Chapter 1 — Setup
And thus begins the Eighteenth Wandering of the Unbegun.
Manipal.
Now, children.
Manipal.
Glorious Manipal.
My third college.
A place that, according to official documentation,
was presumably designed for higher education.
The council looks at Nuo.
And according to you?
Premium subscription to college pubs.
Exactly.
Children.
You already know my relationship with higher education.
There were classrooms.
There were assignments.
There were professors.
There were examinations.
And somewhere among all that unnecessary administrative clutter
pubs.
Beautiful.
Accessible.
Full of students whose collective decision making ability declined steadily as the night progressed.
The council sighs.
Story Nuo had discovered his ecosystem.
Yes.
Now.
What did Young Manipal Nuo seek from these establishments?
Culture?
No.
Music appreciation?
Barely.
Networking?
Technically, depending on how generously you define networking.
Children.
There was one sacred objective.
Flirt with attractive women.
Hope mutual interest develops.
And perhaps
bonk.
The council opens the mission board.
PRIMARY OBJECTIVE:
Bonk.
SIDE OBJECTIVES:
Pot.
Alcohol.
General nonsense.
A noble era.
The council refuses the word noble.
Fine.
An era.
Now.
Before seventeen separate continuity alarms begin screaming
Axe.
Yes.
Girlfriend.
We need chronology.
Children.
The Manipal years contain enough overlapping characters that without timeline markers,
the Archive becomes a conspiracy board.
So.
Karkala.
Semester Four climax.
End of second year.
Axe begins that Wandering as
classmate.
Friend.
One of the idiots.
And ends it as
girlfriend.
The council places marker.
Then
Bangalore.
Somewhere during Semester Five.
Axe relationship active.
Then
Malpe.
Semester Six climax.
One glorious anniversary.
One last hurrah.
University ending.
Geography approaching with a knife.
Axe heading elsewhere.
Nuo heading elsewhere.
And eventually
separation.
The council nods.
Therefore?
For a large portion of Manipal before Axe,
Nuo
single.
Yes.
Children.
Free bird.
Womaniser.
Casanova.
The council looks at Story Nuo.
On paper.
Correct.
On paper,
one imagines a suave creature.
Shirt slightly open.
Hair intentionally messy.
Excellent eye contact.
Effortless conversation.
Women mysteriously drawn toward him.
Reality?
Children.
Nuo positioned himself near attractive women who had become sufficiently intoxicated
and hoped personality,
luck,
and whatever nonsense came out of his mouth
would somehow produce positive results.
The council pauses.
This requires an Archive note.
Yes.
It does.
Now
one particular strategy.
Bongo.
The council grows quieter.
Timeline again.
Because Bongo sits underneath much of what Manipal Nuo became.
Semester Two
Bongo enters my life.
My son.
Golden Retriever.
Chaos.
Love.
Home.
Then
Semester Three.
Bongo dies.
The council falls silent.
And the weight begins.
Children.
You have encountered it across the Archive already.
The ache that would eventually push roads open.
The grief that sat beneath jokes.
The absence that followed me into rooms,
cities,
relationships,
drugs,
and years.
But this version of Nuo?
Early grief.
Raw grief.
And Story Nuo discovered something deeply ugly and deeply human.
Pain could be used.
The council looks at him.
You weaponised it.
Yes.
Children.
I weaponised Bongo.
There is no elegant wording that improves this.
My basic pub strategy became:
exist near attractive woman.
Conversation.
Alcohol.
Opportunity appears.
Deploy Bongo Story.
The council stares.
You used grief as emotional leverage.
Yes.
I knew the story was real.
I knew the pain was real.
I also knew people responded to it.
Sympathy.
Tenderness.
Interest.
And Story Nuo,
being Story Nuo,
looked at that emotional response and thought:
Useful.
Children.
Very simple objective.
Bonk privileges.
Now.
This Wandering is not merely:
Nuo Goes To Pub And Behaves Questionably.
There is another reason the file matters.
A visitor.
The council looks up.
From where?
From another Wandering.
Kodaikanal.
Children.
You remember.
Mushrooms.
Paul.
Kosmo.
Wing.
And
Mith.
The council smiles.
Mith.
Best friend.
Brother,
essentially.
One of those relationships where the technical label “friend” feels administratively insufficient.
