FARRTING

The college hostel where I was admitted turned out to be a virtual prison, with a priest warden to control and constrain. 

Father Stephen, a tall lean hungry looking man, was a tyrant and ruled his dominion with an iron hand. At least that’s what he thought, until some of us showed up! 

Prakash and Anthony were terrors; George and Gopalan were the wicked ones; we were no saints either. Anyway, to cut the long story short, we started a farting spree as a way of getting at the warden, who felt the numerous tubers planted in the hostel campus should be used in our diet. The farting Satyagraha rocked the foundation of the hostel. 

Scouts would spy for the warden’s arrival. The moment he climbed the steps from the porch, the collective farting would start. There would be different types of farts, the silent and deadly ones to the rumbling and thundery ones. Some creative boys managed to make the sing song ones while the amateurs got a variety of gassing going - longish ones, several short ones in a succession, chorus farting and many more. 

Manoj cojured up a potion with garlic paste to enhance the efficacy of the gas escaping from the rear, giving it a deadly smell. 

Our performance would have humbled the skunks even. Many tried all sorts of concoctions to augment the result. In the end some got a bad stomach upset not from the tapioca from such researches. 

At the end of the five-day agitation, Father Stephen quietly changed our menu. And the farting stopped. 

This was a turning point. The warden finally quit and went in a huff! He never came back. I’ll narrate the story behind the hasty retreat of the warden in a later update.