1) Meeting Jaideep
I arrived in MSRITSH on 14th October 1999. I was allotted a room with an Assamese guy, tall and hefty, with a soft voice. He introduced himself as “Jaideep Kaushik Boruah”. He was courteous, smart and asked me if he could use the left portion of Room 60, I agreed.
We both were in different branches, him in mechanical, and me in information sciences and engineering. We attended college, and discussed our families. In the evening he left for his LG’s (local guardian) house, I was loafing around in my track suit before being warned by Sayanthan, that seniors are going to nail me. I wasn’t scared of ragging or so I thought.
I met Ratesh (known as Bansi) and Animesh (Bag). Bansi started using familiar vocabulary and spoke how he is going to sit besides the best looking babe in class next day. My father had left in the afternoon after giving me a brief lecture on what to do and what not to do. The evening went fine, I and Srinivas and played cricket with seniors, who warned me that the future is not going to be easy with ragging. I still wasn’t scared.
2) First Night
Jaideep came back, brushed his teeth and slept. Brushing teeth at night was a good habit I learnt from him. It was 9 00 or 10 00 o clock, we were fast asleep. Bang, Bang the door kept banging, I opened the door and could see two seniors. They asked us to wear formals and go to room 206.
I was stopped midway and asked to go to Ahmed Sir’s room. I thought this was a divide and eat policy. Ahmed asked me to fill water in his bottle, which was easily the dirtiest bottle one could ever see. In the hostel there was a ritual or rather a rule, rule 1, once a junior fills a bottle of water he is supposed to drink the same because he might have mixed it with his holy urine. Is this ragging?
3) First lab experience
We had a computer lab session and were supposed to get familiar with the concepts. All I knew about computers was paint brush. Rahul Bhartia, one of the brightest guys I have ever met, was typing C programs when I was struggling with typing on a notepad. I was thinking of failing in engineering, it was Rahul who gave me the confidence that things will be easy after a while. Rahul taught me a few subjects and some concepts later in engineering. Vishnu, Kishor, Ganashyam, Ranjana, Praveen were a few other people whom I met initially.
4) Andhra Pradesh ragging
I was from HyderaBAD, the ragging for us was BAD. I was stripped. This is not ragging, its cheap thrill, isn’t so? We were supposed to give an introduction in pure Telugu without an English or Hindi word. One mistake and you get a slap. I used to revise my introduction every night. I escaped being hit.
Finally, the moment came when seniors trapped me in front of a telephone booth. One senior asked me to abuse the other senior. I knew this was it; I would get hit anyway,
I didn’t want to loose my opportunity to abuse the senior. WHACK……It was almost 10 years since my father slapped me. The slap was ringing in my ear, this was ragging. I had to get used to the slaps, stripping, sleepless nights etc.
Ragging was scary since then.
5) Meeting Ankit, Saurav Sarda
After the usual routine of ragging, we went out for dinner; walking about 2 kms we reached a place called BEL Road. We were discussing how each one of us got ragged. I was boasting about my stripping skills when Ankit introduced himself. He was chubby and spoke with polish. He is a true friend, keeps in touch even if you don’t call him or mail him. He can do anything for his friends. Jaideep, Ankit and I were close friends in first year.
Later in the evening I went to a room, Bag was smoking and there were about five more guys listening to GNR, a guy was sleeping amongst all the noise as if he was dead. This guy was called Saurav Sarda. He was Brilliant, short tempered, caring, a nocturnal animal.
Saurav and Ankit shared their birthdays on 15th Aug. They celebrated birthdays together. Celebrating birthdays in hostel was fun. Cake, eggs, dirt, beer and cow dung in some cases would go into the birthday boy’s mouth, clothes and other parts of the body. It was dirty.
6) Kaka and Bhagat
Santosh Kabra was from Hyderabad, a very confident chap, great fun to be with. He had a great vocabulary in Hindi, the foul words came out without any trouble. He did what he felt like. The guy was an expert in business, stock exchange fundas, and Hanuman Chalisa.
He called everyone Kaka, eventually he was called Kaka by everyone. Kaka was scared of dogs; he used to state that he would rather encounter a lion than a dog.
I entered Bag’s room once, I see a guy with a cigarette in his hand, wearing a military camouflage shorts and reading a book. He was Arijit Bhagat, Ari or Bhogu. Bhogu was strictly non vegetarian, loved alcohol and wanted to enjoy.
7) Fest and exams
Sometime in second semester we had college Festival, the usual rock shows, dumb charades, rose day etc. Rose day used to be a special event; the most hyped girl would get all the roses. I wish I owned a shop that sells roses or that one particular day.
I was so scared to give roses to girls. In the end, I had the guts to give a rose to some senior in ECE. I don’t remember her name. It used to be a silly thrill.
Exams were something we were excited about; being in first year we worked as hard as we would have in the remaining years. I used to study regularly. After a teachers strike, student strike, kidnapping of a Kannnada superstar, exams getting postponed, , cancelled, etc eventually we all made it to 2nd year.
First year passed off with ragging, making new friends, the highlights would be
· The picnic to Nandi hills with a new crowd.
