Some of the events bear resemblance to some actual events and the characters though fictional may carry a few traits of actual people I have known.
Hence begins
Before I start telling you the story I think we need some background over here. As all of the people reading this might know that there these days engineering students are like televisions in India, you will find at least one in every household. Two major contributing factors to this surplus of (those who are expected to be) technocrats in our beloved nation are , the boom in IT industry, and the fact that investment in an engineering college is far more profitable than investing in the stock market. A major supporting example in the favor of the second point is the fact that almost all medium sized business firms have an engineering college by their name. I won't be citing any examples though.
Our story mainly involves two of these engineering colleges. One of these is famous for being the oldest engineering college in the region that is ICE Angrezabaad, counted among the top ten engineering colleges of the country. And the other is (in)famous for campus brawls having the name MCT Malgudi college of technology. One was established by the British to train engineers for making the (in) famous guns of the 1857 rebellion. And the other was established by a desperate vice chancellor of Malgudi University in the hope of getting more funds from the government. Both these colleges lie at a distance of about 250 kilometers from each other joined by a series of potholes that at some places is disrupted by a strange geographical disturbance called a road.
This is the story of Shubhankar(meaning mascot) who did his graduation from MCT and is about to complete his PG from ICE and has his graduation friends scattered over at different places in India and the US. This amount of background was necessary and should suffice. And as it is Shubhankar's story so it would now be best to hand over the control to him.
See ya.
****
"Wait", I said to Saawan "let me look at myself before we leave."
"Why? Do you want to see the change that has come over you in the past 2 years."
"No I just want to check that will my folks be able to recognize me after what all has happened in the past two days."
"Two weeks , you havn't shaved since two weeks."
"That's only a part of the look. " I said looking at myself in the mirror.
I had expected something strange to look back at me and was not disappointed.
Oddly cut short hair, facial hair not cut since the past two weeks 70's style sunglasses and a black kurta that reminded me of Circuit from Munnabhai. The reflection in there hardly looked like me.
"Sab tera hi to kiya hua hai" Saawan said.
He was right I had come back from home 2 weeks ago for the final round of presentations. Just to discover that I had the first one and had forgotten my shaving kit at home. So on the morning of my presentation I had decided to go to Azhar miyan our hostel barber for a haircut and shave. I had come out about an hour later with my head resembling a freshly shaven coconut. Since then I hadn't dared to go for a haircut or a shave. My head still resembled the top of a coconut. As for the sunglasses I had contracted an eye infection 2 days ago and the doctor had advised me to wear sunglasses. I had requested Saawan to bring them for me and he had bought the cheapest pair which I strongly suspected to be from 70's. As for the kurta I was to be blamed for it. I had spilled milk on my only clean shirt in the morning so Saawan had lent me his only clean garment this kurta.
I forgot to introduce Saawan, my soon to be erstwhile room-mate. By strange co-incidence he also was from malgudi but from a different college. I don't know why did I respect him so much. But there was something unusual about him something sort of a positive energy that radiated from him.
"Come on now Narcissus or we will miss another bus."
We were standing at the door.
"Close it" he started,"No wait let me remove this" He strode forward and removed the wallpaper that I had used to cover the scribbling on our walls by our various friends about an year ago.
"Remember this" he turned towards me, beaming.
How could have I forgotten that night. It was in march the previous year.
-Continued.
It was the middle of March the previous year. Spring. That day was our Hostel Annual Day and guests were allowed to gorge on special (and as an exception good) food prepared in our mess and girls were allowed in the hostel for a while. However not knowing any girls we had invited our friends from another branch. Chandu ( G. Chandrasekhar ) was my guest and Apurav came as Saawan's guest. It all started when we were watching boys dressed as scantily clad girls in a so called fashion show. It was then that Apurav turned to me and said. "Let's go to your room."
"This thing looks interesting to me."
"But look at it so many people are going to their rooms." Chandu cut in.
