Shani's Joint - Complete Write Up

M.G Avenue Durgapur isn't exac tly Sunset Boulevard. On first glance, the road does not emit any charm for the beholder. You look for the commercial bustlings, and the droning buzz of a crowd, and it's not there. What it is though, is a seemingly endless stretch of a road , promising to give glimpses of eternity. On this road, lies a small bamboo thatched hut, situated ina 2X4 space; 'Jhoops' to the unfamiliar. Opposite it, lies a humungous (by meagre standards) sprawling educational campus, called as NIT Durgapur. Holding out to over a span of 180 acres, this institution proclaims to live on the motto 'Satyamev Jayate' upholding and supposedly deemed to instill values of love, truth, dignity and sacrifice. Ironically though, it is the small bamboo hut that acts as the mythical Gurukul and teaches a group of 400 confused, purposeless and carefree souls a thing or two about the biggest game they are yet to play called Life. Run by a small, dimunitive mustachioed guy for whom our bucket of affectionate names range from 'Sani' to 'Malik'. (Heck, God comes a close second to this guy) Jhoops was the Shangri La from the tales of epic folklore, a holiday for the soul, that every man aspires to go for one day. John Lennon once said "Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans, in its esence that was what it was. Jhoops was a collection of some lessons learnt in life, the right way. Whether it is the sublime joy that one realised on being a 'spectator' in the truest sense of the word, watching the slow traffic and streams of people moving on, endlessly sipping cups of 'chai' in between.There was also the joy learnt of bonding, one that talked about a child like baneter, a communion oblivious to the ghastly prejudices that kill an innocence in the man. But the most lesson that one learnt there was liberation. There are very few things in life that can show you the fabled stairway to heaven here on earth itself. Making love to a maiden in the wilderness is a good first. But lying on an elevated cement platform, facing the open skies and longing for every moment of that enlightened bliss to last forever, comes a very close second. - As Explained by a junkie