Now Walk the Walk…

(A little something I wrote for the college magazine.)

“Dude, this sem I’m going to study regularly and become a nine pointer”, proclaims our hero, all of a sudden, on a warm night, up on the hostel roof. “What’s up with you, man? You aren’t even high! All of a sudden, this?” Our hero has a little smile on his lips and an enlightened illumination in his eyes. “No dude, I’m serious. I’m perfectly capable of getting even a ten if I study hard enough. Speaking of which, I’ve got to go and study for next week’s cycle tests now. Catch up later.”
Ten minutes later, the friend finds our hero in his room, all lights out except for a table lamp, Floyd playing out loud, asleep peacefully, dribbling all over his textbook. This classic ambience inspires the friend, and he suddenly walks out of the room as if struck by lightning, with a brilliant idea in his foggy, alcohol soaked brain.

Now the friend, our new hero, can strum a few chords on his guitar. So he goes to his room, grabs his guitar and sets off to find another of his friends who has a beautiful singing voice (self proclaimed, of course). He finds him lying face down on the floor of his room, which was reeking of cigarette smoke and cheap vodka. He wakes him up. “Dude, dude, get up. There’s something I have to tell you.”
“Wha..”
“I can play six Floyd songs, a Metallica solo, and two Green Day songs. That’s nine songs. You can sing along. We can start a two man band; make videos, even concerts on the roof…”
The high friend, wide awake by now, laps it all up.
“Great idea dude, we can post the videos on YouTube… dude, we’ll become famous.”
“I’ll make all the arrangements and we’ll meet up tomorrow to practice. Later.”

Our high friend wakes up the next morning with a hangover and a very empty stomach. He finds his way to the mess, only to find that it had run out of food. He grabs a cup of tea and finds an empty seat next to a guy whom he vaguely recognised from somewhere.
“Hi”, says the vaguely familiar guy.
“Hey…”
“So, don’t see you in class too often.”
“Yeah.”
“You know you’re low on attendance, right?”
“Yeah.”
They go on like this through till his cup of tea runs dry, with our alcoholic friend replying in monosyllables. Then just before they part ways, the vaguely familiar guy says, “Hey, you heard about the totally cool techfest that’s happening next month? I’m planning to make a robot for it. It’s tough, but I’ll manage it. See you later.”
As soon as our man hears ‘Robot’, his brain does a backflip. If that nerd guy could make a robot so could he. It’d be really awesome, him and his robot, winning, and more importantly, becoming famous.
So he picks up his pen drive, goes to the internet lab and downloads a dozen e-books on making robots. He’s about to leave when someone suggests a few quick rounds of counter-strike.
Twelve hours later, its terrorists-541, counter-terrorists-540, with enough intensity in the game to last for twelve more. So much for the robot…

This cycle, of planning great things and achieving close to nothing, repeats itself. It has been clichéd that nothing turns out the way it was planned. Whatever groundbreaking feats we dream of realising, we remain nothing more than fickle minded college students, acting on pure instinct. If things don’t work out, always remember Pink Floyd-
“The grass was greener,
The light was brighter…”