Outcast-5

Over the next few days, Siddharth’s routine changed dramatically.

Gone was the blankness and lethargy that had apparently been his trademark. Gone was the immense boredom that one could almost taste… pouring off him. Gone was the simple and uncaring manner he had always put on.

His perpetual expression seemed to be one of intense focus. He worked late into each night… and woke up early each morning to work some more. It was a transition that had to be seen to be believed.

It always seemed to be the case… how inactive people somehow acquired an entirely new persona when being allotted a task that interested them. While more often than not… ordinarily energetic characters failed to shift gears into the next notch… and failed to live up to their expressions.

Siddharth was living his dream.

This was what he loved doing… and he was doing it with a zest that drove him to give it his all.

Within a few days of starting their work… he and Prashant had completed and submitted their SRS… after getting it approved by a delighted Dubey, a critical HOD and a couple of teammates displeased that things were proceeding so well without them.

This time it was Prashant who got an earful… Siddharth advised him to not heed it. He hoped Prashant would not let it get to him in case it hampered the project.

During the entire period of the work they had done… Prashant had proved to be a great help. He certainly had the knowhow… as would be expected from one of Dubey’s handpicked representative… and he was very enthusiastic.

The only reason that he only did about thirty percent of the work was because his teammate was a workaholic unencumbered by the burdens of social norms or a family life.

Siddharth was on fire.

It was as if he was being consumed by the same kind of fervor that had driven thousands of men to die painfully in distant lands in the dark ages.

Thankfully his goal was less bloody.

He would begin working on an applet in the morning… finish it by noon, mail it for approval to Dubey and Prashant and without waiting for their response… begin working on the next one.

He finished at least three applets each day… and before going to bed at night… he incorporated all the changes that his corroborators pointed out…. There weren’t many such changes….

Within the first week itself… the work on the project had advanced enough that it could be viewed.

At the end of the second, most of the project requirements had been met.

At the end of the first month the site could be dry-run… without any major glitches… simultaneously over multiple servers.

So, it came as no surprise to anyone involved… when halfway through the second month of the project… The site was complete.

 To all appearances Siddharth and Prashant’s work should have been commendable.

“You two did not even inform us or attempt to involve us in any part of the project! We’re going to take this up with the HOD!”

That quote from Suraj just about surmised everything he had to say on this topic… both to Siddharth and to Prashant… many times each.

Siddharth… his work over and done with… had resumed being his monotonous and unresponsive self. He did not care… he didn’t even pay attention when being hollered at.

Prashant was a different case altogether.

Clearly he wished to avoid an altercation with the influential senior or his popular classmate. The only factor that stopped him from openly apologizing to them for his supposed transgressions… was his self respect… and the amount of pleasure he too had derived from working on the project.

His choices were clear enough… to side with Siddharth and have only Dubey backing them… or to renegade and save his hide… and be ashamed about it later.

The only factor causing the whole outcome to still hang like a pendulum over the heads of all concerned was the absence of Shaw from the college.

The HOD had gone for a vacation with his family and wouldn’t be back for two more weeks.

Some waited for him in anger… and others in fear…. Siddharth didn’t wait for him at all.

He still made changes to the project if anything new struck him. Besides that… he went back to being who he was before the project. He spent his time in college bunking classes he disliked… he went back to strumming the guitar into the night… and to being bored and at a loss of how to spend his time….

He reread some of his favorite novels. Tried some new ones that people recommended… or he liked the outline of. He wrote some more too… but this was rarer than his other ways of passing time due to his rather limited ideas of topics to expound on. Nevertheless when he did write it always cheered him up for a while.

Out of sheer boredom he had even tried hanging out with some of his more tolerable batch mates. It was his attempt at being more like the teenager he was supposed to be….

He hated those occasions as soon as they were over.

He found himself writing highly opinionated reviews of movies he watched. He wrote prose, passages and poetry… and felt bored with it all. Then he switched into some other way to occupy his seemingly endless day….

It amused him how only a few days ago twenty four hours had seemed too short a time for a day….

The evening before Shaw was due to return, Prashant called him up.

He was extremely apprehensive of how the HOD would react. In some way he felt guilty of not involving the others… even though he knew very well that it would have only been a major hindrance and slowing down of their work.

Siddharth was by no means a good councilor. He vaguely responded to Prashant’s hyperventilation with monosyllabic words. He only refrained from asking him to decide what he wanted to do on his own… and go through with it, because he respected his talents and was grateful to him for his help.

When finally Prashant hung up… after an hour’s mindless ranting… Siddharth had hit upon a new topic to write on….

A few well practiced taps on the keyboard brought him to his unique canvas… he began typing.

As always words began to pour out… hardly stopping, except to correct errors… he was done.

Stare blankly at the empty wall,

Your gaze passing over and through all you see.

Your mind wanders miles away,

Rolling on the waves of some distant sea…

Listless your state may be termed,

Just as it has been for so long now…

You find nothing to do or say,

Sheer boredom makes you bow.

In the cold winter evenings,

Again, in the stifling summer days…

Throughout the long sleepless nights

Perpetually lost in your own mind’s maze

How hard to entertain yourself it is

Harder than it is for me to rhyme,

You yawn and roam about in a trance,

Still wondering how to spend your time….

Everything seems old and boring,

You have tried them all at some point…

None of your usually favorite pastimes can

Lessen the lethargy filling your body’s joints…

You make plans with your peers,

Trying to shake yourself out of your reverie…

As soon as the party is over though,
Your thoughts at once become weary.

All your books you have already perused,

Your music has nothing new to give…

Movies do not attract you anymore,

So you sit and space out… mind like a sieve.

We all have at some point felt this way,

When our feelings were truly dreary,

Thankfully the bright thing about boredom

Is that its clutches are temporary….

So suffer as we all must, my friend

Suffer the stifling of your own mind,

Hope to see you on the other side of this abyss…

When we have both left our boredoms behind!

He enjoyed this one in particular immensely. He titled it ‘Boredom’ and went to bed with a smile… absolutely free from any worry as to what the next day would bring….

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