part-3

It was a usual bright morning with a constant cool breeze heading through my window from the nearby hillock. Dev and me always planned to go there for a trek but never suceeded in getting up early in the morning and jogging up to the top like rocky balboa. The window was full of stunning greens and sky-blues. Well, suddenly I realised I have 10mins left to reach college. The time when you are late[already the meeting time has past] is still comfortable; coz you know your DEAD. But when you know you have only sometime left before the meeting time;its slow, painful death. So i was undergoing the latter, with Dev still snoring and samson already in college, am sure he had politely knocked a few times and left. The day just flew past, I came back to the hostel and everybody had that excited look on their faces, unlike the dull and the expressionless stares at the common TV we had. Surprisingly we never had fights for the remote, as it was an all-guys audience we viewed quite common channels and what happened next in some crappy television sitcom was never on our minds [except ROADIES] that was one show which the entire hostel used to be present for and a full house. It used to be awesome fun to watch roadies, predict and laugh at all the stupidity as a big unit. Unity was something that was deep in our minds somewhere in some corner which would be activated if any of our hostelites was in any kind of trouble.
Hostels most awaited party was nowhere in site, but the excited air and the smiles told me somebody was upto something . Evening went by, nothing, no party. Night began and me and the now going psycho Dev[No party] tried to get some sleep, we abused SUmit[birthday boy] and slept.
Then at around 11.30 there was a knock on the door, which grew to a loud door breaking bang, we both jumped out of our beds, wait Dev was still snoring, only i jumped and kicked Dev on his butt and we both reached the door. We saw 2 of sumits pals asking us to join them below at sumits room, we both smiled the party was Onnn. THe small, really small room was too small for our big hearted/walleted summit and his 26 odd friends. Believe me there were 2 crates of smirn off khamba's then another 9 crates of beer 2 crates of RC khambas! my eyes popped out as to how the hell did this truck load of booze comin in. The answer taught me the fundamental rule of breaking in--- bribed the hostel keeper, with a quarter! We both were like what the hell! The party began with loads of music & 26 odd guys gyrating to some shady numbers. The best part about being in a hostel party is, you will not be the only suckiest dancer also the moves to "watch out" for begin after 3 pegs down, Thats pure awesome blissful rib breaking stomach blasting laugh that you can have while watching those moves. The chicken and booze was flowing and within a couple of hours everybody was high flying on the rainbow. Guys tend to get sentimental and some even start to cry, some cannot stop laughing some cant stop talking and some should not challenged or dared to do something at that point.
One of sumits friend began challengin guys for an "Arm wrestle", the wrestle began. We all started cheering for some odd reason, we were screaming each others names for some odd reason! you know something like vikram vikram vikram.. like an encore, some guys start screaming out of the balcony facing the girls hostel, got excited threw beer bottles at them [wonder how would that turn women on... forgive him he was drunk] THe Room -- There were two beds, facing each other, on the right side of the bed was the door, in front storage area and behind he balcony. There were people cheering from the storage side and from the balcony side. outside the door was the neighbouring room and opposite the neighbouring room was the common bathroom toilet.
The scene
Everybody stopped cheering. The two drunk arm wrestlers were still wrestling for sumits birthday championship tropy. Then as i looked up, Dev had vanished balcony guys were half hiding under beds, some hanging out of the balcony and people were running helter skelter. but the arm wrestling continued!! On one of the biceps came a beige colored stick. THe arm wrestler just flicked the stick and abused in Hindi and continued his fight to glory. THe guy holding the stick abused and gave one "ssmAck" on the guys head, It was a COP>!! and yes i peed a little. They were every where!
I just did not know, whether to jump off the balcony in the arms of the girls hostel matron or give the pandu a head butt, i was just plain lost. The Game was over as soon as it had started. I simply got up [ sometimes its not me who reacts in super panic mode,its my subconsious, i am a mere witness to the happening; as in this case] Brushed past the pandu who was busy abusing the arm wrestler, excused another near the neighbouring room who was pulling guys from below the bed and ran upstairs for my life. Of course in the room Dev was pretending to sleep and not opening the door, I changed his surname with an abuse and he opened it quickly. He apologised that he came up alone, he said i was too engrossed cheering, he saw the first hostel kid running up the stairs shouting polic police with his up accent and he ran up! I asked him to relax and told him everything will be alright. We saw a mob control tata 407 complete with bars and hand cuffs ready for arrests. We saw sumit and his room mate and a couple of arm wrestlers being taken away for the night. when they stopped. I didnt understand, then they removed sumits hand cuffs and let him and his friends go, i heard sumit going door to door asking something. He came up to us and asked for some monetary help as the cop had seen the arrangemments for the party and guessed the party belonged to a richie rich. He opened a bbiggg mouth of 10k for bribe. I had 500bucks! samson had 1k we put it in, and our hostel owner came in and spoke of a 50:50[news after the scene] with the cops and said he had reduced the bribe 8k! We also had loads of jokes as to how a couple of guys locked themselves in the bathroom and peed. Some were hiding on the balcony ledge and could see girls in their rooms[complete lie, we tried that] Some hiding in sumits closet and neighbouring rooms closet some in the toilet. It was hillarious, awesome fun.

