Amit Bhardwaj (Bhanda, tuba)

I have met 2 people by this name, with almost nothing in common, they know almost an entirely different set of people, and certainly not each other. But both of them are special, very special, serving as stress relievers to all those around them. While the modus operandi is quite different (the one I met in IIT relies usually on coming up with things that he alone can manage, like smashing up a glass window to vent his anger or remembering his age by the year that he is studying in, the other one, on whom this post shall focus, serves as the perennial abusing bag, one you can and you would always love to simply shout on uninhibited), both of them have excelled in this field. I have a gut feeling that it is about the name. Shakespeare, you were so very wrong.
Now the thread that is flowing these days focuses on people from RKM, and hence the Amit Bharadwaj from IIT is spared, for now.
About Amit (from our very own RKM), though, he has so many fascinating stories credited to him that its impossible to cover them all. I'd still try my best over here.
Among his features first, there is one striking observation you make. He looks like Vivek Oberoi, sharing the same height, the same build, almost the same face, and sports the very same hairstyle. Hungry for attention, Amit sought more. He now wanted to act like Vivek Oberoi. So he started smoking the way Oberoi does, he started wearing analogous clothes, put on similar shoes, and walked in a manner to put his idol to shame. One fine day, as Amit was in his elements, in the depth of his character, wearing a khaki shirt flowing over his trousers, sewn as a result of a special order placed in the world-famous S.Shama tailoring shop in Darbhanga, and he decided to strike a pose or two. He leaned beside an auto rickshaw, smiled at others as they struggled to come to terms with the smartness and the aura that he carried, all hot girls around looking at him, and one of them mustered the courage and walked straight to Amit and shot, "Bhaiya, Shahdara chaloge?"
Amit was shattered, and we were in splits.
When similar mishaps continued to happen, Amit was alarmed, and he decided to remain only in smaller towns, lest he be saved the trouble of being mistaken for an auto-rickshaw-wallah. So he chose to go to Kharagpur among all IITs, and went to Barauni for his internship when he could have gone to places in Europe and beyond. The full story of the internship shall be covered by Ranjan/Ritesh who were with Amit to savor the precious moments.

Talking of Vidyapith memories, there are quite a few things that deserve a mention here. Among them, his Chinaman art of bowling, is one of those never to be forgotten things. As batsman after batsman belted him out of the grounds, Amit was forced to convert from a specialist spinner who bats lower down the order in class Vth to a specialist batsman who bats at number 11 or beyond in class Xth. In another of those on-field exploits, Amit had very proudly called Anupam a "wicket-taking batsman". These days, I hear, Amit tries very hard to get into the IIT Kharagpur football team, but is always left out on the grounds of being too tall for a footballer. He is also said to have been nominated as the most "outstanding" football captain in his hostel team, as he captains the team without setting a foot on the grounds. Now, I am not sure if these stories are true or they were narrated by Amit to a certain Ms S, as she is the only girl Amit has had a chance to talk to, and Amit did want to leave a nice impression, you see.
Another of his shots to fame in Vidyapith was the tubelight-property that he possessed. The story of how this property came to the fore is so out-of-the-world that it is difficult to be accepted as true, but then, not a word written hereafter is a creation of the author, this is exactly what happened.
One fine evening, Amit came running in Ramakrishnananda Dham, carrying all his clothes and shouted at the top of his voice, "Sab apna kapda le aao re, bahar bahut jor se bijli chamak raha hai, baarish hone waala hai" (Everyone get your clothes from outside, there was a lightning, it is going to rain)
Now, there was a mass confusion as a clear blue sky had been sighted a few moments ago, and there was presumably no question of rain. Someone checked outside and came back thundering, "Bhak saala, koi bijli nahi kadak raha hai" (There is no lightning)
Amit took this guy by his hand and shot back, "Adbhutananda Dham ke direction mei dekho toh, abhi tak kadak raha hai saala" (Look towards Adbhutananda Dham, its still there)
All of us had a look there, and a sterner one at Amit followed - he had mistaken the flickering of the tubelight atop the Adbhutananda Dham as a lightning.

Another of those days, at a time when doubling in Dining Hall was an all-engulfing trend (for the ignorant, doubling referred to taking some eatable in Dining hall twice after finishing the first serving as quickly as you could and changing your seat to get that a second time), Amit was very fond of chai. Now, he wanted to make a statement with a chai doubling, but it was always going to be difficult to drink the hot liquid that quickly. Amit then hit upon a marvelous idea, he took chai once, ran straightaway outside to throw it in the dustbin, and came back to achieve the hitherto unaccomplished chai doubling!

Talking of Vidyapith, Amit was rejected by everyone in our class Xth and Cands' time, as he strove hard to make a pair for himself, in line with the fashion those days. He set his sights to others then, and zeroed in on a junior, who we shall call Mr D here. Romantic stories followed, and Amit used his capacity as Shrine Minister to get D in the Shrine as his understudy. Quite ironically, the Prayer Hall time used to be the best time of the day for Amit, as the two of them got their private time together. When we became Cands and had nothing to do the entire day, and the whole school building at our disposal during the study time, Amit found with great difficulty the desk on which D sat in his class and started studying there, an aspiration of D coming down there to fetch his books maybe, worse still, Amit would leave some of his books there, to get them purified the divine D touch. It is said that the first deliberate seeds of Amit's future generations were ejaculated on that very desk. I am also told, that the hard-earned biscuits that we were given as Cands, one of those things that made all juniors look at us with longing eyes would invariably reach D from Amit. Height of love and sacrifice, this.

Of love, Amit was fortunate enough to finally get to talk with a certain Bijuria in his school in Delhi (Amit maintains that she was the hottest of all girls in school). He had brought chhuharas (I have no idea what we call them in English) from home, and would take 5 of them everyday in his pockets to feed the hungry bitch on them. The girl was amused for a few days, until finally she gave up on this dariddar. She used a common friend to get a stern message across. When Amit did not relent, and continued to go with his chhuharas to her, she finally threw them out of the bus. Amit was heart-broken. And he said, "chhuhara nahi khana tha toh bol deti, ghar se kishmish bhi laaye hain". Of course, he was slapped in a DTC bus, in front of at least 100 people aboard.

There are so many more stories, so many more things to write, like the non-replicable "KGP rocks" stuff, or his first utterance of English words in "See, see, see" upon Chandan saying things in Hindi after an English only pact between them and Anupam (of course, Amit had remained silent all the while the pact was being followed and trying to gauge whatever was being spoken) or his not talking to Ms H (yeah, of Kota fame) in an apparent bid to protect his non-existent image, or his taking the Arjuna-aiming-with-his-bow position before throwing the ball back, but paucity of time and a lengthening post tell me that I'd rather stop here and leave it to you guys to furthur elaborate in comments.

Hell, I just found out Amit's blog on the web. It has a pink background. Check out Amit's blog.

I could not put up things/pictures from Orkut this time around, as Amit has deleted his account there (some bad people used to abuse him on this public forum). Just in case you remember anything from his account, contribute