Anil's Armageddon

Rain patted on his backpacks as he trod on the gravel path leading to the university. It was something weird entering into a new world of impudent seniors and carefree teachers.Entrance slip in one hand, and the other hand fumbling the strings of his guitar, he was searching for his class. He wasn't confident enough to look at the peoples' eyes and talk with them, so his eyes captured the monotonous brown gravel terrain as a pair of black boots appeared amidst the gravel path.

Anil had messed it up big time. Too nervous to notice what was going on around him , he had splashed mud on the university bully's painting, (made for his girl) without uttering an apology. Anil slowly shifted his gaze from the boots to the hanging pockets of the cargos, matching the colour of the road. A formal shirt, let loose on a side and tucked in tight on the other, glared at him with a nasty shade of bright yellow, in contrast with his brown pants. It was the face of the bully that convinced Anil of the impending doom closing in upon him.

The rest of the scene was totally unchanged from a typical cinema phenomenon. Other similar bulky fellows with an equally unpleasant dress sense came surrounding Anil, as he was turning to catch a glimpse of any blessed teacher.Their eyes scanned Anil, as though they were stripping him. He timidly asked them, "W..What did i do....Sir?". "Sir?.....??....You called us 'SIR'? hahahahaa", came the usual syncronised laugh of the bullies, who were quickly planning to exploit Anil's weakness to the fullest.

"What's your name,Guitar-Romeo eh?", asked a guy in green and black.

"Anil."

"How old are you?"

"Am 21"

"You mommy has sent a feeding bottle with you to start sucking milk when chemistry classes are going on?"

"No thanks, I'm better off with the carton."

"And how long have you been playing this perforated piece of wood, kiddo?", asked they, signalling to Anil's guitar.

"Thats my life,my passion. I don't really think it will hurt you if I dont wish to say this to you"

There came the mistake. The guy took Anil's guitar out, and asked his sidekicks,

"I think its time to pay a visit to the musicals to get a new guitar, What say?". He pulled out a string of Anil's guitar and it cracked with a resounding sound.

That was the limit! Anil plunged on his senior, holding his throat with such vengeance that the latter found it hard to resist Anil alone. Anil knew very well that he couldnt have resisted five big bullies alone on his first day of university life, whose stomachs did overtime in the College canteens. But he could do anything, but stand unaffected, when a bunch of tasteless guys, damaged his life and soul, his guitar. Anil, therefore, uttering a silent prayer to the stars, to send a saviour, started resisting the bullies.

The rain started to slacken as the encounter intensified. A cloud of people gathered around the centre of attraction, trying to get a glance of the sympathetic first-year boy. Anil was being squeezed, mashed, and his black jeans with the white shirt tucked in was totally in tatters. His hair was the only minus point in Anil, other than which he was a moderately fair and a handsome fellow with a good build. At times it ws his hair, which made him look a lttle weird and bad.Now his hair became a double minus.It stuck to his head like fevicol and became as rough as a rope.The atrocious assault was stopped by an elderly man, past his prime, in his fourties, with a slightly balding head, resting on thin necks. He had an impressive face-set and an authoritative tone that made people look up to him when he passed by.

"Would you please unhand him Rahul?", asked the man polietly.

Rahul seemed not to have heard him.And that made matters all the more worse for him , apart from the fact that he was brutally torturing an innocent junior.

"WILL YOU PLEASE STOP TORMENTING YOU JUNIOR, OR SHALL I HAVE YOU ALL STRIPPED AND RUNNING THE CAMPUS HUNDRED TIMES?",shouted the man.

Rahul scowled and left the place. Anil started to get up from the mud, his wet shirt, sticking to his body, his hair all in ruins. He cursed himself for having spent an hour and a half in front of the mirror that day to set his hair, only to find himself thrashed and squeezed within the first few minutes in college.He then made a futile attempt to straighten his hair, as he pulled on his 'now-useless' guitar, and picked up the soiled admission form,bent his head downwards with a right-angled tilt and followed the man to the class, who turned out to be his physics professor.Anil thanked his lucky stars for getting such a sympathetic man to teach him his favourite subject, and cursed them for presenting him with such a 'nightamre'ish first day.

Talk about a fish out of water! A student out of school, into a university as a newbie is much more vulnerable than the fish out of water is. He keeps suffering for the entire year, groaning under the immense pressure of books and the ragging seniors, who vent out their anger on the juniors in order to relieve themselves of the humiliation they suffered when they were like Anil.