Sumit bailed out his friends next day and cops got lawyered by his DAd. The scene was controlled and sumit and his friends lived happily ever after!

But it did leave an unremovable imprint on my mind and the fear comes up whenver i see rave parties being busted and innocent fun loving kids being caught by cops.

(Continued)- Part 2

The day began with the usual hustle for the bathroom, carrying my tooth brush and other toileteries, completed my morning chores in like 10mins. Dev was never allowed to go in either the bthroom or the toilet till 9am, till everyone left. He used take a bath for 40 mins and the loo for atleast another 30mins Later that day, the chat about colelge life began, of course the interesting opposite sex talk started. Funny thing, like chicks in a girls hostel talk about guys, we guys at a boys hostel fantasise about girls. Dev tells me about his new found love! He kept on boring me with all her details and her quirky name [ wont reveal]. Days past and this chandigarh ka sardar couldnt gather courge for the final proposal. He started getting competition for the same chick, Panick set in. I said i wanted to meet her, wanted to know if she was the serious types.

The day arrived, Dev, me and his new found love whom he had not proposed, met.

She was a homely kid of a girl. The kind whom you will take home to meet your parents, I was really happy for dev. There was a sense of positivity in the whole environment, Spoke to her about pune, her college and her friend circle, whether she likes to party. Well liked all the answers and Dev was busy staring at her. Dev was set for life, after 3 years he is still seeing that girl. *Touch wood*

Samson was a teetotaler, Never had a girlfriend!! But a soft spoken, kind hearted, nice guy. He was just over-awed with the fact that me and dev were going around with girls, Going for dinners, buying new clothes whenever we had money, saw all the latest movies, ate at the best of the restraunts, Partied whenever we wanted and were the "Fun to be with" guys. Here, Sam got up at 7 am, got ready by 7.45 am, reached college by 7.50 am. Ate Lunch at 12.05 Pm, Came back to the hostel at 5.25pm and Wore his ganji and track pant at 6.00pm. He ate his dinner at 9.00pm and slept everday at 10.00pm.! Can you beat that!!!

Well my landlord was Jayesss bhai. He took a deposit from me 50k!! which was refundable after a year. But for some unfortunate reason I had to leave within 2months. he did not give me even 10 bucks back!!! We did not have a mess. ate at all possible messes around and got bored within 2months. But the freedom to eat wherever whatever and whenever was incredulous.

The epitome of ludicrous behaviour in my hostel life was reached during sumit's birthday. Sumit- He was a rich lucknowi laywers son, who smoked cigarettes and told us stories of his grandpa dying smoking his last one. Sumit was one of those "I-Know-it-all-of - course-am-bloddy-rich" kinda guy, he always stepped ahead and helped anybody with a money crunch. His dad wired him 25-30k every month for his monthly expenses, this was money enough for him to support atleast 3 of his friends. Sumits birthday was coming up in a days, the entire hostel was excited, wondering about the party. Boy! was it party to remember!

(To be continued)

Home away from Home

The day begins with a surprise! Well, for starters this is not your room!? why are clothes hanging from the cieling on a nylon rope!! why is there a window on the wall with your bed??!! The brain after getting a hang of the surroundings realises, Dude, You are in your hostel!!
The last time i was in a hostel, it was in pune 3 years ago. I lived in a properly painted, with a cupboard, study desk, storage area a bath room toilet between 3 guys [including the neighbour-single occupant] AND wait for it, a wall away, GIRLS HOSTEL...! legendary. The first checklist of a hostel was cleared in my brain and my parents were happy with the cleanliness as well. Everything set, the next big question was the room partner. The "what if" list began; what if :

• He stole money, clothes, valuables!
• HE was a drunkard
• He was a Drug addict
• Gay! [honestly, it was my what if. Dude, you sleep at night with that guy, on a different bed of course!]

