Friday, December 14, 2007

Vacation timezzz....

Sweet November…..Now that’s one movie which I really liked very much…May be that was one of the reasons that I was expecting something really overwhelming and surprisingly stupefying to happen during the month of November (Yes, I am a lousy day dreaming dumb moron who wants to go beyond the realm of the so called real world which is governed by logic and not by superlative fantasies!)…Well IT DID happen….My university exams! ‘Overwhelming’- because all the papers had a gap of exactly one day (obviously coupled with the very important night) in between which meant that the exams were a matter of 10 days and ‘surprisingly stupefying’- because I never had known that studying an entire subject for securing (or at least hoping to secure) just above pass marks in a duration of 1 day and 1 night would be a superpower I was equipped with….
November the 30th…finished with the exams thing in the afternoon…burnt some DVDs…stuffed some clothes in the bag and happily hopped on to the bus to Mumbai…
Heck! That hasn’t got anything to do with what I intend to tell…can’t believe you guys actually read that…Anyways…let me begin once again..

It all began with a CALL…Actually it all began with an end. A blissful and a much awaited end…End of a nightmare called exams.I tried doing everything on reaching home that you do on a vacation…1) Turned on the idiot box ( surfed through the stupid channels – cursed the saas bahu sagas – resisted the urge to throw stones and boulders on the dumb ‘news’ channels – watched mtv…too many ads, too much of a nasal epidemic haunting the viewers with a mike in hand and a cap on head…, aaah! That’s such a waste…, saw the Japanese kids tasting mud on takeshi’s castle on pogo – couldn’t feel more doomed after watching the meaningless and more importantly humorless ‘laughter shows’…sach me idiot box!) 2) successfully tried to re-enliven the ‘baba aazam ke zamaane ka PC’( discovered that playing the dumb flash games like cricket and ski ain’t that cool anymore…had a hearty laugh at those pics of school days…accessed the internet on a ‘thakela’ dial up connection…god damn it! It takes more than 2 minutes to open a yahoo account…windows - u - u….and the game is over) 3) Tried reading the daily newspaper ( TOI sucks!...albeit I did solve su-doku – loop the loop – spellathon – read the comic strips – daily forecast – but again TOI sucks!) 4) Fancied myself a novel ( couldn’t last long…some novels are just sleep inducing pills..) 3 days gone and all the means of the so called ‘fun’ and ‘masti’ came crashing down and it felt like I was a retired man trapped in space where time moved at snail’s pace!
So, THE CALL….Took the useless receiver of the phone and dialed up the messiah of quick witted laziness…pulkit dearest! True to his name, he blurted that Amit {a.k.a our very own guddu} was coming the next day…What’s more…he had more than 100 GB of the much needed oxygen – the English television series…YooHoooo!! Time to call amit…[tring tring…”haalo” “Aunty amit hai?” “Kon bolraye” “Aunty Kaustubh…tarapur se” “ha hold on…gudduuuuu…(to which the reply was…Haaaaeyyy?)…..phone aschchi…koshtub haai…” Subsequently…guddu n I had a hearty discussion and asked him the amount of blank dvds required. 25 was the number. So after a long period of 3 days basking in the shades of comfort, the time had finally come when I had to step out of the homely luxuries and actually go OUT of my dwelling to get some job done…25 blank dvds it was which I fetched fighting my battle against the gruesome sun…Ouch! <>
Early the next day I got THE CALL…this time it was amit calling from pulkit’s place… “Hey hi…arre yah ape pata hai kya, koi nahi hai….gharwaale sab Aurangabad gaye hai…so it’s just us…jaldi aaja!” and within minutes I was at the gates of pulkit’s mansion. The wide eyed security guard with an enormous pot belly gave me a look that kind of meant “Ghar me sahab log ki phamily nahi hai to sab ladka log awaaragiri karne aa gaye” Too happy to be bothered about the look, pullu got me into his room….A desktop computer, 2 laptops, a flood of dvds, a LAN cable, an external non functional dvd writer, a broadband internet modem( fokkat ka…courtesy Govt. of India), a couch, some chairs, a stool….Oh hang on did I say a couch? Noooo! Actually it was Amit who seemed to be quite ‘expanded’ compared to the yester years geek that we were accustomed to see…Anyways on a sofa cushion on the floor was squatting an equally ‘expanded’ Mandar Raje with his funny grin and vibrant eyes…..
Now here is a very important piece of conversation that took place over there…

Me: Hey mandar, kal maine tujhe jogging karte hue dekha…
Mandar: Abey haa, Mumbai marathon me bhaag raha hu…so practice!

