Before we begin the journey with them, let me first take the privilege of introducing them to you in as few words as is possible...
Rancho - The irrepressible free thinker who lets life decide its path for him.
Farhan Qureshi - The nerd.
Raju Rastogi - The dreamer!
I shall endeavour to tell this story from Raju's perspective, as it is his character that I find closest to my heart.
CHAPTER I : The Myth
We were in our first year of college. We'd made it to NIT Trichy. Well yes, it is not "IIT", but still, we'd made it here and it was time for us to let ourselves loose. So we thought (Rancho and myself), and we let ourselves laze about the campus while Farhan continued to devote his time to the books.....
"Did you know??" asked Rancho, for the umpteenth time that evening.
"What is it now Rancho?" I shot back, wondering how he manages to "know it all".
"About Raam! You know him right? Our senior in second year. "Dude". "NRI"....."
"Yes yes I do!" I said, interrupting him from feeding me yet again of all the cock and bull that I'd already got fed up with. Of course, it was impossible to not know Raam, for he was the role model for almost every fresher in college. What with his "cool dude" looks, his juggling skills in the football field, his strong silent manner,.... The list just seemed endless.
"Well, I thought you'd wanna know this one....."
Rancho did have this excellent capability of pausing at the right points of the conversation to arouse one's curiousity.
"If its something new Ranch, I'm all ears!" I injected, for fear of not being up-to-date with all thats "news" while at college.
"Indeed it is! It seems Raam is the only guy in the history of our college to have ever made it to OPAL!!!"
"What??!!" I said, more out of shock than anything else.
"I know what you are thinking. I am not making this up. I have no reason to!! All the seniors seem to know about it. It is news only for us. Seems he did it when he was in his first year. Sounds cool na?"
"Sounds cool?? I'm still not able to digest the fact that he actually entered the GIRLS HOSTEL! What with a 5k fine for walking along Opal street, wonder how he managed to get anywhere near that place to get in!"
"Hmmm. Yes. Interesting. What do you say, we'll give it a shot?"
"You mean WE get inside OPAL? You got to be kidding!"
"In fact, I'm not. Are you in this,Raj, or am I on my own?"
A semester with Rancho had taught me this : to know when he meant it and when he did not, from the tone of his voice. And this time, I was sure, he was DEAD serious.
"I'm in," I put in,"but lets not rush into this Ranch. Let us chalk out a plan. We shouldn't get caught mind you."
"Deal!!" he said, and the walk back to the mess, the dinner there and then to the hostel, all seemed to fly in a haze as our brains were swarming with ideas to put in place to accomplish our mission, Operation Opal(OpOp)....
CHAPTER II : The Idea
The initial euphoria of working towards OpOp gradually seemed to die down. For we were meeting with dead ends, in every attempt that we made. We sneaked in to the school adjoining OPAL one night, only to realise that every bit of the common wall was so high, that we could possibly not even dream of getting up and over it. If this was disappointing, then the amount of bushes and shrubs surrounding other sides of the hostel, with all their thorns, provided better security than any personnel, making even approaching these walls unthinkable.
Our condition was deteriorating. Even Rancho seemed to be running out of ideas. We were in our room discussing our prospects with a feeling of grim defeat when we heard a third voice which nearly made me jump in surprise.
"I know what you guys have in mind. And I have an idea," said Farhan, looking up from his CEESAT textbook for the first time when we were discussing this.
Being our room mate, we had actually got along better than we expected, in spite of him being more mark minded than both of us put together. We got to know him better during the period of cycle tests and semester exams, when we tried to cram in as much as is permisssible in the last minute, with his aid. In fact, we realised that he was good company when he lets the books take a rest. So, we had taken to talking our plans openly in front of him, knowing fully well that we can trust him to tell no one about it. We were aware of the fact that he knew what we had in mind, but to think that he had an idea really jolted us.
