Puri - Chaturth

Puri – Chaturth

(Part 4 and part 5 - Written by Harsh Sheth with additional inputs by Sridhar Vedula)

[Catch previous episodes here: Part 1, Part - II and Part - 3]

Hello people! Sorry to take such a long time for the new installment of my “Puri” series. Here I am back to continue the series, and present to you the 4th part of the series. This could not be possible without my dear friend Sridhar who came to my rescue and completed the series for me. Anyway, let’s not waste any time and start with the 4th part!

 

(P.S.: as this is written by my freind Sridhar, the further story is being told by his perspective)

Here we go:

The very last night at Puri. Everyone busy in shopping at the local market. I remember Nikesh was buying same design color clothes for his family. Everyone bought gifts for their family and some souvenirs for themselves but me, Lokendra and Harsh bought "Mauser Guns" for ourselves, with 200 pellets each. After 2-3 hours of shopping we came back to Mathh for dinner. After having dinner everyone gathered in the Mathh ground for final fun at Puri (Thake Haare). I remember me and Harsh sitting on stairs along with Meenal, Esha and Mariyah, together remembering the peddler incidence and laughing at it, Harsh was doing his “Keshto Mukherjee” impersonation. Other girls were discussing about their shopping (typical, hehe), and as usual boys were busy ek dusare ki taang khichne mein. When we came to  the room I wanted to test my shooting skills and I was searching for a target board. Then suddenly I saw Nishant's back facing towards me and he was bending forward to arrange his sleeping space. Masti was already in my mind and that too full on, and here in front of me was the best target I could imagine! I had got a flesh coated target board!! So, seizing the opportunity I started shooting on Nishant's back. It was so damn funny to see him jump (and cursing) everytime the pellets hit him! The pellets didn't hurt on contact but they used to feel like being bitten by ants. Harsh and Lokendra saw me having too much fun shooting on Nishant's back so they joined in too! We 3 enjoyed the newly discovered target board for almost an hour and finally we let Nishant sit in peace. His back had turned beet red and since then he was looking to get a hand on any of our's guns to get his revenge on us. But we never let him have that opportunity :P

We were scheduled to leave Puri in the morning after breakfast so all the boys decided to go to beach for the last time early morning at 5, even girls agreed with us on the idea!

Morning at 5 none of the girls were ready and us boys left for the beach to enjoy the last visit. Some girls from my class joined us at the beach later in the morning.

Upon reaching the beach we started having fun as there was no tomorrow (pun intended, hehehe). Now here happened a twist….(Keep on reading to know more). After enjoying for few hours at the beach we came back to the Mathh. Everybody got ready for breakfast and after having breakfast we left the Mathh and set our target towards Cuttack.

Everyone boarded the Bus. Me, Nikesh and Harsh were helping the driver to reverse the bus from a narrow street in front of Mathh and *SCRATCH!!*....side of the bus slightly came into contact with the street light pole, but not much damage, only a scratch which became the souvenir for the bus. Everyone busy with their settings in the bus when Nikesh suddenly pointed out at very unnaturally silent Nishant, asking “Abe kya hua bhai kaise chup chap baitha hai?” Twist continues: Nishant, who never kept silent for a single moment during the trip, was sitting silently occupying the last seat of the bus. This was really quite surprising and shocking at the same time. When everyone started enquiring he slowly narrated us the story:

"When you guys returned to the shore I stayed back in the water and was trying to enjoy the new method of enjoying along with the tides, but today the tides were much higher than what we faced in last 2 days. I got startled and lost my balance."

(Author’s note: The natural process of tides is to take everything along with them into the deep waters. That’s what happened with Nishant)

Nishant continued his story:

"Tides were keen to take me into the sea, but thanks to Avinash and Ketan (only expert swimmers in the group) who rushed to rescue me and pulled me back to the lands."

I could see that this incidence has actually filled him with thrill along-with the fear. The overwhelming feeling was the reason of his silence. Only few of us were aware of the incidence and wel wanted to know the things from him. Now let me explain in details about our method of enjoying the tides. As far as what I remember it was Ketan who actually made us familiar with the method. He took us to the point in sea where tides just started to form and we jumped along with the tide to feel the weightlessness. It felt as we were floating in air. Bas fir kya tha, we started doing this on daily basis! We used to enjoy the same way but on the final day when we all had enjoyed enough and returned to the shore Nishant went back to show some heroic skills, hehe. But the tides were higher than earlier and his heroic skills went astra. By the way, when Nishant was trying to show his heroic skill we were busy playing football on the shore. After few minutes I exclaimed “Nishant kahan hai??!!??” and in within few moments we saw him in the water with waving both the hands up! It a scaring scene but Avinash and Ketan darted into the waters to rescue him. I still shudder at the thought that we had almost lost him but God saved him and he came out safe. I told Harsh later after Nishant’s episode, “Bhai ek time to aisa laga ki Motu to gaya aur yeh bhi ghabrahat hone lagi ki uske ghar par kya bolenge!”. Thank god nothing happened to him...

