Revenge of the Palmist

Our ragging period was just over. In the newfound freedom, most of us used to make sudden trips to the hostels of our seniors, just to get a feel of those places without the heart throbbing madly with fear. Among the many different things I did during the first 6-7 months before this when I wasn't copying seniors' journals, carrying roses to senior girls or "serving time" at the doomed hostels, I also picked up a book on Palmistry from one of my friends and read through it. Initial scepticism soon gave way to high statistical correlation, and I found that if you can declare in a first year hostel that you read palms, then there is no dearth of experimental subjects to trace the fine lines on. Some initial crazy predictions later, I found that I could at least tell some bits accurately and hold conversation with confidence with a person for about 5 minutes. I sort of became a mini celebrity.

Word soon spread to seniors' hostels as well, in fact some were rather sad that they didn't know this earlier during the ragging period itself. Well, it is never too late to go to the soothsayer, and so one fine evening there I was: in a room of the seniors, surrounded by people hanging on to my every word. We had had a general discussion before about all things occult, and then someone volunteered to show me his palm. Now, honestly, some things stand out in some palms as crystal clear as they could be, and luckily this particular palm was a classic textbook example of everything I had just read. In three short minutes, I recited to him almost the entirety of his 23 year lifespan in great detail, predicted about the good and bad of his future, indicated when he was getting married and also told him that his kids were going to be born rich. And guess what, I was spot on on most of it! Jaw dropping, eyes wide open and the rest of the audience spellbound, I had him all captivated!

Now as most of you will understand, there was suddenly a HUGE rush of everyone wanting to get their palms analysed. And I suddenly hit upon a great idea! Wounds from the ragging period were still fresh in my mind, and I wasn't going to let such a golden opportunity slip by. I started off with correct and dead-sure statements about everyone, but soon the rest of the statements that followed depended upon what I wanted them to believe. The guy who had slapped me most came to know that he's going to turn out homosexual in his future life (yeah you should've looked at the scared look on the faces of his roomies ;) ), and the guy whose journals and diagrams I had to burn midnight oil to copy was suitably informed (with the whole moral dilemma act of whether or not to tell the truth) that he would spend the next 6 years at least in the same engineering college. And oh, don't even get me started about what I told the frustrated romantic who had made 10 of us go and propose to the same girl in front of the class!

I had come to the room when it was bubbling with energy. I left it more sombre than a graveyard. For three days and three nights, I heard messages of the homosexual being caught with porn doing 'some' things, the scholar slogging his butt off trying to cope up with coursework amidst tons of frustrated swearing, and the romeo of the hostel trying to find if there is indeed a fine line between lunacy and love. We, in our junior hostel, in the meantime, laughed our stupid asses off and never forgot to smirk when we saw a senior pass by. The day of the Sith had come, finally!

Well, anyway, after some time I felt sorry about them and thought they had indeed paid enough price for what we had endured. The truths were disclosed, and I had formally established myself as a good actor :). Everyone was assured that whatever I had told them after the initial 2-3 minutes was really my imagination, although I suspect that they remained sceptical for a long time about all these things. Do remind me sometime to tell you how we managed to 'hypnotise' our seniors another night! ;)

[I have a little confession to make here, though. The above incident is actually an amalgamation of 2-3 incidents that I just strung together and dramatised a bit. It wasn't a single night when both the homosexual and the academic disaster were pronounced: although I assure you that the desired effects were achieved at suitable times]