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Over-hyped raggers in soup!

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This is a story about how nine guiltless girls were once tortured in college. And me, poor me is one of them! 

Rewind - to the pages of yesterday, to the days where college life was ‘The Life’!

First year exams are over; oh… what a relief until the results are announced! Holidays are also over. Enthusiastically, all of us got back to Mysore as proud seniors! In fact, we returned to our selves when we were back in our messy hostel room – room # 11. We laughed loud at each of our vacation gossip, served with usual flavor of masalas, sautéd in onions and stirred with ginger garlic paste and tomato sauce!


Manu, “I think my cousin is having an affair with our neighbor’s son whose nose is kinda crooked. Before I could investigate deeper, I had to pack my bags!”
Liz, “Oh… the same guy who wears flowery lungi and plays badminton to show off?”
Teenu, “Please don’t get confused – The lungi dude is Mithu’s uncle’s family doctor’s brother’s classmate!!”
Rest of us, “:X”

…and information exchange and valid discussion continued over loads of fun and also Kannur banana chips, Wynad fruits, Calicut halwa, Coorg coffee and oh… the list is endless! Mess bell rang which reminded us that days of potato chips and rice bath are back!

As we were exploring ways to make the year more eventful, colorful and memorable than the previous year, one of us suggested this brilliant idea – why not we rag our juniors? We also believed healthy ragging will only help in making better friends with them in future like we are buddies with our seniors! Oh… we were so thrilled and impatiently waited for their arrival. With lot of commitment and involvement, we even phrased questions and rehearsed the situation. We just couldn’t wait for the anticipated fun!

On the day of formal introduction of the juniors, we cheeky bunch of morons spent few minutes more than usual in the mess hall to analyze and identify our prey. Yes… then using some strategies and formulas, we picked the unlucky of the lot – Ms. Axe!

The next day, she was invited to our colonial room (please note – only the worthy are invited otherwise!). To break the ice, we offered her some ground nuts and a glass of tea. The formal round of introduction thus began. Just to be on the safer side, Shalini became Anjali, Manju became Paaru, Nancy became Tulsy, Viji became Pinki and Chimmu became Shambu. Then, we unfolded the terror.

Okie Ms. Axe, why the hell did you decide to learn Microbiology?
My sister says I will get a job in the US or Australia if I study microbiology.
Oh… did you not know we are against brain-drain? Tomorrow, you are going to change your stream to electronics cos we are fighting against the management to close down the department.
But Chechi… my dad will disagree!
We don’t care, you are obeying us…! BTW, are you wearing a bra now?
Huh?! Yes I am..!
How many holes does it have?
Sorry… I don’t know. May be I can count and arrive at a figure by end of the day.

Huh??!! Is she not supposed to feel embarrassed and hesitate to answer, instead of being bold? We looked at each other, confused! We didn’t know how to take the session forward.

Anyways, we made her cook imaginary dosas, enact movies, multiply & divide 8 digit numbers and engage in a few more boring activities. You see – 100% healthy ragging! To our surprise, without even giving it a second thought, she obeyed all our commands. The exercise continued till we realized it is not going to get entertaining at all. Our disappointment was at its heights! We asked her to leave the room, giving heads up, “If you utter a word about this to even a single soul in Mysore, Karnataka or in India, mind you –3 years in Philos will become a nightmare for you!”

She was intelligent enough to understand that these stupid girls who considered themselves to be Gabbar Singhs were actually shit-scared Jhony Levers! She gave it back to us appropriately by complaining to our warden about how bad she was made to feel. She narrated her experience of being torn apart! (Grrr… Really???!!!!) She painted the scene like she was physically and mentally abused. Little she did know about our bloody frustration!

The following month was rather eventful for us. Warden screamed at us, “Roll your beds and get out of here! Didn’t you know you will be behind the bars if reported to the police?”

I thought, “If the press comes to take a group photograph of the “raggers”, should I be smiling at the camera, or should mine be a sad and guilty face? Only if it is a national edition, my parents and school friends will come to know about it. Ah... otherwise, it is okay!!”

Warden changed our room – each of us spent the later part of the year sharing space with Tibetians, Manipuris, Biharis and Punjabis. Can (inter)national integration get better than this? Anyways, it was not as bad as we expected. Our friendship only got better and stronger; thanks to the warden – our friends’ circle got really bigger! We developed network all over the country and even beyond!
      

A note exclusively to Ms. Axe:
(Ignore this masala-mixed blog post!) Our intent was only fun. And after these many years, on behalf of all us let me apologize, “Sorry if at all we have hurt you!”


P.S – We were the most well behaved girls that year (I swear!;) hence the next year, our fav Room # 11 was given back to us – the room where memories of friendship, exams, home sickness, hunger, nervousness, anxiety and unlimited fun is hidden, even today!


If you have any ragging stories to share, please add them in the comments section. 




15 comments:

The one who has loved and lost said...

Tons...

Here goes .
We (first years) were all gathered in one room on the first day of engineering. There was this chubby guy who was going on talking about his family in Thiruvalla, about his famous school etc.

And then the seniors came in. They asked this guy which school he is from. And then this guy replies (in English)

"I come from so and so international"

The seniors looked at each other and smiled (they had found their prey).

