Transitions....

Before you start reading, i would say thanks a lot to have prompted me to get my lazy butt on the writing chair and let the fingers do the talking! A very special ThEnk YoU to the guy who cleared all his tests in Infy finally and also a very very special ThEnk YoU to the one who narrated the Story of 5 planes..

Lets rewind...or should i say...Lets start...

Circa 2008, its April, the submissions are over, the vivas have screwed the last hopes of showing that ever popping middle finger to your project guide and since these are the last few days that you would be fed in the mess for a frugal amount of money, its become really hard to accept that you have to clear all the papers this time and complete your 'profound knowledge' (ha!) in engineering. Now what differed across the length and breadth of my circle of friends about these last few days, was just perception. For instance, let me take me for example, i loved it to approach the end of all these years in the gaga land of karadis (yuck even that sounds yucky!) with no patience whatsoever. And hence, irrespective of all the good times i spent (which included improving my marathi as a global language and understanding the red tapism and kiss ass-ing those in the position of power) there, i was a hell of an elated guy. I was like "Screw the nostalgia. Bring it on, Life!" which isn't exactly the attitude that a guy should have days before the FINAL exams. Still...as i said..it was me and so i cared little about writing all the mushy and senti stuff in the slam books and saying good byes to the last of all those walls and buildings that held my imagination and freedom captive for four consecutive years.

And then, there were Mandar and Shrikant, saala both the guys were feeling sad that their college life was all coming to an end so soon.(So soon?). Well, the guys had a deep sense of attachment to the college life which they had, and they wished that it could go on a for a little longer, but not in the literal sense. [:D] So when i talked to Mandar or Shrikant over the phone, we had a lot to talk about. They would talk about all the farewells and bye bye parties being arranged and attended which would be remembered and i would talk statistics on how many days more to go and how i would leave this electrical nonsense once and for all. I was overly elated and ecstatic and these guys were satisfied, yet a little gloomy, hopeful, yet a little insecure about the days that would be after they stepped out of the gates that once meant home. See? Perception...it was different.

Without going much into the details of what raas leela we did during the PL(which, by the way means Preparatory Leave and not the other kind which you double meaning dirtyheads want to think of and smile about), let me just make the statement that we delivered (:P) the results and got a stamp of a certified engineers on our once useless, suddenly vital a**es. We partied hard (which meant drinking coke and soya milk in the college parties where people got drunk and puked, eating the same kind of food in the same damned dim lit hotels and restaurants where we considered it our right to demand discounts, and raising a toast of the most popular cutting chai available on an udhaar basis on the mornings after these parties)...real hard..!

Somehow, these days passed, this time really quick, and sadly, the boriya bistar that once formed the identity of those to whom it belonged, went away in a mist, taking with it the persona which once had been a part of even your identity. But the dhinchak cheez was that once again, Mandar, me, shrikant, amit & pulkit could meet each other as and when we felt like moving our lazy bums and that also served as a good time to have the vada pavs or the samosas or the coke or the kachoris or any other junk food that could be bit onto. The discussions these times centered around topics such as "Chaar saal zindagi bita daali...fir bhi we just see each other's faces, talk to only each other....abe still single be...wo bhi collectively single..tch tch..kuch nahi ho sakta apna.." followed by "Is gham mein ek aur samosa ho jaye...top to bottom karte hai chal.."
We went to Anushakti to Amit's place once, then ummmnn..., shrikant came over to tarapur once, then....., we guys roamed around in mumbai once..i guess and so we kept meeting. Amit had us all a great 'microsoft' treat in 'subway' where we munched on these delicious wheat loaf sandwich babies, saw a weird movie at Gaiety in Bandra and went home to do what we were doing from what now was sadly becoming a long time - nothing!

Finally everyone experienced a day where we would get up, call any one amongst us, ask "Kya kar raha hai" to which "Kuch nahi be...wohi...roz ki tarah...paper padh raha hu/comp pe baitha hu/TV dekh raha hu" , "Kuch khaya kya?", "hmmnnn...haa khaya kuch to bhi...abhi yaad nahi aa raha kya khaaya...", "Chal chod baad me call karta hu" And while our brains were being programmed into a state of idleness, there was another news waiting for us...Recession! But anyhow, we managed to get into some firms which we thought were the gateway to either s/w development, morgan stanley, and free jacuzzis.

