Nothing unusual about it!

A pathetic attempt

2011-04-25T02:52:00.002+05:30

This has to be the most useless post of them all. I get irritated by everything around me. Nothing seems to be going right. In fact, whatever could have gone worse, has. I fail to explain to myself why I am sulking. All conversations are useless, forced and random. I believe that random is the most random word that people keep on using (abusing?) randomly.

The world was never meant to be my oyster. There is so much that I could have done. There is so less that I have actually done. I feel guilty. I think I am insane. Wow, some people are of the opinion that insanity is cool. It never was. It never could be. Why should it concern me in any case?

It is disturbing. But I still enjoy a sound sleep. Perhaps everything is not that bad then? Or am I too lethargic to bother? I can't concentrate. I am the laziest person that I know. I can't possibly better myself there. I am good at something, it seems. When was the last time I was the best at anything? I think I must celebrate, by happily biding another day doing nothing. And revel on the kindness of time. Time is very kind. No matter what you do with it, it just passes on. And then I start sulking again.

I want to disconnect myself from everything. Just like every sentence in this post is.

(Do not take me seriously)

Idea to launch "Lets Keep Bollywood Clean" series soon

2011-03-29T01:56:00.005+05:30

Readers from outside India will find it difficult to understand the context, so it would be good if you could watch the following videos over and over again to get an idea of what we've been subjected to during this world cup - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gndCneFC9FM and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU-qTRO3wbo

Spurred by the success of their "Lets Keep Cricket Clean" advertisements, our sources have reported that telecom major Idea is thinking of launching the next series with the theme "Lets Keep Bollywood clean". The series may be launched anytime after the World Cup and IPL get over and Bollywood is back to producing trash week after week.

"After cricket the most popular fields in India have to be Bollywood and politics. But the task of cleaning politics is tougher than South Africa winning the world cup ever, with so many corrupt ones around and the absence of good role models therein, so we chose Bollywood, we believe it is something where we can definitely make a contribution.", said Mr Anand Raja, head of Marketing, Idea Telecom. The telecom major plans to recruit a mix of yesteryear stalwarts like Dev Anand, Rajesh Khanna and stars of today including Amitabh Bachchan and the 3 Khans as their champions. "The cost incurred would be huge and the ego clashes are likely to lead to complete chaos, but I think all these guys will be very motivated by the novel idea", Mr Raja hoped. On being asked what issues are they likely to harper on, he added "The ads will be directed towards getting rid of the obviously stupid actors and directors in Hindi movies". Mr Raja was reluctant to take specific names, but speculations are rife about Zayed Khan, Dino Morea, Shamita Shetty, Sameera Reddy and Ram Gopal Verma being in the list, along with the remaining cast and crew from Dus, Plan, Cash and Luck. Our correspondents went ahead and asked if Abhishek Bachchan - Idea's brand ambassador and a very useless actor - will be targetted as well, on which they were promptly shown the door.

The news has taken Bollywood by storm and we are receiving very varied reactions from different quarters. Newcomers in the industry are very happy with the development due to the possibility of elimination of some competition, although a few like Tusshar Kapoor, Esha Deol and Fardeen Khan (who are young to the industry inspite of having their debut release some 10 years back) are said to be very apprehensive that they may figure in the list as well. Dharmendra is reported to have alerted his lawyers already lest someone in his family finds his way to the hall of shame. "The Deols are the butt of most B-Town jokes, you know, better that we prepare ourselves for all eventualities", he clarified. Ram Gopal Verma is said to have laughed off hysterically, saying "My experience tells me that this is going to be a big, big flop", although he did sound a tad surprised in figuring in the list of probables, and has vowed to remake all his flop movies until they are declared a hit. Sameera Reddy is reportedly happy to finally find herself in any list of any sort, and Anubhav Sinha (of Dus, Cash and RA. One fame) seriously doubts if anyone remembers his name. On the other hand, Abhishek Bachchan sounded confident, "Since Paa is going to be one of the champions, I think I can peacefully enjoy my colleagues being whacked in public."

Among others, when our reporter contacted Irrfaan 'the thinker's actor' Khan, he applauded the initiative, but then raised a pertinent point - "Isse to industry khaali ho jayegi. Kya kar rahe ho bhai?" Unfortunately, his opinions, like his movies, were promptly ignored. Aamir Khan took an hour to explain why the list has to be made very carefully and that the criteria must be very cleanly defined. Our reporter believes that there was an obvious plan from his side to make sure that nephew Imran Khan did not make the cut, but could not confirm the same. Tusshar Kapoor, in his defence, retorted, "Look, I can't be a part of this, I am the dumbest, er, the best dumb actor in Bollywood" and said that industry heavyweights like Sharman Joshi and Kunal Khemu would vouch for him. The longest surviving struggling actor Suniel Shetty said that he did not believe in competition and awards and would ignore the entire thing. Dino Morea and Harman Baweja were not aware that they were actors, and hence are certain that they will be spared the ignimony.

Fans and moviegoers around the country have generally welcomed the move, and the Idea office has received numerous requests to include the most hated ones in the list. However, a group of 9 people proclaiming themselves as "the biggest fan group of Fardeen Khan" have threatened to disrupt train services between Delhi and Mumbai if FK Junior was badmouthed on public forums. We tried to contact Zayed Khan fans as well, but could not do so because noone in the country showed the guts to call himself one.

Some people are also very upset with the entire concept, including Mohan, a die-hard cricket lover. "Seriously dude, these keep cricket clean ads themselves are very stupid, I mean if I were Kapil Dev and a reporter asked me that question, the only idea that I would suggest her was to get her brain checked for any abnormalities. I think it is very necessary to remove these ads if they wanted to keep cricket clean, they have completely screwed up my cricket-viewing experience. And to think that they'll come up with another such irritating series", Mohan frowned, as he started watching the highlights of the Zimbabwe vs Kenya match on Star Cricket for the 17th time.

We also tried to contact market competitor Airtel for any comments on the issue, but could not strike a conversation beyond "Are you there" in 32 attempts and gave up.

(I would like to thank Sujay Bedekar, Anandeshwar Dwivedi and Shubh Darpan among others for sharing my grievances, not to mention that I have shamelessly cogged a few lines here and there from their comments :D)

Here, in CCD

2009-10-16T07:11:00.003+05:30

When things go wrong, I’m here. When they are exactly the way I want them to be, I’m here. When I need to gossip, I’m here. When I need to be alone, I’m here. I’m here when I celebrate. I’m here when I repent. I’m here when I’m sane. I’m here when I’m drunk. Yeah, more often than not, I’m here, in CCD.

I don’t remember the initiation, but I’m incredibly thankful to whoever first brought me here. I have no idea of when we first made such a plan, but we certainly don’t need to prepare now. I’ve refused not-so-lucrative job offers, but I shall never say no to a session here. No matter how my day starts, I have a habit of finishing it off here, in CCD.

To be frank, I’m no coffee-addict; the only coffee in the day is what I have here. I still choose my drink from a few options (Vegan Shake / Café Frappe / Cappuccino, in general), and am dodgy about trying something unconventional. I have not yet mastered the art of calling and talking to waiters and I might still stutter while placing a bulk order in English. I generally live on borrowed money and have to goad people into treating me. Yet, I simply love to be here, in CCD.

I guess I developed an instant liking for the place. Gradually, I started discovering more and more opportunities to be here. From opportunities, I started to look for excuses. Now, I don’t need an excuse, I know that I just have to be here, in CCD.

No place has ever impacted my life like this. From formation to expression, most of my opinions have to go through the coffee-couch combination. Most of the decisions in my life, and important ones at that, have got the coffee-cheers approval. And some of my closest friends have stood the test of time here, in CCD.

No surprises therefore, for mindless banters or for thoughtful conversations, you find me here. For discussing my life or for dissecting yours, you find me here. For a hot coffee or cold, you always find me here, in CCD. Cheers!

Interview Experiences

2009-09-16T09:18:00.006+05:30

The last few months haven't exactly been exciting, I've failed to get through numerous interviews. It kind of reminds me of the campus placements in December 2007, when I was shortlisted almost everywhere, and the conversion came very late, after almost 10 companies. Yeah, it was more baffling then, as I continued to belie expectations. I was perceived as the unfortunate hero of a tragedy movie back then, with my credentials I was supposed to get a good job easily. Easier said than done though, an interview requires extensive preparation, something I am not very fond of.

What exaggerates the problem in my case is perhaps the unwillingness to learn from mistakes, the interviewer's excitement at seeing my CSE background and my complete lack of skills and knowledge in coding and computer science in general. So it does seem ironic to me when I am approached for fundaes, but the satisfaction of preaching always supersedes any thoughts of guilt, hypocrisy or shame. This time around, I go one better, I post them online and publicly, and I definitely can't deny an anticipation of a dramatic increase in the number of unfortunate souls who come to me for doubts about how to go about interviews. In conformity with my repeated failures at wooing perspective employers, this is more of a 'my mistakes' list.

