Tumkur Calling - Part 2....

Yeah, I'm back at base, and I'm definitely not feeling good about it. Don’t know why, this concept of hangover came into existence? It’s so sickening you know, sometimes, thinking of the hangover itself, people go against having all the fun. Ahhh.... All kinds of time are surely going to end some day or the other, be it good or bad. So why be tensed about the good times ending or the bad times beginning!!!
Hehe, oh my god, I took off on a tangent it seems. What am I here to talk about!!! Yes, Halcyon and the 3 days (rather 2 for me) that passed away with it. Truly, some great moments to cherish. It must be said, that to a certain extent, it pained me to see the meagre turnout at Halcyon this year, but there's no one to blame I would think. Firstly, Annavaru's demise ensured that our fest clashed with BMSCE's Utsav, yet again, rendering it not to be a coincidence anymore, since this happened for the 3rd yr in a row. Secondly, I have come to believe, that the name Tumkur has to lot to play in this. Yes, its true, that just 60 kms away from the cosmopolitan culture of Bangalore, life is certainly different, and if you don’t get adjusted to it, you’re surely going to suffer. But that’s hardly any reason to blemish things right? I’m sure tons across the college circuit, would be thinking ‘SIT Tumkur – naaaaahhhh’, but of course, for those of you who’ve come and watched it, if not this time, some earlier time, I’d hope you’d want to disagree. Not everything can be or is, as it is in most colleges in Bangalore or the other parts of the state, say Mysore, or Manipal etc. But yeah, we still know how to have fun, provide fun and make the damn place rock, don’t we!!!!
Arriving on the midnight of 21st April, I could feel all the positive vibes go through my system and body. I’m really really trying to figure out why this great attachment to the fest, but it sometimes is so hard to believe! As it goes in the Baywatch theme –

And instinct is stronger than reason; it’s just human nature to be!!!

As I walked through the gates that night, I wishes and prayed for some extra years at the place. I cursed myself for having cursed the place when I was there. Life is a paradox isn’t it, an ‘Orbeeeeetttt’ as Kapoor would say – what goes around comes around!!
Spent a few hours in the board room (the only place in the whole of Tumkur I would say – where you get the privilege of A/C), had the audacity to sip on beer right there inside and watch these juniors run helter-skelter to get things into place. Had some awesome biryani, sitting on the table, the table on which the fortunes of SIT are decided every now and then! Headed back to Keshav’s flat @ around 3AM, to get some much needed sleep as I had to be all fresh to conduct JAM (or JOM as SMS says) the next morning.

7AM – 21st April. I woke up with this real spring in my step, looking forward to being involved in Halcyon one more time, or maybe even, one last time! As the modalities for JAM were getting right, I did manage to get a glimpse of extempore, that very podium of the seminar hall, where I’d made the audience listen to many a crap of mine.
As time passed by, it was as if, I was desperate to hold it back, but in the process, running ahead of it! The energy in me always wanted to move on and get things done quickly, whereas deep down, I was reeling in anguish I guess, looking at the sands of time fly by me again.
JAM was an absolute honour to conduct. Every year, SIT’s JAM always produces a lot of new comers, and that was the case this time as well. Objections – some sustained, most overruled filled the Audi as the JAM MASTER held forth for the next 3 hours or so. Noise filled the place, with people trying hard to speak for at least 2-3 seconds on the trot. Funny ain’t it, sometimes, you think, you’ve got it right, you’ve got what it takes to be right up there, but once you reach there, huh…you’re just being beaten down by the crowd, your just being jostled around while you try and get your footing right. That’s precisely the way it works in JAM as well. What you say, you say it well, be it crap after all, cuz if you ain’t going to say it well, rest assured, you’ll have 5 other Jammer’s breathing down your neck that very second.
With talk raging from tongue twisters, to sidhuisms, to chaitu’s favourite words ‘Blind bandicoot’, to hailing me, myself, yes the JAM MASTER…it was gleefully satisfying. Of course, there were cases, where my English grammar was put to the test as well, but I just managed to scrape out it seems.
The post lunch session zipped off in a fizzy, with me not recollecting much, since I’m now writing this after quite a while!!! The evening of course was one to treasure. All evenings @ Halcyon always promise to be a gala affair and it turned out that way this time round as well. Modifications and up gradations at SIT meant, that the Open Stage had to be shifted from the stadium to right in front of the ‘Archi’ block. This did deter the overall aroma of the stage, as we were so used to seeing it at the stadium each time.
Choreography went on for a while; followed up Western music, with SDM, SIT n SSIT belting out some ACDC, Metallica, and Dire straits amongst others.
Well, I’m thinking I’d rather move ahead and go on to describe what happened for the better part of the night from here on. As the night wore on, and as another day of Halcyon bit the dust, we settled down at our abode, ahhhh… Jamuna – the bar n restaurant as its called!
Booze accompanied with noise, accompanied with people, accompanied with smoke in the air followed for the next couple of hours as the minute hand of the clock struck 12 reminding us, that there was after all another day to look fwd to in life. Cop trouble, which seems to be the latest rage these days, ensured that we scooted from the place soon enough, only to head off to our retreat – Devarayan Durga or DD hills in its abbreviation.

