A Welcoming Affair
It is a feeling pretty hard to describe in words. Someone is making sekuwas of your heart; the heat from the ashes slowly roasting the valves and veins with smoke gushing out of the aorta. Lungs are being squeezed and dried. The indifferent washer strikes them against the rocks with fury; your lungs are the smelly winter blankets everyone hates to wash. A 5 mA current surges through your spine every now and then. The drying of throat and constipation of emotions in the gut follow shortly.
You are currently diagnosed with the ‘love’ cancer.
Seeing your crush embracing someone else is bad enough — it is worse if that person is someone you respectfully hate. When you survive in the lands of mediocrity, jealousy latches onto you like bedbugs of our campus hostel.
“So, Sampanna (some guy) won’t make it in time for the welcome speech. I’ll leave everything to you then, go say something.”
An impromptu speech on an empty stomach was definitely not what I signed up for. Yet, you become the sacrificial goat if it’s for the greater good for the program. No, strike that! There wasn’t even a necessity for a welcome speech. Who wants to get bored listening to speeches when you’re expecting to watch flashy lights and dances?
“Ah well, we did call you at 9 in the morning thinking that you’d come at least one hour late. Why the hell are you guys so punctual? Did you learn nothing from your seniors?”
Awkward silence. Not a single laugh at my attempted joke. The sacrificial goat indeed.
“Dude, I can’t hear the sound of the guitar.”
“Just turn up the volume on the equalizer. Don’t just sit there with a puzzled look, play the damn thing!”
To tell you the truth, I never heard the sound of the guitar on speaker during the four minute performance. Between the sound of the singer letting out her range of octaves and over hundreds of feet dancing in sync to the rhythm of the song, I was momentarily deaf. Performance anxiety gives a delayed hit — it is when the song is finally over that your legs turn into folding chairs and you can’t wait to get off stage. You don’t even wait for the applause; just imagine the boos later.
By the way, did I tell you it was my first time playing the guitar on stage? It was fun, not going to lie. I still couldn’t hear the sound of my guitar out loud, not going to lie.
“Well, at least the freshers got to each sandwiches. We can still stuff our stomachs with leftover potatoes, right?”
A friend provided a dejected consolation. I wasn’t fond of the food offered, though. My stomach sounded creepy ever since I ate ‘that’ morning breakfast and suddenly I was overcome with a sudden urge to defecate (Had to Google to find a more polite, subtle word for ‘poop’). So, I waited for the most opportune moment. Which happened to be just after lunch time and beginning of the next performance. Save yourself from the embarrassment of being seen rushing towards the toilet with a soap in one hand.
The ultimate ‘missed it’ moment would have to be when you’re stuck in the toilet and the guitarist inside the hall breaks into the solo of ‘Californication’. Followed by the legendary riff of ‘Snow (Hey Oh)’. And some virtuoso improvisation.
Shit. Literally.
I am quite fond of poetry. The reason I love Nirvana as a band, despite criticism of Kurt’s questionable guitar skills, is because of their poetic lyrics. Even as I’m writing this article, I have got Nirvana’s ‘All Apologies’ playing on loop in the background (the ‘MTV Unplugged’ one).
What I’m not fond of, is listening to poems about the degrading environment and suicidal thoughts during the welcome program. Time and place people! Of course, it is easier to criticize, considering I was too afraid to even participate in the ‘Mr. and Mrs. Fresher Contest’ last year when I was still a newbie to engineering culture. It wasn’t like the poems were bad either — just that the gloominess they conveyed would have been better suited at a poetry slam or something similar. The paper dance for the contest winners was something crazy we didn’t have last year. Too bad, a boy to my side was finding it unbearable.
“Hey look, that guy’s carrying your girl by the butt!”
“Shut up, you son of a…”
When everything is done and dusted, the remains of the program are handed to the hostelers as ‘honored’ gifts, including the leftover food from the program. Accompanied by the entire lighting kit and a large sack of potatoes. Take everything back to the hostel, even the five paper cups left unused. Privileges of being a hosteler at the Pulchowk Campus Hostel.
Of course, when I say privileges, I also mean drinks (substitute for ‘booze’) and masu-bhuja. The party is not over until the hostelers say it’s over. So we drink and talk — disappointments of the program, the most attractive first year girls (sisters, strictly), the cramps in the legs due to excessive dancing (jumping and throwing arms around), sore throats, sore egos — and drink and shout. Someone knocks on the room. The entire room goes mute. One of them hides inside the sheets to pretend meditative sleep. The others scramble to hide the ‘Old Durbar’ bottle placed so carefully in the middle.
“Hey, open the door you shits, don’t start without me!”
“Oh, he’s one of us….whoooo….”
Couple of cups of beer and I retired after the first innings. My alcohol tolerance has always been awfully low. Also, fatigue from the day’s event had me drowsy by 9. So, I fell asleep, on one of the comfortable shoulders, until they woke me up for a stripping contest in the middle of a cold December night (wait, that was another day!).
It is on cold nights like this, wrapped around in a blanket and cold beer flowing down your throat, that you finally listen to what your heart has been muttering all day long.
I confess. I have fallen for you.
(‘sekuwa’ = meat roasted in a natural wood fire, a Nepalese dish.
‘masu-bhuja’ = meat and puffed rice eaten together)
This is an account of the ‘Welcome Program for the First Year Computer Engineering Students’ told from my perspective, a second year student and one of the many organizers. There are too many details that I can’t stuff into this memo. Where do I even begin to describe? The engineering drama/skit, dare challenges, confession recitals, not-so-political speeches, the songs and the dances — all mesmerizing through their own ways. Would probably need a four page entry to describe them all in detail.
The song we performed was ‘Flirty Maya’ by Neetesh Jung Kunwar. You can check out the original song on YouTube.(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRUsBrlhptw)
Also, since this event happened in real, not everyone might have the same opinions about the program. Do not come at me with a cricket bat if you are offended by any of it. Some events are made more dramatic than they really are, but I won’t explain which ones. Because, let’s face it, you’re the main character of your own fictional story called ‘life’.