- When you are applying in an Investment Bank, you'd rather know finance basics.
I had cleared the first round convincingly, playing the AIR-15 card the best I could. In the second roud, I was asked about my knowledge in finance. I had obviously planned an answer, which focussed on my interest in the field (supported by nothing on my resume, not one course or certification or project) and my ability to learn things fast as and when the need arises. As it is, I sounded ridiculously stupid; I needed to understand that my competitors had taken harmless NCFM exams, many had done internships, et al. While my claim of quick understanding was not without proof, my competitors were no idiots themselves.

- While you should definitely know whatever you did in a project, it is also important to know about the larger picture.
Almost invariably, the interview focusses on the projects that one has done. In a recent interview, I was asked about my internship at INRIA Futurs, France. Now, as I started explaining my algorithm for propagating updates in XAMs, I was interrupted, asked about what exactly these XAMs were. I explained and the natural question followed, where will they find their use. I tried to explain the best I could, to the maximum possible extent of my fantasies where they could be employed, but my oblivion to the larger picture was easily evident, and my efforts in developing a new algorithm to reduce the time taken considerably were easily ignored.
In the same interview however, what I think was revolting and utterly idiotic on the part of the interviewer was his suggestion to backtest the data provided by the IT team in my company, who have been there for many more years than I was, and questioning me about the algorithms being used by them. Perhaps even more irritating was his inability to digest the fact that most data mining applications require manual exploration as a basis.

- Among two topics A and B, if you have read more about B, you should stress on the same.
Having devoted a good chunk of my preparation time to C++, it was an obvious folly on my part to suggest that my programming language preference was Java. I used to be very good at Java, but lets face it, I had not written a Java code for an year.
But then, there are things you just can't help, like when people get to asking syntaxes which they might have remembered for some random reason, but 99 out of 100 people copy paste the code using the technological revolution called 'Google'. Now, I am not sure if I should generalize this, but the tendency of Indian interviewers to do so is far greater than that of foreigners; I guess the Indian interviewer is more likely to act like that elusive 100th person. More generally, I believe that it is a discussion with interviewers from on-shore desks, and a syntax-based "Kaun Banega Crorepati" with Indians. It is quite possible that the latter appears so pathetic to me only because of my inability to remember syntaxes.

- When an interviewer wants you to make a guess, he usually wants an educated guess, and not some random value.
I learnt this the hard way during my campus placements. The overall guesstimate was a classic - to estimate the cost of a software that returns abstracts of all Web documents, assuming it is the only software that does so, and it is absolutely essential to get the abstracts of all documents that exist. To calculate the man-hours saved, you need to know the number of words that an average human mind can process per unit of time. On being asked to make a guess, I said 100. The interviewer shot back that it was a gross underestimation, and he could easily read and understand a page in around a minute. I think that it was true even for me, and it was silly of me to actually get to that value. At that time, however, I was too rude to accept my mistake and we had a good argument, not the best thing to do in an interview. He met me later that night, after they had taken the people they wanted, and rightly told me that I needed to improve on my attitude, a gesture that I now find extremely gratifying considering it was me who started the heated exchange of words.

- Prepare a good justification for the weaknesses in your profile
Invariably, I am grilled about my low CPI, regretfully in my case it is coupled with the thought of what I could have done, the only place where the AIR-15 tag makes life difficult for me. Some interviewers are satisfied with my explanations, many infer that I did not study at all.

I guess, this should be enough for now, I shall furthur enlist my experiences if the readers express such a request. Adios.

RKMV: A General Discussion

2009-08-04T16:31:00.006+05:30

There is this interesting thread in the Orkut community for RKMV Deoghar. The topic of discussion is a very sincere opinion, to have some kind of reservation for our wards in the school. We had views for and against this and reservation in general, but a more pertinent question was raised by a fellow junior, do we actually believe that it is the best place to send our wards to, and whether Vidyapith really provides the best environment out there. Only three people were involved, and neither of us were exceptionally happy with everything in Vidyapith. I thought that this would be an interesting discussion here.

To begin with, I'd really suggest you read the Vidyapith life piece from Suman's blog, a nice, simple, objective description of the pros and cons of those years.

What actually caught my eye in the Orkut discussion was how people were expressive enough, how easily they pin-pointed the shortcomings while not rejecting the positives, these certainly are good signs I believe, and a frank discussion with similar-minded alumni with the authorities would do a world of good; this ease at discussion is something you can easily thank Vidyapith for. The problem with the system, I believe, is that none of us would actually dare, for that matter, even care to take that first step.

An interesting point was made though, as Ujjwal complained why one could not use a ball-pen till the IXth standard. Most of us would agree here that the very idea of not allowing 'stock' or food material from home is stupid, as is not allowing any 'civil dress', clothes beyond the assigned dress for school or dham or whatever. So there were these obscenely excessive constraints we are talking about, and they need to be reasoned, reasoned thoroughly by the authorities in front of students to make whatever little sense they could. However, I'm pretty sure that a veiled attempt was made by Shakti Maharaj once, its simply sad that not one of us actually got the idea. Years later, I reasoned with myself, perhaps I had nothing better to do at IIT, I tried to remember almost everything uttered by almost everyone there, I needed to find a logic behind this absurdity.

Well, I make an attempt here: You must understand that Vidyapith tried to follow a socialist setup, it believed in treating every student equally before anything else, this philosophy might have itself come from Vivekananda, or some other influential person/team in Bengal, but that's the way it was. Now students came from different strata in the society, my batch had a son of an MLA, another was a son of a DIG, at the same time my father was a modest Assistant Engineer in the Govt. of Bihar, and someone else's father was an Assistant Sub Inspector. All of us came from well-to-do families, we never actually struggled to have two meals a day, but my father would never gift me a Parker pen when a Jetter suffices, and my stock would comprise of only the home-made thekuas and purukias. The point I want to make is that as a child, there is always a more materialistic longing for almost everything. By actually disallowing such stuff, Vidyapith helped me prevent an embarrassing situation where I would be greedy for everything the son of the DIG or MLA brought. Come to think of it, this was consistent with the general spiritual philosophy being preached, it made us think of every penny and whatever comes of it as valuable, and it made sure that the son of the DIG or the MLA were no specials among us! But like every socialist thought, this had its downside; as we were turned into Milk-Bikis and onion hungry chillars, as we queued and fought to get that extra samosa.

To a certain level, I am content with this logic behind the constraints that we had. There must have been some stupid person in charge of the rules some time, who actually thought of increasing them in number and idiocy, hence not allowing chess, on the pretext that it is a very addictive game (Watch Naseeruddin Shah's version of Shatranj Ke Khiladi though, it harbours the very same thought :P), a compulsion to use fountain pens till the eighth grade, explained using a scientifically unverified theory of how ball pens tend to make your writings illegible (surprisingly though, I was praised by Bansal Sir in Kota, for using a fountain pen in the subjective exam, as it made the whole thing so very clear and easy to grade, while many others had their papers subjected to dustbins, and themselves to slangs).

Indeed, there always was a logic, an attempt to explain how not adhering to the instructions was wrong in principle. I think that the motive was more often right than wrong, it was the extent to which things were enforced that actually made the whole thing seem pointless. Once again, I pity the authorities, because you can't really define limits for everything, they couldn't really have said that you can't bring a pen worth more than Rs 50 with you, it is much more easier to ban everything.

I expect comments from readers, these views might be contradicted by many of you. Next post, I shall try to see why and how the all-round development was supposedly inhibited, which has been a glaring issue in the Orkut discussion.

Hoping to see some response. :)

Recent Pics

2009-07-06T03:03:00.007+05:30

Local Abhishek

Still more local Sakshi, a typical Raipur pose

The cometition gets tougher, as Ritesh joins the fray

The winner hands down!!

Ranjan in Bangalore

Abhishek in his usual nagna avatar.

Pallav Gopal Jha (panda, fenku)

2009-05-20T14:04:00.001+05:30

You must have heard of this: "Its raining cats and dogs." Now this dude I am writing about has had a hands-on experience of this as he very lazily exclaimed, "Kutta billi toh tahi, par mere ghar mei baarish mei macchli zaroor giri hai" (Not dogs or cats, but fish certainly has come with rain in my house). As people started to laugh, he reasoned, "saala paani bahut jyada evaporate ho raha hoga, aur macchli thi chhoti hi, toh vapour k saath chal gayi hogi" (The fish was small, and the vapour was large enough to carry it along!) He then summed up, "Tasty bhi bahut thi, paka ke khaye, mazaa aa gaya tha." (We cooked it, it was tasty).
This is precisely what this panda-boy from the posh locality of Williams Town in Deoghar spent his life doing in Vidyapith. He always had a story or two, about everything one could conjure, he had the most amazing experiences of all, and always supported them with what he thought were logical explanations. Another time, he very coolly mentioned, "Is baar ghar mei chaapakal chala rahe the toh magarmachh ka bachcha nikla usmei se." (This time around, as I was using the hand-pump at home, along with water came a baby crocodile.)

