Three Little Pigs and many, many more

Actually, I've hardly been in Trichy since this term's started. I arrived a few days late, skived of a few more days two weeks later, and the same week, relief was brought about by a rather unexpected source of retribution on humanity. Yes, the pig has struck again, this time, with a vengeance. After starting rumours about suspected cases in college, my friend and I, I wouldn't divulge his name for security reasons, but you can read what he's got to say here, successfully started a wildfire, which successively took a more tangible form after every tree it consumed in its wake. Initially, we gave an anonymous Joe the dreaded swine flu, hoping the details would whip itself into shape, and funnily enough, we received the same rumour back again, only that our little anonymous friend now had a name, a year and his hostel mentioned. This had, sort of, exceeded our expectations, with wicked smiles of glee and lines from Shakespeare (the one about mischief being afoot and taking the course it wilts blah blah) being quoted every time someone mentioned the disease. So, panic spread, and one by one, everyone cleared the asylum, leaving the place to gather dust for the weekend. Classes got cancelled in waves of mass paranoia, with professors advising us to stay put in our rooms, words were hardly heeded to and we started sashaying about the campus celebrating the new found freedom, with frequent toasts to the lovable pig, our little sheep in wolf's clothing. However we later took a more serious stance and took off that evening, welcoming an extended weekend, a gift from the Swine God. Chennai greeted us with more paranoid losers, many wearing green underwear across their faces to protect themselves from God knows what (it'll get you anyway if it wants to, underpants or no underpants, by the way, get a life...); a meagre source of comic relief in these hard times. Anyway, I headed home with high hopes on my weekend, only to be crushed by the sensationalist harpies fluttering about in the halls of mass media, with over the top coverage and expressions of pretend seriousness on the anchors' botox stuffed faces. I know have been exiled indoors, but on the bright side, I'm at least home, away from the Sahara of college life, where clean rooms, cleaner bathrooms and a steaming cup of tea await me.