And slowly slowly the days spent at work materialized into weeks into months and so on and so forth. Time seemed all the same, the realization of doing things which did seem different initially, but all the same a little later, dawned upon us (at least on me) in a very gradual but assuring manner. We hunted around for topics to talk about when we called each other up, and when there were the silences which signified the lack of content to be exchanged with, we would hang up the phone.

"Kya haal hai?" "Bas yaar sab waisa hi hai...Chal raha hai." "hmmnn.." "Amit se baat waat hui?" "Haa...Online milta hai...Chhap raha hai..." "Sahi hai...Aur tu suna...what else...?" "Eh..Bas time pass...Chal raha hai kuch to bhi..." "Hmmnn.." "Mumbai/Pune aane ka koi plan wan hai?" "Pata nahi re...Dekhta hu.." "Hmmn...okay then..." "Haan...chal then bye.."

So while it seemed that we were making great progress in our professional lives, which i hopefully believe we still are, a certain specific very intangible thing called 'something' was missing. Now what the heck could that be? I dont know...May be you can put a word to it the way you define 'something'. We kept meeting each other as and when we could - in Pune, in Mumbai and hey..why the hell cant we skip a day at work and meet in Lonavala? Mast koi decent sa ek farmhouse jaisa kuch book karne ka...hammock laga ke, cold drinks in hand, may be a chikki in the mouth and a stereo/phone speakers playing songs that probably nobody understands amongst us, yet can listen to....we can just be lazy and sluggish and fat(a little :D) and happy! Day dreaming apart, the point is we still didn't spare a single thought to meet each other and have a good laugh together on the one who wasn't there but talked about the most! And its been going on this way since the last couple of months. A lot of transition has taken place over a period of time that can hardly be described as short.

Now since we have read this far, what question disturbs my tiny mind is 'Where do we go from here on?' Yeah...its become a little serious...ain't it?...But hey...i haven't written since a long time..Bear with me a little more now..So..Where do we go from here on? Now instead of releasing myself from the clutches of this awfully simple question by a dumb 'I don't know!', its time i deal with this head on. Let me see...I really feel great for folks who know it for sure that they are going to be doing only one very particular and specific thing in their life. Meaning?

Say Amit. He has always been a geek. Read Yashwant Kanetkar's Let Us C in a matter of days and made his own version of Paint in C - all this while in standard 9. He knew that if one day he woke up and saw no computer beside himself, he would probably feel that he has lost touch with the aliens from the outer space who had sent Rudra(kant) on earth as a proof of their existance.(Is he a soul reaper, Amit?).

Or say Bhushan Shinde. The guy is cool, compassionate, concise and clear about what and how to do what is to be done.

Shrikant? I really dont know whether he ever wanted or liked anything as bad. We did plan to enter the Navy and come to the TAPS colony as officers in the Indian Navy and be the centre of attraction, he'd even given the defence entrance after standard 12, but i guess after he got rejected did he discover that being a president of Rotoract wasn't also the most boring thing to do and that engineering was in his DNA (and not biology for which he gave the AIIMS entrance, AFMC, Maharashtra PMT etc etc... :D) What worked out for him? I would undoubtedly say that it must have been the optimitic outlook and the ability to spread that optimism to the people he came in close contact with!

Pulkit? The grand just gets grander and the lavishness just keeps on getting more lavish. He gets bed tea with breakfast early morning! The rooms get cleaned daily! Army canteen ka khaana! Designs all the freaking missiles! Works with DRDO !Isn't that what he had wanted? Or isn't that what we had thought he would be only comfortable in?

Mandar? Now this is my guy. He decided to change the stream from IT to Electrical when confronted during the counselling for engineering seats, hated electrical engineering with equal gusto and audacity as me, did a very high fundoo project in final year only to disappoint all the faculty members by declaring infront of all the psychics (the electrical engg profs) that he would be joining Infosys and not any core electrical company, plus after the joining, he ridicules the values and ethics of Infosys which pays him enough to sail through the recession and now he says that he wants to do his MBA as soon as he can. I love you man, i really do! What i also love about this guy is the madness with which he puts all his efforts into making things happen. Come rain or hail, he will sell you a cold drink if he desires to!