One of the funniest stories that I remember from our Vidyapith days involves this cool panda and the eternally tortured Parivesh. Taking a cue from Snehil/Atul, Pallav decided to show his domination of the weak, and who better than Pari would fit the bill. So Pari was made to kneel down, Pallav placed his leg on Pari's chest and announced, "British rule over India" (The fact that the skin colours fit the bill perfectly made it all the more hilarious.) But Pallav was left red-faced, literally, as Pari suddenly went up and slapped back, furiously shouting, "The revolt of 1857". One of those embarrassing moments, which you can do nothing about.
(I have to thank Vibhor for this story)

I hear that Pallav was quite a successful model in his college days, but the bug had bitten him way back in our Vidyapith days. I hope you do remember the Raymond's ad involving puppies (the one where the lead plays with them and even the dogs can feel the smooth fabric suiting the Complete Man). Now, Pallav once invited some people to his home, they were greeted by a similar scene. Pallav took one of them in his hands, looked towards his bemused guests, waited for a comment, and since there was no response, himself completed the exercise, "Raymond's, the complete man!"
Pallav was deeply moved by the Raj Aryan character in Mohabbatein, and started keeping the blue Vidyapith sweater on his back (I can't exactly describe this thing, hope you do remember the Raj Aryan wala pose). I am told that he had a photo-shoot of himself on the +2 building's roof, for participating in Grasim Mr India. With his build, I am pretty sure he would have gone a long distance in the competition.

Of his special friends, I have already covered most of it in the post for Anupam. though I must add that Ankit, Amit and many more were gung-ho about him in our school days.

Sadly enough, I have not been very much in touch with him these days, and have also not revised stories, so the post shall come to an abrupt end. I am pretty sure though, that you'll have much more to share about him.

Abhishek Kumar (Pagal, pagalwa)

2009-05-10T09:11:00.003+05:30

On himself (in Orkut)

About me: check me out....

Vibhor Sahay wrote: (in his blog)

The following entry about Abhishek might miss some incidents that the world so desperately needs to remember or know. The onus thus falls on the batch on 2002 to remind of how deeply retarded Abhishek really was.

“The morning got it to me very late”

I wish I could make it more obvious. I cannot it seems. We were in Kota then. I guess that mundane place “got it” to Abhishek as well. His diary read this on that unique day. 13 others, we all would always, secretly read his diary and have a hearty laugh about it. But this random, meaningless, grammatically incorrect and “what-the-fuck-evoking-feeling” statement of the usual morning got us all baffled and desperately looking for an answer. Come on yaar, all of you who have that feeling that maybe you could decipher this 21st century puzzle, take your guesses. If even one gets it correct, I will sponsor your one day one night stay in Cochin. This was like 5-6 years ago. Abhishek may have filled up hundreds of diaries by now but no single statement made about the day or about any other thing on this earth has been such nonsense. I guess the statement reflects the persona Abhiskek Pagli was. Beyond understanding. And millions of years ahead of us when it came to understanding mornings.
His incident of being robbed of his shorts, which for your kind information was the only piece of cloth on him that night in the IL campus, is part of folklore today. Mothers recite their young ones tales of horror, and the story of a whitish, spectacled, broad guy running around naked in the middle of the night eventually comes up and the most restless of kids go to sleep, terrified of the naked monster.

In the hindsight, I don’t know why I wanted to write about Abhishek. I don’t have many stories about him but his mere thought makes me smile and say “kya ajeeb pagla tha”.

The funniest room-mates together ever- Abhishek and Nishant. Ahan, these guys were such a spectacle. We would always group together in their room in the scorching heat and just observe these two take it out on each other. Add Atul to the fray and it was a riot. Dwivedi bhai, Ankit, Shajib, Sushant, Snehil etc etc would also join in and we could not stop laughing. Abhishek would stand out by the way he would give the most peculiar of explanations and answers to the most common of problems/issues and the way he would once in a while be his usual self doing PAAGLAMI.

Nuff’ said. Abhishek is also one of the cleanest and friendliest of souls around. An awesome athlete, a stud, a charmer and a complete sweetheart. I am sure he would go through this very soon. And I am sure he would come to Cochin again. Bhai, please make my day. I have run out of stories.:-)

Abhipreet Das wrote (while commenting on he above post)

Well, about Abhishek, there is just so - this is the so with many o's, its sooo, as girls tend to put it - much to write.

He has been reading the 32-page book, of size equivalent or smaller than a pack of cigarettes, on Rajyoga since 2001, and still hasn't managed to reach halfway, yet has kept it beneath his pillow all along, and has read it every night with renewed zest, howsoever drunk he might have been. He is perhaps the only one who still keeps a frame of Thakur, Maa and Swamiji with him, lately though the frame has an unlikely neighbor in a gifted picture of Abhishek and his girlfriend.

Two traits of his are remarkable - the first being his tendency to change into Boxers at the slightest opportunity, and the other being a compulsion of taking a bath before he sleeps, now, coming from someone with childhood as ours, that is something.

He has an uncanny habit of doing things that provoke others to bash him up. He gets a public (beating) wherever he goes, and has always been treated to fists, slaps, et al by every senior he has ever come across - the list includes GP da, Amit da, Shashi Bhaiya, Himadri da, Ravi Bhaiya - batchmates and juniors have readily joined in, as even Neel vents his frustration on Abhishek.

He also likes to know the intricacies of every unimportant thing, and does the maximum amount of research on topics minimally or not at all relevant.

Of his Vidyapith heroics, his showdown with Bhotha is legendary, where he remarked, "Poora Vidyapith aur aapko aag laga denge". Of course, he had to apologise immediately as a one-sided contest with Shakti Maharaj loomed large. He was almost beaten to death by Dhruva Maharaj on two occasions if I remember correctly, once for arriving late from the Physics department during the good-for-nothing Exhibition time, and the other time for studying on the puwal stack in Goshala.

And yeah, if you are not Nishant you can't argue with him, you stand no chance of winning a verbal duel against Abhishek. Of Nishant, they are the perfect example of the Bollywood emphasis on ladais as the perfect expression of pyaar. Let me narrate an example here. Like every other night, Abhishek took a bath before sleeping, as he returned, a few drops of water were spilled. Nishant got angry and sprayed buckets of water in the room and on Abhishek's bed. In retaliation, Abhishek punctured Nishant's cycle and I am not sure if it was a mark of protest or a statement of love - he slept on the wet bed, without even trying to change the bed sheet. Another night, they argued for around 2 hours if the night lamp should be switched on. In fact, they once argued about whether or not allow Sushant to use their toilet. Need I say more?

Nonetheless, he is one guy you can have endless conversations with, and he will simply allow you to hit him to make you happy. He gets senti on a few occasions, but they are enough to manifest the "friend" within you, after all, a few tears on his cheeks led to the great Ramakrishnananda Dham massacre when we were Cands.

..Alive but not kicking..

2009-04-27T09:26:00.008+05:30

Claps and thuds. So the blog is going strong although the frequency of your visits have been marred. Was trying to figure out sane reasons for such an aversion( Ok..too strong an adjective:P!).. the only notions that kept ringing in my head were that either people don't have time for all of this or they are afraid that they would get butchered here someday if they keep showing up. To be honest, I dread the day when people would wipe their knives to a mirror-shine and dissect me all over. But that would be a sweet murder, to say the least.

This is a place where you can spill all those hidden stories which have been in the cave for all these years. All you have got to do is recount. In broken measures, with a contorted smile on your lips that your posts would betray better than your eyes ever will. Whenever I read any of these pamphlets of destruction, I can feel Abhipreet or Vibhor laughing. I can hear their secret prayers and wishes , all directed to save their asses.

Comeon people. So many things would have happened in your lives. There are voices within you consistently wanting to find utterance. There are tales which shouldn't remain chained to your hearts. It's time to let them out. (This is one thing about us all. No dearth of stories. Mishaps and some moments of exaltation have accompanied us everywhere.) Abhipreet has this never-ending captivating anecdotes about his flings and flirtations. Vibhor and everyone have got themselves a gf... Some have changed 180 degrees to our utter dismay. Who would have imagined Dadi in his new avatar? I want to have a preview of your whacky heads. I want to know all those little manoeuvres and cheesy lines which did the trick for you. I want to know about all those little mishaps that kept on coming to bite you in your ass.

Let the story telling begin.

Cheers!

PacMan

2009-04-22T19:36:00.001+05:30

Pac-Man made by Neave Games

Keshav

2009-04-09T09:48:00.007+05:30

It's all scratch-and-tell. I am a bit nervous as I have few stories to recount. I lack the comic punch of Vibhor and the infallible memory of Abhipreet. The ones where I would have spilled almost an entire novel were usurped by them. Prerogatives are snatched at times, you know. So I sat down and racked up all that I could.

