A campus set amidst picturesque lakes and pleasant gardens seems like a salubrious place to spend a couple of years studying - Shantiniketan comes to mind. And indeed in the early spring it is a great place to sit outdoors and study (for those who have a mind to study, that is....:)


 

But in the monsoons, things are very different. One interesting phenomenon at this time of the year is the onslaught of the LGBs. LGBs, or Little Green Bastards, are tiny pests that reinforce one's belief in the theory of spontaneous generation of life; they suddenly turn up out of nowhere in their millions, swarming around any light source or any living being; and they are tiny enough to enter the smallest opening. For a week or two they make life intensely miserable. My personal grudge against them is that they seem to love coffee as much as I do.....but unlike me, they drown more than just their sorrows in coffee :( And I hate debugging.......

But LGBs are not the only side-effect of the sylvan surroundings. My hostel overlooks a lake which is currently on the verge of spilling its banks, and is well stocked with sundry denizens of the deep. And thus, in the wee hours of the morning, I found myself, armed with my trusty torch and broom, evicting a snake from a ground-floor room in my hostel. Admittedly, the poor creature was barely a third of a foot long, but it must still have come as a nasty shock to the poor inhabitant to find a reptile where no reptile ought to be.....

Having done my good deed for the day, I went off to fortify my nerves with a coffee (a cold coffee, with a lid on the cup, to defeat the nefarious LGBs) and then settled down to record the incident for posterity. Now its back to work for me - a long and exhausting day looms ahead.....and I have miles (to say nothing of an exam) to go before I sleep.

~lakesidey