Amit, me and pulkit exchange looks of horror, eyebrows raised, amit does the talking.

Amit: Matlab…tu marathon me actually bhaagne waala hai kya?
Mandar: Arre matlab sirf dream run me….pura marathon nahi….100 rs de ke register bhi kiya hai…
Pulkit (laughing with disbelief): Kyaaaaaaaaa?
Me(making a face that’s beyond description and also due to the obvious fact that you cant see your own face while talking to others): 5-6 kilometers bhaag ne ke liye 100 rs do…isme kya sense hai?
Amit(shocked): 5-6 kilometers?
Mandar(responds in a lightning flash): Prize money 30000 hai!
Pulkit: Tu to sirf dream run bhaag raha hai naa….aur waise bhi prize to hamesha kisi Africa ya Kenya walo ko milta hai...Tera point kya hai bhaagne ka?
Mandar(adamant on proving his point): ..mtch…mtch…Arre tum log ko maalum nahi….marathon start karne ke liye hai naa, bahut famous public aata hai…bollywood stars, ACTRESSES n all…sab!
Pulkit(Again refusing to accept that argument): To un ko to tu audience me se bhi dekh sakta hai…bhaagne ki kya zarurat hai…?
Mandar(now pulls the rabbit out of the hat): Sirf stars thode hi yaar…marathon me bhaag ne ke liye Mumbai ki bahut babes bhi aati hai..lots of them…

Mandar gives a triumphtant expression. Amit, me and pulkit – almost in unison “Oooooooooooohhhhhhh…..”
{All right, all the girls reading this go have your 1 minute break- open your mouth wide and nod your head left right left and say those 4 universal words which you always do but also feel good about…. “All men are dogs/pigs/whatever” and to all the boys reading this do your brotherhood a little service and forward those pics of Mumbai marathon amongst each other}

Mandar( again comes up with a valid point to prove his argument) : Aur maalum hai kya ek jagah pe free me fruit juice bhi milta hai…
Amit(eyes widen): Haan kya?..Sahi!

By the time we were having these vital talks, dvds were written, major chunk of data was being transferred from NIT Trichy to NIT Rourkela(read laptop to laptop) and vice versa, the latest series was being downloaded from the net(bechaari govt!) etc etc.(I use etc etc because I don’t have any idea as to what I actually want to say!) Anyways, since there wasn’t anything much fun to do other than watching each others crazy antics, we decided to go to mandar’s place.
Averting the look on the face of the pot bellied guard as we marched out, we hopped in mandar’s car. Now here is the deal…Riding in a car with mandar on the wheel feels freaking fun…It feels as if you are actually bound in an Electronics Art world and are a part of the latest NFS game. Not that he is a wild maniac driving down the streets, actually its due to the fact that he always has a restless and a funny look on his face while driving. In fact safety is guaranteed with him behind the wheel subject to the condition that no gorgeous/beautiful/somewhat beautiful/good looking/any girl diverts his attention! After having a ‘just blink-and-its gone!’ kind of look at the latest buildings and other developments taking place in BARC, we reached our destination!

