The NIMC Times [10th part]

In the year 1993, I once happen to visit this place somewhere inside the command hospital complex that had its own green tranquility. I remember being inside a barrack, not partitioned though, but had a huge carpeted room that held vocational training classes on various subjects. Never knew that four years later the same would give birth to a ranked establishment and dwell into a place so loved of.

And one fine day, one young management aspirant with big dreams, stepped into our zoo premises. Standing in front of Eva Stores and next to the Puliya, he wondered, what a college! But wait, why do I see clothes hanging on all floors? Not knowing of the parched nimcians on the roll and for his lookout, the prey entered the campus just to fall in the hands of so many at the same time. For him, the earth had fallen on him and he, remained quite inquisitive about a thousand things, nerve bitten with a tensed atmosphere, strain and stress that'll have his happiness for the day and for days to come. He then somehow found the door to LH1 and saw a few Bakras, a dubbed senior buffooning one and making clowns of others. This chap later happened to make history at various sports, both in-house and in heats. And as always, undaunted by the audacious scene, he wanted to check out their haunting lodge where he soon will endure and exist a couple of years. He made his way to his block, only to see the other guys (the base party) starving for him. He deformed into a breed never heard of! During lunch time, after managing to queue up orderly, he picked his plate, heard of a call name ‘Shushanto’ and served himself. He noticed that everything had some form of potato in it. And after days of brutality and workload, he left ‘muh utha ke’.

And in the good times, when reserving books was just a formality or rather an unsaid quest for your favorite author, morning campaigns that started with conflict resolutions and with newspaper reading, enjoying the weekend accolades by sitting on the orangish couch in the library, and as it went on to struck half past noon, jokers ran to take a place in the forsaken queue that never held its stated protocols. And craving for an extra curd to make the pints of lassi that endured you for the next lecture. And in the good times when grounds blossomed like never before and when the flag got unfurled and made surprise visits by the chairman just to have the better of you still dozing off! Operating TV with the patent matchstick look-alike that surfed through a million channels, in-house dance parties in the so-called parliament house in P13, hug and drug the falling branches to sway for good, busting the bear bottles after an outcry of the ecstasy doze, even collecting them as a tribute, getting projector in rooms to watch star matinees, the evergreen Tracker that marked its own simpleton, the horn of our bus that gave a wake up call to many, the black staff car with the disguised Army plate, the slippery angled ramp to the parking lot during rains, sitting on stairway to the heavenly jail that made the most primal spot for a catch, and when you were alarmed at the sight of Wardy looking down on creation from the second floor but found no explanation to the total wipeout of reality, reading Asian Age in visitors room, running routines between M and S block and vice versa during times of insurgency and operations, the piteous and life threatening path that made your way from M to the C block and that never improved in history, collecting logs for bonfires that later turned into balefires, sitting on the floor and studying next to book racks in the library, enjoying quickie cricket county matches on BBC and the management ones just off course, relying on our very own dhobi ghat that gave us beauty to impress the pink collared counterparts, guessing as to which back gate would be open just to find that one closed, peeping into the net lab for a Chinese whisper, the see through evening classes that went in LH2 and trying to shut its power supply, gossips on the rolled up red carpet just outside LH1 that witnessed loads of hue and cry, scolds of warmth by Bhatta Sir in CR1, adjusting the fourth dimension for slides over the OHT, the abandoned letterbox that always remained secluded with a few discount coupons, the vicious circle of getting a photocopy that had raged fury on the back n forth pendulum.

Times always change for good. But deep in our hearts we merely celebrate and value the existence of NIMC.