"What is it, FQ?" said Rancho, recovering from the shock faster than I was able to. We'd started calling him FQ ever since his set of FAQ took us past the border line in every one of the first set of cycle tests. It was a title we had conferred upon him for his good will, though its pronunciation varied from anywhere like "F Q" to "f*** you" depending on the mood in which we were.
"Its really not a lot. But I thought you'll make more headway by consulting a girl about this than breaking your heads over it. After all, they'll surely know their hostels better!" Farhan said, with a smile on his face, realising that he had got his point through.
Over the next couple of hours the three of us thought of every girl we could possibly approach, the amount of trust we can place in each one of them and how could we possibly go about asking them without them realising that we were planning to get in. We'd zeroed in on Pia, my rakhi behen, when I finally gave up protesting that I'll never be able to do it.
The only consolation was that Rancho allowed me to do this at my own pace and didn't push me to do things immediately. I knew I could trust her, I knew she'd tell me if she knew anything that'd help us, but I just didn't know how to raise the topic.
CHAPTER III : The Call
The days spanned out and I was still not put under any pressure. For they were aware that I was pondering over the problem and how best to go about it. January ended, February came and with it came the fragrance of flowers. For it was time for "Rose Day" in college and we had a gala time sending proxies and making fun of guys who'd received their share of it. Amidst all this, I got a rose from Pia and a card which stated how much she looked up to me as a brother. I felt a pang and I was ashamed of having thought of only what I wanted of her. I sat down that night and wrote a poem for her and sent it to her through a message. She was so overwhelmed reading that one (though I had to point out to her what made it really special) that she called me back.
After talking about the poem I'd written, the card she'd sent, and anything and everything that we could possibly speak about, I finally realised that here was an opportunity staring right at my face.
"Hey Pia, do you think a guy can ever get into your hostel?" I posed, stirring in as much innocence as I could muster at that point of time.
"Actually yes! The front wall in our hostel, especially near the school, is rather low and I think even I can jump over it if pushed to my limits. But only a fool would want to risk that! What with all the securities around, and not to mention, the people in the quarters going hither and thither throughout the day. But why do you ask?" she said, maybe sensing for the first time that I might be up to something fishy and probably winding up to have a go at me.
"Oh nothing!" I rushed in, "We were just talking about Raam and you'll probably be knowing the story yourself," patting myself for unusual quick thinking.
We went on to talk for quite sometime, having attained what I had been after for so long now, getting it in the end with considerably less effort than expected.
CHAPTER IV : The Execution
After having told the other two as to what I had acquired, there was a period of lull. Nothing seemed to happen, no one seemed to take an initiative, and there seemed to be an unspoken promise that OpOp should not be raised.
And then, one day....
It was the 23rd of February, 2006.
As was customary, I was having my bath in the evening before dinner, after a long day full of classes. While I was bathing, it struck me that if OpOp ever had to be carried out, it ought to be today. A sense of excitement crept over me and I rushed to my room and told Farhan what I felt. I was halfway through it, when Rancho came inside our room in a hurry, back from a game of football at the grounds, and blurted out that he wanted it done today! I was left aghast. Here he was, telling exactly what I had in mind.
Farhan looked from one set face to another, and it was finally he who broke the silence that ensued.
"I'll come along," he said, "you two do need someone on the watch outside while you get in right?"
We tried protesting, we did not want him to get involved just in case we got caught, but he seemed to be as resolute as we were in doing it today. We knew he was talking sense, that we did need someone on the guard while we jumped in, and so finally, we gave in.
We took a couple of pens, went to the mess, and had dinner. We tried our best and avoided everyone, friends and foes alike, and once done with the rotten food, walked our way to the temple. The temple is some 100 m away from the Opal hostel, so once we were done with the temple, we inched towards our destination, hesitating to take every step forward.
We stopped near the end of D street, that runs parallel to Opal street. While Opal street makes way to Opal's entrance, D street faces the front wall, the wall that meant the world at present. We were counting down to 9pm, the time when the girls have their roll call, so that we could have the coast clear for.....
