Operation Ra.One: The Mass Bunk That Wasn't

There is a statute of limitations for all the transgressions we committed in Sainik School, right? I certainly hope so. If not, I am likely to implicate quite a few of my batchmates by the end of this story.

First, I would like to set some context – about bunking, the ‘Pièce de résistance’ of all the school-time rebellious activities.

You start by hearing about it in whispers: The myths, the legend, the fables. Seniors traversing seemingly unbendable rules to go beyond seemingly insurmountable compound walls to explore an illusory world that was constantly denied to you.

With each passing year, you gain nuggets that demystify the whole process – the timings, the routes, the hoodwinks, the pleasure and, most alluringly, the food.

Finally, a window of opportunity opens up for you to take the leap, literally. In our time, this usually happened when we reached the 10th standard. As the senior-most in the junior houses, we had some leeway to operate with.

But there were enough pitfalls to deal with – in addition to house leaders and masters, and the Officers, there was also the threat of seniors snaffling you midway.

I am not going to divulge how exactly we extricate ourselves from the dormitories. Wouldn’t want to damage the prospects of any current or future students. All I can say is that it involves some bruising midnight gymnastics.

And then there was the prospect of trekking some 5/6 km to reach Kazhakootam town, which was yet to become the bustling IT hub it is now. All it had to offer to us were two ramshackle restaurants – Maloos and Mahadeva – and a dilapidated movie theatre named Krishna.

The materialistic intent of bunking was usually simple – savouring the humble porotta along with a curry (invariably beef). But, of course, there was subtext to the whole endeavour. A desire to establish one’s ‘manliness’ by going for the unattainable, a drive to break the rigid boundaries imposed by the system.

And thus in 2011-12, our batchmates finally began to ‘explore’ the world beyond school compounds under the night sky. There were, of course, a few regulars, who guided the not-so-daring ones – like myself – through the treacherous exercise; offering a crisp salute to my masters (one of whom is, ironically, now a criminal lawyer).

It was in this era of our lives that a certain Mr. Shah Rukh Khan announced his dream project – Ra.One. That movie stirred a collective excitement that I have rarely since experienced.

To give due credit to SRK and his team, they had tuned the movie’s promotional strategy to perfection. The trailer promised a visual spectacle that Indian cinema had never seen before, layered on a theme of gamification – a perfect cocktail for our teenage brain.

The rapidly churning hype soon turned into an itching urgency to catch the movie in the theatre as soon as it was released. But as we were bang in the middle of the school term, this was out of the question.

This is where the above-mentioned Krishna Theatre came into the picture. It was sourced from our regular ‘outgoing’ friends that the facility had, on occasion, screened a few late-night shows for big releases. To our jubilation, Ra.One was set for the same treatment.

And thus we went on to formulate the biggest adventure of our days. I don’t recall the plan’s origin, nor can I place a central orchestrator. But the preparation chugged along seamlessly – even guys who had never broken the lights-off curfew signed on gleefully – with an unsaid code of secrecy binding us all.

Finally, D-Day arrived. While the rest of the school slipped into deep sleep, we were writhing in excitement. As the pre-planned time arrived, we silently dropped off our beds, filed out of the dormitories and began our march.

There were a lot of debutants that night. One of those novices made the mistake of wearing a white jersey, prompting a veteran to ask him to change to a darker shade. Early lessons in camouflage.

But the true scale of the mass bunk hit us only when we had finally assembled in front of the unlit theatre. If my memory is correct, there were around 30 of my batchmates out there in the tattered streets of Kazhakootam – nearly one-third of our batch. This included the usual suspects, model students, then-Corporals, future school appointments: the whole bunch. All risking a potential suspension just to watch a movie.

Awaiting us, though, was one of the cruellest twists of our young lives. The theatre manager, after shaking off the startle of seeing 30 malnourished young guys with despicable crew cuts at midnight, said that he would run the show only if there were at least 50 people.

Our desperate pleas fell on deaf ears as the manager insisted on his policy, which we all believed was a self-made one. Fearing the repercussions if we pushed too hard, we slowly stumbled out of the theatre premises, wondering what to do next.

Slowly, we were all hit with the realisation that we had pulled off this daring mass bunk for nothing. In consolation, we traded our ticket money for some crispy porotta and spicy beef curry. Not a bad deal after all.

Soon we trudged our way back to school and to our beds, sapped by disappointment, while the bitter reality of the impending morning PT session loomed on us.

A more observant house appointment or a PT master would probably have smelt out our collective infraction from our bloodshot eyes and droopy demeanour at the next day’s 6 a.m. roll call. But there were no consequences, except for some sleep deprivation and general sheepishness.

Within a few weeks we all learnt that Ra.One had failed to live up to its promise, slightly sullying our regret. At a personal level, I have refused to watch that particular movie ever since – an irrational, yet determined protest against that nameless Krishna Theatre manager, whose unfairness that night can only be matched by his steadfastness.