The Legend of Crapman

The real crapman is but a myth now. No one knows his name and whereabouts. Inspite of numerous posts in alumni forums, he remains untraced. The only memento that reminds us of him and his saga is a wall painting besides room number B-316 undersigned as ‘Crappie’ and the story has been passed from one batch to another.

The painting –picture of a detestable youth with shabby uncut hair, unshaved and naked but for a V-shaped underwear waving at every guy who passes by –is a pride for the entire wing. The wing consists of ten single rooms, B-311 to B-320 but B-316 has such a special charm to it, such a supernatural aura that everyone wants to have the room.

So what is this crapman’s hall of fame? As legend has it, crapman had gone without bathe and shave for forty days during the peak of summer and some twenty summers thence no one has broken his record. Of course there have been numerous instances of continued period of such activity in the winter. I myself hadn’t bathed for two weeks, relying completely on deodorants, the previous winter when the geyser had been out of order. But summer in Kharagpur, a place in the tropics encircled by numerous small and big steel plants and other such factories, is a different scenario.

In the year this incidence was written it so happened that B-top floor fell vacant and as per tradition the leaving final year residents chose ten sophomores to occupy the wing. All of us wanted to be in B-316. After all there aren’t many rooms in this hostel with legends attached to them –rooms of successful alumni, rooms of guys who got us general championships, those who started a popular culture in campus –and a resident of one of these is a star by default.

Kodali, of the department of electrical engineering, is the laziest of all nine selected to be my wingies. I have seldom seen him attending classes or studying for the semester exams; still he has miraculously managed to clear three semesters and is heading for another in April end. Having to see him in a dress other than a v-underwear in the wing and a towel in the mess is as much a rarity as is for a National Geographic explorer to find footmarks of a yeti. The only things he does are playing strategic games on LAN and taking dope every now and then. The careless self that he is, I bet his room is one of the most untidy in the campus. It needs real guts for a guy to endeavour into his room –walls decorated with cobwebs, the floor beyond a thick layer of dust splashed with biscuit and chips covers, a leg of the bed broken, study table full of cigarette ash, the room smelling of a dead mouse, the dress smelling like socks used for a week or so and the pillow smelling of sweat.

We could move into the wing only after fifteenth May when the final years would leave. On the third of April we were hoisting a farewell party for the wing seniors when one of the seniors proposed that the coveted room should go to the one who stands upto Crapman’s caliber. Interpretation –stay without bathe and shave for forty one days. It was supposed to be a joke but Kodali got serious with the proposition. It is not clear whether the wall painting caught his fantasy or he just got envious of the man depicted in the painting, but Kodali made the ambitious announcement of breaking Crapman’s record.

Even for a natural crappy guy like him, it was just overambitious. The climate is hot and humid and if you don’t bathe regularly the skin starts itching and there is a high probability of skin diseases.

Kodali sure was damn serious for he was a natural enemy of all that is neat and clean. He stated that he just had to prove that Crapman’s legend isn’t as big as people make it out to be. A couple of seniors rebuked him but that didn’t alter his determination. Many tried to discourage him and many made fun of him but that didn’t change his mind.

“…rooms of successful alumni are star rooms, rooms of guys who got us general championships are star rooms but this sure isn’t a star room. I don’t desire for B-316 but I need to tell you there is nothing special about this Crapman” Kodali stated.

On the fourth of April starts Kodali’s hazardous venture into the Hall of Fame…

Countdown: 31 days to go. While there always are curious pals, most of us are quite reconciled to the fact that Kodali is dragging a silly challenge too far. Kodali has become the talk of the campus and no doubt he is enjoying the new found popularity.

Countdown: 25 days to go. Kodali has developed some abnormal habits. Some guy, cursed be him, told Kodali that his tummy is growing. All of us had marked it, for a tummy looks distinctly protruding for a person who is perpetually found in the nude. Result: Kodali starts playing football in the evening and expects us to embrace him into our friends’ circle (that damn day I became his friend!) with all the sweat accumulated during the game. Who doesn’t take a shower after playing football for an hour?

Secondly, he has started attending classes. This sure is contrary to his nature…yet is no symptom of a skin disease. Since we have most classes common, I have to tolerate him even here. What worries me more is that the girl I have been flirting with has started avoiding me.

Countdown: 15 days to go. The cunning Indra had sent Menaka to break Viswamitra’s intense penance. Some crack a conspiracy to break Kodali’s record run. The end semesters have just started and I can’t bear his stink while we do group study, so I join in willingly. The plan is to plunge him into the shit tank (an emergency tank filled with water attached to every latrine block so as to be used for excreting when water supply stops) when he enters the latrine block for peeing.

