The Bunking Instinct

The 75% attendance rule has two sides. First is having to attend 75% of the working days, second, on the other hand is that, you can carefully plan and execute 25% of the bunks. Bunking is always a risk, as you may miss out on something important. But I have had a few lucky escapes; as when I do not attend, either there is no attendance, or sir does not teach etc. Two luckiest of the escapes are 26th July 2005 and 4th July 2009. AD. On both of these occasions it rained heavily.

4th July-

So, when I got up in the morning, I was just having that gut feeling of not going of not going to work ( it comes to me every other day too, but it was different that day) as I had come home very late at night and it was raining in the morning. As my sister woke me up , I just knew what to do. I crashed again. ( After getting up, I decided to work at home, but as with all other ‘plans’, it went awry.)

When  I went to market in the evening and realized at once, that I had been right, rather my wish had been granted.

I walk a lonely road

The roads were flooded, with the purest of sewage water. Everywhere these was ankle deep water at least, in which all the debris of  old rotten vegetables, dead rats, dog feces were floating with spilled petrol from cars, human spit dissolved in water. Quite a sight. Yet everyone including us were hell bent on not wasting anytime and traveling through this. Me and my sister were actually enjoying ourselves.   In one of the buildings, we also saw the sewage pipe overflowing and all the beautiful brown water mixing with rain water in which some children were blissfully playing down the line; splashing the water on each other, jumping in it ( its hard to deny the possibility of it going in mouth)

One thing I admired from this though was, unlike me, rest of the Mumbai was unphased. As we trampled ( or rather swam through) the streets, all the shops were open, even the roadside vendors were standing in rain and selling their merchandise. Because for them unlike for some of us, there is no 75% and no 25%. There is just the end of the day, week, month. If they don’t make enough money by the end of the day, they will sleep hungry. Dry or wet. One of my friend, Nirlipt Mahapatra, had come to Mumbai for internship from Cuttak, Orrisa. He used to work with me. He left on that day in a train to his place. He sent me a message after catching his train. So here is an outsider’s view on Mumbai’s rains:

“Hi Adhok, Mumbai ka rain ka pura experience ho gaya… 8.30 ka train tha… 7 baje nikle ICT (place where we work)  se.. No taxi was ready 2 go 2 LTT (place where he was to catch the train). Wadala rd was flooded with knee deep water… Swaraj (his room mate in hostel) ko le ke Matunga aaya.. Jaise taise Kurla pahucha… Severe rain main waist deep paani main station pahuncha… Swaraj aur main staion train chod ne se ek min pehle pahunche… Aree kurla se LTT tak 200 metre ke liye 200 RS diya… Phir auto band ho gaya… Swaraj wapas patri mein chal ke gaya… 10.30 baje pahuncha hostel mein… Mast exp tha na … Gn”

Cheers to his spirit and Mumbai!