"What's your name?"

This fellow thought they were being nice. He said Anoop and asked "what are your names?"

:D

That night he came back crying saying.
"I'm going to leave the college. They want me to do sexual favours for them every night"

:D

Nothing happened of course. The guy went on to become a ragging terror himself.

Shiva said...

Mine is not worth sharing... :)

“If the press comes to take a group photograph of the “raggers”, should I be smiling at the camera, or should mine be a sad and guilty face? Only if it is a national edition, my parents and school friends will come to know about it. Ah... otherwise, it is okay!!” - Was it the local or the national press that came?

Unknown said...

love your story. i too have a lot of ragging stories but i cannot share most of them as they are nonveg or will incriminate me before the court.. i take the fifth.. in all my stories the ragger never gets caught.. hallelujah... and the only time the ragger got caught( my senior)he was sentenced to six and a half years in prison,unbelievable right.. i think he is still in hiding.
just some of the healthy ragging stuff we used to do: curse the light bulb until it switches itself off from shame, if you are found wearing underwear after eight pm then throw it over the tubelight(few are hanging there still), juniors are asked to rag each other for selection for higher ragging,sing while your friend dances to it(for girls), treat from us with the most disgusting food we can find( not a morsel to be wasted),and the medical salute.. these are some things i remember but the best were on the spot stuff creative original spontaneous, those were the days.. rock on..

Anonymous said...

Oh... Madam was also a prankster, huh?!
Loved the post... The narration was just too good. Looking forward to many more experiences penned down through this blog.

Rgds,
Preeth

Pink Mango Tree said...

@ The Layman - So Lesson 1: Don't ask anything back to ur seniors on the first day / week; not even "how r u?" :)

@ Shiva - God himself realized our good intentions, he did not put us through too much of trail. Hence, no press, no photographs and no rolling of beds!

@ Anish - Thanks for stopping by my blog. Please don't even compare us to ur friend who was jailed for 6 years ;) ;) We even had a bar of diary milk chocolate which we thought will gift her at the end; however when things were progressing against our will, we consumed it by ourselves! :)Later we realized, even that was a wrong move!

@ Preeth - Thanks buddy!
Prankster, who - me??!!! NO; never! My friends of course were, but not me!!! :) :)

Deepak said...

Ha ha ha Good one.. :)
Well i was from Military School and ragging is a totally different concept there... Trust me its very bad, the worst part is complaining wont help... But when I think about the stuff we went through and the stuff we did its just a smile appears on your face and it actually made me tougher.... :)

Vinod Ramamoorthy said...

I never understood the imaginary dosa ondakkal part ..I would rather have them make a real dosa, do all my work .. relieve the poor fellows of mental torture :)

Nice write up.

Pink Mango Tree said...

@ Deepak - Thanks Deepak. In fact I loved it when I was ragged, our seniors knew the limits. We became thick friends later on!

@ Vinod - Thanks Vinod. In a hostel room, the possible was only an 'imaginary' dosa!

Nacha said...

lol - Our ahem, ragging session at hostel ended up turning into a cake cutting cum dancing to music party! :) Thats the most intimidating/rude/mean we could be, even if we tried to! :P And I agree, even the intimidating form of ragging is not half as much fun as it is made to sound!! :| Cutting cake is always fun- What say? ;)

Unknown said...

when i entered college seniors ragged me.. after sometime i ragged my juniors... and when i went for viva my teachers ragged me.. in idea star singer the judges rag the singers... studio people rag the judges... so on and so forth.. its a cycle of life.. (hey no comparison intended earlier)

Pink Mango Tree said...

@ Nacha - Yeah... any day! :)
And I totally agree - Even the intimidating form of ragging is not half as much fun as it is made to sound!!

@ Aneesh - ROFL..! It is a 'Rag & Getting Ragged' world! ;)

Pyari said...

Nostaligic. :)

You have a very good sense of humour too. :)

Even I made an attempt to write on the same topic. But, it is in its draft form even after 3 months :(

Ardra said...

http://ormakaliloode.blogspot.com/2005/01/hostel-life-2.html

and now my elder son has some not -so- pleasant, juicy ragging stories...

Pink Mango Tree said...

@ Pyari - Thanks! :) You can still finish the draft and post it! :)

@ Ardra - Thanks for stopping by! ...n ur ragging experience gave u a name too! Even though now we laugh at it, I can imagine what u would have gone through then!

Jith Thomas said...

I had a Senior in college who always used to victimize me for his ragging entertainment.
One day while I was commuting through the corridoors, he gave a vague smile on me. I smiled back, and then he shouted, if you will smile at Seniors? Once again he smiled at me, but being cautious I never responded. Why are you not smiling back at a Senior?, was his quesion this time. Next time I tried to avoid him, then he slapped me for not paying attention to Seniors. Through out my college life, I was terror stricken of him.

There is a funny part also for ragging experience, as Seniors used to collect money from juniors for their day-to-day expense. I told them that my father is a farmer and we are struggling to make a life out of it. So they exempted me from paying them, until the day when they saw my suitcases open. I still remember the senior's astonishment, and the question if your father is cultivating Hashish or some thing? But then I was into 3rd semester and they had new scape goats. :-)

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