my seventh..

We were the baap of all students now.. final years..seventh sem..no uno joke!.. no seniors to look up to and no more being looked down at.. the juniors were all ours.. heh..

Firstly, to anyone who might not follow the system of fresher welcoming in the hostels of tkm.. must tell you that hostellers got 'welcomed' in their second year.. because they were kept in the warmth and comfort of the warden's rules for the first 10 months or so.. well, so it is, where every other second year elsewhere is ragging the balls of at some junior, these poor souls.. ah well... never mind the poor souls..

Final year started with a frenzy of activity.. the famed accreditation team frm ND was finally coming.. We'd been heaing about these characters since time immemmorial.. Our classrooms and hostels were repainted God alone knows how many times for their benefit, labs were spruced up, campus was beautified, the dogs were shooed away, the computers in the labs finally started working.. life was good! And given the 'encouraging' history of the royal mech way of common behaviour, it was no surprise when we were asked to be on our best behaviour for a few weks and perhaps months.. Roshan sir gave us a brief talk on general accreditation funda.. "don't wear T shirts", said he" especially ones which say 'kiss me here; lick me there' " I don't know why, but everyone was staring at me as he said those words. Now i swear i never wore any suc T shirt, and i doubt whether anyone in kollam would be found in possession of such a garment. However, i did have a rather different collection of Ts, which were uncommon in the campus.. For instance there was one which showed 4 different sexual intercourse positions, though very sublte and discreet, and i'd even worn it into the princi's office, i guess he was like garfied.. too 'busy' to notice anything.. :D (PG mathews once saw a very decent T of mine and told me to wear it to parties..and to wear shirt to college. dress codes in colleges.. which era do these people live in.. i ask u!!) Nevertheless, everyone was pretty amazed when i turned up in 'decent' shirts day after day.. (they'd probably faint if i wore them for a month on the trot)

The big day arrived. things were pretty cool.. sharma sir was running up and down the department, showing the team the labs, etc(which were in top condition.. am proud to point out) param bhai was everywhere, roshan kumar was fabulously handling it all.. until the mehra guy form iitD decides to spring a surprise on johm m george Jr's welding technology class.. He had to deviate from his usual procedure.. and things took an ugly turn when he asked us to answer some q's..since we didn't have many.. (gawk) no one seemed to know anything.. Sir at the top of the class was glistening with fresh perspiration ("he was pissing mad", to quote george alex, who always found something to laugh about in everything) . However, the day wouldn't be one that wasn't saved eventually..
He was the most irregular student of the college in terms of attendance and exams. He had enterd class probably thrice or so in the last couple of months. But that didn't deter renji from shooting admirable replies to the dude from delhi, who was not unimpressed.. john m george, who probably was seeing renji for the first time, beamed like a baby.. and i believe renji never had a problem with duty leaves after that!

The dream and plan of the All india trip was slowly taking shape soon after these turn of events.. It was a dream come truish thing for me as well. We were tripping mumbai - delhi - simla - etc.. couldn't believe i'd finallly get to meet up moon, ch and sank..

FFD to mumbai..the place was crawling with great looking damsels. It was a fashion parade at every corner. the deprived tkmc mechers had theirtongues lolling at every other corresponding.. jty actually tried to follow a drunk babe and returned with an aching hole..but thats a different story..It was altogether nothing short of awesome to be in a new place like mumbai and find our ways towherever..god bless the suburban railway!
However there was nothing like the trip hg and i took.. from colaba to juhu to catch the death metal concert in full blood.. we met the guys of myndsnare, easily the tightest band that night.. after a totally devastating headbanging-few-hours (we didn't follow death metal, but that didn't stop me from getting a sore neck anyway, by Toutatis..)
Soon the touch down @delhi..I detatched myself and made my way to the moon.. met up ch and sank in sank's car..took me around the sights and hangouts of south del.. and i realised how talkitive dames can be when it matters.. quite honestly i felt like being in a basketful of puppies, but i can't deny i wasn't bored.. [:D]
Later, i met up with the VVVVVVVIP.. the kli.. the sweetest thing thats happened to the family in 26 years.. whats more it was also my 21st b'day.. what else can i say.. touche!to myself!! sudiptoda came over to 41-a, the cake got smeared all over my front.. had THE most awesome dinner, had one of my best birthdays ever.. met up tuks soon after..caught lunch with her and moon..it's been ages.. Stint in delhi also included the trip via agra, to witness the greatest erection a man had ever made for a woman.. i'm talking about the Taj Mahal..what were u thinking.. naughty!! but it did feel like something had punched the wind out of the midrif when i looked at the marble...

