I had always wanted to write a book and was always searching for a storyline or a theme to write on, but till now haven’t got one. This time of my life (still not sure if it’s the most important or the most happening part) has been more or less ordinary, may be because I haven’t felt myself so important anywhere. Too often I sit to wonder what I would do after three years and that 'three' has been the constant throughout whenever I start thinking that way more so when I am completely drunk. Those thoughts result in the most disturbing thoughts I have ever thought off, but I just forget them or simply don’t rethink just being a coward to face the truth. In fact I’ve been a coward all the more than a real fighter. Don’t worry I wouldn’t sit down to write all these to bore you or to gain sympathy and for a fact, my life has not been all that boring, I have taken every opportunity to make it as interesting as possible and to just pacify my writer aspirations I decided to sit down and write about the most eventful period of my time till now. Every day was eventful, thanks to the company I got. As I’ve lived all my life till now at home and was never way from home more than a week or so, the journey to Bhubaneshwar, was indeed the merriest time I’ve had.
November 18th 2007, a Sunday. Got up from bed with a heavy mind. Hmmm, I had to write the CAT exam. You can just wonder how well I was prepared for the exam. I would have been with the books a lot more time for the college class tests.
The exam would start by 10 am and it was already 8 am and I was in the Pallavarm station and the exam centre Vel’s college looked like thousands miles away from there. To my despair, no auto was available when I came out of the station. I had just the hall ticket not even the pencils and who cared about the erasers. I’ve heard that Vel’s college was mighty big and the name everyone would recognize with ease, in the area. I had no difficulty in getting the route from the shopkeepers and just went walking towards the college when someone approached me to ask the route to the same college, a sincere preparation towards the cat was evident with the serious face he had. I then asked him if we could take an auto and share the expenses. Truly, I had become very stingy for the last two weeks because I just had around 5000rs and that was all I could save from nearly 42000rs I earned in one call centre. A new cell phone for 11000rs and 4000rs for the dresses were the only acceptable expenses. The rest went up along with the smoke. Having arrived at the college, I was bit with surprise to see around 500 to 600 guys and gals waiting near the college gate. I searched for stationery shop and thank God I found one near the gate and I just thought of buying one pencil and decided to be little sincere at least with the exam just one hour away. I was confident that I wouldn’t be petrified seeing other’s serious faces. I decided to light up a cigarette just to kill the time and could recognize a lot of faces who passed by. I could sense their feeling for me that I would be tensed and the reason why I am smoking.
I managed to squeeze myself in the crowd to find the room number and managing with the crowd rushing towards the exam hall. I decided to give others an impression that I was very serious and started walking fast towards the exam hall - I knew I was doing nothing but recreating myself. I sat in the exam hall. The invigilator came and handed over the answer sheets and asked us to wait until the principal of the college has given the instruction over the mike. It was never pleasant to sit like in a exam hall. I was just waiting for this exam to get over to let myself unleashed from the exam fear (just joking..!). I could hardly look at the Quants section of the paper - solution? I just overlooked it and went to the verbal section. Here I thought I could feel a lot more comfortable. Don’t think I scored a hundred. It was not an unusual feeling to reaman idle in an exam when others were trying to suck the ink from the question paper, cos it was the usual happening in my college exams if not the semesters. The bell did ring as I dearly wanted it, more so during the last ten minutes when others made noises turning the pages after and after till the end. I just smiled at myself – would I ever become serious for the CAT exam?.. I didn’t think so. But I still figure out or in fact continue to dream of a high score in GMAT if not in CAT as if my father in law sets every paper.
I came out of the exam hall and did I feel anything guilty? NNNNope.. I was so stuck in the crowd and was so following a girl whom I was constantly looking during the exam without having the fear of getting noticed cos she was looking into the papers just like how a teenager would, with a porn magazine. I was sure that she would be working for an IT company and was surer that she was older than me (as if I would say no to her). I was not fortunate to follow the milk for long. I missed her somewhere and realized that the time was half past one and the flight was by 4.50. I couldn’t stop myself from calling Srikanth who would have completed the same exam in another centre. I was more explaining about the girl than how the paper was, may be so, because I didn’t want him to talk about the paper much. I got a bus till pallavaram station and I rushed home. It was the first time I was gonna fly and the excitement overlapped the other excitements and surprises waiting at BBSR. The train to West Mambalam had to cross the airport and this time the airport looked different. No doubt I was searching for the blue colored Indigo flights. Finally the dreams of flying was gonna come true.