There are four bathrooms and three latrines in the bathroom block. Four of the conspirators take position inside the bathrooms; two in two of the latrines, me and another are outside on the basin posing with a shaving cream and razor. Kodali comes in straight from a football match, his body sweaty and his legs covered with mud, and is about to enter the empty latrine when we dive on him from all directions. We try to pull him down to the shit tank but can’t. His body is all sweat and our hands slip as we try to push him into the shit tank.

Kodali manages to escape.

Now on he goes all the way to A block even for peeing. He often smirks at our plan and terms his escape as ‘divine intervention’.

“If you wanted to hook none other than Kodali himself, couldn’t you hatch a better plan? Look even the Almighty is with me. He induced a lazy guy like me to play football so that the sweat would make me slip off your hold. Even he wants me to win”

Worse, Kodali has stopped using deodorants when going to the examination. His preposterous idea: no invigilator will dare loiter around him and we could easily copy. He didn’t consider the fact that I or anyone else won’t dare sit near him in the examination hall!

Countdown: 10 days to go. Kodali has started looking like the man in the painting undersigned ‘crappie’. We openly avoid him and don’t let him into our rooms. The moment he takes a table in the mess, others eating there shift to another table but he seems to like this kind of discrimination. The seniors don’t take him for job treats but that hasn’t discouraged him. He has, it seems, started fancying himself as a person awed and respected by one and all.

Countdown: 5 days to go. Exams have ended and just some hustle about project work remains before we can go back home for the summer vacations. The summer has never ever been this bad. There has been no rain in this part of the country since a long time. The cool evening summer breeze that we had always enjoyed on rooftops has practically vanished. It is becoming tough to go anywhere under the blazing sun. Water problems have increased and even the best of friends are fighting over water. More than one shower per day has become a dream.

Everyone is anxiously waiting to see Kodali break the record. His confidence level is high, so is our determination level not to let him succeed –call it green-eyed jealousy or stubborn disgust on the record he means to break. Another conspiracy with the same set of conspirators. This time we place ourselves well in advance in the corridors of A block. The plan is to take water from the shit tank and throw at Kodali as soon as he comes out of a latrine. We have got our buckets and have lurked ourselves at strategic posts.

Kodali comes, doesn’t suspect anything, and is about to enter a latrine when someone on the corridor shouts that there is no water. Kodali checks it and then looks at the shit tank.

“Get your bucket and go in or go to Nehru Hall restroom. There is water supply in there now” suggests the spoiler of our agenda from the corridor.

“I don’t have a bucket. I would better go to Nehru Hall” Kodali says and moves out. After sometime we rush out to Nehru hall but by the time we realize which restroom he is using, he is out. ‘Divine intervention’ again. Frustrated, we drop the plan.

Countdown: 2 days to go. Sun is venting all its anger on innocent humans and many heartless professors have fixed this day for project evaluation. However I already had my project evaluation earlier and so am lucky enough not to be one among the unfortunate ones who have gone to the institute braving the fatal rays of the unscrupulous Sun God.

Sun God, God knows why, is ruthless on the creatures on this planet. Never has His vendetta been so disastrous for humankind as it is now. Stray dogs are dying of heat, huge trees that have tolerated more than a hundred summers seem to be shaken and Loo is too hot to be faced.

Indra –the King of Gods –comes to our help. Cyclonic winds suddenly blow in from all directions, sky gets illuminated by huge lightning and thunders proclaim the arrival of the King of Gods. Sky breaks loose and it starts raining. A welcome relief that it is, I don’t miss the chance of bathing in the first rain.

Suddenly a figure is seen in the deluge rushing into the hostel, shirt on head and heavily drenched in rain water. As he draws closer, we find he is Kodali. Kodali swears at his guide and the rain and quickly takes off his dress and dries himself with a towel.

“So you couldn’t break the record after all” one of my fellow conspirators tells, “Seems like you also bathed in the first rain”

It hadn’t crossed my mind till now that Kodali has really broken his record run two days before finish line and from the shocked look on his face that even Kodali hadn’t thought this rain could have such disastrous effect on him.

“But that’s…that’s no bathe. I couldn’t help…”

“Divine intervention” someone interrupts.

“I knew he couldn’t break Crapman’s record” says another.

Everything makes sense now. Indra had done all he could to break Sage Viswamitra’s penance and He tried to do the same with Kodali. He sent his court dancer Menaka to break Viswamitra’s penance and Sun God to break Kodali’s. Sun God showed all the fury he could but didn’t succeed in stopping Kodali. When Sun God failed, the King of Gods himself came down to Kharagpur with his thunderbolt.

Crapman is but a legend now. No one knows his name and whereabouts. Some of his story is truth and some myth. A second chapter has now been added to the legend of Crapman, that of a Kodali who challenged him. So what if the real Crapman is undocumented and untraced? Kodali’s name has become synonymous with his.