The voice within.

December 19th,2009

Almost Midnight

Ever found a long lost thing when you were least expecting it? I bet that joy cannot be expressed in words.. That is exactly how I am feeling right now! :D

December 13th, 2008. At around 8 in the night, I was on my way back home, deeply disappointed at the show that we had put up in the Dumb Charades competition at REBOOT-08. We had gone in as the defending champions. So, I was at least expecting a finish in the top 3. But again, I had an entirely new team with me and even after the numerous practice sessions that we had been through to get ourselves in sync, we faltered. We were the top team in qualifiers. But missed out a spot in the top 3 in the finals.

Now for most people, Dumb Charades means exactly what it sounds like. A dumb game.If you have the same opinion, try conveying something to a dumb and deaf person. You will know how difficult it is.

I had the same impression until I came to Halcyon-05 at SIT. Man! I was awed at the way the SITans acted out the toughest of movie names with ease. I remember harry slapping his face almost 5-6 times to enact American Pie. :D We were that noobs in miming out stuff. Even then, we managed to scrape a third spot in the finals, thanks to some very good guess work from Nagya and meself and some hilarious miming from Greeni. :D

Now, almost 5 years after that win, I feel that if not for that 3rd position, I would never have taken this game seriously. I remember spending around 6-7 hours that day (the return journey in the train from tumkur) to form most of the codes that we use even today. It was like a flu. I remember people sitting 10-15 rows apart in the train and trying to mime out stuff. We were all infected.

It just didn't stop there. Back in college too, in the classrooms, bakery, canteen, labs, everywhere. We were miming anything and everything that we could think of. Abuses, Lecturer names, funny words. There was no end to it. The dumb charades craze had become a wildfire. The effect was immediate. The next Fantasia at our college saw a huge number of teams competing for Dumb Charades. And the satisfying thing was, most of the codes that were being used by the other teams were the ones that we made up. :)

From then on, there was no turning back. DC had become our favorite pastime. Even at home, we made people go crazy with our miming and guesswork.

Its a pity that my DC team has been ripped apart, with most of us working in different companies and at different places. But then, we are always ready for DC whenever we get a chance to get together.

Coming back to today! Yuzzz... ! To say the least, " We beat the **** out of the other teams"!! :D

Even though I was in a new team yet again this time, and with only one week of practice, I was very nervous when we started off. But I had two very good team-mates, Muthu and Shailesh. Shailesh - the movie database, Muthu - the acting genius. The sync was just perfect and it was as if we all had drained down a bottle of Felix Felicis today.. :D

We won the finals by over a 100 points and reclaimed the Number-1 spot. And to make matters worse for the other teams, the Infy B team took the second place. :)

Today, I sleep peacefully, because, as Muthu rightly said "today, we bask in Glory"... ;)

Wednesday.

I reached BTM layout via the 8:15 bus from Infy. As per routine, I stopped at the Gokul Cafe, picked up a parcel for myself (some rice item) which was supposed to be my dinner, then stopped at the bakery, took a cup of hot chai in the other hand, and then started climbing one by one, the 50 odd steps that finally lead to my home chweeeet home on the 3rd floor.. :P

BY was already home (I remember we going to office by bike that morning) and was watching the latest episode of HIMYM (Mininova rocks! Or rather rocked till last week.. :P). We had our usual office gossip session for the first 10 minutes, and then suddenly he remembered -- "Hey macha..! Forgot to ask to you to get some parcel for me.. :(". Actually, BY had called when I was in the bus to tell me the exact same thing, but had mentioned everything other than that. :D

Now, I shoulda mentioned this a little earlier. When your house is on the 3rd floor, and you are back home after 10 hours of work (or on weekends, its waking up after 10 hours of sleep), its sorta ground rule that the first guy who gets down to the hotel or the last guy who comes up to the house has to get a parcel for the other. :D

So, now we had one parcel only! And both of us weren't gonna get down and get something for the other to eat. So I said -- "Its ok ba.. We will eat in this only. Anyways, I can't eat this much. ". Now, that was a good solution given the circumstances and the level of laziness we both were in. So finally, the matter was settled. BY added -- " Imma go cook some boiled eggs for myself!" ( I don't eat eggs).

So BY went into the kitchen. And I grabbed the cup of chai in my left hand, and sat down in front of the PC as my right hand automatically started typing orkut, Ctrl + Enter, Ctrl + T, facebook, Ctrl + Enter, Ctrl + T , gmail, Ctrl + Enter. By the time I had logged in to my mail account, BY had finished keeping the vessel on the stove and had made his way to the loo (which I didn't know). :D

A minute had passed by and I turned around to show something in facebook to BY. But I saw that the kitchen door was almost closed and I saw that there was a bright yellow shade on the kitchen door which was supposed to be the reflection of the gas flame. I wondered what BY might be cooking with a closed kitchen door. :D So I got up, and slowly opened the kitchen door. I saw that there was a big yellow flame near the stove and there was no BY in the kitchen. I thought, maybe he put the stove on full flame and reached out for the knob on the stove to lower the flame. Suddenly, I realised that the flames were atleast 4 inches away from the place where the burner actually was. It was the cylinder tube on fire.!

3 seconds and I was almost near the front door yelling " Kitchen alli benki!!! (Fire in the kitchen!)". Suddenly I remembered that BY was actually in the house! I shouted "Bharat!! Kitchen alli benki kano!!" and heard "Huuh???" from the loo. :D BY ran out of the loo saying "whaaaa??". Panic struck, we both took a bucket each and reached out for the nearest taps to fill them up with water. I turned on the tap in the bathroom, but then saw no water coming out of the tap! I was like "Whaad daaa phaaaack!". Then, I noticed that the knob was neither towards the shower nor towards the tap. :D So I turned it towards the tap and then started filling the bucket with water. In the meantime, BY had already filled up half the bucket with water from another tap. He rushed into the kitchen, and whoooosh! I heard the sound of water splattering all over the floor. Another similar attempt. This time with the bucket that I had filled up. I was hoping for the flames to subside. 2 seconds later, I heard BY's voice from the kitchen.. "Lo maga!! BeLitha ide kano!! (Its growing!)".

Now, this was serious. We had to decide whether we were gonna stay and try putting the fire off or run out of the house before getting blown away. And then, there was Eureka! I told BY -- "Macha! Cylinder knob off maado.. ". But then, it wasn't easy. It was like "What if the cylinder blows by the time we turn off the knob?? ". There was no time to think! And finally, BY reached out for the cylinder knob. I was standing in the hall, peeking through the kitchen door and praying. BY slowly turned the knob and the flames went off in a flash. Phew!

In the next one minute, we had detached the cylinder from the stove, and kept both of them outside the house and shut the door. :D I took a snap of the burnt tube and updated my status on facebook, while BY mopped up the kitchen which was full of water. :P

Half an hour later, we were all set to eat the parceled rice that was the only eatable thing remaining in the house (the eggs were gone, so was the provision to cook something else!).

An eventful hour, ended with a dinner of rice and laughter. Courtesy, a burnt cylinder tube and Sheldon Cooper. :o)