Current Hideout: Only God knows.
Activities: Might be smearing heaven's floor with his spunk. Or cooling his groins under a fan. Who knows?
Nicknames: One too many. But Kachha stands out.

My goat is roaming escort-free in some district of Uttar Pradesh. He is a medico but was not meant to be. At least I would have liked to see him as a jester. Would have been a welcome break from all that humor shit the TV guys keep throwing at us. Writing about him (after SG's lore has already been sung ) makes good sense. Again a curious case of veggie-outside-demon-inside. He ate as if he was having his last supper. Looked nervous, too concentrated and his hand-on-his-forehead simply accentuated my belief everyday. His plate had a fixture of a typical glutton. A mountain of rice, cuppas of dal and sabzi... He ate a lot really.

Was the great bowler who never made it. Not quite. Those of you who are unaware of the entire story, I will shed some light as to what circumvented his bowling career. The scene is impossible to fathom in words but still picture it. Situation was tense and the match was down to the last over. The batting team needed 7 runs of the last over and Vivek( and me) were at the crease! Prior to this , Keshav had been the pick of the bowlers. Everything about him was perfect that day. Was measly and he was bowling with his life. Was quite atypical of Kachha but something had triggered the furnace in him that day. May be the presence of Lord Thakur himself was egging him on to perform. Naturally, he was given the last over so that he could master the seemingly-devilish Vivek who kept charging forward but to no effect. 5 balls were bowled in a jiffy. Every delivery swished past the bat and looking teasingly at Vivek. The match was poised to end in a certain win for Keshav's team before fate stepped in to add spice and screw things for Kachha. Last ball of his was adjudged a "no-ball". Last ball-six runs-- almost a scene out of Lagaan. The only difference being that the touch of sheer impossibility was amiss from the film. And this was real drama unfurling before our eyes. Keshav puffed and fired in his last delivery. Thakur swirled his bat with his eyes closed as usual. Somehow connected by fluke and a sweet sound took the ball over the rope. This belter of a match killed whatever faith we had in his bowling capabilities.

Keshav was called "Jharu" not for his sweeping abilities. For the uninitiated, legendary masturbaters of Vidyapith have adorned that name. Not that others didn't do it. What differentiates us, lesser mortals, is the mere frequency and perhaps the finesse with which they might have done it. After such strenuos activity, Keshav took to bed early. Pulled his blanket and dreamed his dirty dreams all through the night. But Prashant, prankster that he is, used to spank him every now and then and act as if Keshav was being fouled in some imaginary football match. It was a make-believe which most of us would have liked to bypass as some kicks you received while playing a rough game of soccer. Keshav also thought that way. For some nights but the dream kept recurring. Every night he was tortured at Prashant's hands and everything was made up as if nothing had happened. Keshav decided to get to the end of the rope. One day, he just pretended as if he was sleeping. Prashant , carefree masqueraded in his usual way but Keshav caught him fooling around. Couldn't contain himself and launched himself on Prashant. Anyone who knows Prashant would swear by it that this is not something you do even in your football dreams. It is a blunder and Prashant kept staring and intimadating him for a day or two before Keshav sheepishly prayed, " BHAI, AB SACHH MAIN DARR LAG RAHA HAI".

Once some of us pried up his belongings and the findings were startling. 30-40 pens no less were found. Some belonged to us and some really glorious ones were hijacked straight out of Mohan Da's kitty. I even found my thin vacation-task copy( of class six) in his priceless collection:P

The mascot who entralled us with his antics. Whose beaten-black n blue- stories (second only to mine) made us laugh. Who got embroiled in the web of medical bullshit and is missing. Find him, people.

* Rest of his glory would be dissected by the readers. I have depleted my stock of medicines now.

XYZ

2009-04-01T16:10:00.002+05:30

About himself (in his Orkut profile)

football is my life & i m in love with it....
want 2 live my whole life playing n gossiping.....

Abhipreet Das wrote:

Recently, I read a news somewhere that the rate of cases of rape, molestation, and outraging modesty of girls was rising at an alarming pace in the otherwise peaceful town of Raibareily. The police were still on the lookout for suspects, I think I have talked to the culprit though. I am pretty sure that this has to be a direct fallout of XYZ shifting there. This trait of unending and unparalleled desperation was evident in him since his childhood, and it was not difficult to predict that he shall grow on to become the next Rasputin, whom he proudly claimed to be his idol, the one person he wanted to emulate. As far as I am concerned, I am pretty sure that XYZ shall make Rasputin proud, and I won't be surprised if he goes a few steps ahead.
When he was in BIT Mesra, I once had the chance to talk to him, and the conversation was so very predictable, as he lamented of the lack of girls in his college, as he told me how he suitably interjected his daily life with hand-exercises after regular intervals (he claimed to hold a record of 15 times in a day), and as he went on to narrate his fantasies. If and when XYZ's future wife reads this, be warned, you are into something you won't be able to imagine, you shall be tortured beyond despair, and you won't be able to turn to anyone. I am told that he shared such ideas with his brother, who would usually add his own innovations in the whole thing. Mind you, together they formed the most formidable of men to have graced this earth, so one fine day if they set out to fulfill their desires, girls, you are in some trouble.
Back in school days, people like Abhiket, Pranshu (you know the group I am pointing to) were so terrified by his presence that they sought refuge elsewhere, and would make it a point to never remain alone with this inhuman beast.

I think that all you guys would concur that XYZ was a man of foresight. As I rewind to early 2002, as many of us were counting the days in Vidyapith, we had this tradition of getting our slam-books filled by our friends (about them, people reserved the first/last pages for the special ones). It was as early as then that XYZ had written backbiting, groupism, gangism as the things he hated the most. While we were at loggerheads at what that could possibly mean, XYZ casually smiled at us and our ignorance, our immaturity. Years later, this is the thing most of us are best at, as we ridicule one and all, in the subject's absence. This is what I have done wherever I have gone to meet people from RKM. This is what happens to me behind my back in Mumbai and elsewhere these days. This is what this blog is dedicated to. As it is, people in my wing in IIT (those not from RKM) now use these terms more frequently than Snehil or Shubh. Similarly, XYZ's discovery of the number system as a measure of someone's levami or pakami is historic, and is being followed far and wide by people who have at most heard of this soul.
I had an opportunity to talk to XYZ a few days back, and as I was trying to make him understand this contribution of his, he retorted, "I still hate these things, yaar". I am definite that he must have also started to chew his aerial chewing-gum after that, easily the most powerful and innovative matter-of-fact expression I have come across.

XYZ is the most casual of all people I know, and whatever happens, he takes it very lightly. Let me describe an incident to you to get the message across. I think you would remember him as the flagbearer of all neeramish, or vegetarian, people in Vidyapith. Soyabean, rajma, paneer or papad, XYZ had them all, and had them in abundance. His thali would usually be half filled with the sabji and the remaining would be stuffed with rice. I am not sure if he thought that the food might get over or what, he always reached Dining Hall before time, and would usually leave only curry for others, helping himself with whatever solid he could gather from the sabji handi. I am told that XYZ's movement was taken as the first bell of Dining Hall during +2 days. Now, it once happened that a few people with good impression got a duty to serve some random monk who had come to visit Vidyapith. As luck would have it, XYZ was not a part of the team, and to make matters worse, the food was far more delicious than the usual stuff, which the monks did not touch. So, these good-impression guys helped themselves, and returned content and happy enough to go hungry for a long, long time. When they spotted him, they thought that it was time to get a sneak-peek at some million-dollar expressions. So they related the whole story, of what all they had, of how delicious the food was, of how much they ate. XYZ listened for a while, and then remarked casually, "Aaj dining hall mei papad ka sabji bhi bahut accha bana tha, bahut khaye", as he got up and started chewing the aerial gum once again.

XYZ was also the most cricket crazy person I have seen around, and his exploits with the ball are the stuff legends are made of. He was the fastest bowler anyone from our class has ever faced, I have taken accounts from Snehil, Anupam and Vibhor as far as this is concerned. You hit him for a boundary and he shall come charging to you round the wickets, and you shall have no option but to get away from the line of the ball. I believe the most tormented was Sushant, as he started batting from outside the pitch when XYZ was bowling. While he was also a handy bat, he was fun to watch. Whatever shot he may have hit, the ball might have gone for a four or a six or he may have got out, he always looked at the bat as if there was a hole there, there always was something wrong with the willow. Perhaps the bowler to have got him out the maximum number of times would be Keshav, and every time Keshav celebrated, his smile was always followed by a dog-like howling as XYZ would very casually hit something to his arm, an art that was taught by Jackie Chan himself. He meted this treatment to anyone and everyone who irritated him.

These days, he has had to curb his natural instincts, and is very frustrated by the life. Dude, you've gotta play cricket, stay as casual as you are, and you shall be happy.

..Holy Dhoti..

2009-03-30T14:09:00.011+05:30

"Memories and rhyme
forever chime
Thy famed name, thy beauty prime
Are worse than a worthless dime."

