Matters of Mischief

  For most of us, the four years that we spent at IIT Bombay as undergraduates, though a small fraction of our total age, are arguably among the best years of our lives. For most of us, it is the time of many firsts – first time living away from home, first time living among peers of our own age who are not our siblings or cousins, first time living alongside people from all over India and overseas, and other firsts. The strongest memories from IIT come from our time in our hostels. Though each hostel had over 200 students, it was the wings (rooms on one floor on one side of a central staircase) which were the binding unit – like a home away from home. H5 had 18 wings – and each wing had its own culture and peculiarities. Intra-hostel events brought inter-wing rivalries to the fore, but all of these were forgotten during inter-hostel events. Wings also invariably brought together students from different years, thus acting as the passing of the baton of stories and folklore. During my first year in 1985, the oldest student in our wing had started in IIT back in 1979 and by the time I left in 1989, the last set of students I lived with would have left IIT in 1992. As wingmates, we indulged in a lot of the usual activities – eating meals together, cack sessions late into the night, hanging out in each other’s rooms, playing cricket in the corridor, etc. But there was one thing – one prank – that we came to be known for The Great Indian Rope Trick. Like any hostelite in the 1980s, we usually did not lock our door when we went for a shower or for a meal (or even for classes!). Imagine our great surprise when we returned to our room, but found that we could not get in. It was not locked from outside. The window next to the door was shut. And there was no one in the room. But the room was latched from inside! How did that happen? Rooms in H5 were paired with a dividing wall going up about 2/3 of the way to the ceiling. However, no one had climbed over the dividing wall to latch the room from inside. The window in the back of the room had bars. So no one could have climbed through the window (our rooms were on the 1st floor) to latch the room from inside. So how was the room latched from inside? The answer was the Great Indian Rope Trick. The door was opened from outside. A long rope or string was put around the handle of the latch. The door was closed from the outside with both ends of the string available. The string was pulled to slide the latch shut, and then the string was pulled out. Voila! The door had been latched from the inside. For some time after this prank was started, everyone started locking their room from the outside, even if they were just going down to the toilet!  

  This was our fifth year. Knowing that we’d disperse the following year, we maximized the fun aspect of our hostel and wing life – in the silliest of ways (looking back). We all wore saffron lungis that year and most of us donned beards. Raja shaved his head in a Mohawk – that’s Raja! Alfred, that athletic footballer, returned from home one weekend with a pin in his nose. He had sawed off the one ‘leg’ of the pin and fit it perfectly around his columella. With his frizzy hair and his largish flared nose he looked like some tribesman from Africa. Much to our amusement the pin became part of his jewelry whenever he was in the wing. It just kept getting stranger and stranger. The phrase “The word is grease” got coined (perhaps at the inter-IIT meet that year) and was used frequently in the wing especially while guys played bridge and somebody got finessed. On the last day of MI 82, we were hanging out in the wing and Alfred put the ring on his nose. With his saffron lungi and bare chest, he looked like a sadhu, and was promptly named ‘Grease Baba’. One has to do something with a Baba, but what? Before long we were out on a procession from H8 A wing 2nd floor towards the Gymkhana where the concert was going on. Alfred kept a straight serious face, eyes rolled up as though in a deep trance, nose flared, pin on. A veritable religious cult figure, flanked by his “disciples”, one of whom held an umbrella over him for added effect. There were guys in front of him clearing the path for the approaching holy man. And guys behind him all shouting alternatingly, “Grease Baba ki Jai!” and “The word is Grease!” By the time we reached the Gymkhana grounds more of our hostel mates had joined and we had a good 15-20 people in our procession. The non-IIT crowd looked bewildered and didn’t know if this was a prank or whether some crazy religious group had come to MI. We proceeded to the Main Building. We still had our procession going strong with guys singing bhajans and the two chants in between with total enthu. When we reached MB, Grease Baba was offered a chair. Grease Baba looked very serious as he sat, as though in deep meditation, and we all played our part to keep it going. By now we had attracted some of the local non-student folks around us too. They must have thought that a religious figure had indeed come to the campus. Two lads, perhaps about 10-12 years old, were standing next to me. One asked the other as he pointed to Grease Baba, “Paai padaicha ka?” [Should we prostrate and touch his feet?] I encouraged them. As they approached him, Alfred realized what they were about to do. That embarrassment snapped him out of his trance and he stopped them. It took two little kids and their innocence to put an end to this elaborate charade!  

