Minor Grievances

Out of all the fond memories I have of my first year warden, Mr. Sanjiv Chandran, one particular memory stands out high above the rest.

It was the starting of my second sem. Tapan, my then-sidee, had just got a new comp and had set it up, and Harsh, his roomie, was particularly eager to play the game Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. So, at his behest, I'd gotten my copy of the game, and we were installing the game on Tapan's comp with the door wide open and game music pouring out of the speakers, when our beloved warden walks in.

Now let me outline the positions of all the players in this scenario. Harsh was sitting in a chair at the comp, peering at the screen, while I was next to him and maneuvering through the game's installation screens. Tapan was behind us somewhere, doing his own thing. Chandran walks in, and stares at Harsh for a couple of minutes, and Harsh stares back, unable to move, akin to a deer caught in the headlights of an incoming truck.

"What are you doing?"

"Installing a game... Sir," Harsh manages to speak.

"Get up."
(If this were a baseball game, this would be strike 1 against Mr. Chandran.)

Harsh gets up, and Mr. Chandran kicks the chair behind. And I kid you not here, he literally kicked it back. Then he opened his mouth to say something, and realized that the music would undermine his soprano, so he ordered us to stop the music.

Now, the game had chosen this time to ask us to insert the next disk, and Tapan's hands were probably shaking, so he couldn't quite manage to exit the installer. All this time, Harsh was mumbling something I don't quite remember. Anyways, Mr. Chandran finally got tired of the music and switched the comp off from the mains.
That was strike 2.

Unfortunately for him, he probably had no knowledge of what a UPS is, because to his everlasting amazement the computer refused to switch off and instead started beeping, which only aggravated him further. He got apopelectic with rage and started yelling at us. Fortunately, Harsh had the presence of mind to switch off the speakers and switch the mains back on.

After this Mr. Chandran proceeded to threaten us with, progressively, suspension, expulsion and deportation, as was (and is) his norm. And then he picked up Tapan's 8k TFT monitor with two fingers and threated to throw it at him.
That was strike 3.

And this is just one example of what Mr. Chandran does. In my first year, he wouldn't let us:
1) Sit in one room and talk
2) Sit in one room and watch a movie
3) Walk around in the hostel wearing shorts
4) Play music
5) Watch movies (even alone)
6) Play computer games

All of the aforementioned activities had to be carried out in a clandestine fashion, with sentries posted to warn us if the warden were to be sighted.

Mr. Chandran is still here, and from what I hear he still rules over his hostel inmates the way a prison warden rules over the prisoners. In the aforementioned game of baseball, Mr. Chandran would have been out at strike 3, with a probability of him losing his job for
a) Invasion of personal privacy
b) Threatening a person with damage to him or his personal property
c) Alienation of our basic human rights provided by the constitution

Ok, so maybe not the third one, but he was definitely out on the first two counts.

So why am I writing this here? Well, I don't know, guess I'm just venting. And plus, I hear that several BITSian profs regularly monitor BITSian blogs looking for miscreants washing the institute's dirty laundry in public, so...