The Fountain - Head

I don't know why, when, how or who was ingenuous enough to have undertaken the task to scratch the 'C' from every inscription titled " Clover construction" engraved on cement benches to accomodate the tired bottoms of hard working students. It must have been quite painstaking but the effort produced the desired result, which means that 1 out of every 3 individuals observed the work of art and almost every body forgot it the very next moment for it represented the most striking example of unoriginality . Honestly the whole show wasn't actually invidious , only a little low on genuine humour.
After attending our lectures for the day which ended at say around 10 a.m. or 0010 hours , we used to head out to a spot which was quite strategically located in the college premises. Since none of us had anything better to do , except for of course watching a movie or going to a new eatery to order and eat the same old things, we all decided to make that spot our "place of zen" as one of us later called it( God knows why) .
There is a rather long cemented enclosure ( painted with colours which do not match with anything else on the premises) which contains a couple or more of small taps supposed to eject water at the appropriate time so as to be called a fountain.
It is another thing that those devious little truants never actually splashed a drop of that liquid , at least not when when we were around them. Some hostelers do tell me tales of them fountains being really beautiful when they do work, which happens quite rarely ( giving Hailey's comet a run for it's money). The last time when anyone saw them behaving as they technically should, was when a committee of a few persons had come over to our institution to accredit it. I think they liked the fountain , after all we were given the highest grade available on the platter.

Anyways, this fountain(which is not actually one) is not important per se, but becomes so because of the topographical features it gives rise to , quite inadvertently of course, on the premises. Firstly it creates a semi-circular track of sorts for vehicles to ply on, including those which should not have entered the gate in the first place. I never could understand as to why the guard who was supposed to man the gate always stood on the exit end of the semicircle and not the entry point. But why not? After all it is far easier to collect the parking fee when people leave than to be continuously worried about someone making a slow motion yet non-stationary circumlocution of the semi circle to perform an errand. The fountain also served as natural compass for all those who pretended that they were quite lost when it came to finding the lecture halls or the library. To the north of the fountain's top most tip lay the college library and reading room. It is quite interesting to note that at any point of time the number of people who were standing outside the library was always equal to or greater than the number of people inside them. Most of them(who stood outside ) were actually those fellows who had taken a break from their intense research work to attend a call from someone who was standing outside the cinema hall getting confused whether or not to take the platinum row for the evening show of a movie which no one was sure about (qualitatively).
To the fountain's left lay the ladies parking which always bore a deserted look.beyond it was the Sports field which fielded God knows who, for whatever they were they weren't students from our college.
To the fountain's right was the college canteen. Always swarming with people. For as long as I can remember providing it with a permanent roof never quite made it to the priority list of the college authorities. It's yellow coloured tarpaulin roof added colour to the college premises.

Needless to say ( And specially if you have been to a legal drafting lecture where a sale deed was (badly)drafted) to the south was the public road. Quite busy. We managed to witness many incidents on that road, ranging from minor accidents and major brawls to well intentioned peace processions where 98765432 candles were wasted to support something which no one really had any idea about.
So the question is....where did we place ourselves to observe all this and much more? For it was to explain our den's location that the fountain was brought into the picture. Before I go on to describe that location and please it's not a secret hideout , let me briefly and without breaking the vow of anonymity present you with the ingredients of " we". We were a group of 7 persons, human beings if you like. 3 of us belonging to the fairer sex ( no racist intent). All were comparatively free creatures , none hard pressed with any impending deadline. This was because of different reasons to be sure. While the females had utilized 4 of their 5 years quite fruitfully and hence could afford to relax a little, the same could not not be said for the others who had always managed to cheat work and other such organisms by adopting a cynical attitude towards labour and ambition. Ok I admit it, I was the the most indolent specimen out there or may be the only . Whatever it was the bottomline is that for most part of the final year we spent majority of our free time sitting on a rather long low and flat pedestal which supported nothing and at best marked the semicircular track's boundary. That was it , that was our Fountain head. And it did harbour us in pretty rough times.