Lyf.........: A Case of Assumed Identities(edited, revised and updated)

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

A Case of Assumed Identities(edited, revised and updated)

Went to Mohali for a competition. It was an interesting experience. According to the rules there could be only 3 people in a team consisting of two speakers and a researcher. We were 4 people, (2 guys and 2 girls) who had been working together. Our speakers were finalised, for d researcher the choice was between me and Faisal. We decided that if they created any problems he'll take the participation certificate and i'll take d accomodation & to meet any exigencies he'd already talked to someone regarding his acomodation. As soon as we reached there the first question asked was who's Manish, we were standing in a semi circle kind of formation, both our female teammates (KC & S ) pointed towards me but since me n Faisal were standing alongside each other they culdnt make out, so i didnt move, Faisal stepped forward and said he was Manish and he was asked to leave. This was the start of a 3 day long agony for me. Actually im not too comfortable lying and here i was with an assumed identity, suddenly my religion was also changed to one which i dont know much about.

Faisal had talked to one of their organisers in d bus and introduced himself as Faisal and the same person escorted me to my room in d boy's hostel and asked my name i said Faisal and then he said that what's the name of your other teammate then?Then he asked me where do u stay i said Chandni Chowk cos Faisal stays in Chawri Bazar which is in Chandni Chowk, then he said that means u guys stay quite close to each other cos Faisal had already told him in d bus that he stays at Chaawri Bazar. I was getting very apprehensive of this person and wanted him to leave me alone but he was from Delhi and may be was very happy to see some guys 4m Delhi, i even said that if u r busy u may leave but then he replied "this is what im supposed to do, take care of the teams". I wanted to say that i can take care of myself but that wuld have sounded rude. He was getting on my nerves and thankfully someone called him for a moment n i just disappeared 4m that place.

What was making me more nervous was that even i'd introduced myself as Manish to one of their organisers while in d bus and moreover it was an institute maintained by d Army with strict discipline and i thought that if they came to know that i was an imposter i'll be totally screwed.

I was so scared that the first thing i did when i was alone in my room was to hide all proofs of my identity. KC & S were very confused it was very difficult for them to call me Faisal. They said that it was like d Raveena, Karishma confusion in d movie Andaz Apna Apna.

Somehow the afternoon went smooth and no one found out. But there was much more trouble awaiting us. Faisal had moved out, S was staying at a relative's place, only me and KC were staying in d boys' and girls' hostels respectively. We were moving out of d cafeteria at night when we met a team from Jamia Delhi(Team J), Faisal had met them at a library in Delhi and talked to them as he saw preparing them for d same competition and he'd introduced himself as Faisal to them in Delhi but he'd also met them in d morning before leaving and this time he'd introduced himself as Manish. So these people knew that something was fishy, one of their teammates(K) had also participated in a competition organised by our college just ten days ago and had observed me there as according to her i resembled sum1 they'd met at Amity and when she said this i thought that they had come to know cos in the competition organised by us i was wearing a batch wid my name prominently displayed on it. But i insisted that i was Faisal and they didnt press d issue further.

The next day Faisal came to see d competition and there he met a person who knew him, he called out Faisal's name and they started talking and one of the organisers of this competition was quietly observing and i thought now we might even be disqualified but may be this person didnt remember d names as they'd to manage arnd 22 teams and its not possible to remember each n everyone's name. But it did give me a lot of jitters.

I was in constant fear of being caught so i was a bit recluse and didnt interact wid anyone apart from my teammates which was very difficult for me as d whole charm of participating in a national level competition is that u get to interact wid people from all over the country and i love interacting wid different kinds of people.

And to top it all most of d people in their organisation commitee were quite rude i suppose that they had a problem wid us since d beginning. We also had a small verbal duel wid their student convenor just before the statrt of our second preliminary round. All this had made me lose my temper, actually i was very irritated, first the enforced recluseness cos of an assumed name and then the 'HOSTility from the hosts'. I was cursing myself for having come to this place.
Normallly i dont lose my temper very easily and even if i do im not rude to anyone i just avoid d person im annoyed wid but this was a day when i lost my temper every 5 minutes and was rude to everyone arnd me, i even fought wid a shopkeeper in d market. At night Faisal told me something and i totally blasted him off. This was irritating me even more as i was not being myself.

But may be this last burst of anger did something i realised there was no point spoiling my trip and that's when things started to turn arnd a little bit.........

...............Was going towards the cafeteria where Faisal was sitting suddenly saw Team J, wanted to avoid them but they stopped me n said hi!, K's mom had also come along, she introduced me to her by saying he's from so n so college and his name is... and then there was a pause and then all of us started laughing they'd obviously figured out.

The girls in d army institute were locked in d hostels at 9pm and it was arnd 10 at that time, so i asked K howcome she was still out, she told me that her mom 'd been given a room in d guesthouse in d campus. So i went there wid them, it looked very comfy wid a nice double bed and a T.V.
I called up Faisal trying to bury the hatchet n move along n asked him to come there. We guys kept talking till arnd 12.30, we told them why we'd changed our names n they were actually surprised by our doughtiness

The next day we planned to see d city and had a very nice time during d day. The prize distribution ceremony was to be held in d evening so we had to be bk in college for d same.
We again wanted to go out somewhere but we were confronted by a weird rule of theirs, no one was allowed to come inside or go out of d institute after 7.

S was already staying at a relative's place, KC also decided to move to a relative's place and me and Faisal wanted to give the army guys another reason to screw our asses so we took another brave decision , we decided that we'll jump the boundary wall at night.

As planned all of us moved out before 7, we went to a mall and freaked out there. A frnd of S was with us who had got his car so we dropped KC to her relative's place at arnd 8.30, me n Faisal also got down near a mkt. We had dinner there n were generally chatting away. And before we realised it was 10.

We were in an unknown city at 10 pm in d night still arnd 10 kms away from d institute, without any mode of transport hoping to reach there somehow and after having reached there hoping to jump d boundary wall without being caught. We even joked that if they saw us jumping they might shoot us and brand us as terrorists and further if i was shot faisal's name wuld appear in d newspaper next day n vice versa as we'd changed or rather exchanged identities.
Any sane person wuldnt hv wanted to be placed in such a situation, the odds of our hopes turning into reality were very low, but somehow we made it there safely. It was a moment of triumph when we jumped in , we'd broken their discipline now not once but twice.

It was a harrowing experience there for d first 2 days cos of d identity crisis n d 'hostility 4m d hosts' But now in retrospect it seems to be a memorable n adventurous trip. Thanks to my teammates for bearing wid my moodswings and temper there especially Faisal. This post is dedicated to you man!

posted by manu_the_lawgiver @ 12:11 AM

4 Comments:

At 7:23 PM, Neha said…

hostility from the hosts.lol.thats very true!
you really got angry na.. good though u didnt let it spoil the trip n became better later on..
At 11:52 PM, Neha said…

first u got to tell me wat KC and S stand fr n then i'll comment on the rest :P

lol.. good u documented it all ! now the memories will b preserved here!
At 12:15 AM, manu_the_lawgiver said…

@neha Now u know what KC n S stand for, so now u can comment on d rest
At 11:00 AM, Cathy said…

You've got long post here but still very informative.