“Oh shit! PC chalu hai” exclaimed Mandar as he rammed the brakes infront of his bldg and looked at bedroom window situated on the first floor.
“Yaha se dekh ke kaise pata chalta hai PC chalu hai?” demanded amit.
“Arre fan chalu hai na…that’s why!”
Now don’t ask me what the logic is between a ceiling fan and a PC….everyone has got his own right to be weird! Once in his room, the same stuff(of oxygen/data transfer, LAN cables, net, blah blah blah…) was resumed. It was the turn of Amit to turn on the heat this time…Believe it or not he displayed his 16 GB collection of weird Japanese animation series(I don’t have any idea as to why it has been given a tiltle as lame as ‘BLEACH’!) He seemed to be madly excited about it! Dumb animated characters having sharp features, pointed hair, big eyes, seriously funny clothes who moved their jaws (or the mouth whatever it is!) in same manner every single time and yet it meant a different thing every single time! The same characters when poised for a fight between them could fly at speeds defying the speed of light which sent the nearby surroundings zooming away! The funny part is all the dialogues are in Japanese (yes there are English sub titles to the rescue) and to hear that language is all the more interesting! Tell you guys what, amit is obsessed with anything Japanese these days. { To any of the guys who want to get some work done from amit, here is a little tip:- Invite him over for a sushi…it’ll definitely work!}…He also showed us some spoof videos which were made in his hostel rooms back at the college and he claimed them to be funny...(Well i did try to laugh...forcefully though...but yeah...i did laugh)!!
Whatever! Now here is a little bedroom secret of Mandar…Taare Zameen Par was actually an abstract idea of Mandar Raje..He has his entire bedroom ceiling glued with fluorescent taare, a chandamama, a spaceship, some galaxies etc etc which shine in the dark! And guess what, our very own guddu was actually really sacchi mein asking mandar if he had any more of these taare left, so as to glue them on to his ceiling in the hostel room! What more happened after that?...I don’t remember much…But mandar drove us back to pullu’s place…The pot bellied guard gave another of his usual looks…also we had the very special pulkit ke haath ka banaya hua orange juice…! Cute little grown up kids with hell of an appetite, we gulped it down and it sure tasted heaven. I gave my set of dvds to amit as an assignment to fill’em up! Me and mandar left shortly leaving amit and pullu (alone together)….waiting till amit’s dad came to pick him up!

I can just go on and on detailing the events that happened the day after when I went to anushaktinagar at amit’s place with Mandar(sonavane this time…) but let’s just wait for it and let me define a happy ending here!
Au Revoir guys…..!!!

Thursday, October 18, 2007

NBH nights....

Well to begin wid i wud lik 2 make it VERY clear dat don'tch uy guys get 2 much excited by jst havin a look at d title..D nights dat i m talkin' abt r quite usual n r marked by a complete abstinence of any passion n d unmentionable stuff dats corrupting ur dirty little devil minds....Movin on...hav any of u guys wondered y only a bunch of guys(fondly called as bookworms) who applied for crash courses succeeded nhopeless freaks lik us flunked d same? NO ?well... no wonder... cuz ur thinking powers might also hav vanished by d time u actually read upto this point... given 2 d fact dat no1 cares 2 even post somthn in any of d topics.... I begin by takin into consideration a very unique character named tushar(dude..no offence meant!).Well wen me n pulkit wer bored(which v wer always!)v used 2 fool around in da corridors n hav a sneak peek in d scholars' rooms.On one such fine nite v strolled arnd in tushar's room n found out gyan in a laughing hysteric....(Gyan..unlike his name, was a source of time pass n hottest gossipdoing rounds those days...which he proudly continues 2 b upto this date). gyan was tushar's roomie n on slight cajoling gyan blurted out....."---It was a case of classic nerdness exhibited by tushar....here it is...It was laid down inan invisible lawbook dat whilst travelling by lifts(which v had 2 always cuz our rooms weron da 8th floor) a gal or a boy shud not travel alone...bah!...a gal n a boy combined as a couple shudn't travel eithr downstairs or upstairs for any duration of time whatsoevern while travelling u mst b accompanied by a 'group'....(man AM i putting things in ur head)...me n pullu as usual wer never a part of this freak thing or law or rule or watevr dhell it was..but d DUDE...tushar WAS...On such a fateful day(for us) or an unfateful day(for him)....it so happened dat he had 2 travel downstairs 2 fetch some water frm da cooler(Obviously Gyanbeing d RAQSHAS considered it below his dignity 2 put himself 2 d petty troubles lik fetching water)...Our hero..wen he pressed d button 4 callin a lift....was facing a herd of gals frm our batch also goin dowstairs..tushar, being a self proclaimed bramhachaari na staunch believer of a thing such as decency...BACKED out at once n letd gals go---" "So wat u dumba** "...v chorused unanimously at gyan..."its pretty normal"...weird stuff happening all over d place WAS normal in NBH...Again gyan pointed regretfully on our stupidity by askin us 2 hav a look on tushar's study table...n THR IT WAS...a shining black bottlecontaining a tiny sliding opening at its mouth...wrapped arnd d bottle was an equallyastonishing piece of paper on which was imprinted..."AXE...JAVA"..It was a f**kin deodarant...n dat too AXE...AXE DEO...JAVA...Now it was weird 2 imagine tushar spray d dumbspray on himself n all da ladies being intoxicated n carried away following him wanting to b wanted by him..as shown in its ad...WHAW...v pinched ourselves hard n yet cudnt believe datv wer in present...in reality..!!! For very obvious reasons i cant elaborate how v irritated n traumatised tushar...V wer bad folks...n v enjoyed being bad..haha...The nxt NORMAL thing which recurred every nite was Gyan strolling arnd in d corridorwearing a shawl in THAKUR's manner (of sholay fame) shouting "JAAGTE RAHO"...manavsquatting on d staircase surrounded by piles of books scanning every single alphabet...pulkit n me listening "FIRANGEE GAANE" again n again much 2 d discomfort of those who hated usanyways.....!!! Well..the best part was dat time of d night wen v used 2 go to Gyan's room after midnight......
Now Gyan had a maveric electronic instrument called as a radio which aired a show named"Loveguru"...Since it dint hav any speakers n was 2 b heard usin earfones only, much of dargument was all abt who gets 2 listen 4 how mch amt of time through dat ONE piece of earfone(cuz d second one was always glued in d owners' ear all d time)..It was amazingly weird nstupid 2 enjoy whole heartedly how 'roadside romeos' or 'nakchadi haseenaye' had beenexperiencing problems wid their 'bewafa sanam'... n 2 top it all a freaky fool helped d ones in distressby offering his piece of advice on the way the relationship has 2 b maintained..YEW.. Oh no...actually its YEW YEW or rather YAWK !Well...watevr...v used 2 hav long discussions on d PROBLEMS dat wer askd on d show n used 2 engage into a G.D. on d best possible answer...D discussion used 2 intensify at times n even got 2 d point of heightened nonsense by a group of folks who wer supposed 2 b studyinlaws of physics n maths but NOT d chemistry of romance....Watevr...as d xams came approachin,d only thing dumb ppl lik me wer sure abtwas d fact dat "Loveguru" was a boring program dat radio guys wer airing andthr is nthng as good as good ol' ghar ka khaana....As obvious v guys flunked d xams n let our destinies roll in time...