Looks like someone reached out for a spade and started digging my past. The kind of past which I never wanted to bury in the first place but the dust of preoccupation enveloped and concealed it from my view. Two gentlemen have managed to help me puff out the dirt that had settled over my brain.

This time around, I have decided to walk down the memory curve for as long as I can... Before the air of manipulation and stupid wisdom starts spoiling my story-telling-and-recounting capabilities.

Grab a recliner and pull out your couches. Reach for your books. Fill your plates. Sit back and close your eyes. Remember your good old days, forgotten friends. Celebrate their antics. Hear their legendary sayings. Learn from their mistakes. Cherish their feats. Live with them. Remember all those half-breath runs to the game room, or crooning your prayers in broken sentences in the wee hours of the morning, you hiding-beneath your cot to skip an evening prayer or a drill session, or a mundane Ashok Krishna Dutta's lecture on the Republic Days... how you gobbled a Rosogolla long before the Gods even caught a glimpse of it...

"From a distant blur
Memories Unfurl
Is it snow or some cloud.
Or my final exit's shroud?"

This is the story of a white piece of cloth, Holy Dhoti. Years would roll down the alley, generations of boys would come and go but it would never leave Vidyapith. Kunjan had a tough time teaching me how to wear it, for the first time.There are two ways of wearing a dhoti:

1) In haste. Even God doesn’t know how the dhoti remains intact. Callously tucked, the kurta folded. You wore it that way when there was a minute left before the last knell was rung. For every activity three bell-rings were there. Periodically, the old rusty piece of iron was hammered, to let out the crass metallic zing. The third and the last bell was our real red flag. You arrived after that and you would be swatted like a dhoti on a dhobi-ghat.

You also wore dhotis that way if you had never learnt to wear them in the first place. The first lesson that your guide imparts you is important. Unfortunately while Kunjan was sweating it out trying to teach me a thing or two as to how it was adorned, I kept looking elsewhere. I was enjoying the predicament of other new boys who were looking as funny as me; some even tumbled while trying to carry it off with elegance. The skill was not something you could master in one evening session of demonstration.

2) At ease, with all the time in the world to squander. You know how to wear it. Either you have it in your genes or you have acquired it while staying in Vidyapith; watching your guide tie the knots and tucking it, making the creases etc. with precision.

I never really managed to wear it neatly. All through my Vidyapith life, I wore it in a way of my own. Most of the time, I wore it in my frantic run towards the prayer hall gasping to make it before the third bell. I never knew what it felt to tenderly prepare the creases. Never even had a clean dhoti and kurta for that matter!! I borrowed it or fished it from somewhere all my life. The smell of a clean dhoti must have been infectious. The placid white one seems so cool to me . . Dhoti has to be the most liberal and beautiful attire in the whole wide world.

O!! How I long to wear it now. You might think I am just being rhetoric or that I am stoned. But someday, I fathom myself in that old mossy prayer hall of ours, with hymn book in my hands, calmly sitting in a pearly white dhoti and punjabi and making my silent conversations with God.

With time, every atheist turns to God. He has to.

Amit Bhardwaj (Bhanda, tuba)

2009-03-23T16:03:00.008+05:30

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

Abhiket Gaurav (Billi, Cat)

2009-03-19T01:24:00.007+05:30

On himself (in his Orkut profile):
" mujhe saahil ho gayin manzelein.."
"ki hawa ke rukh badal gaye"
"tera haath mere haath main aa gaya"
"ki charaagh raah main jal gaye!!!"
...................
m candid..outrageous...easy_goin...
quirky..witty...boloney+trash(some ppl aisa samajhte hain)...hankerin for love n frens...a slave of music...i m hell-bent to earn big(i hope i can earn even in paltry measures..!!!!)...love u frens...n i don't give a damn to ppl who f@#% all gud manners...SO iF u GiVe UrSeLf AiRs...plzzzzzz...sTaY aWaY!!!!!

On himself, again (this time in his Blogger profile)
I am a random variable. discrete and quite probabilistic like a bubble. The problem with me is that I think a lot.

So, I have here compiled a few instances of what he thinks.

A take on Marriage
They say marriages are made in heaven....and accomplished on earth.........then why there are unsuccessful marriages ?? Does God also make mistakes............

Emotion's play
I came to know that actually there were two families,one was celebrating the birth of a baby boy and hence were crying with joy , while near to it was another family mourning at the death of their grandfather.Both the families where crying. It seems that two books with different content have same covering[Remember: Looks can be deceptive....]. I stand there motionless,perplexed,not knowing where to go, should I see the child first?or the face of the dead man??Standing in between life and death,not knowing which path to choose, I stood still watching and realizing the mysterious “EMOTION'S PLAY”.I saw EMOTION in its various form: Love, Lust,Anguish,Sorrow,Joy,Hope ........
(After a few paragraphs)All are engaged in the rat race ,trying to find an extra loaf of bread,and extra shelter not knowing that what they are accumulating will perish one day. In the process of accumulation they are bluffing,hating,killing others.

Exam Time Thoughts
Well does anybody know the boiling point of the brain......it must be high else many of our brains would have gone(now I understand what is skull for........)

I am pretty sure that there were some other blogs about cricket being hyped unnecessarily, but think they have been removed by the author, as he could sense a forceful copyright violation coming.

Abhipreet Das wrote:
If there was someone in Vidyapith, whose name I remembered just after my first meeting with him (that he had to yell at the top of his voice is a different matter altogether), it has to be Abhiket.
Vibhor has so rightly covered the "Good Morning listeners" story, it was one of those things for which he was tortured in the Ramakrishnananda Dham Side Hall on a very regular basis. However, the fact of the matter is that Abhiket had asked for the news reading that day, he was not assigned the duty!

Abhiket has always been the typical wannabe, he was one of the first to arrive in Vidyapith with the white high-neck tee, an irrepressible statement of fashion in those days. He was instrumental in propagating this trend to territories far and wide, as the high-neck-tee-inside-your-shirt style engulfed people from Atul to Anupam, from Parivesh to Parag and from Nishant to Pallav. He would apply gel to his hair regularly, and would usually spend hours in front of the mirror combing his hair to look smart. I remember, once when a celebrated ex-student's daughter was in school, he broke all existing records, only to be finally let down by the coarseness of his voice, a fact that was pointed out by Debanuj.
I would not have wanted to highlight his encounters with Doma, this being a forum which is also read by people not from Vidyapith, but the memories of Doma entering Abhiket's mosquito-curtains in an apparent bid to wake him up simply deserve a mention, the readers' objections notwithstanding, as does the "peechhe mei injection laga denge" incident (another of those incidents that made him cry on a regular basis).
I am a proud witness to the "kya mast doodh hai" and "tomake bathroome bandho karore dibo" incident, and all efforts from Abhiket to deny them are hereby nullified. This again is vividly described in Vibhor's post, below.
Abhiket would regularly bring stock (for people unfamiliar, stock stands for any food material that does not come from Vidyapith's resources), deodorants for us. Upon receiving a tip-off that people have targeted his trunk, he shifted these to Vibhor's place, who himself would distribute stuff as if it were his own.
Abhiket always maintained that the day he turns 18, God shall intervene, and a medical challenge shall be quelled, as his voice would turn normal. People waited, every passing day making the suspense all the more intolerable. However, disappointment was in store for Abhiket as things did not improve. Now that he is past 22, things don't look very bright for this not-so-young man.
On a more positive note, Abhiket has always been a nice friend, and I am pretty sure that he will continue to entertain us in future.

Vibhor Sahay wrote (in his blog)

I remember that morning day school assembly. We were in class 10th then. Our English teacher had proposed this system in which boys from class 10th would prepare and read out the news in the assembly. Since abhiket was the first one alphabetically, he was perhaps the first to confront his fears. The rest, as they say, is history.
For all those who don’t exactly remember that event, allow me to paint you a picture. Abhiket has a child-like, not-properly-developed voice. We nick-named him “billi” or the cat. That was mostly because he had this feline, non-human voice. Now since everyone was aware that abhiket was about to read the news, we waited with bated breadth to see how this one pans out. What happened was fun for us and embarrassing for him. He repeated the first line of his news three times because it was difficult to hear him, even with a mike, and then he broke down into a tear. Someone else then read out the news. That day itself, I had prepared myself to keep this story in mind if ever I would blog about abhiket. Déjà vu.
My earliest memories of him were of Premananda dham. We became friends the first day I joined Vidyapith. And moreover someone with that voice is hard to ignore. Who was sure that he was not a half human half cat? Or maybe one day when I found find I lion or tiger in a jungle, the reference of abhiket as my friend would be the difference between my life and death.
He is a good guy. We made constant fun of him, making sure that we provoke him enough to shout so that we could make more fun of him. He never took this to heart and was a good sport of it most of the times. There was nothing that he could do about it also.
The case of Mr. C and abhiket is tremendously famous. Details- one day Mr. C was on top of abhiket on his bed and playing with his luscious man-breasts, and shouting out loud “kya mast dood hai yaar”(what great boobs you have). The dormitory warden, Dhruv Maharaj enters and seems they “playing”. He stands there watching them closely and when he had enjoyed enough he interrupts this “game” by asking “Ki Hochche?” which translates to “what the fuck, dude?” Sorry the translation might have been a little over the edge but I am pretty sure this is what Dhruv wanted to shout out loud. I wasn’t there, I have only heard about it, but we don’t have to be rocket scientists to guess what would have followed. Boys started talking. The news spread like wild fire and soon this new act was more famous than Pritam Pal Singh. Oh yeah, and Mr. C and abhiket became a “couple”.
These days, this big fat cat is studying in a big college in Kolkata. No wonder he landed up in the land of fish. No points for guessing why.
Concluding, I would say definitely say that a guy like abhiket in one of his kinds and someone hard to forget. Dude, u meow, lionesque. Take care.