And then there is my very special Agony Aunt who has asked herself two questions so far and tried to figure out the answers. One - Is derivation and integration by any means of any consequence in the life that will be after one completes the std 12? Well, the answer was No and it was justified really well. Two - Is handling two crazy nuts saat samundar paar worth all the pain and risk that has been so far endured? I am still waiting for the answer and i sure hope that its a Yes. (For all those of you who thought of this last paragraph as something written in Korean - here is a suggestion - Learn Korean!).

So when i sit down and waste my office hours thinking about all this, i kind of envy myself when i think of the time i had in my college days. Now i finally get nostalgic.I think of the breakfast we had at a really shabby place in elan and leisure when i grab onto a thanda sandwich early morni ng while simultaneously finding my way through the swarming crowd to catch the 0804 Churc hgate Slow to reach the f**ked up work place on time! I think of the times when i bunked lectures and instead sat surfing the net or reading novels on the college corridors with no regard whatsoever to any passerby when i am made to make elaborate and dumb ppts in office. I think of the times we cooked dal fry and french toast and pulav and made buttermilk in our mess when i am left with the option of eating only dal khichdi every single day here! So - Coming back to the point, i miss my past and i want my future to be more satisfying than my past without thinking too much about the details at present! [Wow...That's 'something' now! ]

Reflecting too much into the past seems to be of not much use, apart from the fact that you can make yourself smile more often if you do so. The future definately is in a mist right now, but lets be an optimist like shrikant and hope that the mist is only there for you to hope very strongly for the best to happen, so that when you are done with your time in future, you can happily think of it as another of those things that had happened in the past and make yourself smile...once again!

tHe fiNaL faRewELL......

Hmmnn….Finally it’s time to sit back and count the days till it all gets over (No I’m not dying…I’m too good to die…it has to wait for a long time…Actually the engineering is getting over!) It’s a weird phase…To think of the present, which will in some form or the other, come back and make us nostalgic about it in the future. As of now, let’s get a little bit nostalgic about our final days in Tarapur (or should I say, the one very famous/infamous final day of eclectic events and emotions.)

It was early April, the board exams were over and as expected, most of us guys kept ourselves damn too busy doing what we are probably best at – Nothing! Bless my memory, but I don’t know how the word got around that Amit (yes, it’s our dear old loved and adored guddu yet again in the limelight this time.) was being transferred to Anushakti Nagar. Amidst much chutzpah (find out this word’s meaning for me by the way!) and gossip, it was decided to give him a decent little farewell party.

“Party Varty dene ki kya zaroorat hai? Aise hi bye bye bol dete hai and usi se ek treat lete hai…kaisa laga mera plan?” blurted Mandar with the widest grin and a twinkle in his eyes – is what I would have loved to mention here, but I reckon there is no solid proof to this. Anyways it’s a vivid imagination….Whatever…let’s carry on…. Another word which was doing rounds was that Dipti was also getting transferred to Anushakti. Obviously, some common friends of Dipti and Amit suggested giving a combined farewell. ‘It’s gonna be weird’ I thought. Partying with girls wasn’t exactly one of the most anticipated and desired wish of mine. For all I know, in the 12 long and beautiful years of my courtship with the so called ‘Co-Ed’ learning, I had managed talking fairly well with only one girl – Rachana and even in this case, we became friends may be because she was a common friend of Amit and Mandar! Secondly, why I felt weird to party with girls was because Dipti was a part of GoGs (Gang of Geeks) and so all her friends who were going to be in the party were also fellow GoGs.

Now to say that the GoGs were a little bit different from us would very well qualify to be a big understatement. See the point is, they went to tuitions to Pandey sir and morons like us settled under the humoristic and jovial shed of Homi Bhabha. So when we were busy pulling each other’s legs in the tuitions, the GoGs studied, when we tormented poor old Singh sir, they solved Bangui and Mistry. When we jumped out of windows in Sharma ji’s lectures, they did calculus. When we tasted slime and mud while playing football in rains, they learnt the stupid chemical reactions. When we roamed about like carefree kids in Anand Melas, they prepared for the unit tests and tuition tests and the half yearly and board exams! When we STARTED studying seriously, they started revising. I guess I have pretty much made my point. Which is, while we were those typical good for nothing freaks, they were these typical bookworms! Well enough with the criticizing!

