DePP

It’s 2:30 in the morning, and the retarded laughter coming from the adjacent room, punctuated at regular intervals by some degenerate sounds which give the effect of a dying bull snorting it’s last few breaths, disturb my train of thought. I’m tearing my hair and wiping sleepy eyes, trying to come up with an accurate and politically correct description of DePP.

Oh God, chuck it.

For the noobs and whatnot who may still wonder what DePP is, let me clear the confusion.

DePP = Department of Publicity and Public Relations

I can clearly remember the sequence of events which led me to be sitting on an uncomfortably unyielding chair, writing out this inspired manuscript.

So DePP had put up this poster, inviting students for initiation into their unholy syndicate. And in all their wily and cunning ways, they had made it black and red. Black and red, as you should know, are a stunningly seductive color combination, and anything that speaks in black and red cannot be denied by anyone except those with the stoniest of hearts.

Kudos to the DePP designers. They work a lot. And well.

And thus I came to find myself in an infrequently visited lecture theatre, answering decidedly suggestive questions in a vulgar way, and coming up with profane taglines in an attempt to show my ‘creative’ publicity senses.

Fast forward a few days, and one written round plus interview later (the DePP people, ironically, are pretty selective of the poor fish that they try to reel in each year), I find myself playing mafia (and badly) with my new accomplices, waiting in turn to receive a formal piece of paper declaring that I was indeed, a member of DePP, and not just lying through my teeth.

Not exactly the holy grail, but beggars can’t be choosers.

And so I came to know more about this shady collective, like the chief of our esteemed consortium, a certain ‘Paddy’, (who had been gifted with this striking basilisk gaze which would make you cover your bosom and wish you had worn an extra layer of clothing), or of the official meetings, where the best of the DePP brains would be racking their gray cells, trying to decide whether summer somehow can be associated with blood and carnage and cakes, and whether ‘Beam me up, Scottie’ was ever spoken….

You don’t say.

In all seriousness, my nerves are still getting accustomed to doing last minute work, and I still have to remember to leave my sanity in my room when I go for our inspired meetings.

But in all fairness, DePP is a lot of fun. And we get our job done

And well.

SO join us…we have candy.

Achintya