Illu Waali BT

It all started off with a simple, rather innocent question, “Hey Skip, how do we avoid Illu Duty?” After thorough consideration of the situation, cogitation, ideation and deliberation (or in other words, Kowalski analysis), we had decided to explore parts of the campus we had not explored yet. So there we were, ready at 6 pm to liberate ourselves of this “duty” at the gate of our hall and stay out till about 0200 hours after which we were to sneak into our rooms and catch some solid zs.

Crossing off the entries in the places to visit list we were to hit Nehru Museum first followed by hanging out in the Jnan Ghosh stadium and then a visit to Old Architecture (‘olArchie henceforth), which was perhaps the spiciest section of the campus.

Surprisingly enough there were more badasses like us at the museum who couldn’t care less about the few unfortunate souls doing all of the “duty”. Time flew by as we had discovered what bhaat was and how fun it is; after an amusing discussion on a desi re-vamp of the Night at the Museum series, we went to the canteen there and grabbed some munchies.

Next, we bounced over to Jnan Ghosh, a gargantuan stadium with a petty entrance. Instead of seeing fit people running around making us insecure, all we found were a few stoners and couples getting cozy (…making us insecure).

Moving on, we headed to ‘olArchie. For those who haven’t found it yet and are looking for directions, you have come to the wrong place, for, this piece won’t help you either. The road to ‘olArchie, like the stories associated with it, is indeed spooky at night. It took us the same time it takes to make 20 maggies (no, smartass, we’re cooking them serially not parallelly) because, well, we were too gangster to use Google Maps. We had found a guard there who prohibited us from entering the ‘olArchie building and citied a hundred and one reasons not letting us in. We were gonna leave, but not before a daring chap would try greasing his palm with what looked like a 100 bucks to me. It worked! To our surprise, the guard was overwhelmed, so much so that he volunteered to take us on a tour of the department.

Now, about the guard:

• Name — Bipin
• Position — Guard at the ‘olArchie building
• Years worked in KGP — 28 (doesn’t quite look like it though)
• Hometown — Medinipur
• Hotel — Trivago

He briefed us about why ‘olArchie is considered to be haunted (we had no idea it was). Apparently (around) 8 students were killed in the department. Although there weren’t any prominent paranormal sightings, due to popular rumours, even normal noises and voices sounded eerie.

Bipin’s enthusiasm, though, was very odd as he was a little too excited to show us where the incident had taken place. We caught up with Bipin as he headed towards the end of a corridor to find a room so engulfed in cobwebs that you knew, unlike Undertaker’s grave, it did not get frequent visits. The guard had then begun describing the death of the students. It was your garden-variety Friday evening. Third-year students were completing their assignments when a fire broke out somewhere and all of them tragically died due to suffocation and smoke inhalation. Freaked by the story, we decided to call it a night and head back. We had found a guard on our way back near the gate reprimanding us for entering the premises without permission. We pointed at Bipin who was behind us. Or so we had thought cause there was no Bipin behind us. We supposed he had gone to the restroom but the guard claimed there was no one named Bipin. We assured him that he was mistaken and that we were indeed hanging out with a guard. The guard at the gate insisted there was no Bipin and showed us the in/out register. There. Was. No. Bipin. A chill as cold as Snow (White’s stepmom’s heart) ran down our spine. We got out of there and into our rooms and PJs in no time. None of us slept a wink that night.

Two questions we have no answer to that keep bugging us: Would it still be a hearing if a deaf person went to a court? and Who was/is Bipin?

Peek-a-Bipin