Now it wasn’t serendipity to organize and plan a combined farewell. Contacts (Pulkit bhai) were used, the party hall of the 3n4 guest house was booked, decorations were done (I remember contributing a strange spherical divali lantern which flashed lights in a manner similar to the ones in a discotheque. It was a huge hit!), invitations were sent, the so called ‘contri’ per head was collected, the menu was decided and orders were placed to sarovar. Even the games to be played were decided, the music system and all…Everything was planned and executed to perfection! That was it. For me, it was going to be the first official night out.

(Well technically, it wasn’t exactly a night out and also even if it was, it wasn’t my first. The first of my night out was perhaps the first of Amit’s and Mandar’s as well. On one fortunate day, Mandar’s parents had gone to Gujarat and me n amit were supposed to give him a company in the night. Well, we rented a VCD film – Deewangi was the name. While watching the totally dumb and useless movie, I remember fast forwarding a particular scene, which Mandar literally begged us to see. “Arre wo bahut important scene hai movie ka…Aise kaise chhod sakte hai..?” is what he says even today when reminded! After the movie, we saw some fun scenes from DCH, played some songs, ate loads of farsan and got bored! Amit being a acchha bacchha tried sleeping, we being the bure bacchhe tried our level best to not allow that to happen. Amit slept…Mandar switched on the lights, Amit got up, switched’em off……Amit slept….Mandar and me pulled his sheet just in the same manner as Aamir and Akshay pull in DCH of Saif’s….Amit got up…shooed us away…Amit slept…We made noises(can't tell you what noises!)…Amit closed the door…Amit slept…Basically, he did what he had come there to do…He slept! We gave up! Later we tried watching some late night television…(Ah..haa..!)We surfed through the channels with a lot of excitement, curiosity and eagerness to find at least SOMETHING worthy to watch in the night time….Something yaar, Anything, just a glimpse, kuch bhi…(Gosh, i could almost blush!) Well, unfortunately for us, there was nothing which could have been described as a treat to our eyes! Dejected with the waste of opportunity, we talked for a lot of hours, lying in our sheets; gazing in the darkness….It was fun anyways!)

Hey, ain’t I supposed to be telling something else to you? Argh…I write so bad and haphazard..! But you guys just don’t stop reading. Do you? Well thanks for it anyways….Lets get going…So where were we? Oh yeah the party…

As a gesture of goodwill, somebody suggested to present Amit and Dipti with a send off gift. Amidst much debating about whether Amit deserves a gift or not, we did go to Chitralaya to buy something. Backed by the supreme bargaining powers of Mandar and a limited allocation of funds, we managed to get a decent Coffee Mug for Amit. I don’t remember what was written on it but we were proud to present him with something which, for us, meant a lot. Drinking and Eating, after all, are the most two most important attributes in our lives. I am sure Amit would have been so very touched by this gift! On the D-day, me, shrikant and mandar raje assembled at Mandar’s place. Being the typical freaks, it didn’t appeal us to actually present Amit with such an esteemed gift. Instead, we picked up some tattered cloth pieces, some ghaas-phoos from the garden, some sand and pebbles and packed them in a small box, the size of a ring. We covered it with a dabbe me dabbe me dabbe me dabbe me dabba kind of packing and made it look something large and expensive! We gift wrapped the entire thing with almost all the paper we had!

“Oye..wo jo Mug laya hai usko gift wrap karne ke liye kuch paper rakha kya?” enquired shrikant with a face which already knew what the answer was. “Pagal hai kya?” replied Mandar with an exclamation mark on his face “Party me agar glass vaas kam pad gaye to apne paas kuch chahiye jisme cold drink piye…!” Raje, with an air of casualty and bindaas attitude said “Haa…ekdum baraabar bol raha hai…Point hai boss!” Finally, we marched out, or actually, just doodled along. On finally reaching the venue, we saw that the scene was very much predictable – dull, mundane, boring and not so happening. Guys sat in one corner, girls in the other. The party junta, mostly GoGs made sure the discussion lingered around the pre-entrance exams, results, academics and all such crap! “Abe ye kya chal raha hai yaha pe?”I sneered to which, Mandar broke out in one of his laughing fits as if he knew this was going to happen and that we were some kind of Mtv bakras or something. Shrikant gave a quick glance at the girls’ side, heard about the ongoing discussion between the guys, saw mandar and me laughing and tried hard to smile. Amit being Amit, was just staring at everything with big eyes, a stupid yet the cutest grin and asked us an equally stupid and a cute question, shrugging his shoulders and a with a movement of hands “Apne ko kya karne ka hai abhi?” That was one question which, i guess, was in everyone’s minds but nobody seemed to have any answer to it. The only flaw which I could deduce in the perfect planning that we did was that we forgot to decide upon the host or a hostess for the evening.