After another few days of travel, including arduous road trip thru mountains and narrow guage trains, we found ourselves in a totally heavennly place.. 7 in the morning..standing in my pyjamas, and feeling the falling snow from the balcony..manali had arrived..the feeling was like a new lease of life.. it perked up the mind immensely, not unlike what the fresh drop of dew would feel on a morning flower..

The trip got over finally, with all the bearded devdasae returning to ente keralam..back to the familiar coconut trees and the picturesque lungis..i was sorry the trip was over, but theres no place like home!!

contd. frm wher.am.i.how.....

and so kau went to kollam....

well.. it all seems to have happened just the other day.. yet it seems such a long time ago that i got the all important transfer.. it feels very snug now, to sit at home and go over all those memories again.. with hawkmoon268 by U2 playing in my ears..

the moment i recieved the uty order abt the transfer, i called chak and gave him the news.. i guess he was a little cheesed at having got the transfer with me behind.. he was on the way back from klm when he got the call.. he jumped off the bus at skm and ran to my house.. wearing boots and all.. never mind the corns!!
he entered to find me humming 'take me down to the paradise city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty..' .. an unexpected celebration later, when the dust settled i went around clearing all them formalities for the take off..

The first few days at tkm were nightmare... it was a rapid change from the easy going govt office set up to the strict school like dicipline suffered by the 2nd years of tkm.. they expected you to have separate notebooks for each subject, and if that wasn't punishment enough, one had to turn them in for valuation as well! Boy, it was too unbelievable.. but then it was too bad to be false.. I moved in at sreebhavan, hostel for juniors, us, who were in the wings to be moved to a new hostel.. met sgp,tenny,nambiar,hg,jty,rohit,shaheer,buji,and SHON, the ace at six string! this guy was aweome,it was the first time i saw a guitar being played like a pro..live.. the excitement was brimming.. I couldn't wait to get together with this guy and jam the guts off!! Any doubts on his alleged rythm problem was soon rubbished by me.. Initiative began to creep in..All i needed to realise my college dream of rocking live was a drum guy..which turned out to give me a long wait....Anyway, having hg around was a real break.. he was one of the few peopl there with who i could speak hindi without a care in the world.. he didnt care about the mistakes i made, and it ws all ease!!

He was pretty perturbed during the hostel allotments for shajik..i soon realized why.. it was something we'd never shake off.. but it all turned out ok in the end.. well, almost..had to deal with wet blanket for greater part of college life.. something i never got used to..and don't intend to either,now that college life is over.. second year was awesome.. after the MoS training i'd given hg in sreebhavan, he never ceased to drum impossible concepts of royal engineering into my skull.. we also discovered music.. i infused the metal and rock bug into hg.. and it took the hair off the head of jty..it started with dave mustaine's latest dishouts, and moved on later to other things.i also got a first hand experience of the reason for calling the mess a mess.. the food looked inviting, but that was about the only plus i can offer about it..but yeah, the beef roast used to be great!!

Academics wasn't too smooth in the first instance either. I landed up in tkm bang at the begining of the series tests. It was pretty rough. I did have the option of skipping the thingie this time and re-appearing later, but i was brave, and took the risk.. and plummetted.. royally! It didn't do the morale much good either. I'd stay up all nihgt to complete some cursed lab record, only to wake up to a strike in the college. Or an objection from the lab supervisor who didn't know more than I did about anything in the lab. But one has to take certain things in the stride, (and crib about them later.. hhee)
Also met asha. The meeting totally surprised a lot of people. A shake hand was totally out of place in a place like this, where men and women usually maintained a good 2 feet distance between skins of different sexes..(Rakesh still takes my trip on this..heheh)

