Paagal Times: Campus Goes CATatonic

17th Feb 2013

This weekend, a blanket of silence seems to have fallen over the premises of the Boys Hostel of VIT-Chennai (excepting the 14th floor) and those people, usually normal (by campus standards) have begun to act in mysterious ways. Our correspondents, and the 14th floor denizens, however, have still not fallen under the influence of whatever it is that is causing this strange phenomenon.

Curious as to the cause of all this and just how widespread this illness is, our brave reporters embarked on a life-threatening, exam-defying investigation from floor to floor of the hostel building, going so far as to put even their insanity at risk (yes, you read that right) to get to the bottom of the matter; and what they found after all this severe toil was bizarre and mind-boggling beyond belief.

CAT. Yes, this three letter word which we first heard in Nursery and KG, when the entire class would chant 'A for apple, b for ball, c for CAT...', and have encountered so often ever since either in text or in the physical manifestation of all it describes, is said to be the cause of this mess*. Surprised? Well, so were we, and it took us fifteen minutes to get our eyebrows back in place and our jaws disengaged from their 'you've got to be kidding me' position and continue with our investigation. We dismissed this initial report as a poorly disguised attempt at misinformation and decided to try more reliable sources (read: parents). Yet even this line of investigation soon faltered, the only useful information we gained from it being the following excerpt from our conversation with one of the many Aunties who prefer to remain anonymous, and unassociated with their progeny:

 ...

Paagal Times (PT):  Kya aap humein kuch bata sakte hain ki aapke bete ke is ajeeb bartauv ka karand kya hai?

(Can you tell us what is the cause of your son's strange behaviour?)

Aunty (A): Arre beta, kash kuch bata paati. Mujhe bhi kuch nahi pata!

(Oh Son, I wish I could tell you something. Even I don't know anything!)

PT: Par aapko kuch to andaaza hoga hi. Usne kabhi aap se kuch kaha hoga jisse...

(But you must have some idea. He may have said something, sometime which may...)

A: Arre haan! Ek bar kuch cat-shat^ kar raha tha. Lagta hai ki hostel waapas jaa kar kuch billy-villy ka zyaada hi shauk chadh gaya hai usse.

(Oh yes! This one time he kept going on about some cat-shat. Looks like he's got a new fascination for cats after returning to the hostel.)

...

Now there were only two conclusions we could draw from this: First, the misinformation campaign was also extended to the parents and thus our only other source had been rendered useless or, second, maybe there was something more to the word cat than we'd initially thought, perhaps it was a code word for something more significant. Either way, it left us with only one possible life of action: Investigate the hostel further. And so we did.

Digging further, the identity of this mysterious cat was getting more muddled and confused if anything. Was it the code name for some new heart breaker on campus, who, awakened from her slumber by the Woh-Waala Day celebrations, was out on a rampage, breaking hearts by the hundreds? Very possible. Yet then how had our keen-eyed reporter Hawk-Eye Kapur not noticed her yet?

Was it then a codename for some  new depressing hostel or campus rule? Unlikel, for the 14th floor would also have been affected for sure!

Or, more terrifyingly, was it the one and only Common Admission Test that these poor souls were referring too? The very thought sent us into a near catatonic state*^, for it would mean that in the campus we humans would soon turn into a minority amidst a majority of gadhas^* (donkeys). And thus this had the truest ring to it amidst all the other possibilities, for one of the greatest minds in our history, Murphy, had once proclaimed: 'Out of all the available possibilities, the one that is the most terrifying shall be the most probable one', or something to that effect.

It was at this moment, when our team was near collapse from sheer shock and our chief editor was but about to dial the Chettinad Hospital emergency response number, that we got our big break. Having accidentally staggered into a topper's room, one reporter caught a glimpse of the words 'Continuous Assessment Test' on the laptop screen before the topper could hide it.

That one glance was enough, utilizing his quick analytical skills, our reporter deduced that perhaps this was the mysterious cat that had everyone on tenterhooks.

Our team, now revived, hunted this lead down and, following a series of breakthroughs, finally tracked this CAT down to its point of origin, which was none other .

Apparently this CAT is but the first of two such trials planned to 'test the student's mettle', says the official line. However, another member of those-who-must-not-be-named told us, off the record, that it was actually a twice a semester move to get some 'much needed peace and quiet, and decency on campus' which usually isn't available with the entire crowd of 'rowdy lads' and lasses running about and making noise, or out as it
were.
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Footnotes:

*This mess is the one that refers to problems/trouble. Not to be confused with the North/South/Special Mess.

^Sorry, couldn't resist. :p

*^You see what we did there? CATatonic. Clever, right? ;) :P :D

^*Those who didn't get the '3 Idiots' reference: there's no hope for you. -_-