Turned out, it was Rachana who was quite familiar with such scenes and it was because of her, may be, that the party actually started. She made all of us arrange the chairs in a big circle and officially flagged off the start. We played some games, including dum(b)sheraaz or whatever it is and had cold drinks and sherbet. After playing many such games, we decided it was finally the time to let our hairs down, to get wild, shed our inhibitions, swing our a**es and sway our bodies to the latest and the loudest bollywood songs. We virtually burned the dance floor and ‘rocked tha party’! Considering the gloomy and the not so happening scene that I described earlier, you are underestimating as to how much over exaggeration I have done in the sentence in italics!

To be dead right honest with you, we danced horribly. Some of the guys were just jumping up and down as if a spring was attached to their legs, some were punching their fists in air, some were running around with arms stretched outwards (why?), and some were trying to come up with super sexy dance moves(which by the way, were something like what the rock and funk artists of the 80s did with jazz guitars and mike) to lure the women. As far as the girls were to be considered, they were just smiling at each other, tapping their feet and clapping their fingers. The buggers – me, amit, mandar, shrikant and pulkit were grading individual performances on a scale of 1 to 10, sipping colas & hogging snacks. The only time when we attempted to dance was when rachana came looking out for us to check whether we were dancing or not. Even that was tackled meticulously. Our informants alerted us everytime Rachana came along on her ‘round’ to check on us. We would jump from our seats, tried shaking a leg or two, imitated the dumb up and down jumps which the nearby guys were doing and shouted “Yeah….Yeah…” I remember most of the songs played were from the Vengaboys album and the one hindi song that was a huge hit was ‘It’s the time to disco’ from Kal Ho Na Ho.

Fortunately, I along with Pulkit and Raje had to bring in the food from Sarovar and that’s how I got lucky and officially got the permission to leave the dance floor. Me and Raje got on one scooty while Pulkit got on the other. One of the two scooties was of Rachana’s and it was kind of ‘hip’ to ride a scooty…(A girl’s scooty!)Yeah…go on and have a laugh…But for us, who used to just walk around the entire circumference of the 3&4 colony, BARC, TAPS and all, riding a scooty was indeed hip! “Abe, ye Pulkit ko scooty chalaana aata hai naa?” asked Raje sarcastically. “Haa…Aata toh hai…Kyu?” I replied. “Abe nahi, wo jaise achaanak gaayab ho gaya hai…na aage dikhayi de raha hai na peeche….Kahi thok vok to nahi diya na kisi ko?” “Kya maalum, kuch keh nahi sakte” “wo chod, paise hai na sarovar wale ko dene ko?” “Haa…” “Chod fir…aa jaayega, parcel lete hai” I don’t quite remember what happened afterwards but Pulkit somehow got back to the venue safe and sound. When we returned, the dancers had blown all their steam off from all the hip shaking and naach gaana.

