Well it all started with the trip to kerala for my cousins wedding. Then came the crazy idea to come to Mumbai, and more specifically to IIT. The trip to palakkad was a nice one. The mesmerizing greenery, the smell of coconut oil, the irritating heat and the humidity all welcoming you. The day consisted of going to my Nurani, a visit to Malampuzha dam. It was there we had a look at the famous king cobra. There was one that was about 5 m long. Then we climbed up the dam, went on the ropeway etc.
The marriage went off well …. Ok now I am talking too much about the marriage. I had to leave it in a hurry to catch the train to shoranur. It was from shoranur, where I would catch my train to Mumbai. Yes in the heat , I managed to board the train at shoranur. There in the train was a mallu gang. Extremely hyper. They asked me to exchange their berth. I thought for a while. It was a tossup between a hyper mallu gang, making a racket and going a bit ahead, but with the chance of being asked to vacate again at udupi. Well the stupid light switch that didn’t work made up my mind to move. And in the middle of the night, I was woken up by angry passengers, mouthing bad words in Tulu. Thank god I don’t know Tulu. Anyway I reclaimed my berth and slept.
I was then woken up by a crazy man playing loud music, at 7 in the morning. So I decided to get down. Then a foreigner asked me to talk to the man and ask him to reduce the volume. The accent seemed to be European . I did so. Then the man started talking. It was then I gave him the name of loudmouth. He was extremely annoying. He was always right and every one else wrong. Also he kept talking. After bearing the torture for 10 minutes I told him that I was going to export. Then I escaped from his view. In the meantime he got another man to trouble.
Well with my luck in any train journey…. I was expecting my co passengers to be a beta version of the loudmouth or a crazy ghati family or a mauzi family. Thank god that I had better ones around. The girl whom I learned later, from
I went to my Athai’s place first up. After a brief chat, I was asked if I would go to a katcheri. I agreed. I slept there. After that we had dinner chat and sleep ……
The next morning , rather around noon I hit IIT.
Ok it was all back to the normal bus at postal colony, the auto ride from gandhinagar to hostel 12. the similar environs which I was part of for 2 years , filled the heart with joy..
I went to shanmuga’s room, with hari being involved with the techfest and donthi paying a visit to his hometown. After some time Mathews and vajeed joined me there. Later I headed towards the dept , where I met hari, amol, omkya, amit, mangesh. We decided to head to gulmohar for lunch with lalit too joining us. At gulmohar it was the same old story, useless service, with just edible food at exorbitant rates. This time around they messed up the bills. God only knows how the restaurant still exists there. May be coz of idiots like us. Thanks hari for the treat .
Meanwhile the techfest was in full flow, with the events attracting a lot of crowd from various parts of the country. You know what I mean … shanmuga will now say … dey idhalaam teve yaa ???
After the food, I mean we finished at around 4, I went around to shnamungs room. I got my stuff and headed to the ground. Playing cricket on those cement pitches evoked the strong memories when we used to play cricket after the second sem . we ( Mahesh, vaibhav, ahmed, nishsit, hari, mohan pyare et al ) used to play a lot, with stupid rules.
Then came a game of football. Man, the standard of electrical is going down . god save them . then , hari, shanmung and I went to lakshmi for dinner. …. Menu … can u guess … well was full of dosas and uthappam. After dinner I saw guru in shanmung’s room.
The next day I went and met up chandorkar .. .a la anc . this time he was busy … so I was spared of the 1 hour lecture. The best part was that he asked me to pose for a snap with him….. then I attended the first techfest lecture … a lecture on gpu by nvidia ??? … well I knew what was going on. Then I headed towards tansa. …. Where I met murli. …. It was a nice time there. I had eggs for lunch. Tansa food is the best in iit. I also met yogi over there.
Well iit life is not complete without an afternoon siesta. I had full nap. By now I had cold/throat infection. … still I went in the evening towards convo , trying to attend the techfest. After that I headed towards the footer ground beside the volley ball court. Satya and noel were there.
Most of the evenings in my second year were spent in the footer ground playing football. The tansa guys , ravi, binu, reji, dileep, raju bahi, lg, sreejesh, srinath, pai had all left. Now there is only satya. Still playing besides him and scoring goals was fun. I, being a non mallu, was allowed to play. Later I was included in the tansa football club in orkut, even though I did not belong to tansa. After the game, I headed towards sac, to see fish in the pond. Saw the queue and hit back to the rooms. Then we had dinner and started planning for the trek. We were going to kalsubai, the next day. After a lot of deliberation, we decided to leave next morning. The dinner in h12 was a typical one. The rice was not cooked, the noodles had oil poured on top of it. Any way we retired early.
Treks … in maharashtra is incomplete without kalsubai and harishchandragad. This time it was kalsubai. We left early next morning to catch the 4:50 kasara local. Again the Mumbai auto walas, who go by the meter, rarely refuse a passenger, and take the right amount from you. … those coming to blore …beware … J
The cold in the meantime had worsened. I was even doubtful on making the trip, but decided to go on …as this could easily be my last chance. I slept in the train. There was a guy sitting next to me… I was kinda hoping he would leave sometime….. but loafer never left. … so had to sit and sleep. At kasara we had the regular vada pav and chai. Man I miss vada pav …so synonymous with Mumbai . Marathi manoos junta were then found arguing with the jeep guys over the fare. They ( jeep guys ) won, and we had to agree to their fare. We hit the base, and started trekking. We had told people that we would be coming over for lunch. The terrain was one you would expect in jan.. ..the grass being yellow. We started with pumba ( dipankar nag ) being the guy who was going to give me competition. I took some snaps initially when there was life.in me. So whenever we had breaks, I slept J . in 3 hours we hit the peak. The view was awesome. The nap was even better J . after finishing the vada pav. The icing on the cake was when we located harishchandragad. That evoked strong memories of the bakbakker, fireman , captain cook and the five layered man.
