Anecdote #42

The Misadventure at Mecca

When you are a student at Delhi University, you are eventually pressurised into attending college fests. In my case it was my father who had attended all of them back in his day and was appalled on knowing that I had only been to one. Which was the fest of my own college.

Hindu College's fest- Mecca is known to be a lot of fun and it coincided with a relatively free period of my life. So the plan was made and here I introduce to you the other protagonist of this story, apart from me of course- Aanya.

 We agreed to leave after our classes ended and according to the plan we would have a few other friends accompanying us. Post all the planning, D-day arrived and I felt a gush of excitement. I put in the extra effort, woke up early and managed to pull together a very sanskari look topping it with a bindi which did not match my outfit. Do pay attention to this fact as the bindi was the starting point for the misadventures that followed.

On reaching college we found out that one of our friends was not in the mood to go and the other had not turned up to college. This was a bummer for me and I could only think of how all the effort I had put into getting ready was turning out to be futile. Before our last class for the day began, I contemplated on whether or not we should go. Somewhere in the middle of Ancient Rome the Octavian in me rose and I mustered up the courage to leave the class right in the middle with Aanya.

 I knew that if I would have backtracked my parents would be greatly disappointed and I would be at the receiving end of a lecture with an end result of being labelled as boring. Mind you I am anything but boring and taking the plunge that day turned out to be the biggest source of adrenaline for all the dancing I was going to do. 

The great escape from the class was followed by a long drive to North Campus full of stimulating discussions. Aanya and I make great company, especially for each other. The drive did not seem too long as we were very engrossed in our conversation. All this talking naturally made us tired and we settled on dessert to make up for the energy we had lost. After a modest helping of churros at Sambooka's, one of the better cafe's of North Campus, the next stop was Hindu. Before we went it was imperative to get the right Bindi so the hunt began. The Bindis of the street vendor were not good enough so we went further and finally found a shop which had the right colour- black. Yes, it was that hard for us to find a plain black bindi at North campus. After successfully completing the conquest for this little cosmetic item we finally decided to go.

Fate had other plans because while walking towards the car my beloved kolhapuris gave up on me. In other words my desi footwear broke which means I could not walk. Now the hunt for a cobbler began. Thankfully my car was parked close by and we could look for the cobbler in the comfort of the car yet the loss of the slippers was hard hitting. For me it was the equivalent of an heirloom from my mother as their versatility complemented all my ethnic outfits and at the same time whenever someone asked me where I purchased them from, my smug reply would be- they're my mom's. I knew I had to get them fixed because no other chappals could ever fill in the void. I am extremely grateful to God that we found a cobbler within the next few minutes who did a seamless job for 10 rupees only.

Now I thought we are finally ready to go and we did reach Hindu although there were plenty of signs that it was not meant to be. Both of us had friends there and we met them and conversed for a while. Ultimately we decided to meet up later in the concert arena once the performances would begin. With the help of my friend Shantnu who is a student at Hindu I could cut across the long queue and I was inside with his friends. The performance was by the dynamic duo- Vishal & Shekhar a treat for bollywood fans like me.

The performance had started and I was not able to get through to Aanya. Amidst the loud music it was hard to communicate. The calls were not going through to her as it turns out that the college had some jammers in place because of which we were helpless. 

In such desperate times our saving grace was the original text message. Although we received sparse reception the text messages managed to get through. Fending for herself Aanya procured a badge from someone in the organising committee and made it! 

We thought that this would entail the end of our troubles and together made most of the concert. There's nothing like good Bollywood music. It gets you pumped but you also lose track of time. We stayed till the last song and that was a fallacy on our part. By the time we left the exits were congested. The driver could not bring the car at the front gate owing to the traffic. We had to navigate and look for the car amidst the huge rush and poor reception. After fifteen minutes of helpless searching we found bhaiya and Aanya, Shantnu, his friend Priyanka and I hoped to reach home safe and sound. 

The way back was the climax to all the problems. The route bhaiya wanted to take had been barricaded and he was trying to find his way back. He refused to take help from Google Maps and that was his greatest downfall. Fifteen minutes into losing our way he finally consented. The funny part is that the route suggested was via the Department of forest and Wildlife. Now let me describe that route, it was a narrow road which could accommodate one car and seemed like an avenue due to the number of trees surrounding it. To top all of this Bhaiya was speeding like there was no tomorrow and we would not have seen tomorrow if a vehicle would have approached us from the opposite end. It was a typical road trip out of a movie. The fear was real but it was more thrilling than frightening. 

We encountered an isolated Sadar Bazaar, a large gutter which I thought was a pond and an abandoned route.

In sometime we could spot the traffic and were back on track. We were extremely late, famished yet the misadventures were unforgettable. That is precisely why I could reproduce this day without a hiccup in my memory. I think I speak for all of us when I say that it was worth it. If I had been in the company of some others this probably would not have been a fond memory but in this case everyone involved made this experience memorable. No other fest can be as eventful as Mecca was for us and it is a story we will be narrating for the years to come.