Finally, the time came when everything was settled down and the gift awarding ceremony (or whatever it was) began. Initially, it was the girls who presented their gift to Dipti (or is it Deepthi or Dipthi or Dipthee…haheheheha){It’s a little joke which apparently only some folks can understand, so Boooo…..Get going!} So Dipti was dressed in a simple brown/maroon tee, blue jeans, the usual specs and a wide grin(Refer Amit’s album for that!). Somehow, she seemed to be a chirpy and fun loving girl who looked like a misfit (to me...) amidst the GoGs. But still, she was a geek, a nerd, or that’s what I had thought about it back then. Whatever…the girls presented her with some kind of a photo frame which had some inspirational/friendship quotes on it. (What? Is that a gift? It ain’t as good as a Coffee Mug…It doesn’t say ‘hey there buddy, I am the one thing for which you are gonna wake up early, fill me up with something HAWT and lock your lips with mine’…Does it? Instead her gift said something weird like ‘Friendship grows stronger with time’ which I agree, is deeeep philosophy but who wants to have to think of deep philosophy when you can think about how funny & intricate the time was when you said good bye to all your friends? At least I would like to think about the craziest and the most unexpected kind of gifts if I were to leave my friends….like a swanky new bike for example {God, hez gone mad!...[I've taken the liberty to even write out your feelings for you this time]}, or an i-pod {why am i even reading this?}, or even a jeans that says ‘You need this!’ [Well, one of the unexpected and crazy gifts that I did receive this birthday, some 10-15 days back were an additional set of birthday bumps executed splendidly with shoes, a pineapple cake smeared all over my face and a hotel bill for treating all those who could come late in the night at 12 to kick my a**] Now that's something memorable.) It was that day, I thanked my stars for making me a freak and not a geek!


Then, it was finally the time for us to present our gift to Amit. Remember the fancy packing stuff we made at Mandar’s place? Well, we gave him that. As Amit went on tearing the wrapping paper, opening the boxes within the boxes, the crowd (GoGs) also cheered respectively as “Ooooooo…..ooh” to “Awwww….www” to “Aww…..Aw” to “tch…tch…tch….” When finally Amit reached to the bottom and held out the tattered cloth pieces, the ghaas-phoos and the pebbles, it was a sight to see. Amit, inspite of being in a tight spot, was delighted. His face radiated happiness, he kept grinning widely and kept looking with big eyes towards all of us. Mandar, me, Shrikant, Pullu and Raje were ecstatic and overwhelmed with so much joy that we could have cried (All right that’s way too much! Sadly, we are amongst those fellas who savour each and every such moment when one of us is in a fix because of us!) but still we were a bunch of happy freaks. And Amit, he is one person who, in my gazillion years of friendship, I personally haven’t seen criticizing, being arrogant or mad at us….He is just cool…And that day was no different…He was so damn Supercool…!(He is, still now!) Well some of the GoGs did react with a shock and disgust, it was buried in silent murmurs and talks. Whether we did give Amit the mug immediately afterwards or later I don’t know, but we did give it to him.

Later on, we had our dinner & took some pictures (which, I haven’t seen till date! Stalkers!) & bade our good byes to each other. Mandar, me, shrikant and Amit walked together towards our homes. Walking briskly along the roads, we passed our regular ‘walker hangouts – places we visited on our long walks’:- The Vada Pav vendor in 3&4 colony, the Homi Bhabha building, the footpath along the gigantic athletic ground and so on. It felt weird….It really did. It felt heavenly to walk below the star studded sky with a faint moonlight to light the path (well, yes there were some lamp posts too..), absolute silence and cool breeze blowing from almost all directions. We kept walking briskly till we reached the crossroads infront of Mandar’s house and sat on a so called ‘katta’ which I doubt, was some kind of a guide rail of concrete having alternate black and white strips. Suddenly, it felt weird to think that all of it was coming to an end. End of all the times we spent together in AECS/JC. End of all the walks – End of the times to make it a habit of being around each other – always! Even though, we had eaten a lot more than what even we thought we could eat, there was this sunken and hollow feeling in the stomach. Yet, we had that silly grin on our faces. I guess THAT was the real farewell. THAT may be, was the real good bye!

Usually, it is said that farewells and send offs can make you senti and gloomy. But sitting there in the middle of the night, everyone ensured that it wasn’t senti or gloomy. Actually, it was fun, as usual! Amit kept cracking his split second jokes (I doubt whether he intended them to be jokes, but what he said, and how he said that, made them appear like jokes!) Mandar kept laughing, offering the craziest and the wittiest comments as usual. Shrikant kept grinning, explaining stuff with the regular hand gestures and all! We spent a lot of time together, may be we talked about how our college life was going to be like, the stupid crash course we had to undergo to make a mark in the engineering entrances (bah!) and a variety of topics. Must say, even though Amit and Shrikant extended their sleeping times a tad bit too late, they couldn’t stop themselves form being drowsy and almost half asleep while mandar and me talked on and on! At some point, may be we decided it was time to get up and get going to the soft pillows and warm bed to think of all that has been and dream of all that it could be.......