Dear Sir/Madam,

I feel like one useless Kumbhakarna (okay, Kumbhakaran, jeez) sleeping through the entirety of a psenti-sem when I’d promised myself I would fulfil all things in bucket-list. Now all I have done is emptied Mysore sandal soap dabbas and V-care shampoo sachets in the said bucket. Okay, that makes no sense, but, finally I got my chance to write this, follow passions and all because – midsems are here! The time when you end up on the bad side of internet – not kidding, Sir/Madam. Ten-ten hours of cat, baby and dog fail videos – Doggo, Pupper, Floof and what not, why Maddy is the new Daddy, how many ugly things does Trump look like (blobfish and corn hair – special mentions), what ‘aerys’ in Danerys means, the geometrical equation for the shape of Jon Snow’s… Shiva Shiva!

New places to eat on campus, some ‘-301ºF’ (still didn’t find out what’s special about that number) and one certain ‘Looters’ (living up to the name, with a fancy multicolour glowing signboard and all). In that ice-cream place, I bought one sundae on a Saturday which I got only on Sunday.

Apart from this they are kings or should I say, queens of spelling bees – a lot of choclet (ate the other letters?), many types of forast,  Strawbery cake (remove redundant ‘r’?), Ras berry cake and best – Bulu berry, and finally choco trufal – true fruits of TOEFL preparation, Sir/Madam?

We only know English as an Indian language! Looters is (are?) no better, with their Aloo pettie masala. I keep eating like this, I’ll be like their mojitos – virgin and tasteless. Sorry, I am being so savage – Recently I am discovering these ‘roasts’ on the internet – why don’t we do that for politicians?!

But the biggest faux pas was when on one of the institute websites, five days were marked for the sports fest ‘BOSM’, spelt with one extra vowel, Sir/Madam! And then it became crazy, when they declared it open, welcomed everyone to it and all. The fest brought with it plenty of food stalls – your esteemed newspaper did a wonderful job on that food review piece and that BOSM review piece had me rolling on the floor laughing my abs off – and a lot of testosterone and other smells in common rooms, and in the sounds department, early morning EDM to which the ousti participants woke up.

Even Kumbhakarnan (deal with it) will wake up when this is played – Just when I thought we were relieved from the early morning cacophony lessons on how to fart “Saare Jahaan Se Accha” with peacocks competing – please no ‘more’ (See, I know Hindi da!). Let me be at peace with some M S Subbulakshmi’s Suprabhatam, please, Sir/Madam.

This stupid Haryanvi EDM almost got me killed once, while on my way from Delhi airport to a friend’s house. Our cab got hit by another, because my driver had his eyes on his video player – where this woman called Sapna was dancing to some random snake music – all too familiar-sounding because of my years in Shankar bhawan – with her face covered (for good) and it made dhinchak pooja look like she has talent – and looking at her, my driver is vigorously shifting his gear stick! Paavi, that stupid Sapna turned out to be a nightmare come true (by the way, I’m killing it with the Hindi puns here, Sir/Madam).

In other interesting music news, one day a mail arrived saying that the Ministry of Human Resource Development is organizing a concert in Audi – by a rock band(!) named Ajaadi (Yes, with a j). There was some long-haired fellow shouting/singing slogans with a ‘wow-such-values’ face, echoed by a bunch of chom first years in the first row who didn’t know any better. At one point, he shouted – “Get up and shout/sing Vande Mataram. Come on, everybody!”. I left. It was getting too similar to a movie theatre.

Amidst all the crazy, some things never change – like the cheeky localites of Pilani. That day, I went in the afternoon to the redi and asked him what he was making, he looked at me expressionless and said the dish was called “Bhool Bhulaiyya”. The nerve! Just because I’m more likely to have watched Chandramukhi. It turned out to be rather tasty chole kulcha.

The other thing being that when I need to reach SAC from my room on foot, I have to meet Hades, Pennywise and all as I travel through Paatala lokam – the ditch, as it’s fondly called. If I take the road, the chowki near Gandhi statue always stares warily, as if I’m there to give Bapuji belated birthday bumps or something. While in SAC, there are reduced decibel levels these days, in the QT, no more people shouting and beating tambourines – I miss getting exasperated about them – some things have changed, I guess.

And the way BITS celebrates festivals is delightful – this Navarathri or Durga Puja or Durga Pujo or Durgo Pujo, I finally went to see the Pandal and watched the celebrations. We were greeted with a “We wolcom you to this ospicious occoshun”. No exaggerations. Health tip – Don’t ask your Bengali friend if ‘Hokono Mototo’ is valid. Apparently, it is not. However, ‘MojoJojo’ is perfectly fine!

Ah, what a beautiful last semester it has been, Sir/Madam. Just I have to make sure this really is my last semester – don’t want to fail in a HUEL or something now. Hope to write to you sooner than compres next. Also, I hope most of this letter makes it to you, uncensored! After all, BDSM quiz happened.

Yours in Exasperation,

A. R. BITSabhootam