Socialising with the fairer sex took a back seat during the second year.. chak kep telling me about ajash..and he kept telling her about me, but we never met in that year.. And most importantly, our chief source of recreation: Liseux Bhavan, the girls convent hostel just a compound across the shajik balcony.. The occasional sight of the flutter of a nightdress was enough to humour our simple young souls.. and so it was, they'd sometimes appear on the terrace, somtimes in the windows, and once we saw a meagre bathroom scene.. but pshhh!!!
Fast fwd to third year.. new year.. new profs, new hostel.. Socialisation was better this year.. met and made quite a few friends and acquaintances..and most importantly, new location for the classroom.. (we could communicate more with the fairer thing this way.. things were definitely improving) The new hostel was a vast improvement over the cramped lifestylee of shajik. More room, greater dilution of blanket wetness.. lol.. We shared the floor with a gang of the mast mech seniors..

jeevan,zach,pattalam,midhun,podiyan,jaleel,vinod,sandeep,parpi,aashiq,anoopda,sumitro, shaiju,reni,iype.. too many to type.. Jeevan was a real break from the mundane part of life. His attempts at ragging were quite a grin, and so were his attempts at magic..one thing hg,jty and i wont forget for sure is the vanishing shaft trick!!
The first trip away from home came soon..the south India tour.. We rocked goa, blr, and chennai.. the trip took the toll on some of our healths, but hell, it was worth all the crap.. yeah even the gastroenteritis!!

I soon got my first chance to get on stage..got a little practise with shon..jty forced in with some emotional blackmail..but it didn't work out to much.. No one could hear us perform, not even me for gawd sakes.. i got a handful of 50ps at my feet, while there was a well directed fiver into jty's ear at full tilt!! That was my first experience of the rock lover's reaction in tkm..which is to say, i doubted seriously whether there were any at all! However, i was all but itching to get a plugged show on.. unpluggedbe damned!!
Consummacy showed up around the corner.. Got a first hand experience of the kind of work that goes behind organizing an event. The hitch here was that renji did it all, mostly single handed.. :-O I was with him on some occasions, for instance the one after the rockshow when our car broke down at 2 in the morning in the middle of nowhere!! The consummacy rock show is probably one of my most precious moments. 3 bands showed up.. great one for a start!! We couldn't have the dances that year though.. thanks to some crazy issue regarding cultural activity in the college, consummacy had to be held at Sana auditoruim. the trouble was that the people of the neighbourhood had it with the decibels from the rock show.. that brought the events to an ugly full stop..

That was second and third years for me.. It wasn't too uneventful.. But yeah, it was paving the way to a more eventful final year.. both in and out of college!! keep watching this space.. (whoever is, that is!!)

garage blues

hey folks..

this is an article i'd written for durga pooja souvenier.. trivandrum bengali association.. note.. its a real life exp.. here goes..

Garage Blues

Having visitors is always interesting. I put it as interesting because one can never classify them under one adjective, hence the general term. They could be fun, they could be talkative, exciting, friendly, boring, sleepy, smart, jovial, formal, quiet, fidgety, noisy and sometimes musical. However, the other day, I realized that the above set of adjectives was kind of incomplete. It is rather trying to assign an adjective to the experience, hence I am going to narrate the events of that fine sunny Saturday morning.

Nine am found me in the garage busy wiping off the dust the car had collected over the last week or so. Baba and Didu were checking out channel DD7 Bangla, Ma was just cleaning up after breakfast. That was when the visitor turned up. I was the first to receive him, or perhaps I should say, it. It came slithering in under the garage door, with two dogs and five puppies after it, and made for my bicycle, which was also in the garage. I have remembered from childhood this basic procedure to follow in times of crisis, which is to keep one's cool and not panic at any cost. This is precisely what I did while trying to distance myself from the guest and alerting the folks. That is to say, I jumped on top of the car, and yelled at the top of my lungs, "snake, snake!" That, as you might have anticipated, was more than sufficient to get the household on their toes, rouse the neighbours, and dent the roof of the car.