"They have girls with them. I hope you are oriented well" I replied.
"Yes, am not like you" he said, "it was just that we wanted to see your room."
"Atithi devo bhava" Guest is an incarnation of God. This was what our culture said. We were honor bound to lead them to our rooms. Well not exactly honor bound as they had managed to get the keys out of Saawan's pocket and were rushing towards our room.
We ran after them. By the time we reached there they had opened the lock and were unlatching the door.
Hey Shubh , Chandu said , " We just learnt about a ritual at ICE."
"It involves making the room of you Hostel annual day host un-inhabitable." Apurav added.
"So we start with a modern art form made out of tooth-paste hair-oil and shaving cream." Chandu concluded.
It was my turn now, "Guys even we have been educated in the ICE way of life the said things are safely hidden at a secure location…"
"…outside this room So that you can't find them." Saawan completed the sentence with one of his characteristic bright smiles.
But somehow their smiles did not fade out. Instead Apurav coolly turned to Chandu and said , "Ok bring out the lists." As he said this he pulled out two small things out of his pocket. They looked a bit like colored sticks covered in paper but actually they were…
"…. Wax crayons" Saawan had a moment of enlightenment.
"Right Sarkaar." Chandu called saawan's famous name while pulling out a paper ou of his pocket.
"Ok so here is a list of all your girlfriends, which will be used to decorate your walls in a few moments.
"What??? What is this list where" I was shocked
"Social networking my boy. Just go to anyone's friends list and search female over there. And you shall be all knowing."
"but wait I have cousins there."
"Don't worry we will speak out the names aloud before writing them. So shall we start ." Apurav turned to Chandu.
"okey dokey."
I and Saawan just stood there as Apurav and Chandu wrote using wax crayons upon our walls a notice having the words .
To whomsoever it may concern.
This is to inform the public in general that Shubh and Sarkaar apart from being madly in love with each other are also gaga about the girls listed as follows.
This was followed by the list of the entire female population except our cousins in our friends list on a social networking website.
"Now that's what I call a masterpiece." Chandu said while looking at his "art" in awe.
I would have been satisfied if it had ended here. A voice had come from the neighboring room bringing fresh problems.
"No wait, these things belong to the Masters people in the next room."
It was Nikunj one of our B.Tech neighbors in whose room we had hidden our things. I ran out to prevent any damage with the destroyers of our room close upon my heels. I however had to stop dead in my tracks at the entrance of Nikunj's room. His girlfriend was standing there and in front of her written in red paint (hidden in her purse) upon the almirah was the message ' Chikku loves Nikku'. Chikku must be her name I thought. Our undoers got their hands upon our stuff and within mere minutes before dinner our room had lost any qualities of being inhabitable that it had ever possessed.
"We must do something about this" I had said to Saawan the next morning.
"Yes how about wallpapers?", he had suggested.
And those were the very same wallpapers that he had torn down just now. I looked once again at those names as he came out and latched the door remembering the last times I had talked to most of them.
30 minutes later we had got into a bus and got ourselves seats. We had got a seat with a capacity of 3 with a rather old looking fellow sitting next to the window , me sitting next to him and Saawan sitting toward the aisle. We had nearly six and a half hours of journey to go with nothing but remembering our past two years to remember. It had been five minutes since we had sat in the bus that my phone beeped.
It was a message from Shipra , one of best friends from MCT.
"Reunion scheduled coming Friday, hope you can make it J."
My mind slipped back to my third day of my second week at MCT when I had first met Shipra and many others, in front of our mechanical workshop.
-continued.
No, the last scene of that encounter was in front of the workshop, it started some 15 minutes before that. A new friend of mine , Aman , later to be known as "The Mask" had offered to pick me up on his way to college.
His heavily oiled side partitioned hair, round glasses and even rounder face together with his formal clothes gave an impression of a mild, introvert personality. The finest example of how looks can be deceptive. Highly deceptive.