Friday, September 21, 2007

Blues @ Homi Bhabha

This is just a reminiscence to what our life was once like...hope you guys enjoy it...!!!


Reckless little monsters running haywire, teachers shouting madly in vain, creaking little benches, the irritating sound of a chalk making deep impressions on the ‘green’ ‘black-board’, the chatter of kids playing cricket, kho-kho, kabaddi, or the rather pointless pakda-pakdi in the neglected derelict of a fully functional zila parishad school…It had a barbed fence running in half a rectangle around it…some green grass…some ‘malkhamb(s)’ in the mud…a non-functional water cooler and a cluster of classrooms which could be counted on fingers…
It was the epicenter of chaos, confusion and careers…We had the honor of being the distinguished students who got admission in the very famous “Homi Bhaha classes” for tuitions of std 12...These classes were conducted at the school mentioned above. It always annoyed me to get up in the afternoon to attend the awfully long and boring lectures in the twilight…but the fact that our class was comprised of a variety of idiots (including me and my friends) who never for one second couldn’t abstain themselves from exhibiting their natural panache of nerd ness used to pump me up from within to attend the same….
On the very first day of the tuition we had an encounter with a sluggish, grouchy and a nostalgically comic human being who was supposed to be our math teacher…His name was AK Singh (as in AK 57)…On that day he doodled time by asking us our names and marks in std 10 math paper...Mandar was an instant hit from that day onwards as he was always referred to as “98 wale log” (‘coz he had mistakenly scored 98 marks in std 10) and the rest of us became “aam junta”.....Playing cursorily with a piece of chalk in his hand, he appeared too shy to face us as he talked to us looking lazily at the chalk piece glancing up sometimes to observe pranab grinning madly at everybody, too happy to be a part of this collective boredom….The extraordinarily zappy relationship that pranab and apna Armageddon (AK Singh sir) developed over the year is beyond my scope of description.
The next character happened to be a slender, zealous and graceful man with deep poring eyes that were highlighted by his thick eyebrows and square glasses…The most peculiar and distinguished fixation of this man was his manner of cleaning his glasses.
He would remove his specs and turning them over placed them on his stomach and then…would move his ‘kamariya’ left right left with a wide smile flickering on his face.
He taught us chemistry!! Physics was taught by a person whose anger can be compared with “He-who-must-not-be-named”…Committed deeply to the cause of ‘booodies in dee state of rest or of motion’ he would move his entire body along the length of blackboard lifting his thin and frail frame on his tiny toes while drawing a vertical line and then again attain his position of normalcy while coming down (on the blackboard you dumb heads).