I remember reading somewhere, that a good writer always gives his or her readers a bird's eye's view of the proceedings, even though majority of these readers are not birds, by any stretch of imagination. Never mind, this is what the garage looked like two minutes later:

The dogs which were chasing the reptilian visitor were now engaged in barking their heads off at it and at the same time were trying to keep the puppies away from it, possibly explaining to them in barks that snakes are dangerous. The snake had taken refuge behind the rear wheel of the bicycle and was standing its ground bravely, although confronted with seven dogs and as many humans. Baba had picked up a relatively long haata (serving spoon) and was standing outside the garage. Didu was trying to convince Baba from behind that a haata was no weapon to use against a five foot long snake and at the same time trying to explain to us how garlic can be used to keep snakes away. Passers by had stopped in their tracks and had joined the audience, which was growing in size by the minute. Ma was shouting at me from the other side of the gate, over the din of the barking dogs, asking me to come out of the garage and asking Didu to stay indoors, and I, as you already know was perched on top of the car, taking in the rare sight of a snake and seven dogs having a shouting match, the latter having the upper hand obviously.

Help soon arrived in the form of three labourers who offered their services in relieving us of the snake. They gathered long sticks (definitely more effective than a 'haata') and advanced cautiously into the garage. I could not but help thinking of the snake's predicament. What if I had been in its place?!?! Being faced with seven barking dogs, with nine people peering at you over a wall, plus three men approaching you armed with long sticks are undoubtedly signs that things are not going too well for you. Had I been the snake, I would have legged it and looked for refuge more reliable than the rear wheel of a bicycle. This is precisely what the snake did. It found an opening and deftly slid through, and into our underground water sump. The three labourers, not to be deterred found longer sticks and began fishing in the water. After a good deal of 'fishing' they managed to extract the snake from its watery asylum and disposed of it in a nearby pond. They then informed us that the snake was a harmless specimen called chera which lives largely on rats and frogs.

Then of course, it was paytime. The three labourers demanded a sum that would do justice to their efforts. Needless to say, in their eyes, not even the most impossible of sums settled by us would seem to suffice. They argued saying if we didn't pay up to their amount, they wouldn’t come to help anymore even if our house was festooned with snakes. Baba, bargaining for all he was worth reasoned with them saying the snake did not belong to us and that it was still at large! The scene got pretty amusing in the end and soon the little party was laughing heartily! The meeting eventually dispersed on cordial terms.

Harmless or not harmless, you will agree that our visitor de reptilia certainly gave us an eventful morning! Right. So where was I? Yes! My list of adjectives for describing visitors is kind of incomplete. Whether I can find one to describe that morning or not is anybody's guess, I think...

haata - serving spoon/ladle
baba - bangla for father
didu - bangla for grandmother

wher.am.i.?.how.did.i.get.here.?

This, my freinds(read whoever might be reading this) is no mean task.. On one hand there are poor souls like ourselves who are burdened with all the seemingly unneccessary and criminally challenging work/homework/other work/ work ups/ and blah! I used to crave for these moments that i am currently enjoying, or supposed to be enjoying.. but i guess the grapes weren't that sweet.. even if i managed to get there!!

here i am, after finishing with the 4 years of college life.. and all i'm doing at the moment is growing my hair and sitting on my hindquarters. And while i was in college, all we used to think was, when do i get outta here and get to sit on my a-- and do nothing... well, nostalgia doesn't exactly rock.. but hey that was my 4 years of glory.. but what of that... all i was doing all day was to ruminate on them years.. and i also want to start writing in this bloggy of mine.. ha..