The other problem was that guy was yet to come from his native place. o i had a good 1 week before i met him. So the suspense began, the what if list, me getting ready for the worst of the kind etc. My neighbour was a not tall, really dark, and not the best looking, family-packed [not six-packed] malyali from jaipur. Samson Verghese. We clicked as good friends from the moment we started talkin after the akward pauses that you have when you meet someone for the very first time. We had a another set of neighbours with whom we[me sam and my roomie-whos' about to come] had a tough time dealing with for illogical reasons. The remaining hostel was full of boys from various colleges and wer about 3-4 years younger, but overall an awesome lot. we had a lot of delhites and couple of haryanaites,so therefore lot of parties and good times. The day of my room partners arrival came, everybody was tensed at home, me and my other friends. He arrived, behind him came a tempo! all the guys of the hostel were bent over their balconies and sticking their faces out of their windows. I never knew this guy is going to be one of the many great friends that i will know.

My roomie was Devanshu Aggarwal, from chandigarh. That guy was a rich baniya, but a spendthrift baniya. Tall, fair and north-indian good looks, he was a soft-spoken but street smart fellow. THe moment we started talking I realised we both had our own "What-if" lists and we were trying to gauge each other in terms of actions and talks. Post a week we were cool with each other and started our "shikari" phase. We used to come back to the hostel chat about chicks and the way pune was sad i nterms of the girl popultion. We did not know how wrong were we and what was in store for us...

(to be continued)

Friends

While working on a project for a company in Nashik, Kumar Gaurav pinged on gtalk," dude i read ur blogs but a blog for friends please" That was a friend with whom i have been in touch since std.2! By far the oldest that I have.
I am currently pursuing my MBA so i have traversed a long way in terms of all the compulsory social entangelments that we go through called educational institutions!.. You like or not you have to go through school, High School, Junior College and finally Degree college, In my case Post graduation.
For some there are mesmerising memories of these institutions, for some remain "Friends".
I read a lot of verbal diahorrea by Indian and mostly European authors I understood and could use words to describe myself as an "Acquired Taste" I guess very few people had the patience to develope that taste.
The naturally developed automated process of filtering people around really helped me to achieve an amazing set of human beings around me. Believe me the kind of positivity and Confidence that I gain is just plain inspirational. My definition of friends for me recieved another dimension during my teens, "Time" taught me "acquaintance!". Learning it the Hard way has been my experience always! But i learnt it right. I had a lot of experience of games played, back stabbing, public humiliation by "friends". It just made me tougher, All I thought wa " BRing it on!"
You dont "Need" Friends, They're just like angels above your shoulder, watching, showing signs and the way ahead.
i'll be there for you.........
P.S..I party HARD and have my own circle of party-goers.

Life - my philosophies

I have lived life to the fullest, I have lived through nightmares that turned out to be my own destiny. I have gone through bad bosses, gujju traders, worst colleagues, back stabbing, bad relations, Money crunch. Whesn i look back i feel it was a crash course on what should not happen. I went through all of that came out a winner, came out with a lot of unmovable, unmistakable prejudices and thoughts. These were not even accepted by people older than me in the same course!!
The characters involved my experiences are coming back, first i thought may be to haunt me, but then i realised its time to apply the learnings i had arrived at after those life altering situations. I dont trust people easily now, I dont take crap from people who dont have any credibility to talk. For me i have formed an inner guarding circle which is very very close to my heart.
Over the time I have realised, family are default settings in your life and friends, lovers are not created nor are they roped in with some special antiques. They just happen, you "CLICK" or you dont. How much ever hard you try, you cannot achieve which is not in your destiny. Yes, i beleive in destiny, in an algorithm pre-written by a supernatural force. I beleive in living in the moment.
I also believe, Opportunities come your way, you grab them with both your hands. You are nobody to CREATE opportunity. Opportunity is the platform you get to showcase your hardwork and dedication.