Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Catcher Of The Fly

Something that I had written in my first year college. Had to turn in an article for the college mag within 45 minutes and this was the best I could come up with. Of course it is a lampoon of "Catcher in the Rye". Now when I read it I find that some parts could've been tweaked or rephrased but then I was never a reader's writer. The piece also got me into trouble with a college HOD. That I think was the best part.
Here goes nothing.........

I'm not going to give you my history or anything of the sort. All I'm going to tell you is how I spent a whole day in this college. After being kicked out of Frenchie (for the uninitiated, Frenchie is the nickname of Room No. 407 - not the underwear. If you kick me out of my bare essentials I swear I'll have you castrated).

The reason for the expulsion was that I was testing my burglar alarm in the middle of my lecture. Actually, I was just trying to make the guy who was sitting next to me stop snoring. I had inserted the rods of my alarm in his nostril and the bell went off. It wasn't my fault - you too would have got pissed off sitting next to that slob. Every time he snored, a drop of snot fell from his nose.

I had no place to go, and so I went into the Reading Room and thought that I might read the day’s paper. However, all the seats were taken. All except for one beside a guy who reminded me of this classmate of mine. This chap had a tattoo on his arm which he said was that of a bull's. I’ve always felt that it was a cow's tattoo. I mean, you could only see its face and you can't possibly make out whether the animal is a cow or a bull by only looking at its head can you? Anyway, this guy sitting in the Reading Room reminded me of the cowherd (it’s a cow, I tell you). The chap was reading a management book and had a business newspaper in his bag. I presumed that this guy must be a management bloke. They have management written all over their faces. On the table next to ours a guy was sitting and flexing his forearms. I have a friend who is constantly doing that. He keeps challenging everybody to an arm-wrestling contest and keeps losing. This chap and the tattoo bloke both are decent chaps in all respects except for their personalities. They are big phonies actually.

I walked out of the Reading Room and went over to the canteen. It’s called Prakash's Canteen. Prakash is actually a waiter but he plays the piano that's kept in the corner. Today he was playing Beethoven's Unfinished Symphony…and kept finishing it. That really pissed me off. Beethoven must have left his work unfinished for some reason.

I like going to the canteen because that's the only place where they give you a drink without asking your age. I'm underage you know. I had 7-8 bottles of Bisleri out there and then ran off to the loo to relieve myself. In the loo I found a guy pissing with a straight face. I can never piss with a straight face, not even if you switched on the Oprah Winfrey show. Actually, I always sing while pissing. My favourite at these times is 'Staying Alive' by the BeeGees. There are two reasons for this, the first being that ‘Staying Alive’ is essentially a loo song, and that secondly, pissing is necessary to stay alive. I'm quite happy with myself because I can piss and sing at the same time. I havent tried dancing as yet.
So, as I was saying, the guy was pissing with a straight face. It was as if he was concentrating on something. I guessed that a spider or a roach must've fallen in the urinal
Out of the loo and I was back again in the corridors. They were pretty crowded now. I bumped into the lecturer who had removed me from my class. She called me aside and asked me why I kept doing such things. She said, "Solder (my name, dope!), your dad's gonna kill you when he comes to know that you've been thrown out of class again. Your dad's gonna kill you.” She kept repeating this for around five minutes or so. I had to give a thump on her back to put her back on track.

We once had a lecturer who kept repeating 'over here' every time.If you ever spoke to him the conversation would go like this.

YOU: Sir, how shall I solve this problem?
HIM: Over here, you put blah, blah…Over here and then you take this blah… Over here and finally you get the answer over here. Have you got me over here?
YOU: Over and out sir.
HIM: Over here it's over here and out my boy. Over here, over here…(fades away).

So this lecturer kept repeating, "Your dad's gonna kill you." Until I put her back on track. She was a very good teacher, though. I couldn’t say so myself, but I’m sure of it.

Somehow I couldn't control myself and started sobbing. She put her arm around my shoulder to console me. She was a very good teacher. She asked me, "What do you want to become? What's your ambition, Solder?" I thought for a while but didn't answer. "Do you want to be a doctor, an engineer or a lawyer, Solder?" she asked. "You know," I said "have you seen the garbage heaps all over the city? And have you seen the flies flying around them? These flies spread all these diseases. I'd like to be a catcher of the fly. Yeah! That’s what I want to be!” She stood up, angrily saying that I needed to get myself psychoanalysed. She said that I had lost my marbles. Anyway that was it. I left for another lecture.

3 comments:

  1. my first time here.. And your attempt at JDSalinger style is quite the cool..:-)
    That was an amusing read..
    Nice post..

    ReplyDelete
  2. "If you kick me out of my bare essentials I swear I'll have you castrated"

    lol! waddya do wen it's a woman doin d honours?

    ;D

    ReplyDelete
  3. Christ ! wot rot :)

    ReplyDelete