As I reached home I was eager to start at the same moment as my bags were all packed. I just checked for the cert.’s and the formal wears and stood ready. My brother volunteered to drop me. My mom was not feeling well and so my father decided to accompany. I was the first to reach the airport. I awaited Srikanth and Raghavendra who were to accompany me. Both the sudharshans were on their way to give a send off. It is better to explain you this first. Rangarajan, Srikanth, two Sudharshans and I are friends from childhood. Both the S’s were coming with the smokes and I thought we could have the last puff together before the leave (as if I was going to the moon). Ragavendra here in after referred as rags, came along with his parents in a call-taxi. I never thought he would come with a suitcase which could take in a dozen pigs. It weighed like a dead body.
There was one thing I was worried about at that time - that, my father hates rags for some reason even he could not explain. Yess, the way he dresses really makes me wonder which gal in this world had told it was even pleasing to look. He assumes himself to be the coolest-‘dude’ of the century and thinks that it is only he in the whole world who knows the up-to-date fashion and walks as if he believes that his style today, becomes fashion tomorrow. That obviously irritates the conservative herd in Tamil Nadu and my parents are one in that. In fact I repeatedly asked my father to leave and that I would take care of myself, but for some reason again he wanted to stay – maybe he wanted himself to hate him more.
In the mean while I was trying to reach Srikanth over the cell phone and failed. Aileen Mary and Mukundhan – Rags' friends came as both the Ss' arrived. I could just smile at them cos we were so desperate to have that smoke together but my dad looked cemented. Aileen Mary a short but a beautiful gal on whom I had an eye on during the first year came in an orange t-shirt- awesome. She was the only good looking gal during that time and I just had to save myself from my dad’s eyes but he kept his eyes on how rags was talking to herl. The taller one of the S’s was smiling like an idiot as he usually does in these kinda situations. He does not know the reason himself. Finally Srikanth arrived when it was 4 and immediately my dad asked us to check in, but we had been following the flight schedules for the last fortnight that the flight would start not before 5.30 and it was a connecting flight from Bangalore. When we were about to enter the gate the taller S asked me come and slid a smoke pack into my backpack. I felt happy cos I thought we wouldn’t have to search for a smoke shop in Kolkata once we land. We bid the bye-bye’s to everyone and I don’t remember of any senti scenes except I guess, rags mom almost had tears waiting to touch down.
Every checking process that followed was very new to me. Thanks to their scanning, I even thought they checked for spelling mistakes in the Jockey. Finally the boarding pass was given and we were let into a glass walled hall where we were asked to wait for the announcements. I haven’t seen a flight or the never ending runways that closer. It was such a visual treat to see all the air-hostesses running here and there. We three stood in a line leaning on the glass and I just remember opening my mouth when the Kingfisher air-hostesses rushed for their flights then came Jet Airways, Spice Jet, Air Deccan, Indigo, skirts, skirts, some saris, skirts again and we never felt the pain in our jaws - we just assumed that it was our turn to do the scanning. The time did come and our gate was No: 4 in the first floor and again a wait was waiting. But this time, no entertainment. We noticed a smoking area, an enclosed one. So I searched for those smokes in the bag which the S’s had given and I didn’t forget to thank them for a different reason. Again our desperation was put on hold. This time we couldn’t stop both laughing and cursing them till we reached Kolkata cos all we found inside the smoke pack were four Beedies.
We were welcomed by the most beautiful air-hostess we had seen that evening and I can still hear that voice coated with honey saying ‘welcome aboard sir, let me help you find your seat’ and I wanted to reply ‘find us one good bed and before that, I want to ask your father what he did'. Srikanth here in after referred as Kundo rushed to our seats and occupied the window seat. I didn’t want to miss at least the seat adjacent and raced for the second place. Rags was still gaping at them that we made him the mango. It was only twilight and we still hoped for something to look down upon in the window. We behaved like kids who were on a excursion with no teachers to watch them. I remember jumping and making a strong squeaky sound for which I am known.
