A flash of the past…

An incident took place, consequences were faced but not regretted!!
This is dedicated to Richa, Anki and Ritu.
(Note: This is not a horrifying, thrilling story..It is just an experience. So don’t get too anxious and expect a filmy story :P)

It was a Sunday morning in February 2004 and we were all packed up, charged up and earnest to see some snow..”We” comprises Ritu, Anki, Richa, Sunny, Mandu, Ankur and me…engineering students of SMIT in our 3rd semester. People generally went to the city, Gangtok, or nearby places on Sundays, the only day-off in a week. We were heading for Tsomgo lake(aka Changu lake) in Sikkim which is about 3hrs journey from our College. It is known for its scenic beauty. The lake freezes and is covered with snow during winters.

For security reasons, all students staying in the campus are compelled to sign-out when leaving the college premises and sign-in when coming back. Someone had told us that to go to Tsomgo lake we needed some permission from our warden (this was required especially for the girls). Well we thought “Why go through all the trouble…it’s just a visit. What could possibly go wrong out there that we would require a permission!!”. So as usual we all filled the details in the IN/OUT register book except for the fact that we didn’t mention “Tsomgo Lake” in the “To” column. We wrote “Gangtok” instead and the 7 of us started the trip with all excitement and enthusiasm.

We enjoyed our way up the winding road through snow capped hillocks, playing games, talking, laughing, singing, eating etc. The sad thing was we never reached our destination because at midway the road was blocked!! The vehicles were skidding due to ice covered road…. 😦 😦 sob sob. There was a long line of vehicles..all on their way to Tsomgo Lake. But also, there was snow everywhere and to our amazement it even started snowing!! 😀 :D…Everyone got out of their vehicles and started playing in the snow. Another surprise? Most of the people were students of SMIT!! There was this female, our batch mate , who had come with her friends (all guys) but she joined us. We didn’t mind. We were having a ball sliding, rolling, getting our legs stuck on the snow-ground, throwing snowballs at each other….little did we know what was awaiting us. Well, it was really fun and it was one of the most memorable day in my life 🙂 . We spent few hours there until our entire body got numb. Then we started heading back to where we started, stopping at small shacks for food(maggie, momo..mmmmm) and hot cup of tea. We also enjoyed our way back playing games, talking, laughing, singing, eating 😀 . We washed up and put on warm clothes after we reached our hostel. The four of us were talking and relishing the fun we had, when we were called to meet the warden.

Let me introduce you to the warden. She was well known as Kamo, the sardonic, arrogant, unethical, cynical monster. Oh I would love to go on but I would be no different than her!! She was the newly appointed warden for few months. JUST OUR LUCK!!

Well the thing is, it seemed some students, who had gone to Tsomgo lake, had had a fight with some cab drivers….and then the cab drivers had complained to our college authorities. So , the college authorities were trying to find out who all had gone. Now Kamo started questioning us about our whereabouts earlier that day. We all wanted to lie I think but none did. Now remember the female who joined us? She was there sitting all teary eyed and apologetic and trying to look vulnerable, while on the other hand, the four of us weren’t even sorry. Then the bad mouthing started…no no not from our side or the other girl. Yes Kamo madam started saying things I’d prefer not to mention them here. Accusing us of all the activities she could think of. I mean being a female herself, I don’t understand how could she say things which would hurt any girl. Damn she didn’t even have the decency or ethics to talk to a student..let alone scold a student. Ritu was giving her such stern looks that boiled her even more and she sent a “letter of misconduct” to Ritu’s residence. heh heh heh 🙂

We were punished..but not the other girl…why? because according to Kamo, at least she was sorry. Can you believe her?? Why should we be sorry?? I hated Kamo so much…. not because of the punishment but for the kind of person she was. She asked us to take names of other girls who went to Tsomgo lake. We didn’t. All the girls were asked to confess. But none did. I hated everyone at that time. I had felt very betrayed. But maybe I would have done the same too.

I called up home to tell them about the punishment. It was the first time I cried on phone when talking to my family (been in a hostel life since 6th std). My family was very cool about the incident. They told me not to worry and supported me a lot. It was the same for the rest of my friends too. My mom asked me just one Qs “Is your warden not married yet?” 😉

The Punishment : We have to get back to the hostel everyday by 6pm for the next 3 months, when the actual in-time is 9pm.

Who goes back to the hostel before 9pm!! We were gonna miss our evening walks, evening coffee at the canteen, get together with other friends…We didn’t like it the first 3-4 days. But after that we didn’t mind at all.. we didn’t care…we enjoyed our time inside the hostel listening to music, playing, dancing, working on assignments, talking about Kamo ;)…The best part was that we became much closer and our friendship grew much stronger.

Days went by without us condemning about the punishment. Towards the end, another incident took place. There was this strike by the students against the authorities. I’ll not get into that. But during those days we used to stay out of the hostel beyond 6pm…though, of course in a hush-hush manner :). I remember once, it was way past 6pm and students were in a protesting rally. Ritu and I had joined too. We were there shouting and all, when we saw Kamo coming. Heh heh heh…we ran towards our hostel mess. There we wanted to use the washroom. Ritu was opening the bathroom door, when suddenly a loud manly voice boomed from inside!! We screamed and ran again!! ha ha ha ha ha :D…I’ll never forget that day.

Now all of us are on different paths..2 among four of us are married. But I’m sure we all have a good laugh when we look back and remember this punishment.