The purpose of the following narrative is to serve as a compilation of all of ‘the diabolical things you heard during BOSM’. While the quotes may be true, the events surrounding them are fictional. The views expressed in the quotations are those of the individuals quoted and do not represent the views of the BEP. 

Nothing kicks off a fest quite like a quick shot of racism paired with the smell of unwashed mattresses. As I fought my way to the front of the R*cNAcc queue to collect twenty of the suspicious looking rags, I found myself caught in the crossfire of an argument, with an outsie yelling, ‘Your five-foot tall BITSians might fit on these mattresses, but we have six and a half foot tall African monkeys on our team.’ It saddens me, dear reader, to admit that while I was naturally outraged by the xenophobia, what really lit my heart ablaze was being collateral damage due to my vertical inferiority.

As I waddled my way back to the tent, draped in the scarily stained sacks, I was greeted by a heated discussion regarding hotdogs. ‘There is no non-homosexual way to consume a hotdog,’ exclaimed a fellow BEP member, adding that ‘every bite you take makes you slightly gayer’. After barging into said debate and demolishing my interlocutors in the marketplace of ideas, I was accosted by a senior, who requested that someone ‘please sponsor my melatonin’.

The procurement of the melatonin was followed by the search for a bottle of water, which we quickly gave up on. The need for an HR department within the club was soon made clear to me as I was informed that the only logical solution to satisfy the lack of the aforementioned water bottle would be for me to ‘hold water in my throat as the melatonin tablet dissolved, and spit it into my senior’s mouth’. Naturally, I agreed enthusiastically. Following the transfer of the consignment and my senior’s deep slumber, I was finally free to begin work on my article for the day. ‘I do this so that my cats can have a better future’, I repeated my mantra as I steeled myself for the work.

‘AI can’t cure stupidity but contraceptives can,’ remarked my Chief Editor (who insists that he be known by the name ‘Big P’) as he paced across the room reading my work. ‘Why on Earth does it say, “Yes, feet photography?” he thundered, before waving away my feeble apologies. My status as the only Tamil individual in the club was apparent to me as Big P then proceeded to edit in the Oxford commas that I had taken the liberty of forgetting.

‘Who even cares about BOSM anyways?’ I asked myself as I stared blankly at the 107 edits for my article glowing bright red on my screen as I shovelled in papaya from my fruit bowl. ‘Dude, that papaya lowkey looks like a puked-out mango,’ declared my friend, while asking, ‘Where can you find a McDonald’s in the middle of this godforsaken hellhole?’ All I could think of, however, was the surprisingly good combination of banana and watermelon—along with some deep introspection, I guess.

The beauty of BEP, I finally began to realise, aside from the melatonin, is not something easy to put into words. The club during BOSM, despite waking me up to cover an afternoon cricket match, or almost making me cover a chess match, or calling me out for my ‘William Faulkner literary style’, was strangely something that I looked forward to. The exhaustion that plagued me as I inched my way to the final paragraph of my articles day after day and the exhilaration that came with creating something that you were proud of were pleasures that were not easy for me to find.