Parivesh wrote (in a testimonial on Orkut)

had a tough time knuckling down to jot , you know.

my best friend for reasons unknown to me

chemistry virtuoso. trustworthy. a bit callous. has eclectic taste in clothes, food.

very amiable. i think adjectives are inadequate to describe him. i simply cannot imagine life without his interference. keep lighting my life with spurts of laughter. god bless.

Things

2009-03-19T01:06:00.002+05:30

Reading about Tamal in Vibhor's blog, he mentions people in Vidyapith having things associated to themselves. Like we attribute pakami to Atul, ganwarpani to Hare, fainting to Tamal, and since this blog is not Vibhor's, he does not get pompous sixes here.
What I would like you guys to do is that jot down what you think is associated with some Vidyapith guy, comment to this post and I shall keep on updating such a list in one of the blog's widgets.
P.S. Since, this is my blog, I shall not accept anything like levami, larami, etc as far as I am concerned, and your comment shall be gleefully deleted. :)

Anupam Prakash (Tharki, playboy)

2009-03-12T11:14:00.007+05:30

On himself (in his Orkut profile)

I m a simple guy.
ideal match: penelope cruz
body art: strategically placed tattoo

Abhipreet Das wrote:

As I set out to write about this dude-boy from the ultra-modern outskirts of Muzaffarpur, I tried to gather some points about him. I reached one conclusion almost immediately - Anupam is the stuff modern day Bankelals are made of.

We have an unsaid agreement of not bringing each other's families on public forums, but that will be most certainly violated, because his traits are so very much governed by his genes.

Born in a family of playboys, to a father who was a flirt par excellence, whose adolescent heroics are now a stuff of folklore, it came as no surprise that Anupam himself is one of the most sought after men in our batch. As a certain Mr. D put it (I am shamelessly cogging Vibhor's idea of not completely revealing identities here, and leaving it to the intelligent minds to figure this out on their own), Anupam can sweep any woman anytime off her feet, for he belongs to the greatest family of (woman) sweepers.

They say that the first impression is the last impression. As he ventured out to captivate young damsels, blessed with an inherent guile in talking to the fairer sex and a command over English that people in India seldom have, Anupam thought of not leaving it to very late. He experimented with some mind-boggling pick up lines and eventually figured out one that was bound to work, one that never has failed him, one that leaves nothing to late, one that goes, "I don't love you, I simply wanna f**k you!"
If you think that this is a joke, try it out yourself.

Of course, what else is expected from the heir apparent of this great a family. A certain brother of his (we shall call him Mr X here), narrated this soul-moving story to us in Kota. While we had always been intimidated by the person in question, we feared that all good girls in Kota would be swayed by the charming personality, and we had silently conceded that we would have to be content with being friends with the greatest persona to have graced the gallis of Kota, this story was totally unexpected. As it happened every evening, all of us grouped around this Mr X, to get fundaes for life and beyond, to get an accurate measure of the greatness of the person in question. Mr X was narrating the story of his last day in school, when he was called on stage to say a few enlightening words, lest all from his school could have good wisdom. Now, not a word is wrongly written here, I am simply copy-pasting what was told to us that day.
(In the assembly, a seemingly never-ending applause greeting him, as everyone looked with gleaming and longing eyes)
X: blah blah blah
Some random boy: "Sir (he was respected by all there), please narrate an incident which had a huge impact on you.
X: (with very grateful, retrospective eyes) "A girl changed my life!"
All boys: (Almost immediately, as inquisitive looks were exchanged) "Who, who?"
All girls: (Fearing that this may be the last chance that they may have, as they shoveled each other and jumped in the air as high as they could, with hands raised) "Me, me, me".

It is said that at least 29 girls were injured in the stampede that followed, and around 12 pairs of erstwhile best friends stopped talking. It is also said that around 16 guys broke up with their girlfriends (yeah, situated in Muzaffarpur, that school had a famous culture of bonding with the opposite sex) having seen them behave so irresponsibly in a quest for Mr X.

Now, one can easily imagine that Anupam, who has played since his childhood with this Mr X, would be a master at this art of wooing the fairer sex.

I think there is no denying the fact that a lot of one's future is shaped in the childhood upbringing. Anupam's parents, progressive as they were, took notice of this and left no stone unturned in turning their child into the hunk that he is now. As he narrated tales of how he was thrust into things that were so unimaginable for us, we could only marvel and of course at times, feel jealous. For example, Anupam used to skate on the roads of Muzaffarpur since he was 3, an art that was suitably taught by his father (his father had represented India in some world-level skating competition). He told us stories of how he and Mr X would be made to race to the hot girl's house nearby by his father, of course on their skates, he told us stories of how he was made to learn the art of playing guitar by his mother at a tender age of 6, he told us stories of how his father could see a talent and bought him a table tennis board when he was 9, he told us stories of how his father gave him the first tips in flirting when he was 12. All this while, we gaped in amazement.

He had an email-id from the time of the internet boom, and was the most tech-savvy guy around. He, however, disclosed his email id only when we were about to leave school. It was: www.anupam.com

However, there was a fallout of living in an environment so cool, Anupam was burdened by his own expectations. Since there was no way he could achieve what his parents wanted him to, he had to opt for lies. And fenks.

When Anupam received his solitary award for being a drummer in Vidyapith (he was the big drummer from our class, remember) he told his parents that this was the medal that he received for being the best batsman in our school. Of course, his parents did not care about the certificate. As far as I am concerned, I was the scorer in all official matches, and counted everyone's runs as Anupam's, he still fell way short of what KG could muster.

Anupam was a terrific bowler. He started off as the bowler with the fastest run-up, and the slowest bowling speed, ended up as the one with the slowest run-up and the slowest bowling speed. Anupam wanted to encourage upcoming players, and with this in mind, he let Nandy, Amartyajit, Arijit, Kebran (in a single playtime in 2 overs) hit him for sixes over the roof of the auditorium and at times, beyond it. While he continues to deny the same though, and gives full credit to the batsmen, it is so freshly etched in our minds.

Since Anupam was deemed to be dangerous for girls in Muzaffarpur, upon various complains, his father decided to send him to Vidyapith. With no girls to play around with, Anupam set his sight on the next best thing, Mr P, and their love knew no bounds. Despite being kept in different hostels, they always managed to find their private time, and in our last three months in Vidyapith, they booked a room for themselves in the school building. Like any other couple, they had their share of misunderstandings and the roothna-manana sessions. They found themselves a great supporter in Parivesh, who would take immense pride in being the know-all of the most happening relationship in class. I'm told that at times he would help in resolving conflicts and those were the best days of his life.

To his great relief though, Anupam finally set out from Deoghar to Delhi. While in Delhi, Anupam showed us all why he certainly does belong to his family, as he used and threw one girl after another. As luck would have it though, there have been some reports of being stabbed in the back by some of his nearest ones, but the cool casual don that he is, Anupam is least deterred, even if these reports were to be true. However, true love finally struck with a certain Ms U. Lovestruck, Anupam started writing poems (since his own English was too extraordinary to be understood, he borrowed from Pari). In one of those romantic candlelight moments, Anupam once remarked:
"Bahoot Khoobsurat Hai Tu,
Meri Jaroorat Hai Tu,
Jise Dhudhta Raha Main Verso Talak,
Man Mein Basi Vahi Murat Hai Tu" (You are very beautiful, I need you, You are the image in my mind that I have been looking for so many years)
In one of those desperate times, when they were on a break (oh, yeah, both of them watch Friends, and are very similar to Ross and Rachel) Anupam once wrote this:
"Wo meri thi meri hai meri rahegi, sabne samjhaya kaha yeh maan,
Jo na aayi tum ab sunke yeh pukaar, aaj jayegi ek aashiq ki jaan!" (Everyone tells me she was mine, is mine and shall remain mine, but if you don't come today, a lover shall be killed)

While in Delhi, Anupam would serve as the perfect host, and you would come to know of some interesting trivia, something you wouldn't have known otherwise.
Once, as we were walking around Chanakya Puri, Anupam came up with a word of caution. He warned us that if we stop in front of any embassy without prior notification, we shall be indiscriminately and immediately shot at. Of course, we thanked our stars that we had the great Anupam in our company, God knows, this blog could never have existed otherwise. He also told us that there were only 3 BMWs in entire Delhi, and once again we were thankful, that he saved loads of our energy looking for them.
Anupam is one of the most well-informed Indian citizens and has a take on almost every issue and diplomatic relationship that our country has with others. Once, in home, all his family watched History Channel and had a close look at the bedrooms of Saddam Hussain, Yaser Arafat, Boris Yeltsin, et al.

