"RIP"

Just when I kept wondering as to when I should be writing my next blog, a dear friend of mine met me during my drama rehearsals and enquired me about it, to which my reply was that I usually write once in two or three months and that he should expect the next blog within a week, and here I am writing it for my dear readers.

This blog shall be a prank that we pulled on one of my friends. Hope that you would have at least giggled a little by the end of it.

For the purpose of privacy of the people in this story their names will be altered

This little incident took place during in my degree days, thanks to cinemas, my friend group consisted of 3 members who always stayed together and did all the crazy things together. Like all 3 member groups, whenever one guy is being pranked, the other two team up, all the time.

First things first, the group had Akash, and me; this small story has a special guest appearance by the end of it. We always hung out together, it felt odd even if one among the three of us was absent and this phenomenon remains unexplainable even to this day.

One fine day, Akash and I turned up to attend the first hour at our college, and I asked Akash where Tarun was to which he replied, “I have no clue bro, he didn’t pick up my call since morning and I had to come to college in a bus.”

Tarun and Akash traveled to and fro together every day, and Tarun occasionally used to bunk the first hour in college, so we assumed that it was one of those days where he did that.

The first hour went by and so did the second but our calling did not stop.  Tarun did not respond at all, that is when we decided that we shall wait for another hour and then probably look for alternatives. The third hour was done and it was now lunch, as soon as the lecturer walked out of the class, we were worried, but at the same time we were blatantly confident too that Tarun might not be in danger and he shall turn up anytime soon. 

Now I decided that we should play a small prank on Tarun and all our mutual friends. I said to Akash, “How about both of us post a picture of T in our status on WhatsApp with a caption that read ‘RIP Tarun ’?”

Akash has been a friend who is always on hand for all crazy stuff and he instantly agreed. We searched for a good picture of Tarun and it was nothing less of a herculean task, ask for an ugly picture it might even be our wallpaper, but finding a good picture of a best friend requires some time. We eventually found it and within few seconds, both of us had put a status that read RIP Tarun with a decent pic of him.

2 minutes later, our chats were flooded with condolences from people who did not know him and questions from people who knew him as to what happened to him. I even received a few calls, but I maintained my composure. A mutual friend questioned on a call,” Bro what happened?”

I was not ready to answer that question as it was out of syllabus, I hastily replied, “Bro, cardiac arrest in the morning, his dad had called us to inform!”

Akash and I prepared to walk out of the class since we knew people would gather around us and ask us what happened. We never came out of character, classmates, juniors, people from other streams, and every passerby questioned us and the answer remained the same. 

Within minutes, the information spread like a wildfire, and the entire atmosphere started to mourn the loss of a dear friend. Our plan was working!

The bell rang and all of us started walking back to our classes, we sat with a smirk.

Alas!  Tarun walks right through the door, he looks perplexed, everyone was surprised at first, but their cluelessness slowly started fading away and then all of them realized it was a good prank that was pulled off by us and started laughing. Tarun, who was completely unaware of what has happened, he sat next to us and questioned, “What happened? Why is everyone laughing at me?”

We sat and explained to him the entire story, he facepalmed himself and gave us a death stare but he knew this was a brilliant prank and got along with it. Some of the juniors even jokingly looked at Tarun and screamed in fake horror like he was a ghost!

And finally, when everything seemed settled, a friend of ours, comes running into the classroom teary-eyed! She sees Tarun, cries even harder, and runs back! 

We ran behind her as we should not be missing any drama, she sat on the staircase and was crying her heart out.  T had to stand in front of her and convince her that he is alive and her crying was unnecessary. After a few wet napkins, she finally stopped crying and explained the below story.

All of this happened on the second floor of our building, she was attending her class on the third floor when she saw my status. As soon as she saw it, she began crying mid-class, upon seeing her crying, the lecturer enquired what happened and she said that a dear friend has deceased and she needs to leave the class as soon as possible. The lecturer, a kind-hearted guy, let her go, while she left, he even asked if she needed some money to which she replied she had sufficient money with her. She straight away came running to our class but upon seeing T in his original form started crying again and ran out of our class!

This drama took a few minutes of our time but it was one mammoth of a funny prank that we pulled successfully, she left us with one single word of praise “loper”

Oh, by the way, the actual reason as to why Tarun never answered his phone was that somehow his phone was taken away by his uncle at the airport who left the country for the USA and he had taken the phone along with him and that is the reason he did not pick our calls.

an image that i clicked long ago..!

I am sure everyone liked this prank, we never assumed how this might be received by T or everyone related to him, we just thought of it and were impulsive in executing it, but at the end, we had our share of smiles.

Today whenever the three of us meet, this incident always comes out with Akash teasing Tarun 

“RIP Tarun, hahaha”

We grew up from that phase, but I am sure we all are kids when we meet our friends now and then!