As bus started to move again everyone continued with their gossiping with each other. Principal Sir intimated us that while on the way to Cuttack we will be going to a local museum which was at the outskirts of Puri. We reached the museum and suddenly scenes from Ramsay Bros. movies taken control over my mind.  The visual as seen from the road was: “A 156 year old building surrounded by abandoned garden, covered with broken boundary walls with main gate slightly opened. The walls of the building covered with seepage marks and plants”. Tripathi sir ordered us to come along with him. All of us entered from the main gate together and started walking towards the building when suddenly Vikki pointed out that the museum is closed, but we still decided to spend few minutes out there. Me, Lokendra, Harsh and Nikesh started clicking pictures in different styles and poses. Lokendra and Harsh pointed the mauser gun on Vivek Sir’s head and asked me to click the pose. Even Vivek sir were so sporty and posed like a criminal (:P)

Now we had started from towards Cuttack. By now Nishant was again at his normal behaviour, which was teasing and pester others. Although we didn't ever mind his behaviour but after we had seen him sit silently for sometime it was getting on our nerves. So me, Harsh and Lokendra were ready for another round of fun with our loaded mausers. We repeated our favourite activity from last night, i.e., targeting Nishant’s back, again reddening it, and subduing him for awhile and giving us some peace.
After some time I opened the Emergency window in the rear and we 3 started firing here and there from our mausers. As usual, Nikesh and guys were busy playing cards, girls chatting with each other and apart from them we 3 were busy in firing pellets outside towards trees and stones and whatnot. Then the bus overtook an auto-rickshaw, and that automatically became our target board! After few hits on the windshield the bus suddenly stopped near Shri Krishna Temple. Just as we stopped we saw that same auto-rickshaw stop in front of our bus. Although we didn't intend to hurt anyone, we were just shooting on the windshield, but that was enough to make us afraid of what could happen now! We handed over the mausers to the girls of 11th to hide and closed the emergency window without any indication that it was opened. Vivek Sir got off the bus and as we had feared the auto driver complained about our activity to Vivek Sir. Then we saw the auto rickshaw drive away. Everybody started getting off the bus but we 3 were stoned about what punishment we will get!

Everyone of us started walking towards the temple for darshan. After returning Vivek Sir asked 3 of us to come and slowly told us “Masti karo par thoda control mein, baat Principal Sir tak nahi pahuche”. That was a huge reliever for us and we realized that we shouldn't have done that. Bass phir kya tha, we stowed our mausers inside. All of us asked Driver bhaiya to play some songs. Everybody here and there were busy and some of us busy in listening songs of Backstreet Boys.

By afternoon we reached the famous zoo near Cuttack called “Nandan Kaanan” and as per the plan we were on time and this helped Principal Sir to take decision of enjoying the Zoo for next few hours. Vivek Sir bought the tickets for all of us and we entered the Zoo one by one. During the visit of the zoo the girls of 11th named 2 persons as “DuraCell” (read on to know more!). We all were enjoying very much in the Zoo and but area wise the Zoo was HUUUGE, and as expected thakaan chaalu ho gayi. But those 2 DURACELLs were very active and heading us at every stage. The activity and energy of both of them forced us to remember the famous advertisement of Duracell (Chale sabse zyada) and hence the girls had named them Duracell. And they were none other than Me and Lokendra! What an energy, awesome! We all then assembled near the Cable Car’s ticket counter. Using cable car means without walking you can view almost the whole zoo from the top. So we decided to use it and we went in 2 groups. We covered the view of whole zoo enjoying with each other and with the other cable car group. After we left the zoo Vivek sir and Principal Sir decided to book a small guest house near Cuttack. We found the small guest house and it was actually named Nandan Kaanan Guest house. 2 rooms were booked and we spent the night there.

That's all for now folks! But do no worry, part 5 is almost ready and it will take only few days to post it! Stay tuned! Till then, ciao!!

-It's Me, Harsh (with Sridhar Vedula)

09-08-13 - Edit: Concluding Part posted! Click Here.