Undignified posture

Just when I thought I had become used to being a good-for-nothing penniless bum surviving solely on richer friends' altruism, I hit a new low last night.

It started at 10 o'clock when my friends took me to have the first meal of the day - a five buck plate of idli at Tiffany's. Not that we had any choice, it was the only food left there that late at night. Obviously dissatisfied by the light dinner, my friends decided to go to the beach for some more grub. We decided to meet at Tarams, but when I got there, the folks were nowhere to be found. Thinking they might have gone to the hostel, I returned to my room, only to discover that my room's keys were in a friend's pocket. The fact was, as I later learnt, they were walking to Tarams and were behind me and my borrowed cycle.

So I decided to wait in front of my room, hoping they'd come back to check on me. The thing is, I was wondering if I'd look completely out of place dressed in purple shorts a tad shorter than most micro-mini skirts and stolen bathroom slippers two sizes too small. I would appreciate a quick change of clothing to look more dignified, but I ought to have known that in times like this, survival is the more important thing. Hunger can drive people to desperation, and my friends went to the beach anyway. A half hour passed and nothing happened, so I decided to sit in front of the room and wait it out a little longer.

Next thing I know, I was woken up by someone passing in the wing - it was 11:30 pm and my friends were still on the beach. I had been woken up lying face down in front of my room in the wing, looking like the face of misery, a terribly cocked-up position I had thought I wouldn't want to be caught dead in. So much for dignity.

But there was nothing else to do. All traces of dignity gone, I promptly resumed my place in front of room, the fan inside occasionally blowing thin streams of air on my face from the place between the door's bottom and the floor. It was 12:30 am when I finally got up to drink some water and was spotted by my friends. It seems nobody had bothered to check on me after all.

"College life ke ch**iyape", as one of my friends would agree.

All alone

Thus goes the saying: Mirrors don't lie
Speech is silvern, Silence Golden
Then explain to me, O Truthsayer, why -
There are two of me and not just one?

Alone in truth, alone in reflection
Sad and unspoken, Stolid and still
Staring silently in no direction
Empty of spirit, broken of will.

What I would give to hear them speak
My friends, a decent conversation
But I stare at my future - distant and bleak
Working alone, hoping for salvation

Who's that in the mirror? I turn about,
Find nothing but despair, a mirage, a dream.
Call me crazy - I want to shout
But all I can make is a soundless scream.

Stricken by a stupor of madness.

Voiceless.

Still.

I am all alone.
I am all alone.

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