Kundo covered the window with his face and received a nice blow from rags, and then he moved. I somehow always had this feeling that I was little stronger in geography of the lot and always used to gloat something or the other and this time it was about the possible routes we might fly and was giving a lecture about the rain which we thought was reason for the delay and so on. The co-passengers controlled their laughter, I thought. After realizing that I was over reacting to the situation and stopped all the sad-jokes. It was a first time flight experience for all the three which does not allow us to shout when the flight started to move.
Rags pretended he didn’t know how to fasten the seat belt and was expecting the AH to come for rescue. Buss...he had a somke ring around his head…There were only two hostesses on board – it was a small aircraft, both of them much bountiful than we dreamt and the dress they wore only helped us to feel more. The flight slowly aligned itself to the runway and the run started. There was a sudden pull and the airport buildings started to move away fast and the flight sped like hell and I heard a ‘buck and a huppp’ in my stomach. Everything else outside started to fade away and before I realized that we were actually flying, I could see no buildings. It was completely dark in the outside and hardly anything worth looking except some hazy lights. Now, we started taking photographs of each other knowing that other passengers nearby already had a patch on their eyes and were fast asleep. Now the thrill had reduced but the AHs still engaged us. They walked in the aisle backwards from the rear of the plane, pulling a tray of water bottles muttering ‘excuse me, excuse me...’ and we couldn’t stop bending ourselves to look at them bending; they were coming towards our place from far away. We were to make quick decisions either to look for our reflecions in their lips or some obvious destinations. We wanted them to walk both slowly and fast. Slowly, so that we could look at them without being noticed cos all we see is their backside and fast so that we can get a closer look.
Water bottle was the only complimentary and we took three bottles each by calling them and so, three time visit to heaven being halfway thru. After an hour and three quarters the pilot spoke with a Spanish/Italian accent that the flight was ready to land in another fifteen minutes and that we were asked to fasten our seat belts. Then we decided to have the final looks from the up on the down so all three squeezed themselves to get to the window and we could see some indistinct lights and as we climbed down in altitude, Rags could hear crackers, I heard a ‘futt’ and Kundo heard nothing and now, and now we wanted cotton. From then on till we slept that night, Rags continued to hear crackers at regular intervals. He also developed an acute head ache.
We didn’t know that we were moving that fast until we saw the lights in the runway and the moment we touched down, the whole flight started to vibrate like hell. It was seven in the night and it was cold when we came outside. We moved fast towards the building that led us to the conveyor belt. We then went to the restroom where we really noticed the change that everyone there, was a Bengali. Even though we knew that Aeroplanes travel much faster than trains, we still could not digest that it could displace us through 1800 kms to some Kolkata in just two hours which the train would take like years. Whatever it is, all the fun attached with the flight was now over and the maiden flight journey was over. Now we really came to the grounds. We had a train to catch, by 10.30pm to BBSR and already it was 7.45 and it takes a minimum of an hour from the airport to Howrah station. In front of us, stood a queue for like miles for the prepaid taxi. We moved inch after inch and I finally got there near the counter. I prepared myself the dialogue which I should be reciting in the counter, in the Hindi I managed to frame with a self-defined grammar. Now, there was frenzy with four persons standing parallel to book the taxi in one counter. There started a fight. It was testing time for my endurance there. I could just guess they were at all speaking in a language known to each other and realized finally that Bengali is a language to be hated and not even to be heard. Later on, I figured out this; round your lips and speak Hindi and you are actually speaking bhengholhee…! And after the two month stay in BBSR I figured out; sneeze (ahhhch, ohchh or the usual way u sneeze) when you speak bhengholhee and you end up speaking odiya.We finally got the taxi to Howrah station, and in between we stopped for buying smokes and all I could get was a smoke which was only twice the size of those Beedies which I still had them in my bag. We wanted to ask the Sardarji driver if we could smoke inside the taxi. I don’t know why we thought he wouldn’t understand the word ‘cigarette’ in English and asked him “hum yahaan sutta pee sakthe hain?” he turned back and said “yahaan cigarette ko cigarette bolthaen hain”. That was of course the permission to smoke inside the taxi but there was a sting inside his words, asking us not to try and venture in Hindi even little bit.
