Remember those classic Tinkle stories in the 'It happened to me' segment? In my childhood, I was always skeptic of these stories as they were either too simple to catch my attention or too fantastic for me to believe.
However, a few days ago something did happen to me and it is a little incredulous to believe, primarily because of the protagonist of this incident.
Please forgive my use of drama to enhance the suspense of an otherwise short story. Here's what happened:
A certain Mr.X and I were returning from the department and decided to savor the delights of mess food for lunch. X is a 9++ pointer from my department and apparently is a big fan of Rajnikant Movies, ISO 9001 and mess food.(Mess food can be super-awesome too, Mind It!)
So, as I descended from the comforts of a doubles ride to Himalaya, both of us had an argument as to which caterer to go to. X has been in a particular mess(SK) since childhood and he did not feel the desire to sample different mess food this day. Yours truly is in CR mess, which in addition to being on the ground floor, simply rocks. So, after much cajoling I convinced X to come with me to CR.
X was worried whether the people at CR will check his mess card and in order to avoid problems later he asked me for my room number. "259, Narmada" is how I distinctively remember myself answering. Nevertheless, to allay his fears, I decided to walk in first without showing my mess card to the mess-man after which, X followed suit with an air of false confidence.
No problems till now. We took our food. X is very fond of mess extras and went to collect some. However, it so happened that one of the mess-men found X's behavior to be queer and innocently asked him to show his mess card. It is at this point that X got psyched for the first time and blurted out something which vaguely sounded like "252, Narmada hostel".
X then came to me and told me to follow him through the narrow internal passage connecting the two big mess chambers into the next dining hall so that "By the time, the mess-man verifies that 252,Narmada is not in this mess, he won't be able to find us". "Fair enough", said I and followed X into the next dining hall.
The food at CR was good and X acknowledged this fact too. We ate without much incident.
When we were ready to leave the hall, a new mess-man stopped both of us. For some reason(again), he had found X's behavior queer and stopped him to ask him for his mess card.
It was the moment of truth. What was X supposed to do? Lie again or tell the truth. Guess what, X did neither! He chose the better option - to run away :) , leaving me stranded alone at the mercy of the mess-man. Here's a snippet of our resulting conversation :
Mess-man : Is your friend from this mess?
Me : Sir, he is not my friend. I don't know him.
Mess-man : Wtf! I saw you both eating and sitting together.
Me : (Oops), Sir, he is a junior from my hostel. I don't know him much. He wanted
some fundaes from me.
Mess-man : Don't lie.Show me your mess card.
< I show him my mess card and he gets more infuriated seeing the fact that I was actually in that mess >
Mess-man : I am noting down your room number. You have to get your friend's mess
card here tomorrow.
Me : Wtf! I said I don't know him. It is your headache to verify whether he is in
your mess or not.
Mess-man and I have this semi-heated argument for 5 odd minutes after which I relent and tell him that I will get X's mess card the next day. I gather my stuff and am about to leave when mess-man feels he hasn't had the last word yet:
Mess-man : Wait sir, I am going to complain to CCW about you. You come with me now.
It is my turn to get infuriated. This was getting too much. I mean, I had just acceded to the man's demands of getting X's mess card. I argued with him again for some 5 odd minutes. Clearly, being polite was not getting me anywhere. This is how the fight ended with the mess-man semi-apologizing to me later:
Me : Sir, I have been very polite till now. If you want, go and complain to CCW.
Nothing much will happen to me. But, tomorrow I will come back to the mess
with a dead cockroach, put it in my food and complain to the HAS, CCW and my
mother and you will be asked to pay a BIG BIG fine.
Moral of the story: Being polite sucks. Give people the kick in the ass that they deserve. Also, never go the wrong mess with X.
I hope it is pretty obvious who X is. Isn't it?
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5 comments:
I, for one, do not know who X is.
But proud of you - handled it well :P If Uss was there, he'd have loved it too! :D
9++ says it all.. i dint think he would do such a thing..great work by the way..all the incidents are nowhere close to being ne of u..
I, for another, do not know who X is! :P
I would have liked the moral to be stated a bit more carefully.
Moral of the story: Being polite sometimes sucks. Give people a kick in the ass if they deserve. Also, never go the wrong mess with anyone.
Haha...I'm sure Tinkle would've published this and sent you a teddy bear or whatever it is they give as prizes. Rakesh's moral make sense but I liked the original one better :P
My laptop has died which sadly limits my connectivity to the internet.
Anyway, people always deserve a kick. Yet,you always waste time in determining if they are worth the effort or not.
And, I reiterate, going to a different mess is ok! but not with X around :)
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