1. Sholay in H8 This was in our third year. We had just won the Institute Treasure Hunt. Our joy knew no bounds. Jitna daru ka stock tha pee liye. But yeh Dil Mange More. So we went to YP seeking some more. It was late in the night. RLC ka stock khatam ho gaya tha. Lekin, hamare liye, kahin se leke aaya ek botal. We didn’t bother to see what was in it. Leke aaye triumphantly hostel mein. Polished it off in no time. Angoor ki beti chadh gayi in no time. Must have been some like spurious stuff. Didn’t know what hit me. I suddenly felt like relieving myself. Staggered up to the toilet. In the toilet were five doors. The two on the left were bathrooms. The two on the extreme right were toilets. The fifth one in the middle was a sort of trap door. Opens to open space. Just one small step and a ladder leading to the terrace. Now, try as I might. I kept opening the middle door. Alfie and Jakebhai tried their best to pull me out and shove me through the right door. But suicidal tendency ruled. I would keep going back to the trap door. A la Dharmendra in Sholay. Suicide! Finally, they managed to put me into the right door. Suicide CANCELLED. Now cut to our Silver Jubilee Reunion. When the family visited the hostel, I found Alfred (Grease Baba) very eager to show my son Abhishek around, especially when it came to our wing. He quickly took Abhishek to the bogs and showed him the middle door and said, “This is the door through which your father attempted suicide.” It’s only thanks to us that you are here today. Else, Bhagwan ko pyaare ho jaate, tumhara father. Bach gaya saala! Woh suicidal tendency kuch tha nahi! Bass kadam chuk gayi. Was like Arjun. Sirf ek door nazar aata tha. Totally focussed. Kaash padhaayi mein aisa hota! 2. Dahi Handi Prize – Stars in the Day Time! Our third year Gokul Ashtami. Dahi handi at hostel. Pyramid ban gaya. Kept calling. Finally OK. Lekin upar wala tha nahi. I volunteered. Went up. Fell down the first time. Second time successfully reached the handi. Even as I was breaking the pot, I felt the earth (rather pyramid) below me shifting. People below me came down. I was left hanging to the pot. Handi se dahi nikhal gayi. Muh mein dahi jam gayi. I was literally left hanging by the thread (rope in this instance). Even as I was thinking of my English Teacher, Mrs. Castellino who had taught me only about Jack and Jill and Humpty Dumpty and pride having falls, here I was coming down at speed to join the gang. Even as I was thinking about it, thud, crash, stars. Main kahaan hoon types (almost). 3. Ek Ka Do In our 5th year project submission time, I wanted to go to the department and show the report to my guide, Pattu. I borrowed a friend’s bike (name withheld), a rickety hand-me-down of the 60s vintage. Around 12:30, I was returning from the department. When I went past the convo on to the slope, I felt the front wheel moving away from me. Dekhte dekhte, there were 2 single wheelers instead of one bicycle. Poor I, had to pull the two vehicles, luckily only up to H8. Socho, what would have happened if I were in H6! When I entered the hostel with the two new vehicles, the owner of the bicycle went red. Being a shuddh Jain, he controlled his anger. But his looks almost killed me. Ek Ka Do!