We reached the station in an hour and the time was exactly 9.45. We managed to get into a restaurant and grabbed in some food just for the calories. One thing that was positive for us about Kolkata is that u don’t get that ugly stare which we get in Chennai, from the ladies when you dash them, assuming it is unintentional; after learning this obviously it is not gonna be. The Howrah station is the most heaving railway station in the whole world. Understandably, in a crowded place 2 men walk in the space for one; but I felt like there were more than five or something and I was chocking, more so because of the heavy luggage we were carrying. Rags was suffering from that boom-headache and so, I had to carry that suitcase with someone dead inside. Very strange to notice roads in-between station and the smell of the fishes was chasing us - so typical of kolkata. I don’t usually fear crowds neither do I love it, but I always felt that there should be a commotion sort of a thing in every place we move or live so that we don’t get the feel of living in a lackluster world and it’s always good to look at active people moving here and there. I’ve been to Kolkata twice before; once with my family on a JLT tour, as well to BBSR. The second visit was with one of the sudharshans en-route to Gangtok. My elder brother who was working in Alstom (now Areva and currently in Acenture) in Kolkata that time and he accompanied us both to Gangtok. That is the most beautiful place i've seen. Not much cos of its scenic beauties. A full bottle of rum costs just 90rs what costs 300 or more in Chennai. They have lots of breweries in there and what more do you need. Yessss, we took bath in alcohol. That was the trip of my lifetime.
The Howrah-Puri express was late by half an hour. We were sweating profusely and all we wanted was the berth to sleep on. There was a Bengali family who were sitting next to us, with four ladies and two men. It seemed like Kolkata had delegated them to force us to get a feel of what Kolkata is made of and to persuade us to spend more time there. It was obvious that we were ogling the bountiful ladies and no doubt the ladies felt nothing about that but the two men. I guess they were married to the two of the four. We were requested by the men to exchange berths to the adjacent section as theirs were there and they sure didn’t want to leave their ladies closer to us. At last we rested for the day waiting for the lights to go off after the ticket inspection. Then came the thought about the very purpose of this travel; the tough training ahead & I had no clue of what it was gonna be like.
I was so desperate to see daylight that night, okay, let me come down; it wasn’t even the anxiety about the training but was about the excitement that I was gonna be all alone by myself for the next two months at the minimum. Rags was snoring and Kundo was awake.
Daylight did come so did BBSR. As we got down with our entire luggage started wondering “What next?” We still had the Chennai Numbers in our cell phones and so did the other college guys who had reached BBSR two days before we did. The only close contact who we relied upon was Anand, who was my classmate in college. Our immediate necessity and worry was that we three wanted to stay together and the chances to be together looked bleak as we thought who is gonna heed to fellas who come to report right on the day of the training. Anand gave some directions to the place; it was Patia.
It was around six or six thirty, not even a single shop was open on the way. I don’t know if it was the superiority complex having lived in the metros or something, we always complained about everything in BBSR like how Mohan Barghav reacted to Charanpur in Swades at the beginning of the movie. We still had those tiny-winy smokes we got at Kolkata. We burned them down inside the taxi without committing that mistake of asking for permission and certainly not in Hindi.
One would surely see squares and rectangles in a bird’s eye view of BBSR as someone said to me that BBSR is a well planned city; in fact it was the architect of Chandigarh who had also planned BBSR. Kundo and I had searched for the possible route to our place in the Google Earth website; in fact Kundo could identify the final road we’d have to take to reach Patia and even guessed that there should be a Trident Hilton and the Fortune towers on the right side. We thought the fortune towers would be our place of training and out of unquestionable anxiety even took photographs of the building. As per Anand’s directions we crossed all the landmarks and reached the Big Bazaar and were searching for the address we had. After many calls to Anand we found the direction for the TCS villa and we had to meet one Mr.Madan Mohan Mishra. We were very anxious to find the status of the availability of the rooms cos the outcome would decide the level of fun we had planned. By all the God’s graces we three got the right behind the Udipi Hotel.
