We were a young batch of new trainee recruits numbering 33 sent to attend outstation training school in Podanur on the outskirts of Coimbatore in 1988. Coimbatore was called as Manchester of South India and definitely is not the happening city for city slickers like me. We were accommodated in a government bungalow converted into a hostel for men. One has to go to Coimbatore for seeing movies and come back to the hostel – which I did frequently. Podanur is a sleepy little town that has pleasant weather in all seasons.

To my friends, I have never let them down to bring positive source of entertainment everyday to break all dead-pan faces in our group. So I naturally had good fan following who included recruits from other parts of the state. Nights were longer in our hostel as discussions on everything from games to sex went on… sometimes till midnight. And I used to be the early bird to visit the loo and finish my ablutions and head straight to catch hold of the only morning English newspaper dropped by the newsvendor at the hostel gate. I was then among the few inmates interested in reading newspaper and moreover addicted to it.

One morning I was surprised to see my fellow trainee reading the newspaper and I asked him to lend me a page since there was little time left to attend the training class; but my friend refused to give and said you read the same page I’m now reading. I was not satisfied with his answer and quietly thought of playing a prank on him. I read “girls march naked…, and something, that was not published but aroused his interest in that news.

Pretending to be disinterested he slowly began to scan the page left, right, and top, and had gone to the bottom to get the hot news.  I slowly slipped away from his sight to the dormitory. In a few minutes the guy came running in search of me holding the page on his hand and asked, “show me where it is you read the news a few minutes back?” I quietly looked at his face and laughed at his curiosity. Boys will remain boys forever!