Thursday the twelfth - the prequel to Friday the Thirteenth.
As a reminder to all my dear friends who believe in astrology, Vaastu Shastra, superstition and LK Advani, I just realised that yesterday was Friday the thirteenth. Nah, not that I am intimidated by this fact or subscribe to such stuff; but recent episodes of threat to personal safety have made me realise co-incidence. Or rather, how bad luck forgot to be puntual this time.
As if being five foot five and a half inches of nonsense and stupidity was not enough, nature tried to make its contribution day before yesterday. During my lunch break, I had gone to meet a few friends and have lunch with them. With a test scheduled after the break, I [the diligent and sincere student that I am] got out a book and began to pretend reading some numerical problems. Now understanding the layout of the seating arrangement is central to the event that I will be hereby narrating. These seats are situated in the open, on the border of the full-size cricket ground our campus boasts of. To the left is the Biotechnology section while the college main library is right ahead in front. Stick out your hand to the right and you'll feel the plants growing on the fence, beyond which is a laboratory that looks more like a cottage.
The table is a circular slab of granite, artistically and amateurly balanced on a vertical column. Round it are four similar but smaller structures that serve as seats. The trees on the fence extend their branches over three such tables, making it a sought-after place to hang out. [Tell me, has a shady and cool corner on any college campus ever been spared the students' butts?] My friends and me were sitting on one such table and completing some writing work. At about quarter past one thirty, it was time for them to get their submissions done and so they left. For the next ten minutes it was me, alone with my book and friends' bags - and then, a tree joined me.
If you've not been able to stretch your imagination to accomodate this piece of information, let me help you. Remember the branches over the tables? Well, one of them belonged to a wild tree and so had been cut two days prior to its visit to sincerely yours. Co-incidently, I was witness to the cutting, which showered leaves, twigs and sap on an unassuming couple sitting right beneath it. It crackled, twisted, teased the woodcutter and finally came to rest on a lower branch. As you may have guessed, like all other jobs begun by Indians, it was left to decide its own fate. Little did I know the branch would take exactly forty eight hours to do this. While I was reading page eighty four [conveniently skipping all the earlier pages], I heard a distinctive rustling of leaves. And for the next ten seconds, the branch kept falling downwards to my immediate right and adjusting itself until it assumed a position of minimum energy. Halfway through the descent of this heavyweight, I realised the problem - the branch had thorns. Big thorns.
There are some situations you don't want to get yourself into; standing on an ant hill or wearing a pant full of its residents, stamping on a ferocious dog's tail or getting caught with your pants down - literally or figuratively. This can be counted as one of those. To my relief, there were atleast ten youth around the place who came to the rescue and got me out of there. After a quick first aid and assessment of the twenty-odd scratches, it turned out to be nothing serious. Actually, that wouldn't have been the case if I was sitting on the seat to my right. Mr.Thorny Branch would have landed directly on my head and considering him to be about half a ton, I guess it's not a joke. Coming to think of it, journal submissions [of all the blessed things on earth] saved my friends from his unannounced but successful test on gravity.
Funny how we value life a little more on going through scary or near-death experiences. After Thursday's episode, I don't mind it at all, when crow poop falls out of the sky and onto my head. 'It could have been worse', I tell myself. 'It could have been a branch....'.
As if being five foot five and a half inches of nonsense and stupidity was not enough, nature tried to make its contribution day before yesterday. During my lunch break, I had gone to meet a few friends and have lunch with them. With a test scheduled after the break, I [the diligent and sincere student that I am] got out a book and began to pretend reading some numerical problems. Now understanding the layout of the seating arrangement is central to the event that I will be hereby narrating. These seats are situated in the open, on the border of the full-size cricket ground our campus boasts of. To the left is the Biotechnology section while the college main library is right ahead in front. Stick out your hand to the right and you'll feel the plants growing on the fence, beyond which is a laboratory that looks more like a cottage.
The table is a circular slab of granite, artistically and amateurly balanced on a vertical column. Round it are four similar but smaller structures that serve as seats. The trees on the fence extend their branches over three such tables, making it a sought-after place to hang out. [Tell me, has a shady and cool corner on any college campus ever been spared the students' butts?] My friends and me were sitting on one such table and completing some writing work. At about quarter past one thirty, it was time for them to get their submissions done and so they left. For the next ten minutes it was me, alone with my book and friends' bags - and then, a tree joined me.
If you've not been able to stretch your imagination to accomodate this piece of information, let me help you. Remember the branches over the tables? Well, one of them belonged to a wild tree and so had been cut two days prior to its visit to sincerely yours. Co-incidently, I was witness to the cutting, which showered leaves, twigs and sap on an unassuming couple sitting right beneath it. It crackled, twisted, teased the woodcutter and finally came to rest on a lower branch. As you may have guessed, like all other jobs begun by Indians, it was left to decide its own fate. Little did I know the branch would take exactly forty eight hours to do this. While I was reading page eighty four [conveniently skipping all the earlier pages], I heard a distinctive rustling of leaves. And for the next ten seconds, the branch kept falling downwards to my immediate right and adjusting itself until it assumed a position of minimum energy. Halfway through the descent of this heavyweight, I realised the problem - the branch had thorns. Big thorns.
There are some situations you don't want to get yourself into; standing on an ant hill or wearing a pant full of its residents, stamping on a ferocious dog's tail or getting caught with your pants down - literally or figuratively. This can be counted as one of those. To my relief, there were atleast ten youth around the place who came to the rescue and got me out of there. After a quick first aid and assessment of the twenty-odd scratches, it turned out to be nothing serious. Actually, that wouldn't have been the case if I was sitting on the seat to my right. Mr.Thorny Branch would have landed directly on my head and considering him to be about half a ton, I guess it's not a joke. Coming to think of it, journal submissions [of all the blessed things on earth] saved my friends from his unannounced but successful test on gravity.
Funny how we value life a little more on going through scary or near-death experiences. After Thursday's episode, I don't mind it at all, when crow poop falls out of the sky and onto my head. 'It could have been worse', I tell myself. 'It could have been a branch....'.
posted by heston at 3:51 PM
2 Comments:
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Too true my friend. I distictly remember you refering to the tree as a branch. Im only glad you were not reduced to just another statistic on that day though...............Branch indeed.
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