The Rat under the bed

"Did you see that rat!"
"Rat! Where? Where is it?"
"It went under your bed." I grinned about it as I bent to look below Atul's bed. Of one thing I could boast, the area under my bed was cleaner than Atul's.
"Bloody ass! Now it'll loiter around and dirty the place. Why do you keep the door open, damn it!"
"The bigger question is, why did it take refuge under your bed?"

Atul and I were room mates during first year of our college life. There had been minor incidents of rat infiltration in neighboring rooms which involved some efforts by the inmates to scare the thing away. This time it was in our room and we were not prepared to handle the situation.

While Atul sat on his bed, doing something on his laptop, it continuously occurred to me that a rat was sitting under him, and occasionally I looked under his bed for some movement of that rat that might give away his specific location. None.

"Did it leave already?"
Atul looked up from his laptop screen, shrugged as if pretending not to care, then got back to whatever he was doing. It then occurred to me, if the rodents could climb walls, this one under Atul's bed could climb up the wall behind him and stun him.

"Bhanu, my good neighbor, little help required."
"Anything for you buddy! Give me five minutes."
Did the rat just cross from below the study table towards my side of the room? I wondered as I sat on my bed waiting for Bhanukiran.
"Yeah buddy, tell me." Help had finally arrived.
"We have a rat situation."
"Where is the rat?"
"Under Atul's bed."
Bhanukiran started laughing boisterously. Atul gave him a no-nonsense look.
"The good news is that Atul is unperturbed." I further added with a grin.
"I can't seem to find a rat below this bed." Bhanukiran reported as he looked below the bed from the wall side of the bed.
"Neither can I." I said as I stared below from the other side. "No sign of the infiltrator."
"Looks like it left. Enjoy!" Bhanukiran said and walked out of our room.
"Maybe you scared it off Bhanu." I said which he safely ignored.

"We must use this to kill any rat that invades our privacy in future."
"What is this?"
"Its a rat poison. It probably works on humans also, so we must wash our hands after handling this."
"I won't take the dead body out after the rat dies in this room."
"The advertisement says that it eats the poison, then goes out and dies, so don't worry. Now, we need some eatable to wrap around this poison cake."

"What's the smell about." Atul and I just entered our room after lunch, two days later.
"Maybe we didn't leave the windows open so the room feels suffocating."
"It smells like something died in here."
"The door was locked, what would possibly have come in and suddenly died?"
Then it occurred to both of us.
"Where is the smell coming from?"
It was coming from under Atul's bed. Probably it was the same rat from last week only who had died. Upon further investigation it was discovered that the rat had entered Atul's travel bag which was open and contained some of his clothes. The rat had probably consumed the poison before taking shelter in his bag. We had unknowingly locked it in our room, so it couldn't go out to die, as the advertisement had claimed.

That evening Atul took his travel bag outside the hostel, threw it in a garbage dump, put some kerosene on it, and left a lighted matchstick into it, burning the dead rat and all his clothes in the bag.

Attack of the dogs

I was tired, but I wanted to practice jogging on front part of my foot, so I started jogging. It was almost dinner time and the ground was lit by the street lights barely reaching it. After covering half a circle of the ground between NBH (New Boys Hostel) and OBH (Old Boys Hostel), I heard barking sounds of some dogs from the area near OBH, and I think I was about 100 meters from them. I stopped, realizing that maybe the dogs didn't like my jogging there and were barking at me because the barking sound was directed towards me. I had a similar experience once early morning while jogging on the same ground, so had to jog on the road instead. I jogged back to the area near NBH and jogged there, covering a relatively smaller circle. Fully exhausted, I started walking back towards my hostel, OBH, when I heard the barking again, only this time I knew they were directed towards me because I saw about five dogs advancing towards me. For a second there, when I saw the two black dogs advancing towards me with a decent speed, I heard myself say, "O God, this is it. I'm dead."