Of the very clear memories that I can recollect is the one when were supposed to study and appear for the unit tests…..bah! Well nerds that we were, we DID study for such kind of tests and to be frank and modest (that is to say flamboyantly frank & menacingly modest) we tormented sudipto who used to flash his super white Colgate smile while copying the entire length of answers from the texts and notes. Now that we are on the threshold of completing engineering, we realize that wasting time preparing for an exam months away is just plain stupidity. Just for the sheer fun and nostalgia of securing pass marks, studying exactly on the last moment of exams make us a natural expert in tackling crunch situations. I still pity sudipto…Why to take all the pain of copying all the way to exams when you can fail now and blissfully sit in peace while your peers (read: me and my gang) achieve an iconic ‘moron’ status….!!
We loved it when the rains used to unleash hell in the town. It so happened that Armageddon was always late and when he finally showed up, removing his gigantic black helmet to reveal the frustration on his face we could hardly suppress our laughter….On being late, he always had the same excuse….”Halemate pe paani girta hai…iss wajah se saamne kaa kuch dikhayi nahi deta…” Bravo dude…!!!It so happened once that the rain gods decided to add more fun to our already whacky day of nonsense humor. It was raining hell then as our apna pranab came riding on a 1970s ki bike which made hell of a noise turning all the heads passing by...fumes being unleashed in a wicked manner from the silencer...and add to that the weird attire sported by the rider (A yellow sleeveless tee, some weird shorts which are usually worn by footballers and as usual a silly stupid and sweet grin advertising the white of his teeth). Bechara dude had come to enquire if the tuition would take place or not! As he approached the gate of the school, he saw the fantabulous awesome twosome on a scooty moving in his direction with awe and amazement on their face. As if caught in an act of treachery, he was confused as to whether he should blush with shame or should he keep grinning madly. Whatever the case, he turned the bike 180 degrees as fast as he could…momentarily stopping the awesome twosome in their path to view the moronic kid running away like a robber, spreading smiles and generating giggles all over….!
I can perfectly understand his state of confusion as days later even I was trying to hide behind shrikant while on my way to play football… (not to mention the fact that I was wearing shorts and rachana came zooming by on her scooty to leer at me…plus the fact that the very next day she loudly mocked the first thing in the morning in front of a significant few “Kal baarish me half pant pehne shrikant ke peeche kaun chup raha tha yaar? ” )…..Arrrrh! Girls are evil !! Gorgeous evils!! Of the other memories, when the lectures (after joining engineering I was informed contemptuously that lectures are way different from ‘periods’…ouch!) used to get awfully boring, mandar used to design new fonts or write the names of the latest feature films in that very font and style which was imprinted on the poster or would sketch the caricatures of the teachers…..This was usually done on the last pages of his notebooks…Man! Those pages would be an inspiration for all the hopeless artists and cartoonists like me...One fine day, we saw mandar making deep impressions on the bench where he was sitting with what is known as a compass. On further probing this paranormal phenomenon, it was discovered that he had written 2+3 on the bench..!! WHAT? I mean…we initially thought that he was out of his mind…then shrikant suggested that excessive passion for numbers and scoring 98 again was making him retarded…pranab jumped in as usual enquiring “kya hua? Kya hua? Mujhe bhi batao naa yaar…” Vaibhav ignored this thing, albeit he did bat his eyelids at mandar…raised his eyebrows…shook his head in rejection and continued being the perfectionist…I (also nearing retardation) looked cursorily at the etching and complimented mandar on the font style…”JERKS!” lamented shrikant looking disgustingly at us. To leave someone or something as it is is not the usual gesture that we indulge in… Make a complete mess of the situation, find some non-present links in it, manipulate the person’s mind involved in it, torture him to frustration, build a story centering the events and annoy the fellow who committed the felony of doing something which even he can’t explain…This makes normal fellows like us satisfied… Mandar was no exception to it…A story was quickly formed that the 2+3 was actually 23 and that it was roll no 23 that mandar intended to write (God knows whether even mandar thought of it or not!). So the story was further built up saying that poor mandar had a crush (Ah! his first crush..!) on the girl who had the misfortune of being allotted roll no 23 in tuition classes. The girl in question happened to be a short cute and simple one with a dimpled smile. On the limited number of times that mandar went to her asking any whimsical things, either she yelled, gave him a filthy look, smiled and politely refused or just ignored him.(It usually happened during the times when we were in the process of making ‘blossoms-the school cd!’). Rather than consoling mandar, we usually re-energised his stupidity to repeat the blunder again and again.
