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AN ANECDOTE FROM THE PAST...

Names of places and persons have either been changed or omitted to protect identity.

It was a late summer’s night warm and balmy,
Camping we were high in the lofty mountains;
I was lying on a cot made of some uncomfortable fibre,
Mate Sandeep was sleeping on another cot not far away;
Both were retired for the day after hectic activity,
I like to sleep in pyjamas and Sandeep liked nothing on him;
This is a story about Sandeep, a tall, lean, handsome hunk
With a good physique and rippling muscles;
A gym freak and a ladies’ man of some repute,
There were in the camp close to sixty members,
A third of them were girls willing to die for him;
Sandeep was the favourite hero of most girls in the camp
-----
The camp was somewhere high in the mountains,
There was nothing out of the ordinary in the woods,
Except for the dog’s bark, wolf’s howl, or screeching of monkeys,
The call of the Chital scenting the bear’s prowl;
I am a light sleeper but Sandeep sleeps each night,
As though in the throes of death,
My side of the light was on but Sandeep lay in the shadows,
He likes to sleep in the dark as he usually wears nothing to sleep;
-----
In the middle of the night, there came a rustling sound,
But I couldn’t make out from where it came,
I sensed movement but couldn’t pin the spot or direction,
It was past midnight and the burden of an early rise
Made me drowsy and I fell asleep despite the imminent danger;
It was around five o’clock in the morning, as I later surmised,
I heard a sharp intake of breath coming from Sandeep’s side,
A distinct choking sound as though Sandeep was struggling for air,
I switched on the light and saw him holding a long reptile-like thing,
He didn’t have a clue as to what to do with the nocturnal intruder,
As the light came on Sandeep too realized what he was holding,
And now his fear multiplied exponentially, 
In a fit of swift, inexplicable reflex action,
He flung the accursed thing and ran out of the tent shouting with no sense
Of what he was wearing, or rather not wearing in the breaking dawn;
Though it was early, visibility had improved substantially outside the tent,
Sandeep’s unexpected and excessive reaction, and the commotion he raised
Woke up most of the residents of the campsite including all the females;
Fearing for the worst, they rushed out madly into the open,
What followed was a state of complete pandemonium,
Beyond what a mountain of words can ever describe;
-----
Sandeep was in a mental cocoon of his own,
Still unaware he was without a stitch on him,
Before he started to realize how precarious his position was,
It was far too late for any sort of damage control;
He was in a quandary now, he neither could stay there,
Nor turn back and scoot to our tent with his reptilian nemesis there;
Understanding his predicament someone threw a blanket on him,
With a visible sigh of relief, Sandeep wrapped it around himself and
In the process, tripped over and fell with the blanket coming off,
Once again, Sandeep’s assets were exposed,
To the lusting gaze of countless wide-opened eyes;
Nothing seemed to be going right for poor Sandeep,
Sadly, things got a whole lot worse;
Someone brought out from our tent,
And was holding a realistic-looking rubber snake,
At that point, I was not sure what was going through his mind,
But Sandeep did look like he was about to dig a mile-deep hole,
And dive into it never to surface again for the rest of his life;
Everyone knew Sandeep was in my tent and would sleep like a log,
So, someone decided to prank him to have a good laugh;
But even he or she or they could imagine the outcome of their prank;
To date, the mystery of who put the snake in Sandeep’s bed,
Has not been solved or settled, the culprits could never be apprehended;
None came out into the open unmasking the culprits behind the shameful act;
The entire batch was grounded for ten days but to no avail,
Even I was under a cloud of suspicion, the pranksters had planned well;
Nothing came out in the subsequent inquiries, except a few chuckles;
-----
Sandeep lost his macho image among the ladies for good,
That was not all, he lost his confidence and was never seen among girls;
He applied for a transfer to a different city and was never heard of,
According to the grapevine, some girls disgruntled and disillusioned,
With Sandeep, did it on purpose to exact revenge but nothing was proved;
In time things began to settle down but the legend of Sandeep
Was never laid to rest with vested interests adding new facets,
And masala to an already incredulous misevent that never seems to die;
Whatever the intention of the pranksters, I lost a good friend for life.
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