So naturally the council asks
Hex?
Also best friend.
Yes.
Children.
Humans may occupy the same title in different eras.
Life is not a game where only one Best Friend slot exists.
Hex had been one.
A major one.
Manager of Nuo.
Dota companion.
Cow milker.
Good man.
But this story happens
after Hex.
Not after Hex died.
Calm down.
After life happened.
The council nods.
Distance?
Drift.
Exactly.
The terrible ordinary thing.
No villain.
No dramatic explosion required.
Sometimes two people who were once central to each other’s days
simply stop being central.
Schedules.
Geography.
Relationships.
New eras.
One day you realize the person who used to be daily
has become
history with occasional echoes.
Children.
Tragic?
A little.
But ordinary.
Life goes on.
And somewhere in that ongoing life
Mith.
Brother.
Best friend of this era.
Now visiting Manipal.
The council opens weekend planning.
Nuo excited?
Extremely.
Because this was not:
Friend arriving, perhaps we shall have coffee and discuss our growth as human beings.
No.
Children.
Mith was coming to Manipal.
Manipal contained pubs.
Pubs contained alcohol.
Alcohol contained possibility.
Nuo contained terrible plans.
The equation solved itself.
The council groans.
Setting?
Night.
Objective?
Fun.
Specific sub objective?
Potential bonk partners.
For both?
Children.
Let us not get ahead of the Archive.
All we establish here is intent.
Mith visiting.
Nuo delighted.
And the location where the Eighteenth Wandering begins
Dee Tee.
Pause.
The council recognizes the name.
Pub.
Yes.
A simple establishment.
Alcohol privileges.
Student population.
Music.
Dim lighting.
The usual ecosystem designed to convert money into poor judgement.
Children.
Dee Tee.
No sacred temple.
No mystical mountain.
No quiet beach.
No railway platform.
A pub.
Manipal Nuo’s natural habitat.
This is where the Wandering begins.
Not when Mith arrived.
Not in some nostalgic hug.
Not with a bus.
At Dee Tee.
The council opens the scene.
Night.
Students.
Noise.
Drinks.
Mith.
Nuo.
And whatever level of confidence two young men possess before the evening has actually tested them.
Children.
We entered with objectives.
Perhaps too many.
Drink.
Smoke if possible.
Meet people.
Flirt.
See what happens.
The usual.
Except
we did not know this night would survive.
Story Nuo wasn’t collecting Wanderings.
The concept did not exist.
He was not thinking:
Tonight shall become Chapter One of Manipal.
He was thinking something far more sophisticated.
The council waits.
Where women?
Correct.
Protect Story Nuo.
Always.
And so the pieces were set.
Manipal.
A university town where education occasionally interrupted nightlife.
Nuo.
Single.
Grieving.
Horny.
Ethically underdeveloped.
Mith.
Brother.
Visitor.
Dee Tee.
Pub.
And an evening with absolutely no intention of becoming mythology.
The council looks ahead.
Do we know what happens?
Present Nuo does.
Story Nuo?
No.
Then we stop.
Exactly.
No foreshadowing beyond what the memory has earned.
For now
doors.
Music beyond them.
A friend beside me.
And Story Nuo carrying Bongo’s grief in one pocket
and terrible desicions in the other.
Children.
The Eighteenth Wandering begins there.
Not with wisdom.
Not with healing.
Not even with curiosity.
With Manipal Nuo doing what Manipal Nuo did best.
Entering a pub
and hoping the night would make questionable decisions on his behalf.
Thus concludes Chapter One.
The Third College.
The Premium Pub Subscription.
The Official Manipalian Curriculum.
The Axe Timeline.
Semester Four.
Semester Five.
Semester Six.
The Long Single Era.
The Casanova On Paper.
The Considerably Less Impressive Reality.
The Bongo Timeline.
Semester Two:
Love.
Semester Three:
Loss.
The Birth Of The Weight.
The Weaponisation Of Grief.
The End Of The Hex Era.
The Arrival Of Mith.
Brother.
Best Friend.
Visitor.
The Objective.
The Pub.
And
Dee Tee.
Children.
A great many Wanderings begin because Nuo is sad.
Some begin because he is curious.
Some because he is bored.
This one?
Mith was visiting.
There was a pub.
And Nuo was single.
The council opens the door.
Welcome back to Manipal.