Who doesn’t like an unexpected holiday being declared, especially students pleasantly surprised when a snow day or a rainy day is suddenly announced at a school or a college? In India, there seems to always be a holiday around the corner, be it a central holiday, a state holiday or a bank holiday. But the number of holidays observed by IIT Bombay was just not enough for an incorrigible group of H9 pranksters in the late 80’s, so they went ahead and declared one! After lunch on a lazy Thursday at H9, a group of compulsive pranksters was engaged in one of those interminable, intense cack sessions that can veer from the most mundane matters to solving all of the world’s toughest issues. When a guy noted that the next day (Friday) was a state and bank holiday (Shivaji Jayanti, if I remember correctly) but not at IITB, the others started grumbling about how a pan India institution should really be observing every state holiday of every state in the nation! In particular, they concurred that it was insensitive of the IITB authorities to not declare at least the next day, which marked a historic event, a holiday. The irony could not be missed. None of these complaining loafers would likely have gone to class the next day anyway, or any given day for that matter. Yet, the group mulled over this weighty subject for a while until someone jumped up from his creaky lounge chair and said that we must take a stand. It was our duty as stellar citizens to wrong the right. The blunder of not declaring such a historic day a holiday needed to be rectified. Friday needed to become an institute holiday. The amazing part about hostel life was that, the more outlandish an idea, the quicker people jumped onboard. There was nary a thought on potential consequences (ah, the freedom of youth). The group swiftly went into detailed, military-style planning mode, with all kinds of what-if scenarios getting hashed out (no, no hash was involved despite the wild conversation). The holiday announcement had to look official, so it had to come from the registrar. Almost instantaneously, someone ran up to the notice board and pulled out a random old notice from the registrar. This would serve as our template. The holiday notice had to be typed and reproduced on grainy paper. It most definitely needed to contain a few typos; no official notice could possibly be error-free, someone reasoned. It had to be posted on notice boards all around campus, though our focus was naturally on H9. All of this had to be done inconspicuously before people returned to the mess at dinner time that evening. Since every hostel has its doubting Toms, such skeptics in H9 either had to be let in on the prank or engaged in conversation about the holiday when they would walk in. Freshies, especially Bombayites, would be the main targets. A couple of the pranksters would hang around the notice board, especially when freshies ambled in, and discuss how nice it was to get a long weekend and that they would be taking off for home shortly, with a month’s worth of dirty laundry, no doubt. It was an elaborately planned hoax. A notice was hurriedly written up by the wordsmiths. It apologized for the late notice, and went on to declare Friday an institute holiday. Our overzealous writers threw in a patriotic bit about the importance of recognizing and celebrating historic days. A couple of us sped away on a mobike to Y-Point to get the notice typed and several copies made on grainy, official looking paper. Our resident calligrapher (he always insisted we show him some respect by calling him a master forger), was anointed by us as the registrar for his impressive signature skills. The gang then zoomed around campus to post the registrar’s notice – on notice boards in the Main Building, some Departments, a few hostels. And, of course, at multiple locations in H9. We wouldn’t want our dear hostel mates to miss out on a holiday, would we? Our primary spot was the notice board in the H9 mess, right next to the other, real registrar’s notice that we had earlier used as a template. Such was our confidence in our knockoff or maybe the sheer arrogance of youth, but it made the holiday notice look more convincing. We had anticipated that there would be some doubting Thomases who, in spite of our best efforts to make the registrar’s notice look very authentic, would be skeptical of its late timing. They would try to call and confirm it with the registrar (who would be at home by then). A couple of pranksters were tasked with calling the registrar in advance several times with the same inquiry. As expected, the registrar concluded that these were prank calls. He was furious after a few calls, and took his phone off the hook – exactly as designed! Still to ensure there would be no calls attempted by doubting Thomases, a prank caller just hung around in the hostel phone booth, feigning that he was talking to his girlfriend. Needless to say, he didn’t have one, but girlfriend conversations were understood to be particularly protracted. All pieces in place as dinner time rolled in, we just watched in glee as the chaos unfolded. Whenever the targets, i.e. oblivious hostel mates, approached the H9 notice board, or were drawn to it by our designated conversationalists intently discussing a notice on the board, our conversationalists would go into overdrive, praising the good decision by the authorities to recognize such a historic occasion. Special attention was paid to the more pliable freshies who were still green behind the ears. A few Bombayites decided to head home that night itself, while some folks looked forward to simply sleeping in on Friday morning. A few folks seemed to crack the con, and had to be taken into confidence. I don’t