He has a great English, but some malfunctioning verbal muscle means that he pronounces "Penelope" as "Peneloppal". By the way, he applies "jell pump" everyday on his hair (and not the regular hair gel) and still drinks Pepsi with a "pipe" (and not a straw).

Hare Ram (Gaaon, village, villager, etc)

2009-03-11T00:07:00.008+05:30

On himself (in his Orkut Profile)

i am the ..................DESIRE......
which everyone desires............

I am the MIND as free as the OCEAN
I am the IMAGINATION as limitless as the SKY
I am the HEART as wild as the WIND
and..................
I am the SPIRIT as unshakable as the EARTH.........

WELL.........
I.....AM............ MYSELF..............

Btw, Hare has 10 fans on orkut. God bless those poor souls.

Vibhor Sahay (in his blog)

I am so going to rot in hell. I mean look at the guy’s name. “Hare Ram” look up his brother’s name. “Hare Krishna”. I mean isn’t it obvious that if I make fun of someone of this devotional stature I would go to hell. God have mercy on my poor soul.

This dude had his bed next to me in yoga dham. So I kind of saw this unique creation of god from very close quarters. Everyday we would come across certain new features, new qualities, but the same character.

There are few things that come to my mind as soon as his name is mentioned.

He used to redefine the levels of “gawarpani” on a daily basis. I mean come on man. Who cares about the number of “fans” you have in your orkut account?

This is a very interesting conversation that a certain Mr. S (I cannot mention his name for confidentiality issues) had with Mr. Hare Ram. Following is the excerpts from the conversation.

Mr. S: Hare Ram, how have you been?

Hare ram: I am good. How have you been? Don’t see you or orkut these days as well.

Mr. S: Yeah I have been kind of busy lately. You seem to be on orkut a lot these days. How is college?

Hare ram: Yeah. And you know what? I have 25 fans (not sure of the number) on orkut. How many you have?

Mr. X: come on man. Who cares about the fans?

Hare ram: I do. Everyone does. You don’t have those many. Ha ha ha

Mr. X: Shut up. Your favorite color is yellow, your favorite food is omlette and your favorite actor is Govinda. Don’t you dare call me anything. Gawar!

When I came across this, I could not stop laughing.

His favorite sport is still high jump. Used to be really good at it. Still wears his glasses when he is jumping.

And I guess even today, when he gets up in the class to answer some question, or when the teacher asks him to get up, he still brushes the grass of his ass. We never understood why he always did it but it was one of those rare times where the whole class used to turn around and look at him whenever he had to get up.

The Sharma part of his persona used to come out in full colors when he used to sleep. With one of his hand covering his face, he had a signature style of his own. We used to tell him “Hare Ram, itna sharma ke mat soo”. A certain Mr. P used to be really on his ass on this issue. Was awesome fun

Whatever said, Hare ram was a lot of fun. Today whenever we sit and talk, his name always comes up and we have a good laugh over it.

God bless you man. Or may you bless us all.

Cheers.

Abhipreet Das (while commenting to the above post)

Shubh and myself once set out to meet him in Patna. We decided to meet him at his coaching. As we waited for the star of Patna to arrive, we chatted how much more ganwar he could have become by now, as he had a very complimentary company in Patna. We raised our limits to unforeseen standards, to standards obscenely low, to an extent where the two of us decided that we are now talking extra-terrestrial. However, we then witnessed pure magic as all our bounds were terribly shattered. Hare Ram arrived with his band of boys, on obsolete Atlas cycles, most of which did not have a bell, and all of which had two passengers, one gangster very coolly sitting on the front rod. As they met us, they wondered at our attire, some of them silently revolted, as did we upon seeing all of them in tailor-sewn yellow/red trousers and green full shirt, with the Vrindavan Garden etched on them, to cap it off.
As we dared to talk, cool stories of how Hare managed to talk to a girl (upon being told by the teacher to tell her the answer) were told. As it is, by the end of the conversation, we could safely conclude that Hare was the coolest of them all!

Hare was my benchmate for almost 3 years in Vidyapith, and his style of sleeping also deserves a mention here, reminiscent of Javagal Srinath mid-air at the time of bowling run-up, in his hey-days. He also had a weird trait of calling everyone by his full name, aye Prashant Kumar, Abhipreet Das, Vibhor Sahay.

Hare was also a very unpromising fast bowler, and I still remember Robinson hitting him all over C-team in the 7th-8th tournamant. Later, he went on to become the Prayer Hall Minister, a responsibility he so very much loved, and something he is very proud of till date.

And yes, he was the only one who believed Debroop, and would stop talking to anyone who dared not do so, until we eventually proved everything to be farcical.

I had somehow forgotten this initially. Hare Ram always wanted to act in dramas. But apart from the Class 7th fiasco, where he directed all of us in a 30-minute version of a 2-page "emotional" story from Champak and got himself the bulk of dialogues and emotions, he was always confined to the role of naukar, a character that was so realistically rendered by him. About the class 7th fiasco though, I remember the story vaguely, it was about someone who did not celebrate holi because his son had died on that auspicious day. The flashback scenes, which were supposed to bring tears to every eye, had everyone in splits, as people rolled down with laughter. In any case Atul in a customary high-neck white tee accentuating his full shirt as Hare's son did not actually help matters. Ridden with too many on and off stage fiascoes, this drama made sure that Hare's stint as director was very shortlived.

Amartyajit Mukherjee (Telu, Kerosene, Lama and all variants thereof)

2009-03-06T17:45:00.000+05:30

Subidit Nandy (in his blog)

This guy successfully managed to irritate almost everyone from our batch, senior batch, junior batch, teachers, monks, hospital staffs, bhandar staffs and even barbar and TUNU RAM by his not so flattering words atleast for once within his long span of vidyapith life. He is titled kerosene oil because most of the times his flattering words were enough to fire your temper rather to ameliorate.

Amartyajit, (on himself in his orkut profile)

i am who i am

My take

I have met numerous people by now. A simple case study would reveal that I have known more than a thousand people easily. And I can say this with full conviction that I am yet to meet anyone even remotely as irritating as him.
While I hated him no end during my Vidyapith days, I must laud him for actually maintaining this reputation of his throughout.
He had this amazing ability to always look engaged in some work or the other, and would claim responsibility in whatever manner he could to be in the good books of authorities. That the authorities were no less irritated is a different matter altogether.
A typical conversation with Amartyajit would be:
AM: "ki re .., ki kosrchhish" (Hey .., what are you doing?)
U: "aamake irritate korbi na, maar khabi" (Don't irritate me, you'll be beaten)
AM: (after a pause, and a terrified look that would make you think that the battle's won, and you can now proceed peacefully with whatever you were doing) "thik aache" (OK)
(Another pause, sounds of footsteps behind you thereafter. If you are quick enough to react, this is the end of Amartya. If not, you shall make sure that this is done after a few moments.)
AM: (catching you totally off-guard, with his curling fingers in front of your nose, his own, if you were luckier) "Llama, Llama" (No translation)
U: (Do you think you would actually say anything thereafter? A slap or a fist or a public beating if there are others nearby).

Amartyajit would be typically happy after singing bhajans as the music group leader, and would have threatened you a zillion number of times of going to the authorities straightaway. Among his other chief traits, I really don't think I remember any of them!

Debayan Chatterjee (Divine)

2009-03-06T17:26:00.000+05:30

Vibhor Sahay (in his blog)

i actually do not know why i have started with him. its like i do not have control over my hands anymore. the brain is being controlled by some superpower. maybe i am being controlled by a Divine force. the Divine force of Debayan. it has come true. i did predict that amongst the whole 69 of us, if there was a saintly soul, above the worldly bondages, at par with swamiji himself, someone our kids would pray to, someone who will save humanity, it would be DEBAYAN. he has today asked me to serve him by propagating his name far and wide and i will do that till my last breath.
i imagine myself 40, 50 years down the line, when i have nothing better to do than sit and talk to people the whole day, proudly gleaming, boasting that i had studied in the same school as His Holiness Debayan. people would flock to me, beg me to tell them more about their favourite God.
I would tell them that we were in the same Dham, same room with 6 others, his bed mere inches away from mine. he would get up everyday and pretend to study when in fact he was sleeping all the time and trying to be subtle about it. he would at least put a quarter litre of oil in this flowing hair and then spend at least 3 hours, not continuous, in front of the mirror with a comb in his hand. he would then allow us to touch his feet and bless us. ah, what joy we would experience.
in the prayer hall, where we used to go every 12 hours, dressed up in dhoti and kurta, Debayan would be look his Godly best. he would then elevate to a state of trance, spend hours together, only to realise that he his late for the morning drill or the evening study. we would try to wake him up from his state of trance but he would be lost like a kid in its favorite toy shop.
i have so much to share about him but i guess some of his actions, ideas, ways are beyond the realm of my understanding. i believe that i am just divinely lucky to have him in my life. Jai debayan.