1 AM, 4 bikes, 8 guys, an empty road, 4 bottles of beer and biting cold weather? That’s pretty much summarizing it all. Damn, I revealed the whole thing upfront. That of course will not stop me from giving you a further peek into life right up there on top.
As we sat there on top, watching the minimal long standing lights in the town fade out, it was almost like GOD was telling us ‘This is bliss, and I’m giving it to you for about 2 hours, live it as much as you can’. And live it we surely did. Shevade as usual kept us bemused while his melodious voice rung out some of the latest tracks to hit the bollywood circuit, jokes filled the air, mostly ranging from ridiculous PJs to horrendously dirty ones! Manu wouldn’t stop on his smoking spree, keshav dozed off, Shevade took us all on a trip with that awesome Tamil no. of his, whatever that meant under the sun!!! Kulla, kris, myself, akshay n the others were still reeling in the aroma of the place it seems. As the clock struck 3 AM, we headed back down, desperate to shut our eyes for the next 8 hours or so. Oh, not to forget, the million and one resolutions that went around this time, about all of us making it to the breakfast table next morning at 8. But, true to Shevade and keshav’s credit, they did make it, organizers after all. On the way back of course, its worth mentioning, that I saw one of the better sights in Tumkur – truly Swades style!!! A play happening at 3AM, in a village off the daily grind of society! Amazing, huh, really, we were truly taken aback as well. We parked ourselves for about 15 mins, as we watched a truly Mahabharata style episode, with the actors and actresses dressed in traditional attire with mind-boggling, splendid makeup. Guess all of us were still trying to come to terms with what we were seeing, at that time of the night, but true to the fact, it was probably the only occasion throughout the calendar year, that the villagers got a break like that.

Day 3 or rather Final Day followed much the same pattern as the rest. Huh, the only change being, the day began at 1 PM for Kulla, kris and me, as we struggled hard to get out of the threshold of DD hills the previous night. Loitering through the campus one last time, guess we were trying hard to think of all that we were missing already, trying hard to live in the moment, trying hard to absorb as much as we could of the mortal remains of our engineering days, trying hard to foresee a bright future amidst such pleasant surroundings, trying hard to think, if it was really that bad or we’d just underestimated it so badly…
The evening rolled in, so did the music, so did the people and so did the fun. As the night drew closer, back stage plans were already being drafted to head out to the retreat yet again…
Its almost like a repeat of the previous night …hehehe..I have this serious urge within me to use the power of windows and paste the same thing again, but that would surely count as heights of laziness wouldn’t it, and this after all is an hobby for me, so why resort to illegal means?!?!?!?!? As it stood, we were 26 guys, settling down on a moonlight night, in probably the only garden well maintained outside of SIT in Tumkur. Time passed, river rolled, and soon followed some awesome shit. Truly, when beer talks, it forces the others to shut up, I say. Sentimental words filled the night, and for the ones who were still slightly sober, they must’ve had a ball listening to all the crap that followed. Think about it, it probably took us slightly more than 2 hours to drink, but we actually ended up taking as much time to clear the bill as well!!! Amazing, isn’t it, when you have about 20 drunken guys around you, and you got to manage ‘em, that I truly believe is a test of your management skill ;-)
As the pieces of the board were coming back together, so did all of us recover some part of our brain cells! Exquisite planning from 1 AM to 3 AM ensured that the inevitable happened:
6 bikes, 1 car, 19 partially drunk guys, another empty road, a bottle of vodka and you know, where we were all headed! Noise practically followed for the next 3 hours atop DD hills, till the sun showed signs of coming out in the open sky again.
A hot cup of chai early in the morning and soon we were on the bus, back to the hustle bustle of the city, back after reliving ourselves in the sleepy town, back after living the moments of another Halcyon, back to the dust where we belong, hoping…deep down. hoping that the path ahead was one full of Halcyon for all of us !!!!