Chapter 3 — DeeTee
And thus begins Chapter Three.
Now, children.
Dee Tee.
We arrived.
The sacred gates of Manipal nightlife.
And first
entry.
The council observes procedure.
Student ID.
Show bouncer.
Bouncer checks.
Student?
Yes?
Enter.
Pause.
Children.
What an absurd system.
We cannot allow you into this establishment until we have verified that you are
an immature idiot.
The council nods.
Maturity?
Not required.
Common sense?
Potentially disqualifying.
Responsible adult with stable income?
Suspicious.
Nineteen year old with an attendance shortage and enough money for rum?
WELCOME.
Beautiful institution.
Now.
Problem.
Mith.
Student?
Somewhere else in the grand educational ecosystem perhaps.
Manipal student?
No.
Therefore
no relevant ID.
No ID
no entry.
The council opens troubleshooting.
Solution?
Connections.
Children.
By this stage of my Manipal career,
the bouncer and I had moved beyond mere acquaintance.
This man had seen my face
again
and again
and again
since almost the beginning of enrollment.
Different nights.
Different states of sobriety.
Different levels of questionable coordination.
At some point,
a relationship forms.
Not friendship exactly.
Something deeper.
Spiritual brotherhood.
The council looks skeptical.
He recognizes you.
Spiritual brotherhood.
Do not diminish this.
So I indicated Mith.
My guy.
Visitor.
With me.
And
entry.
The council stamps:
MANIPAL NETWORK OF SIGNIFICANT OFFICIALS:
SUCCESSFUL.
Children.
Years of dedicated pub attendance finally produced institutional benefits.
Higher education.
Worth every rupee.
We entered.
And
Dee Tee.
Music.
Crowds.
Alcohol.
Bodies.
Smoke.
Students behaving like students after being given access to darkness and bad decisions.
The usual.
Children.
One corner?
Dance.
Another?
People making out with the urgency of individuals who feared lips might be banned tomorrow.
Another?
A group peacefully drinking,
discussing something that probably felt profound because everyone involved was drunk.
Another?
Someone shouting.
Someone laughing.
Someone already sitting in the posture of a person whose evening had defeated them.
Every genre of university life
coexisted inside those walls.
And every genre
drunk.
The council nods.
To Nuo?
Normal.
Completely.
I had become desensitized.
This was scenery.
Walk in.
Find space.
Drink.
Smoke.
Observe.
Eventually participate.
Nothing remarkable.
But Mith?
Children.
Mith entered Wonderland.
His eyes moved everywhere.
Dance floor.
Bar.
People kissing openly.
Crowds.
Music.
The sheer concentrated chaos of students who had collectively decided tomorrow’s consequences belonged to tomorrow.
He had heard about Dee Tee.
From me.
Many times.
He had seen versions of places like this in movies.
Sitcoms.
College stories where everyone somehow spends more time partying than attending class.
But seeing it?
Different.
The council watches Mith.
Waw.
Exactly.
Children.
You know how ordinary humans stand before the Taj Mahal.
Look upward.
Pause.
Take in the scale.
Feel history.
“Waw.”
That was Mith.
Except
Taj Mahal?
No.
Dee Tee.
His monument to human civilization
was a dark student pub full of drunk adolescents.
The council sighs.
Beauty is subjective.
Precisely.
We found seats.
Terrible seats.
Cramped.
Bad positioning.
Probably surrounded by enough noise that conversation required leaning directly into another person’s face.
Irrelevant.
Children.
The seats were temporary.
We both knew that.
This was staging area.
We ordered drinks.
Old Monk.
Two shots for me.
Two for Mith.
The council checks condition.
Destroyed?
No.
Good.
That wasn’t the objective.
We wanted
buzz.
Enough alcohol to loosen things.
Not enough to cause mechanical failure.
Story Nuo had sufficient experience to know the difference.
Usually.
The council refuses guarantees.
Fair.
Shots.
Burn.
Warmth.
The familiar little shift.
World slightly softer.
Body slightly looser.
Confidence slightly less connected to evidence.
Children.
Operational.
Now
Mith.
This is important.
Because Mith was not bad with women.
Not remotely.
Back home in Kochi?
He had a system.
Not a system in the manipulative spreadsheet sense.
Just
the environment he understood.
Meet woman.
Talk.
Flirt.
See her again.
Talk more.
Flirt more.
Days pass.
Maybe a week.
Maybe two.
Something develops.
Eventually
bonk.
Children.
Foundation.
Structure.
Time.
Mith approached romance like civil engineering.
Survey land.
Lay foundation.
Build support.
Check alignment.
Then erect
The council interrupts.
Don’t.
Fine.
But you understand.
Gradual.
Reliable.
Familiar.
Dee Tee?
Different universe.
Here,
there was no two week project timeline.
No:
Perhaps I’ll text her tomorrow.
Story Nuo’s pub logic was:
Meet tonight.
Vibe tonight.
If mutual interest escalates enough
perhaps leave together tonight.
