Revisiting B-409, Temasek Hall

A terror amongst freshmen, the person in question roams the hallowed halls of the School of Computing, lives off movies and when we were freshmen, was my room mate. Thyagarajan is known by better names, some of which will be featured in this article. Back to freshman year-

Day 1, as roomies

Thyagarajan: “Hi, I am Thai”

Me: -__-

Day 2 at a TH gathering

Thyagarajan (to an unknown member of the fair sex): “…and they call me T”

Me (thinks): damn, thats one gangsta roomie…

Day 3 at a TH roll call

Hall master (out loud): “#31, Natarajan”

Thyagarajan (booms): “Ullen ayya!” (“Present sir”, in Tamil). Apparently, his surname is Natarajan and he was asserting his nationality in that gathering

Me: *Fervently praying for a rift to open beneath my feet.*

Day 4

I perchance discover that my dear room mate looks like a frog when he is sleeping. So I promptly baptize him “Thavalai” (“frog”, in Tamil).

And so Thavalai and I got along fairly well, except he would never forgive me for that name. And I paid the price. Not once, but many times over and this is how he did it-

Ever been in a room, so deathly-quiet? Have you then, listened to water drip- one drop at a time? Steadily. If you have, you might discover that under similar circumstances, hearing a sniff (just a “sniff”, nothing big really) over and over again might produce the same effect on the listener. Terror at first (I was almost always still asleep at 7:00am), and then you sort of lose sleep and start concentrating on the “sniff” for no reason in particular… and thats when you lose it. T was an early owl- sleep at 10 pm, wake up when your roomie turns off the clock for you. I was an insomniac though- sleep at 6 am, wake up to T sniffing on his side of the room at around 7am. And then sort of lie still under my blankets (in hopes that he would get the cue and stop, you know..sniffing, sort of) and listen to T getting ready. Hear the door open, close, count till 330, hear the door open again, SLAM!!, hear his cupboard door open, half open, then the other half painfully slowly ( to get the hinge to squeak), count till 23, SLAM!!, count till 10, start concentrating on the sniffs…

This I endured for almost a year. With a picture like that on top, its hard to believe eh? Sadly, Anoj ( I warned him not to take T’s case too often, which he did at every opportunity), I believe, is now facing retribution.

Otherwise, life was quite cool. T was and still is a major movie buff and with my beggarly knowledge in this aspect, he never fails to amaze me. So I was obliged to play St. John

John the Baptist

all over again. This time around it was his information bank and I named it, the “Thavalai Movie Database” or TMDB in short. And there was this once when we crowded around T’s laptop- Sunil, Anoj and I, to watch a documentary on Ganghiji’s life. So Sunil, clicked the address bar on T’s browser and hit “S” on the keypad There was a moment of deep silence (T flushing scarlet), then Anoj and I erupted. With Sunil frantically scribbling down the addresses (for private use) and Anoj and I quite nigh incapacitated with laughter, there wasnt much T could do by way of explanation, except he secretly swore to avenge himself. And who paid the premium? The damage to my sleep due to this incident alone totaled 63 days.

Now is the boring part, when I am obliged to write all sorts of nice things for having had fun at his expense. So to sum it up, a list of things you can/ cannot do with T about you-

1. Cannot organize a party, if you do not have sufficient resources (T is blessed with a good digestive system)

2. Must discuss movies, politics and sundry gossip with (Believe me, Thai can hold his own in a discussion)

3. Cannot have things strewn over your bed, if you have invited Thai over (hes quite unmindful of what he sits on, really. To what do you think I lost my room key, a CD and a miniature earthen pot, so lovingly made by my girlfriend?)

4. Must have lunch with on a lazy afternoon (He gets generous at times)

5. Cannot do without in a movie-outing.

6. Cannot afford to to get on his wrong side (…)

7. Must-have as a room mate, provided you follow rule #6.

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