It must have been a friday. Doesn't matter really. 6 pm on a sunny breezy summer evening, we were practicing karate. Following our teacher's instructions, we were doing some basic stretching exercises.
"Wo dekho, Mux abhi aa rahaa hai. (Look Mux is coming now!)" Ninja exclaimed. Many turned, they must have. I continued with the exercise. When I heard Mux shouting, I turned back to look.
Mux was on the ground, trying to push himself away from the two puppies advancing at him. Mux was shouting and was clearly very scared. The puppies turned away and left him.
He joined us for the exercise but was worried about his bruises. Our teacher suggested us not to run away when a dog is after you, but stand still and there's a good chance they won't hurt.
Later that evening, Mux met me while I was walking towards the lab.
"I'm really embarrassed by what happened today. I felt so helpless!"
"Hey, relax! You freaked out, it happens. I'm sure others won't freak out so much," and then I started giggling, "but everybody gets scared."
"I was scared out there, I feel embarrassed now and you're laughing at me now. Arre kuch sharam kar (have some shame). Jab tere saath aisa hoga tab pataa chalega. (When you'll experience such an incident, you'll realize my agony)."
Mux picked up some stones and from the other side of the wall of the ground, threw some stones towards the dogs sitting in the middle of the ground.
"A few dogs bothered you and you're targeting all the dogs! That's not justified."
"That's because I can't see those two black puppies now." He giggled and added, "But I'm telling you, I'll kill those bloody dogs if I get a chance."

For next few days, I laughed a lot about Mux's reaction that day when puppies barked at him. His reaction was normal and expected, but the way he shouted was really hilarious, so couldn't help laughing. And Mux cursed me every time I laughed at him, that such a thing would happen to me too.
"Kameene, bhagwaan kare tere saath bhi aisa hi ho." (You rascal, I wish you experience the same.)

A few days later, one morning, I saw this dream. It really scared me.

And now, tired and exhausted, as I walked towards the OBH, I saw the two dogs barking wildly and advancing towards me, and few other dogs from the other side. I realized how weak and vulnerable I was, and helpless even with all those karate moves I had learnt recently! I could visualize those dogs biting me and ripping my skin apart. I wanted to shout for help but I dismissed that as a silly thought.
I heard myself say, "O God, this is it. I'm dead." The black dogs had come very close. I took few steps back. My first instincts were to run, but I remembered my karate teacher's advice and didn't. I looked at the two black dogs and kept my mind blank. The dogs stopped, took some steps back, and then went back to where they had been sitting.
Phew! Near escape! I took a deep breath. They didn't hurt me, but they did assert that the half of the ground near OBH was their area for the night. I walked towards NBH, then took a U turn to walk back to OBH.

Second visit to YOCS.

Last week, I attended YOCS meet. YOCS is Young Orator's Club of Secunderabad. During the major of the meet (which is a speech making session for 2 minutes for each speaker), the topic given was "Who am I?" or "Does society makes you who you are?"
The topic was something on which each person who spoke had his/her own opinion. Some of them frankly accepted that they didn't know who they really were, which is only fair. Some portrayed themselves in the work they do, which could be singing a song, reading a book etc., which basically meant that whatever you do shows what you are. Others described themselves
starting with their names, and moving to their hobbies etc.
Everyone was free to talk on the topic the way they wanted to. I framed my speech a little different after listening to some of the speakers. But, as always, I messed up almost everything when I started to speak.
I suspected that I knew the main problem with my speech delivery and yesterday my suspicion was confirmed. Standing in front of staring eyes and open ears waiting to hear what you have to say is not what makes me uncomfortable. It is my thought process and ability to think while speaking is what prevents me from speaking consistently and fluently.
I volunteered to be the next speaker after a few speakers spoke their mind, on insistence of my friend sitting beside me. I had all the points jotted down in my mini-textpad and was quite happy about what I was going to speak.
Standing at the podium is not the hard part, but speaking cohesively and consistently in front of people is. I started a few seconds late, trying to recall the starting line that I'd been repeatedly speaking in my mind. After the initiation I spoke a few more lines, then looked at the points I'd written and switched abruptly to something not in flow/sync of what I was speaking, though was related to what I was speaking on.
I ended whatever I was speaking with a quote, again not totally in sync with the starting of the speech. The best thing that I could do was to politely say, "thank you" and smile, and walked back and took my seat.
I was expecting comments like lack of confidence and fumbling voice etc. But the reviews were lenient for guests like me. The review that I received was that my speech was good, the starting few lines were good, interesting thoughts, but I deviated from what I was speaking on and abruptly started telling all the points I had thought about speaking. I was more like a high-school thing, reciting all the relevant points for the speech. Since I had limited time, I should have focused on the first part of my speech and elaborated on or extended that.
I fumbled and lost on many grounds, but in the end, it did feel great to go and speak my mind in front of people who listen and appreciate the good in what I speak and tell me where I did badly.
Waiting for the next meet....!