The Night Out

I'm trying to write this as quickly as I can. The events described here happened one crazy night a few months back.

11:40 pm

Frustoo with work, its abundance and its refusal to budge and let me make progress. I call Billu and set out to do a night-out in college.

12:05 am

I'm on campus and we have just started our BC session.

2:00 am

Hunger caught us unaware and we realised that we have nothing to eat and all sources of food supply on campus are closed. We decide to go till the DLF building, where Billu is pretty sure we will get food. Since I am no longer a student and Billu will have to submit his id card for leaving campus so late, we decide to take the path behind the campus.

2:30 am

As we come out of the back gate, we realise much to our surprise that we are not supposed to use that path. We are told this by policemen patrolling the place in a van.

Policeman1: Haan! Kidhar jaare?
Billu: Ye idhar, paas hi mein (pointing towards, what I thought was the sky)
Policeman1: Kyon? Main gate se kyon nahi? Idhar se kyon jaate?
Me: Abhi jaane nahi dete sir, bhaut late ho gaya hai.
Policeman1: To kyon jaare?
Me: Bhaut bhook lagi hai.
Policeman1: Kya? Kyon, khana nahi milta idhar college mein?
Billu: Bhaut ganda hota hai. Khaa nahi sakte. Please sir jaane do. Bhaut bhook lagi hai.
Policeman2: Oh, chalo jaane do, jaao. Lekin aate time main gate se jaana andar, idhar se nahi.
Me: Haan, ok. Pakka sir.

We happily walk out, congratulating ourselves for the lucky escape. We plan to follow the same route to get back inside the campus since after we eat, since the police van will not be around till then.

2:55 am

We reach the DLF building entrance.

There is not one shop open where we can get food. The place is deserted. The dogs don't seem friendly. (Otherwise, why would they all bark at the same time and run towards us?)

3:00 am

Going in through the main gate is not an option. We expect to find the police van blocking us, if we go back the same way. But we start walking down the road towards ISB anyway.

3:05 am

We are now pretty sure the police van is still there and there are more policemen watching us with suspicion as we walk past the police check post. We walk till we reach a convenient spot where the wall is comfortably low, we're not clearly visible to the check-post. We act like we're peeing (Just in case someone's watching). Then, we jump the wall.

3:08 am

We land. Actually, not quite. Because we are ankle deep in something dark, squishy and wet. We hope it is mud. We somehow manage to reach firmer ground and realise that we'll have to find our way out of thick, tall, thorny bushes. Lack of light and the possibility of a snake suddenly deciding to grace us with his company makes us nervous. But we move on.

3:15 am

Only to find ourselves wading through more calf-deep mud.

3:25 am

We're back at the OBH - wet, muddy, tired. And hungry.

Overall rating for night-out: Great success!