It was a peaceful place to look at the first instance. Awesome. Everything was falling into its place- we were happy. The next apprehension was the kind of roommates we were gonna get. There were around 25 villas in the colony and the entire TCS facility was leased from Kalinga Institute of Technology a deemed university. It was only one of the kind in the state unlike Tamilnadu where every minister has a deemed university.The villa was a one storey duplex. One of the rooms in the ground floor was occupied by the in-charge of the colony. Our room was in the first floor. It was like the Chandramukhi House. The previous dwellers weren’t humans I suppose. We didn’t have much time to even smell the room. The next thought was about the toilet for obvious reasons on a morning and we had our morning debts due with compounded interest. The toilet was locked. In the mean while we arranged in the most achievable way in the available space in the cell. And there came a lemon colored asshole from the bathroom. We didn’t think we should be shaking hands then, but we did. We could guess he was from Delhi with his “hello dudes” immediately after coming out of the bathroom. No, he was from Mumbai and I later realized Mumbai guys are even more long horned. Of course I agree that generalizing people with their geographical presence isn’t the wisest thing.
His name was Ubey and the second name I don’t remember. He didn’t even bother to ask who we were and we felt like kicking his balls. We were truly and completely apprehensive about the pompous north Indians and their hate towards the people from south. We didn’t know we could smoke that freely until we saw that Ubey lighting up a smoke and switched on the TV. And so we lit up a smoke and went into the toilet in turns and there started the fight. It was only the first day. We later noticed that we had two other villa-mates other than that Ubey. We didn’t introduce ourselves as the time was 8.00 am and we were still not dressed. We didn’t even know where the training centre was. Knotting the tie was the biggest ordeal we would face in the morning more than the toilet-fight and the pain that follows but still, we managed some how and rushed out of the villa and villa suddenly looked different now. I was wearing a dark blue shirt and a black trouser, the combo I thought was the best among my collection. The pair was one of the four newly bought ones for the training.
Our first job was to search for the guys from our college. They told they would be waiting for us in the canteen and the place was crowded like hell. Our breakfast that day was a burger and a samosa which was in no way sufficing our demon hunger and later learnt that breakfasts in the canteen would only be of this sort and also learnt that we had to compulsorily pay around 4500 for the food for two months. We were given a couple of printed pages and a pen. We went inside the already-overflowing-Audi. We found the chairs and we had nothing but to gaze and gape at the colors. All the gals were in the best of their dresses and we couldn’t help taking our eyes off them. I don’t know how, but we south Indians always have this inclination towards the north Indians for obvious reasons like color and less heavier dresses.
The Audi was similar to our college Audi just less lookable gals. We could clearly see some outlandish Hindi groups with the entire Yo-Yo ness. We hated them, no; Kundo and I, we, hated them. Rags was himself a Yo-Yo wannabe. Kundo and I have more often than not, these kinda notions in common. I get carried away from preconceived notions and I believe halfway in first impressions. I was trying to guess the characters of the people I could set my eyes on - my habitual mistake. A kinda inferiority complex did overwhelm me time to time. The Northys understand our weakness and start behaving to just fuel it further - even if it is not true, we then wanted to believe, the reason we did'nt know. But I slowly started shedding the possible complex in me in a couple of weeks from then. The level of jokes they crack, my god; of class nine?
Rags, Kundo and I were not sitting together. Everyone was busy watching the birds and of course we wanted to check with others if the documents we had brought were enough and had we got the signatures in the appropriate places. Someone came to the centre stage, a lady, really fat with heavy arms and we later learnt that her name was " The reincarnated 'Fuhrer' " - the devil woman.
She started calling out all our names to check the attendance and somewhere around forty guys were missing, cos there was always Infy, Sathyam or M.S-in-U.S. Initially we thought that Ellora Panda was there just to verify the documents and that she was an assistant to someone or to something like her. We never thought she would be the head of that ILP-centre. Of course another villain did exist. Rags and I were busy calculating the gals around and he was pretty much impressed with a gal who was sitting diagonally adjacent and in the other side of the aisle. She looked south Indian. With the view I was getting of her, I couldn’t judge properly and told him that there were other good looking gals. Truly, I got the exact wrong angle to see her. I regretted it later. Arun the Kosu, one of my college mates who happened to be concentrating on what rags & I were talking, interrupted and said, ‘she looks like Sohail Tanvir of Pakistani Cricket , go for the next one’. At that time, I never thought it was harsh to have said about that girl. She looked perched in that gold colored dress and so much I remember and I made a note.
I am going to stop it here for now. It was fun even more, that was in store. But owing to my bad memory, I decide to restrict to the eventful happenings alone. Keep looking for the same page for some more inputs and pray for my memory and even more for my lethargic hands to type.
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