Children.
Fast track development.
No planning permission.
No environmental impact study.
Just
night.
And Mith?
Nervous.
Very.
The council looks at hulking gymrat.
This man?
Yes.
Children.
Physical size does not protect a man from social confusion.
Mith could probably lift half the furniture in the room.
But place him on a dance floor surrounded by attractive strangers
with a social framework he had never practiced?
System error.
And I
delighted.
Because I had a different primary objective now.
Not immediate bonk acquisition for myself.
Children.
No.
I had entertainment.
Mith.
Amateur Hour.
The council laughs.
We abandoned the terrible seats.
Moved toward the dance floor.
Music louder.
Crowd denser.
People moving.
And I found wall.
Lean.
Cigarette.
Light.
Smoke.
Children.
Observation post established.
There stood Nuo.
Comfortable.
Buzzed.
Cigarette between fingers.
Watching his best friend discover an entirely new genre of social interaction.
And Mith?
In the middle of it.
Eyes
darting.
Left.
Right.
Woman there.
Another there.
Group there.
Someone smiling.
Someone dancing.
Someone walking past.
His brain trying to calculate an approach using a system built for a completely different environment.
The council visualizes.
Deer in headlights.
Yes.
But not one headlight.
Children.
Imagine deer.
Middle of road.
And instead of one car
thirty attractive intoxicated headlights
arriving from every direction.
That was Mith.
The Hulking Monstrosity.
The Legal Council.
The man built like a raid boss.
Reduced to:
Where do I look?
What do I do?
The council laughs.
And me?
Enjoying every second.
I took a drag.
Watched.
Probably grinned.
Children.
This is what friendship is for.
Not merely emotional support.
Not merely companionship.
Sometimes your closest friend enters unfamiliar territory
and you give them several minutes to suffer
because it is extremely funny.
The council approves.
Mild cruelty.
Healthy.
Exactly.
Mith attempted to appear normal.
Failed.
He looked around too much.
Then perhaps realized he was looking around too much
and tried not to look around.
Which made him look even more like a man actively attempting not to look around.
Children.
Glorious.
I had seen Mith confident.
Dota.
Gym.
Normal social settings.
Known environments.
Here?
Newborn deer.
The council checks Nuo’s assistance status.
None.
Correct.
For now.
I was not too cruel.
Important.
I simply believed education required practical exposure.
You cannot immediately hand the student the answer.
They must experience confusion.
The council raises an eyebrow.
Professor Nuo?
Adjunct faculty.
Dee Tee Department of Applied Nonsense.
I watched him.
Cigarette burning slowly.
Music pounding.
Mith scanning the room
as though somewhere among these people existed an instruction manual.
There did not.
Children.
That was the lesson.
This was not his slow build Kochi framework.
No engineering project.
No two week runway.
Whatever happened here happened now.
And that was exactly why he had wanted the Manipal free trial.
To experience
this.
The chaos.
The immediacy.
The absolute absence of his familiar framework.
And gods
he looked fucking lost.
The council laughs again.
Beautiful.
Then,
eventually
I decided the observational phase had produced enough data.
Mith had suffered appropriately.
Amateur Hour had been enjoyed.
The professor would now intervene.
I pushed away from the wall.
Cigarette nearly done.
Looked toward my hulking,
soft bread,
socially malfunctioning best friend.
Children.
I am not heartless.
Only appropriately entertained by the suffering of people I love.
There is a difference.
The council nods.
And so
I stepped in.
Not because Nuo had become some legendary master of seduction.
Please.
We have established my methods.
But Dee Tee?
This ecosystem I understood.
Mith did not.
And for the next part of the evening,
the roles were clear.
Mith
student.
Nuo
guide.
The council immediately remembers Kovalam.
Again?
Apparently Nuo has developed a secondary career.
Difference being
this time I actually knew the terrain.
A dangerous improvement.
Children.
The first domino had not fallen yet.
But my hand was now hovering above it.
Thus concludes Chapter Three.
The Student ID Requirement.
The Verification Of Immature Idiocy.
The Spiritual Brotherhood With The Bouncer.
The Network Of Significant Manipal Officials.
The Entry.
The Dance Corner.
The Make Out Corner.
The Drinking Corner.
Every Genre Of University Simultaneously Existing While Drunk.
Mith Seeing His Taj Mahal.
The Terrible Seats.
Old Monk.
Two Shots Each.
The Buzz Without Mechanical Failure.
Mith’s Two Week Engineering Model.
Dee Tee’s Same Night Operating System.
The Nerves.
The Dance Floor.
Nuo Against The Wall.
The Cigarette.
The Hulking Deer In Thirty Attractive Headlights.
Amateur Hour.
And
the end of observation.
Children.
Mith had come to Manipal specifically to experience Nuo’s way of life.
For several glorious minutes,
I let him attempt it without instructions.
Then I finished enjoying the show,
pushed away from the wall,
and finally decided
fine.
I’ll help.
