I used to attend morning classes at St. Xaviers College in Calcutta (the city was called Calcutta and not Kolkata when I graduated, so for the purposes of this piece, that’s the name I’m going to stick with). Classes would begin at an unearthly 6 am and not being a morning person, I rarely made it to the first class. Or the second. And mostly not even to the third. Which meant that I usually got there at break time, which was at 8 am, when my friends and I would play football/soccer with a rubber ball in the basketball court. As weird as it may sound, it was more fun than I could possibly describe.
We’d have an exam every Friday at 6 am, which made it the most dreaded day of the week. It was an unwritten code for the non-slackers to wake up the slackers. I was one of the slackers so I would not only be woken up by a friend, Tony, who lived in the neighborhood, but would also get picked up from my home and driven to college on his motorcycle. Similarly other friends would be responsible for the slackers in their locality. One of the worst was this guy, who I’m going to call Anil.
Regardless of the day of the week, the time that college would begin (or end), Anil would follow his own private schedule. He was like a guest at St. Xaviers - the day’s he would show up, people would stop and point at him, professors would have a hard time recognizing him and it was as if the football games had a celebrity player.
Friday’s as you are now aware, were a whole different ball game - missing exams could get one into serious trouble. Fortunately for Anil, he had friends who loved him and would stop by his home, get him out of bed and drag him to college. It was a weekly routine and the others (who would all be packed into one car) would have to wake up early enough to plan for this diversion.
So it was one of those exam Friday’s and the group was at Anil’s place, trying to get him to wake up. He was being overly stubborn and it was getting close to 6 am. By the time they were able to get him out of bed, it was already too late to brush, change clothes etc. One of the guys had proactively squished toothpaste onto his toothbrush, another had picked a bottle of water (so he could brush on the way) and a third had his text book (so he could hurriedly read up on his way to the exam).
A couple of hours later, the worst time of the week was over and everyone had gathered together on Short Street, which was on the other side of the college’s main entrance. There was a little shop that sold tea, samosas, biscuits, which would be breakfast for all the hungry boys. There was loud chatter in the group about the exam, making plans for the rest of the day and the upcoming weekend. It was a small street with barely any traffic so basically the students were occupying all of it. In the distance we could see one of our friends walking towards us. Anil, who as I had mentioned, hadn’t had time to change his clothes in the morning, was wearing a short kurta that came up to his hips and drawstring pajamas. He had his text book in one hand and a clay pot with tea in the other.
The friend, who was known for being a prankster, walked directly over to Anil, bent a little and pulled on his drawstrings. All of a sudden, there he was in the middle of the street, his pajamas having collapsed towards his feet, both his hands occupied and in the air, his shirt too short and no underwear! It was as if time had stood still and every eye was on Anil’s naked butt or crotch.
Of course nothing ever fazed Anil. There was no sense of panic or embarrassment. Instead he calmly handed over his tea to one of the guys, another got his text book, as he bent over and picked up his pajamas.