The descent was faster. And by 4 we were back at the village. We had lunch. Soon we hit the roads. A jeep stopped by. The driver was drunk big time. ….. but I did not know this ( nose was totally blocked ). He drove crazy. Almost hit other vehicles …. The bag kept on top falling down. ….. sudden braking and acceleration. … with blaring loud music of all the flop films of bollywood.. ..guess he was paid to give the film some publicity. We hit kasara in darkness ( load shedding ). Now we bought the tickets. While I decided to stay in the station, the others went to have tea. They returned in the nick of time. Pumba was at the rear. Hari gave me a bruffin. That helped reduce the fever. At kanjur, we had tamasha again. Pumba was behind and he left . we were waiting for him . then all kinds of ideas came. Sachin kept telling there are tc’s at dadar. Another guy suggested Pumba was left in kasara. So all that we did were putting theories .After wasting time, pondering as to what we are supposed to do, we like true Indians left , doing nothing. We left for iit. The dinner was at h6. I am sure the iitians would remember the 2 am chai after a nice movie./lab work. …..then was sleep. ……. Sleep after a trek is always great.
The next day morning was a easy day …. Firstly have a sada hua breakfast at hostel, then a relaxed session of paper reading. Then came the time to go to the accounts section, blasted a couple of people. Went to the wel lab, met Date madam. It was then I had my first taste of the banana chips that I had got from Kerala. All these days I have had lunch at various places, and now it was back to h-12 …. That useless place. God only knows how I managed to eat for a year, and that too without much of a fuss. Guess would have got used to it then. Then met up Ashwani, tried to get to Shanmung, to watch lage raho munnabhai, but without luck. This was my last meeting with Mahesh .
The afternoon also included a siesta …. I love these post lunch siestas .Then in the evening , after the tiffin, there was a round of final football with the tansa guys. Then Ashwani and I decided to go to vihar lake. We started late, and found that it was not the best time to go to vihar lake. There was the case of iitians being robbed at sameer hill. So we turned back and headed towards NITIE.. All along the trip to vihar lake with the red shorts came into my mind. In that trip I guess the police mistook me to be a pimp. We were quite shocked to see the desolate campus. Later we learnt that the second years were out doing the interns and the first years were picknicking. After some time we left for iit. And this time on the way was the election speech ….. we decided not to hear that. The break in into iit was not as difficult as anticipated. The break in continued into the mess… and had dinner with Ashwani.. the night was then comprised with some dvd burning, watching lage raho munnabhai, meeting up some phd guys, hemant, hk, etc.
Then came the time for the bday bashes of dinky. This meant a nice stroll with the junta to h-3 . at H-3, dinky got his due from the btech guys. So we just gave our finishing touches. Vamsi , ravi, shantanu, bihari, alok were the ones to be feared. Lots of photo sessions ..this is where pdv imposed his presence during our bday parties. After the customary cake cutting ( I remember during our time, I used to cut the cake after the bday boy did, and then the rest ate … I often ended up with only a small piece. ) we then decided to go to h-6 for the treat…. Various items were ordered ,, some of them were being tried for the first time …. Some of them were expensive …but who cares, it is the bday boy who is giving the money.
It was 2 am … yeah I am not kidding, time to sleep. ….. .. take a break….
The next morning. …. Alas my final morning …. Started in the familiar note … leaking taps in the bathrooms ….. fighting for the extra bournvita with the mess idiot. … cursing the idli … and then eating it. We now had a senior junior match. This was where we had ravi vempati . … always there on time … to wait there and then call the rest of the guys to the field. I was again late. This time … a rare occasion … I was only a spectator. I recalled all the matches that we used to have …the joyous moments … with Drdo Madhav ….fielding … to Prakash ji …diving about with great zeal ..to our Ankur … yeah do you remember him … he was our keeper for the first game … to our batting collapses which happened as frequently as our Indian cricket team.
The seniors won the match … as expected .. so that the grades don’t suffer. This ended up with the treat by the junies at staff canteen. Later on I went to complete the rest of the movie . …. Had the last lunch at iit … in that stupid mess. I wanted to eat at h-4 .. but could not do so.
Ashwani and I planned to go to sameer hill. I don’t really remember the number of times I have climbed this hill … but the first time with madhav .. the second time with shantanu and pavan, when we broke into vihar lake … the early morning climb with hari … and the one with the h-12 junta …come quickly into my mind. This time it was around noon.. it also included a walk along the trail next to the fence. We returned via the golden route.. .. hostel 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9, and then to 12,13 . I do regret of not going to h-4 … and see the old room . 303 ..i recalled my weird roomy ….
Then came the packing time … and accompanied by hari and shanmung we took a auto to the airport. And in time the plane was due for departure. …. All good things have to end. Took a last long view from the balcony of my fourth floor room … outside room no 420 (my erstwhile room).
So did you get an answer as to why I went to iit ?????
Well the answer is a big one … and is there in the write up … I went to iit to live the iit life for 5 days .
I still miss iit … the hostel … the mess … sameer hill … ground .. Football … cricket matches … bday parties … treks … classes … early morning cycling … studying … late nigh outs at the labs … watching movies …. Chatting .. …Chandu’s lectures … siestas ….
The conclusion is taken from the pink Floyd song – High hopes –
The grass was greener …. The taste was sweeter …. With friends around me ….
The nights of wonder … . the light was brighter … the dawn mist glowing …..
The water flowing ….. The endless river ………. Forever and ever ………….
This list will go on and on ………………………………………………………………..
No comments:
Post a Comment