All my desires of getting out of kerala were dashed the moment i got the results of my engg. entrance.. it dawned on me that i'd either have to do it all over again, or stay in this same place which i'd been in for 17 years.. and so i did..
Got admitted in gec barton hill... a surprisingly small college, considering it was a full fledged govt. college..(we were told later it was in hte process of growing and we'd be only the third batch to be passing out) My buddy from school, chak was also there with me in my new class.. (chak and i go back till our days in the primary.. ) thanks to his pushing and putting words in my small mouth, i was 'unanimously' elected class representative on my first day in college.. little did i know what i was letting myself in for.. not that i had a lot to choose from , i happened to be the only one candidate.. but then.. heh.. we loyolites do not shirk.. !! cheer loyola sonz!!
Started the college life brimming with energy.. seniors put up some kind of a drama indicating what a dreadful place this was for the freshers.. but it turned out pretty well .. excluding a few nutters we had some real swell seniors..

well, we weren't 'rayal' mechs for nothing.. and we soon made our presence felt in college.. out to make a statement.. the most outrageous batch of 58 guys and 1 girl was here to get noticed.. outrageous? u may ask.. well, we began by clearing up a bit of a jungle place by bringing gardening tools from our respective homes and hacking and cutting at a lot of bushes shrubs and 'treelings'.. (un poetic licence.. if i may) and there we were.. we announced ourselves with a swish of huge scissors and blades... and beautifying a corner of the ol' colege.. (it didn't last.. they dug it up againand made the bus shed there.. but thats another story)

enter chemistry.. (engineering chemistry, do not misunderstand) my memory fails me as to what the teacher's name was.. but man, her voice sounded like a pin dropping.. and would make disgruntled noises sometimes.. ladies and gentle men.. the most uninteresting class of the lot.. something had to give..

it happened finally... a disagreement over some kind of assignment snowballed into collective BAWL from the 58 brats and the one sweet gal.. and it was heard all over the college.. maek.. when i say all over the college, i mean all over the college.. i feel sad now.. we'd woken up the seniors who were catching a few winks in a strength of materials class.. if any of u seniors is reading this.. please accept my profoundest apologies!!

Mr. Rajat (BME lecturer) was munching thoughtfully on his home cooked lunch as i entered his staffroom.. "what the hell do you think your class was doing?" demanded he.. I was bewildered, wondering what he was having for lunch that made him erupt so.. i soon came to realize he was referring to our collective bawl.. " we had disgusted the principal and embarassed the dept of mech. engg.. in those few seconds.. and i was th class rep.." very nice..

a little chat with the mates later soon brought us to the conclusion that this was no big deal.. we are NOT the good boys of the college who go about gardening.. we had arrived.. again.. we got into the groove.. massbunks, classroom cricket/rugby, more massbunks, bikeouts, strikes.. girls, firecrackers, more bikes, strikes, another strike.. and so on and so forth.. boy.. we all had arrived..

then trouble crept.. class was begining to split in half over someones' matters of the heart.. whats more, i got into a bit of a misunderstanding wit the IT HOD over a monetary matter.. that got ugly.. .. talked about it at length with my best buddies about it,.. chak, madhu, vishnu.. etc.. something had to happen.. and it did
chak got a transfer to tkm college of engg.. kollam.. 80 ks away from this troubled land.. i'd applied too and was waiting with crossed hands legs and fingers.. two weeks later, i got my call.. chak and i were together again! whats more, i was going to taste my first dose of hostel life..

vish took over the mantle of the class rep thing.. man i'd really miss some of the guys out there
.. madhu and vish, who'd stay up in their respective homes till god knows whn to clear my darn doubts on the eve of the exams.. wdn't have passed em if these people weren't around.. :Dtime to move on.. i hung around in BH for a few days.. trying to ge the transfer cert. done as fast as possible.. its a govt. office for gawd sakes.. patience is of the essence.. and it was done.. i moved to the sleepy town of quilon..

That was my stint with gec bh.. some great experiences.. some great friends, some not so great experiences.. and later realised i'd broken a heart when i left.. but one had to move on..
thus.. kau goes to kollam...

veni, vidi,.. errrrr

first time blogging.. checking out the bloggarts from all over the place..
pretty good time to start bloging i guess.. just back fresh from a trekking stint in the lower himalayas, and a minor heartache.. and raring to go.. anywhere...

right now the mind is elated because my company decided not to forget about me.. and called to tell me to get my 'self' there by 5th of august.. so i'm shifting base from trivandrum to pune in a month.. thats about it.. i've been dying to get outta this place or years, and now it seems that is exactly whats happening!!
heavens be praised!!