Abhipreet Das (while commenting on the above post)

If Debayan is not God impersonated, he must be His finest creation then. The nonchalance with which he dismissed the wrongdoings of lesser mortals, every inmate of Vidyapith would concur here, was as spectacular as a cow discounting the barking dogs nearby.
God put him among 70-odd shameless rogues, he remained as calm, divine and non-existent as only he could have been.
While God's purpose of sanctifying us by keeping him company might not have been realized, Debayan certainly was able to bring about a momentary break in our rowdiness, as we all marveled at his actions, thoughts, and at times, mere presence.
He has to be divine. Period.

Debayan, on himself (in his orkut profile)

Very ordinary, yet distinct.

Compilations

2009-03-06T13:17:00.000+05:30

While I guess not many would actually be reading this, and I doubt even one would actually care, I have decided to simply put together whatever my friends are writing about each other. I shall write a few lines about someone, and simply add to it whatever has been written about him by others. For those copyright freaks, due credit would be given to the author.
This is much less energy and thought consuming, and provides a single platform for every blogger from the class.
My storytelling can wait, it any case tends to bore me, let alone those who actually set out to read them.
As for my IIT friends, I shall try to scribble something about you, though a similar effort from your side would make my work way easier.

When they all cried

2008-05-08T16:27:00.000+05:30

Bhaiji had twice sat for the entrance exam to Vidyapith. He failed to get through both the times. In the first attempt, we were told that he was too tall to get into the school. This, as I realised later was a very ridiculous theory, as some of my classmates were much taller than Bhaiji was at the time he sat for the exam. As it is, that he did not qualify made me very enthusiastic to try my hand there, lest I could prove a point or two. I was trained by Bhaiji then. These days, I hear, people have started coaching classes for admission in Vidyapith. Imagine 10-year old students taking coaching to get into a school!

At this point, I am tempted to share some of the stories of the entrance test to Vidyapith. Though this might not make a very good reading, I personally am very proud of them and I have always been the show-off kind of person.

There were around 3000-odd students who took that exam and the number of seats was 28. Naturally, the competition was really tough. There was first a written test where I solved all the questions, barring one. The question was something like what is the value of 2^224 /2^222. I did not get the idea and spent a hell lot of time trying to compute the values and then dividing them actually, yielding as is quite obvious, a very weird answer.

I did get a call for an interview next, which was really intriguing. We were made to sit all-day long, and we spent most of our time playing. However, some really tough questions were asked. I remember one of them. It went as: “There are 20 people in the room and all of them shake hands with every other person once. How many handshakes were made in total?” Most of the candidates answered 400. A few answered 380, thinking rightly that a person would obviously not shake hands with himself. I was among the two persons, who could get that if A shakes hands with B, it means that the same has been done even the other way round. So I summed up numbers from 1 to 19 and got the correct answer 190. Bingo! It was years later that I discovered that this was from a topic that one is supposed to learn in standard 11th, and even Bhaiya was in standard 8th then.

After the exams, we went to Baidyanath Dham, a very famous ancient Shiva temple in Deoghar. Devotees from all over Bihar come during the month of Savana to the temple to pray to the Lord. We went to our Panda in the temple of Annapurna Devi (the goddess of food), and he predicted that I shall be selected.

We had stayed in Baranwal Seva Sadan near the clock tower in the center of the town. Apparently, their was a baraat staying there at that time and no room was free, but Papa would usually come and stay there for his office works, so he found us a room out of nowhere. Later, I stayed here almost every time Papa would come to pick me from school during vacations. It was very cheap (I think they charged something like Rs 15 per day then) and the rooms were in very good condition.

We went trekking to the Tapovan, a small hill in the outskirts of Deoghar. It is said that Ravana had once done a death-defying penance at that place. I remember one small path in the hill, which was deemed to be very risky, and I was very happy to have crossed that without anybody's help. We also visited the Naulakha temple, the Nandan Pahaad among other places.

The town of Deoghar has a religious fragrance about it. The roads are small, and one can meet devotees at any time all over the place. There are flower stalls everywhere, and almost every road has a temple of mythological importance. Deoghar is renowned for pedas, and I must concede that they really are very tasty.

Much to the joy of everyone at home, I made it to Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith, Deoghar. And thus began my journey as a 9 year-old hostelite. Dadi Maa, however, was very upset with this decision. She would lament, thereafter, till the moment she died, of how could one send such a small kid to a hostel. In her words “Kora k bachcha k hostel mei da delak”.

Unlike most kids, I was not very sad about having to leave my home. I think that the main reason behind this was that Papa was posted in Deoghar, and I hoped to see him every now and then.

The first day in Vidyapith was very eventful. It was 25th of March, 1995. As soon as we reached the office of the Chief Warden, Shakti Maharaj, carrying my trunk and bedding among other things, two seniors, Ritwik da and Rohit da, came running in. I was told that they are my guides and they would tell me everything about the place. The first thing they did was to touch Shakti Maharaj's feet, and prompted me and my parents to do the same. Then they carried all my luggage and told me that I have been allotted Premananda Dham. As I walked behind them, I could not help but notice the physical contrast between the two. Rohit da was very thin, just like me, and Ritwik da was really fat. They took me to the Store and bought me the essentials, including utensils, books, copies, chappals and everything. They next took me to the tailoring department, where I was given a set of Dham and school clothes and I was told to send the clothes that I was wearing back, as 'civil dress' was not allowed in the school. We were told that keeping money would lead to immediate punishment, as would having unauthorized food or 'stock'.

My parents were told that it was possible to meet your wards only once in a semester. And as was the case with breaking any other rule, it would also lead to severe punishment.

The most tricky part of the whole day was when we were supposed to wear 'Dhoti-Punjabi' for the evening Arati. It was a very humorous sight, with all the new boys, as newcomers were called, trying their hand at the white piece of cloth, their guides trying their best to teach them the tricks of the trade. Dhotis were falling here and there, and in some cases, it were the students who tripped. All the students from our dham made a queue in front of the hostel garden, waiting very eagerly for the first bell to ring.

When the bell rang, the sight was amazing. The entire school flooded inside the prayer hall in queues. The Garbha-griha had 3 framed photos of people I failed to recognize. Later, I was told that they are Ramakrishna Paramhansa, after whom my school was named, his wife Sarada Devi, and his disciple Swami Vivekananda, who had founded the Ramakrishna Math and Mission. We were supposed to recite bhajans from Sangeet-Mala.

What happened next was very amusing as there was such a huge contrast among many simultaneous events. A guy was busy doing arati in the Garbha-griha, using different things as oil-lamps, fans, flowers, etc. All the students were supposed to sing some moronic verse in Bengali, and the pace of the whole bhajan was so slow that it could've put even a snail to shame. An unknown language and an unknown tune made it very difficult to follow the whole bhajan, let alone sing or comprehend it. And then, seated among the various new-boys, I couldn't help noticing them weeping all the time. A separation with their parents at such a tender age could tense even the strongest, and so everyone near me was crying. Some were loud enough to be pulled up by Prayer-Hall Ministers, seniors responsible for maintaining discipline in the Prayer Hall, while others wept silently. I had the satisfaction of Papa being posted in Deoghar, and I chose to enjoy the scene. When the first bhajan was finally over, another one started, and to my utter amazement, this one was even slower than the first one! It carried on for another 15 minutes, as some of my classmates and seniors were inconsolable. After this second bhajan, another one followed. There were murmurs of this being the last one, and the anticipation led to a renewal of energy, which was evident by the suddenly raised decibel levels. When this final bhajan was done with in around 5 minutes, the lights went out. Confused, I started looking around, when someone told me that this is the meditation time. I shut my eyes, and could see my home, my parents smiling at me. Bhaiya and Bhaiji were trying to tell me that this was just a bad dream. Of course, I was shouting back at them, and was hitting Bhaiya with all the power I could muster. This was the first time in the entire day that I felt sad, and it dawned upon me that I would now see very less of the people I love.

I met my parents after prayer. To hide my sadness, I talked very enthusiastically with them about the lush-green grounds in the campus, about the new friends that I had made, and about the food in the Dining-Hall. Mummy was silent all this while. Intermittently, tears trickled down her cheeks. I chose to ignore them. Papa was also feeling bad, but like me, he too discussed so many things about the campus.

When we were to finally part ways that day, I was really sad. It was easily the worst moment of my life till then.