This was an incident which occurred in the second term of the Conqueror’s course at LLM. Shivaji, Sambaji, The Buffer, Aurangzeb, The Knight, Ladykiller and The Consultant had all come together in Term 1 and started hanging out and having their misadventures. And this had continued into Term 2 as well. Towards the fag end of Term 1, Madame Dominatricia (hereafter referred to as Madame) had deigned to grace them with her presence.
A little bit of background about Madame before proceeding with the narrative. Madame was a senior of the Conquerors. As happens a lot in B Schools, she had found a lesser half to hang out with in her first year, but had subsequently had a fallout in the summer and now was looking out for pastures afresh. And this particular pasture was as green as it could get with a plethora of options.
1.Shivaji: If she had wanted him, she would have had him (obviously!!!)
2.Sambaji: Among other things he was an excellent dancer and she loved dancing.
3.The Buffer: He was gossipy, talkative and extremely garrulous. If she had wanted a girlfriend, she would have had to look no further.
4.Aurangzeb: He had a great sense of humour, but the fact that he had lived a sheltered life went against him.
5.The Knight: He was of the “still waters run deep” variety.
6.Ladykiller: he fit the bill perfectly
7.The Consultant: naah
So, Madame had taken control of proceedings in the room where Ladykiller, The Consultant and Aurangzeb resided. And it was ofcourse frequented by Shivaji, Sambaji, The Knight and The Buffer. The house rules as set by Madame included cleanliness, stocking of food and drink items, arty drawings on the wall (as drawn by her), buntings, lights and other decorative stuff during festivals to name a few. The Consultant hated all this. How dare she come and try to dominate their bachelor pad he thought. But he kept it mostly to himself. Aurangzeb was least bothered by the House Rules. As far as he was concerned, they did not apply to his corner of the room. Ladykiller absolutely loved it all and egged her on to get more creative. Anything would do, as long as he managed to win her attention.
Madame obviously had zeroed in on Ladykiller as he was the most receptive to her arty inclinations and also because of the fact that he volunteered to “help” her out with assignments, took her out for wining and dining whenever she desired and was also good at the “go fetch” game.
The “go fetch” game went somewhat like this:
Ladykiller, would you please go fetch some samosas for me.
Ladykiller, would you please go fetch me some tea, now that’s a dear
Ladykiller, I need you to go fetch me a Xerox of my assignment, like right now!!!
Savvy???
So, as the term progressed, Madame started hanging out more and more with Ladykiller and they had reached that grey area where they were “just friends” and everyone else apart from them knew that they were a so called “item”. And it was one night, during this phase when the story of the crashing clock occurred.
Aurangzeb was feeling quite unwell that night and had gone to bed early. He was down with a viral and thought it best to rest and recuperate. When he went to bed, at around 11 pm, all the lights were on, The Consultant was busy fiddling with his laptop and Ladykiller was nowhere to be seen. He woke up somewhere around 3 am, groggy and disoriented, vaguely aware of some noises in the room, but not quite able to comprehend what they were.
A lot of factors including the ravages of time have contributed to there being many versions of what followed next being narrated:
Aurangzeb’s Version:
Not quite able to make out the noises emanating from the other corner of the room, he got up from his bed and in trying to reach out for his spectacles which he had kept above the cupboard adjoining his bed, his hand brushed against his alarm clock which crashed to the floor and shattered. All the noises stopped immediately. He then switched on the lights and could make out two huddled shapes under the blankets on Ladykiller’s bed. Ladykiller immediately appeared from underneath the blankets and pretended to have no knowledge of the noises. While never quite sighting the second shape, Aurangzeb feeling extremely annoyed with his roommate for putting materialistic pleasures above his ill health, walked out of the room, issuing a fatwa against Madame. While drinking several glasses of water at the water cooler and trying to cool down, he was joined by The Consultant, who claimed that he had been fast asleep and had been awakened after Aurangzeb had switched on the lights. On returning back to the room after a suitable interval, they both found it to be empty and thus went back to sleep.
The Consultant’s Version:
The Consultant had gone to bed at around 1 am. He had woken up slightly before Aurangzeb and hearing the noises, had not quite known how to react and thus pretended to feign sleep. At first, he had assumed that Ladykiller and Madame had been studying under the blankets so as to not disturb the others. But he had soon realized that this was not the case. And, while trying to go back to sleep, he had heard a loud crashing sound in the darkness and then Aurangzeb had put on the lights, issued the fatwa and walked out of the room. While still deciding whether to continue playing dead to the world or waking up, he had seen Madame creeping out of the blankets, leaving the room in a huff and Ladykiller closely following while trying to pacify her.
Ladykiller’s Version:
Ladykiller had returned to the room at around 2 am with Madame after going for a stroll along the banks of the river adjoining the college. He had found both The Consultant and Aurangzeb fast asleep and not wanting to disturb them had switched off the lights. Madame and he had then started discussing a case study that she had to present the next morning. However, as she was feeling cold, they had continued the discussion under the blankets and the noises that his roommates had heard was a heated debate on the formatting to be used in the presentation – she had been for Garamond whereas he was insisting on Tahoma, taking the aesthetic aspects of the presentation into consideration.
Sambaji and The Buffer’s Version:
Sambaji and The Buffer had been taking a stroll around campus at 3 am to help digest the heavy dinner they had partaken at midnight. On the way, they strolled through the corridor housing the three roommates, hoping that they might have been awake. However, just as they were about to knock on their door, there was a loud crashing sound (which they later learnt was Aurangzeb throwing his alarm clock at Madame), the door opened suddenly, and Madame ran out of the room in her birthday suit with the Alarm Clock clutched strategically.
Shivaji and The Knight’s Version:
Shivaji and The Knight had been smoking outside the boy’s hostel at 3 am. But just as they were about to call it a night, they heard a loud crashing sound emanating from Aurangzeb’s room. Shivaji believed that it was gunshot, whereas The Knight was trying to convince him that this could not be the case. But before they could verify the truth, they saw an upset Madame walking hurridly out of the hostel with Ladykiller in hot pursuit. Fearing the worst, they ran inside the hostel and on entering the room found it to be empty except for two indistinct shapes on Ladykiller’s bed under the blankets. Hoping against hope for their two comrade’s safety, they pulled back the covers, only to be shocked at finding a startled Hot Potato and Femme Fatale under the covers.
Whichever the true version of the story, after this particular incident, Madame reduced her dominance of their room and the House Rules considerably and they all lived happily ever after (atleast Aurangzeb and The Consultant did)
Note:
1. All characters are fictional. Resemblance, if any is purely coincidental.
2. Kindly refer the opening post on Buffering Theories for any reference to the main characters.
