Saarang Story No.1 : The Battlefield, Warriors, and the (missing) Weapon

The excitement was contagious. Even as we stuffed our clothes into the backpacks, we could feel our hearts beat faster in anticipation of all the goodies that lay awaiting us at the battlefield of Saarang’09 (Note that I use BOLD letters here; it is because I had some of the BEST days of my life at this FANTASTIC arena.).

Thanks to the f***ing senselessness of the aged clan leader of ours (HOD) who wouldn’t grant us permission to wage our wars at Chennai, the army- which had previously consisted of ten ruthless warriors from the Royal Mech clan of the CET tribe- was seriously depleted due to the abrupt withdrawal of five of our mighty warriors. The rest of us, however, were not ready to give up so easily and were prepared to even sacrifice our lives for the noble cause that we strongly believed in. Our mission: to have as much fun as a mortal man could in a span of 7 days, meet up with as many chicks as possible, and bring back home some precious trophies of happy memories and novel experiences.

While warrior Raman had his weapon (an HMT textbook that he wished to discuss with his equally enthusiastic friends at IITM!!) ready for his personal battle; rest of us were still in search of ours: thanks to Sanky’s last minute cancellation of plans to accompany us, we were left without a camera to get the pictures of all the beautiful damsels we hoped to find in our personal battlefield at Saarang. Our despair turned into astonishment and then anger even as we made calls after calls to get hold of our precious weapon. Mysteriously, all the cameras we knew were either terminally ill or busy fighting other battles, and we were left with no option but fight unarmed and be satisfied with our ‘photographic’ memories which had almost always deserted us during exams without fail so far.

Here’s the prologue in a nutshell:

Battle field: Saarang’09 held on the campus grounds of IITM. Competition events were strictly out of bounds, though: none of the warriors were expected to indulge in any of the ‘foolish’ battles being fought at the competition venues since they were ‘much below’ the standards the warriors had set for themselves. Their only objective would be to go in search of, and wage battles with, the innumerable good looking females who gathered for Saarang.

Warriors: Five mighty Royal Mechs of CET who were assigned the following duties as per their areas of specializations:
1. Ziyad M M: Stealthy, silent and highly skilled at psychology and reading of female minds, this warrior was assigned the duty of spotting, analyzing, and reporting possible subjects of interest.
Code name: Silent Watcher.
2. Richard Babu: Shameless and a man with high end connections at Saarang, Richard was our natural choice for the most important post of the weapon wielder.
Code name: Weapon Wielder
3. Anthony Job Kannampally: The brother of Ninoy Job Kannampally, (the Finance Co-coordinator of our battlefield!), Anthony was our backup ticket out of tight situations.
Code name: Ass Saver.
4. Ramachandran A: Though this warrior was supposed to stay away from the group most of the time due to other preoccupations, he was expected to be the biggest source of entertainment for the group.
Code name: The Joker.
5. The Pilgrim: This particular warrior was entrusted with the duty of warning the weapon wielder of possible attacks by hostile elements. Also keep record of the events of the battle.
Code name: Archives Master.

Weapon: A camera, which still eluded the mighty warriors.

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TO BE CONTINUED