This is the end...

This week, I stepped on the toes of about 103 people. And I mean that literally.

The majority of this toe-stepping was done on the 25th, at the KK (or is that Kay Kay?) concert at IIT Madras. I tend to swing my arms about or kick out like a drowning man when I'm dancing. That's coz I'm drowning in the music. When I get going, I don't really know how to stop. And the experience of jumping out of my body at 5-second intervals and jerking my limbs till the joints are displaced keeps me on a high for hours afterwards. And when I'm in a good mood and a dancing mood, beware. Those lucky enough to have seen my 'Crow..crow..crow..' act in Ooty in 2003 will testify to this.

But I cannot be blamed for the toe-stepping. It's only to be expected when you have 10000 people crammed into an arena of capacity 4000. Add to this the fact that I had to keep safe distance from Kitty, who was swinging his injured arm (in a sling!) like a man possessed.

And it just gets worse when you have a rowdy, thirsty crowd charging at a lone, hapless Pepsi vendor. Carrying a drink for what seemed like a marathon distance, climbing over people bowed down by exhaustion or making out blissfully, fighting to create a path... it's like Survivor. A friend of mine got a whole lot of Pepsi down the back of his snow-white shirt. I suggested pouring some on the front to even the design. He asked me whether I'd like to have Pepsi designs on my pants, and that shut me up.

The next item on the agenda was the Main Quiz, which traditionally starts at about midnight. The dufuses who plan it normally schedule it for eight and start it at eleven. This time, they were clever enough to schedule it at eleven. But tradition must be adhered to. Starting even remotely on time would have been sacrilege. So it got off to a slow, calm, sedate start at about one in the morning. The best part of the quiz was the quizmaster (I shall not name him, except to hint that his name starts with 'S' and ends with 'atcho') who totally lost it. What occurred was probably a combination of many sleepless nights and the free flow of vodka during the quiz. (When vodka is the audience prize, you know you're having a good time.) Well, this guy staggered around for about 60% of the quiz, stumbling from place to place, barely upright. And when he got the mic in hand, his 'Passs!' and 'Hey you shut up!' delivered in the best traditions of cinematic drunkenness had me in splits.

Saarang was fun on the whole. I actually managed to win a little cash at the literary events, though I screwed up in the big events that mattered. I made new friends and re-bonded with existing ones. Learnt how to write haiku and how not to do... stuff. So that was that.

That evening saw me at the Odyssey Quiz, where we goofed up once again. It's painful, and at such occasions (even at the Saarang quizzes or playing TT at college) I find myself alternating between blinding rage and tearful frustration, trying to come to terms with repeated failures and disappointments, of ooh-just-misseds, i-told-you-sos and shit-screwed-up-so-badlys. Analysing myself, trying to decide whether to keep fighting or put it all down to my unsurmountable mediocrity and give up trying. Should I dream, should I hope, is there any point? Will I succeed, should I try? Homer Simpson, that shining light at the peak of human evolution, that role model for generations to come, once said, 'Trying is the first step towards failure.' Food for thought.