and fear), there was quite a crowd gathered there. Another classmate, Reju, also had his b’day on the same date, so there were two cakes, one for each of us.

 

But before that, an ancient tribal ritual was to take place. Reju was picked up by a sea of people, who then proceeded to kick his posterior. A tradition that we have at XLRI is to kick the roomie as well. So, Ram, who happened to be that unfortunate creature, in this case, was also promptly thrown up and made to meet the might of other people’s feet.

 

Then came the moment that I’d been dreading. My turn! After I put the knife to the cake, suddenly, the world went mad. Someone took away my specs, someone else smeared  a huge chunk of cake on me. Then, of course, there were people who wanted to practise their kicking skills.

 

So, I was promptly hauled over to a corner of the room, and tossed up by a few heaving, puffing souls, while the others took turns imparting some nicely-aimed kicks at me. In fact, one of these vile creatures had a broken ankle, and couldn’t kick. So what? He just picked up his crutches and used them.

 

 

After that, there was a ‘bathing’ ritual too. Both of us – the b’day boys, and our roomies were dunked in water that contained a wee bit of detergent – presumably to cleanse us. Then of course, the back-slapping, laughing crowd dispersed, and we were left to wash up and shake our heads in disbelief.

 

Of course, it was fun! Though, because of the sore posterior that I suffered from, I was unable to type out the experience, and forgot about it till much later. Today, I’m rescuing it from the depths of my drafts probably because I don’t seem to have much else to write about.

 

*Some of the pictures and videos are too gory to display. Hence, in public interest, they’ve not been displayed.