For the very obvious reason that I am the one writing this memoir, I won’t elaborate how these same guys used to torture me repeatedly chanting someone else’s name in my head. Till date, mandar and me are the best competitors for attaining the supreme position of FOSLA (Frustoo One Sided Lover’s Association) group…
Amongst the other things I do recollect, is the one where some of the so called self proclaimed “DUDES” (….bah!) used to engage themselves into a kind of competition as to who gets to sit besides the bench adjacent to the one where awesome twosome used to sit!....bah again! As the month of December approached, guys got real serious and began studying for the board exams. During one such time, pranab got into some kind of deep discussion with his neighbor about some problem that was being solved by the Armageddon. On hearing the hustle of sound behind his back, Armageddon turned in a filmy style (He was always filmy but funny and caring too) and queried in a very sardonic voice “ Ab kya baat ho gayi PARNAB?” Delightful on being noticed, pranab put forward his little piece of doubt to him to which Armageddon (Now in the mood to joke) said “PARNAB ki baaton ko seeeriyaslly nahi lena chahiye” and gave one of his faint smiles. The entire class erupted into a roar of laughter, pranab got agitated, gave a look of utter impatience, mouth opened into a wide ”O” , he couldn’t believe that the only doubt that he had asked would be subjected to total mockery…Well can’t really blame the poor thing….
On the other hand Armageddon was standing there, chalk in one of his hands, head tilted to the left, a wicked smile on his face, his gigantic tummy tucked out graciously…he seemed happy to enjoy his moment of humor. I distinctly remember the times when Armageddon used to arrive 5-10 mins before his lecture. The first ongoing lecture would usually be of chemistry when a shallow noise of a motorcycle’s rut-tut used to awaken our senses. There he would be…. riding his comfort, wearing a jeetendra style black goggles, stopping by the porch to alight from his flight of fantasy. Feet firmly on ground, balancing his bike in style, he would remove the black sunglasses, rub them gently on his shirt with both hands, he would look through them raising them to light with one eye closed. The specialty of all this was the sluggish, leisurely and gradual pace with which he accomplished each of these tasks. After repeating this itinerary n number of times till he was satisfied, he would place the goggles in the shirt pocket and out of the back pocket came the tiny red colored comb. Adjusting the bike’s mirror, he would style his hair before the showdown in front of us. Finally when the chemistry tutor would finish with his frustratingly foolish covalent and ionic bondings, Armageddon would walk in the classroom carrying his eloquent piece of plastic bag containing books and notes. To say that we were his biggest fans would be an understatement.
During our actual board exams, he had come to the college as an invigilator. The amount of hope and happiness it generated for pranab was just insurmountable. Well, we did score decent marks in all the subjects and passed blissfully in 12th std. The nicest part about being in homi bhabha tuitions was that we had an enormously large and fantabulous part of fun while studying unlike the scholars who were grilled into nostalgia by Mr. YK Pandey. Even during these days when me mandar and shrikant walk by our erstwhile coaching centre (YES WE STILL WALK…We can’t ride bicycles now….motorbikes and scooters are already in a depressingly degraded condition and if WE ride them, the remaining last few years of the machine would diminish at a rate faster than your mobile’s balance!), we do look through the barbed fences…into the classroom where we once used to sit…where mandar once wrote 2+3…where pranab used to bring packaged food items to eat…where tests were fun…where we were together for what seemed like eternity! Seasons changed, years passed by in silence and times are different now…Unlike us, now the folks of std 12 roam around in the colonies riding their swanky bikes, they have girlfriends/boyfriends….(?), hang out a lot in some evening spots and enjoy a lot….!!! About the tuition classes I don’t know as to whether they are still functional or not….Whatever!!