Seconds seemed to takes years, time seemed to stay still, and 9pm seemed to elude us forever. We were so preoccupied with ourselves and our watches, that we failed to notice an old female walking towards us. For a moment we thought she'd failed to notice us as well, and the moment was rather short lived.
"What be 3 guys like you doing here at this time in the night?" she asked.
"We were just walking back from the temple madam," said Farhan, " when I pulled a nerve and we just had to hold back for a while. We'll be off right away madam," he completed, and the way he said it, even I thought he had really pulled a nerve.
"Oh! Alright. Better get going. This isn't the right place to be right now" she said and walked away, while we pretended to move in the opposite direction, only to return to the same position in a couple of minutes.
This incident, to us, had two fold advantages. It brought in a rush of adrenaline, and also ticked the clock closer to 9, it was 8.59!
I looked left and right, walked across the road, closely followed by Rancho, while Farhan held his guard at the other side of the road. It had to be done, NOW!
I did not give it a second thought, I pulled myself up the wall, heaved myself over and "thump", I landed on the other side of the wall. I was inside Opal now! Two seconds later, I heard another "thump" and I knew Rancho had followed suit and there he was now, beside me. We had planned up to this, but not what to do beyond it. For we were in now, and the only thing left was to get back out without getting caught. I pulled out the two pens that I'd brought along with me and tried to scribble our names on the wall, only to find that the pen failed to write on the wall(we did not even think of a marker!). Fed up trying to write, I scratched harder than ever, using the pen as a chisel, to carve out our names, while Rancho egged me on. When a pattern that faintly resembled our names had been produced on the wall, Rancho told me its high time we were out. And he was right! He looked over the wall. Farhan, our faithful watch over, showed the thumbs up, which was the sign for us to complete what was left. I did not even wait for Rancho to get off the wall completely. I was up and at his heels in no time. "Thump", we jumped together, and "swish", we'd crossed the road and joined Farhan in a jiffy. We walked towards our hostel, slower than ever, legs quivering, heart beat racing, with a sense of having achieved, looking over our shoulders all the while, still not being able to believe that we'd pulled it through!
We were a considerable distance away from Opal, away from trouble, in the safety of snacky, giving a toast to ourselves, when Farhan said, "Congrats guys! You two were in there for exactly 58 seconds!!!"
Operation Opal was complete...
CHAPTER V : The Revelation
Over the next couple of weeks we revealed what we'd done to a select few(Pia was certainly one among them for she had played her part in it). Our intention was never to boast about it, so we applied all the restrain that we could and saw to it that it did not spread like a forest fire. We succeeded in this as well, but we thought that it would be incomplete without telling Raam, the guy who'd inspired us to it.
After a game of football one evening, Rancho and I saw him walking towards his cycle, alone. We knew we'll never get a better chance to speak to him.
We rushed up to him, pulled ourselves up, and said in chorus, "We did it!"
"Did what?" he snapped back, more than surprised to see two juniors tailing him and telling "We did it!" with their faces lit up.
"Well, we did what only you've done before. We broke into Opal," Rancho said, with that serious tone of his.
"Are you guys crazy? Its a rumour buddies! I'm no fool to try anything like that! And just cause you tell "We did it!" in that excited tone of yours, I'm in no way believing you. You two might be good at acting, but it takes a lot more than that to trick me. You two can maybe try your luck with the thespians. They'll be willing to take guys like you into their midst. Better luck next time boys!" he said, and was off on his cycle, not even turning once to look back.
I was gaping, open mouthed, when Rancho, as is always, recovered faster. He tapped me on my back and said, "You know what? He is right! I don't think he'd ever have the guts to do what we did. I can see it from his eyes! Makes it even better, does it not? We are the only guys to have ever done it!!!"
Realisation sinked in. I managed to stop gaping, and start smiling.
THE END