"Drive slowly, will you." I shouted over the loud chanting of "Na baans ki bansi , na sone ka sariya…" coming from the speaker.
"No problemo, your holiness" he said and slammed on the breaks. The gray maruti 800 came to a standstill in the middle of the road. The roads were leading to MU were largly empty owing to the fact that it was sstill 7 : 30 in the morning. But a car standing still in the middle of the road is something that still makes you uncomfortable. He then started to move at a such a speed that a morning walker going home after his daily ritual over took us.
Irritated, I had to say "ok drive as you please. But what about the traffic police."
"traffic police ki <beep>." He answered unconcerned stepping upon the accelerator.
"And there is a rule about traffic violators in the campus" I again tried to push my luck, as we had entered the MU campus by then.
"VC ki <beep>"
As he cut a sharp turn we saw a hand waving to stop us. Four of the hosteller girls from our class were standing holding their bags and one of them a particularly ferocious one called Anusha was holding out her hand.
"Aman Singhal" she said as we looked at her "Don't you have the manners to offer your classmates a lift if you can."
Aman looked back at her but didn't seem happy. He then turned to unlock the rear door to allow the girls in. After all for of them were seated. He checked the lock of the rear door on his side and gestured me to check the one on mine. In the one week that I had known him I had never seen him silent like this. Maybe it was the calm before a storm. As soon as he had finished checking the doors his hand moved towards the ignition and the engine roared. Aman's foot pressed upon the accelerator as if a mob of murderous zombies was after us. I saw the speedometer needle at 80 as we zoomed past the the turn leading to the workshop. The girls shrieked with fear.
He made it stop some 200 meters from the turn and put reverse. Full speed backwards. The girls cried out loud again and even I felt a strange fear growing inside me. Once near the workshop he sped forward towards it and crossed it again leading us towards a roundabout in the middle of the university. He made three full revolutions about the thing at a dangerously high speed (the sound was enough to attract the attention of MU stray dogs who started barking and chasing the car. Suddenly he again sped towards the workshop and was headed towards a pillar of the workshop parking. The girls cries now seemed like background music as I silently prayed to God. And just a few meters from the pillar the car stopped. The girls and even I was too shaken to say even a single word. When they found their voice back it was the shortest of the lot who spoke first her words were , "lets bunk the workshop today"
"What after nearly getting killed on the way to attend it you want me to skip it no way. " I retorted.
"oh come on there is so much to do" she said.
"That can be done after classes." was my reply (ok ok sick one)
"What problem do you have with a bunk?"
"What problem do you have with proper classes ?" I shot back.
She made a face and went away, actually all the girls made a face at me and went away. Some thirty minutes later as I was trying to hammer some nails into a piece of wood she called out ,"watch out the way that hammer is placed it can drop on your foot ." As I moved my foot back as an impulsive reaction the hammer did actually fall down.
"Look I told you na we should bunk it" She was smiling then.
That was the first time I talked to Shipra. We soon exchanged numbers and it was she who had recommended me for teaching Isha.
I came back to the present shaking my head vigorously. No I must try to not think about Isha , I told myself.
Saawan looked at me , "Whats wrong ? were you having a bad dream" he asked.
" I wasn't sleeping"
Then what do people do while closing their eyes for 45 minutes. I looked around, we had reached Lakahangarh a five minute stop for the bus. The old man sitting on the window seat had took his luggage moved down. So I shifted towards the window and hoped that no one would come so that the two of us could get a rather relaxing environment. But even a place to sit on that route is a luxury let alone a two people getting to sit in a place meant for three. Soon enough a female voice directed towards Saawan asked ,
"Bhaiya yahan koi biatha hai?" Both of us turned towards the source of that sound. And looking at me was the face that had been moving in and out of my dreams for the past four years. I couldn't believe my eyes and didn't know whether to curse my luck or to praise it.
"Is anyone seated here?" Isha asked again.
My forced disguise had worked; even my ex-girlfriend had not recognized me.
-continued
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