Watt A Trip!

"Ohm My God!"

This time, I found myself part of a symposium with my school mate. The symposium was held at a version of the U.S. that seemed to take after Chennai. It was one of those exhibition events where talent and technical prowess reigned like the monsoon season. The venue was adequately peppered with stalls, showcasing their skill. Let the Master Chefs talk for themselves — the stalls probably.

I met JerryRigEverything at the event, who was s-Uber into showing us around the U.S. After the registration, we made our way to the event hall. Waiting our turn, we chose to wile away time outside the hall exploring the campus instead. We ate from what looked like a cupboard that vended snacks. Dayum... those costed dearly. Just some moong dal type shit.

We kept our bags close with us. It had everything to tell the U.S. that we were not only airdropped but also came with papers. Careless as we were, we kept our bags on some bench and wandered away.

Then the realization hit us hard later! Lost in the layout of the campus, we recalled the place where we last saw our bags. What did we expect? Of course, the bag gone.

We? Forgetty.

Our eyes? Sweaty! as our identity cry-ses set in.

While making sense of the situation, we searched around the campus. My friend — clueless as I was, suddenly spotted our bags and our phones in the campus atop the labeled: "AC/DC power supply station"

"Ill-eagle sight !" as my friend's ability left my head in scratches. Regardless, we made haste there.

Our Current situation was laughing at us, as we had eventually arrived at the power station with the transformers and the High Voltage lines. Offlined were the transformers then, looking ready to roll out. Despite all the blaring danger signs, the urge to climb up only grew harder to Resist. Temptation justified, of course, as our bags, our phone, and our damn identities were at stake. A mistake it was, when my friend began counting the rungs of the ladder; probably to estimate the Potential we were heaven-wards.

Impulsive I was, as I kept my first step with the right leg on the ladder, praying it was not Jacob's. With the high tension screaming of the transmission lines becoming my tinnitus, all visible exclamations started bleeding into my vision's periphery. Our hairs stood up — not only of dread but also the ionizing air surrounded us by the high voltage.

"Corona?" we hypothesized.

"Skin effect perhaps" chuckled as our noggins chorused amongst the absurdity. Truly, a brief knee-slap moment!

A-tempted was my left leg subsequently. My second step upwards was then duly doused by the whistle of a sleazy, watchdog personnel. He barked at us to step down, stay grounded and go somewhere fuck-wards. Denied of the ascension, I next started looking around for panels that hinted at the names in authority to phone up for a remedy.

"Wait! Phone up? Ugh.. I am doomed, ain't I?" as my internal monologue kept reminding me of the place our phones were at and the mess we were placed at. The debut soon failed as the attempt was aborted altogether like our guts wanted. Among the field of transformers, we floated around like those valence electrons, in need of positive holes.

Our aimless jaunt finally, led us to the place where the engineers onsite were stationed. Hoping to not lose our place of interest in the *hippo-campus* at least, we told hurriedly of our situation to the authorities as soon as we had approached. Brothers there — confounded like us, were at least swift with their digits to ring Uncle Rick right away, after learning our plight. Enough verbal back and forths with Uncle Rick later, he had agreed to help us out.

We then met Uncle Rick — dark-skinned, rocking a beird! He was a damn auto rickshaw fellow on the outlook, who had volunteered to tag along with us to the place where our bags were.

"Hmph..auto rickshaws run everywhere, don't they?" I sighed.

Just as puzzled as we were, he too was trying to comprehend the situation being put into. Quite generous was he with his time, greasing up his mental cogs. As soon as he felt them turning, Uncle Rick said he knew some tricks up his sleeve with a sly smile. Though we could not visibly see the "tricks" up the sleeves of his khaki uniform, we at least did not inspect his cocky confidence. Even in the blistering Afternoon, Uncle Rick became our sweaty kNight in shining armour.

"Believe in him or he be-leaving us" — the thought chilled our spine as the wait tested our patience.

What felt like an eternity with our IDs on the line - i.e. the transmission lines; Uncle Rick bagged the victory. Finally with our bags on de-feet, we were thoroughly rummaging them till we felt clothed with our identities back. I shook hands with him promptly as I turned to Uncle Rick for - he saved us from being labeled as the 'illegal, exhibitionist immigrants' on a foreign land.

Being the inquisitive engineers, we were quite intrigued by the feat he had managed to achieve. Neither did he disclose the tricks employed nor hide his reasons at the site being employed too. Some chatter on our way back, he turned out to be well-adept with the electrical engineering concepts and quite hands-on. It was then — we learnt that he too was a budding Electrical Engineer intern. He rode rides on his rickshaw to make ends meet while pursuing his Masters. Shortly, he also had offered to show us around the place at a discounted price. Fellow Chennai autorickshaws would have gone on a strike after hearing Rick's fare, but a deal fair to us.

"Quite the buds we bloomed into!" as the feeling warmed me.

Felt teleported as I slowly found myself in the wake of reality, smiling from my bed — exclaiming:

"What a way to end this ex-curse-sion!"