Part Me Hash and other Conversations

I never thought much of anagrams, till the other day, in class, because we had forgotten to carry the chess board, we were bored. It was Amit's fault really. The chess board was his as was the original practice of carrying it to class. Then we became addicts, to the extent that visiting teachers inculcated the habit of not disturbing a delicately poised game. Part Me Hash was Amit's attempt at redemption.

The day had begun with Prathamesh's medical checkup at Maulana Azad Medical College. There was a quiz there, about the same time we had a class at GK. So he decided to go for the quiz, the checkup being the obvious subterfuge. All was going well. Tirthankar had been summoned from Gurgaon, the two of them being acquainted through their respective "quizzing circles". The logistics of reaching Maulana Azad were worked out too. It was all working out fine till Aarti, the sixteen year old in our class, decided to not show up. In itself, the offense was not much. It just meant we were going to have a more comfortable ride to GK. But small acts such as these have larger implications. It was only because of her that we were still at the Mukh Gate when Vipul called. Dinesh Singh wanted to talk to us. These were troubled times for Stephen's, and by implication, for us. No one knew what he wanted to talk to us about, but all of us were sure that the worst scenario was that the CMS could be asked to leave college, which would leave all of us in the lurch. Furious, Prathamesh came to the cab, and he wanted a smoke. So Amit and he went for one.

Then Aarti erred again. She came as soon as they left for the smoke and Vipul came behind her. She was late because she had confronted her landlord about spices in her food. With no excuse left to be waiting outside the gate, we started our drive to GK. We picked Prathamesh and Amit from the Faculty of Arts gate, both of whom, like thorough gentlemen, offered their cigarettes to anyone who cared for them, and took their place in the van. Then Ila threatened to vomit because the cigarette smoke was bugging her, and again, in a manner true to gentlemen, Prathamesh parted with his just lit Malboro Lite (or is it Lights?). Then in the fashion of most of high society, he smile at Ila and bitched about her in my ear when she wasn't looking.

Such incidents kept the ride alive till we reached N-91, the CMS hideout at South Campus. We rang the bell. There was no response. Fifteen minutes later, a foul looking lady came out and threw a key down at us. It hit Tarun, though he claims it didn't. We unlocked the gates and made our way upstairs. We hadn't finished reaching upstairs, when we were informed that the class we had reached there for was postponed and was to take place later because the class later was cancelled. And if that wasn't complicated enough, Igor came and lectured on Reiez Representation Theorem.

Lunch and general foolery followed, till we came back to the hideout. Then the topic of anagrams came up and Part Me Hash was discovered. It pleased Prathamesh no end, and he swore he'd put it on his blog.

On our way back, Amit and I invented a game. Well, to be honest, we plagiarized and adapted. In Asterix and Gaul, the first of the series, Asterix and the Druid feed the Romans some hair growth potion and then played this game: whoever spotted a bearded man first, scored five. We adapted our game to suit our circumstances because Part Me Hash seems to know at least one person on any given corner of the globe. Our adaptation was that I'd score one if we mentioned someone and he knew and Amit would score five if he didn't. Then being mathematicians, we calculated the expectation of victory and concluded that it was a fair game.

And such ended another wasted trip to GK.