· Playing cricket
· Anupam sir known as pampu, troubling Bansi
· Sujay Jha sir asking Nitin to sing at midnight
· Kaka and his drunken revelry
8) Meeting Neeraj
I was in 2nd year. I was the king, boss, ruler, with the power to rag my juniors forgetting everything about my own suffering. That’s the way it works in college ragging. Rule again – get ragged, rag more. I had caught Neeraj the previous night and asked him “who the prettiest girl in his class was” and get her to me, so that I can rag her at 2 00 PM near Engineering Drawing hall the next day.
There she came; she was smart, expressive eyes, slightly curled hair, slim and pretty. I couldn’t rag her, words wouldn’t come out of my mouth, but I did ask her a few questions and after making a fool of myself asked her to leave. Honestly, I never thought Neeraj would bring a girl to a senior.
But, it was because of the ragging incident, that I got close to Neeraj. Neeraj Khosla is definitely one of the nicest and stupidest guys I have met. He was a University topper. He fell in love with a different girl every semester.
Khosla and I have an affinity for stupid things. Stupid Channel V Mr Sodi ads, MTV rubbish, filthy language, Silly death metal songs, the list goes on. I miss those days when we used to sing “Coming back to life” by Pink Floyd, “Romeo and Juliet” by Dire Straits ,our favorite “Hallowed be thy name” by Iron Maiden though we preferred the same song by Cradle of filth because it had abusive language.
9) Rachit, Pros and Varun
Rachit or dealer came across as a very shy guy. I was wrong, this guy could create ruckus. He can talk on any subject for as long as you want him to. We became friends later when I was in 3rd year during our adventure to Nandi hills.
Prashant or Pros is an artist, he came from Hyderabad and it was my duty to rag him and eat his brain with my stupid jokes. His room was full of sketches, pictures of automobiles and pretty woman. He loved them all, but his liking for food was the best of all. He could drink ghee, eat three times as much a common man could have and still eat some more.
Varun Mathur, His nicknames where Bhalla and Omar mullah, he too like Neeraj loves nonsense. He was a big fan of Raveena Tandon.
10) Smitha
Smitha was my batch mate, she was into modeling and known to every guy in college. I was introduced to her by Ankit during college festival on rose day. I gave her a rose and went for lunch, wait, the lunch was not in some restaurant, it was in the hostel canteen, and she had coupons for lunch as she was a volunteer.
We spoke about the roses she had, college, sports etc. I feel pretty stupid doing all that, but in college one does not realize all that especially during rose day. The rose I gave her was borrowed by me from Shruthi, the rose donator, everybody stole roses from her to give it to other girls, rose business as I had mentioned earlier was a flop business because the roses were recycled by girls like Shruthi. Shruthi became a good friend after college when she became my colleague at work
Second year passed by with fests, college labs etc. I was new to computers and my father bought me a new computer which was used mainly for movies, songs, making resumes, storing crazy videos and useless stuff. Every computer in the hostel was inaugurated with a movie; all friends would spend the night watching crap. That’s another rule.
Third and Fourth Years
1) Studying strategy
By the end of second year I realized that a new strategy had to be applied if one had to score marks and learn better, doing R and D on a subject is waste, one needs to read books written by good authors or prescribed books and not the books written by some lecturer. I scored well in the remaining semesters.
2) Commando
This was one game that I played by bunking classes. My computer was struggling to support this highly graphical game. Me, Saurav and Abhijeet used to play this game all night long. I dreamt of destroying bunkers, killing soldiers, dying myself. It is a fantastic game and I don’t miss a chance to play wherever I find it. My history did improve because of the game. There were instances where the animation would get into us and we would shout in the same way as the soldiers in the game did. “Alarm”, “Alarm”, “That’s easy”, “Piece of cake”, “As easy as pie”, etc where some of the dialogues that we used. The game got us mad, we used to stay awake till 2 00 in the night and complete the missions.
3) Nandi Hills
Ankit and Jaideep had cars in college, Ankit’s car was called “Taxi”. One night we decided that it was time to hit the roads and go somewhere. Nandi hills is a paradise for alcoholics, we felt comfortable going to such a place.
In two cars ten of us left hostel at 9 00 in the night. After eating out at a roadside Punjabi Dhaba on the way where Neeraj tried to show off his Punjabi to the Sardar who didn’t know Punjabi, we proceeded to the top of the hill. On the way, just to feel the darkness we switched off lights and drove. A crazy thing to do, it scared the wits out of Jaideep who was driving the other car.
We didn’t find any accommodation on top, we planned to return. On the way we found a Marriage hall. After bribing the watchman, we illegally got ourselves a dirty room with a dirty cot and other dirty unmentionable things. After living in the hostel we didn’t feel that this was that bad.
The guys who drank and smoked were in the room. Saurav and I had a talk about life and other useless things like politics, nature etc. Saurav was in an emotional mood and told me a secret which I was not supposed to disclose. He told ten other people anyway.
After drinking till about 3 00 in the morning, the guys got up to snores at 4 00 to see the sun rise. There was one shitty toilet and we all had to manage. One by one we went in but when Rachit’s turn came he stood at the door and told us that entire his life he has had the privilege of using shitty shit pots in different parts of the country like Rock garden Chandigarh, Jaipur fort, etc.
We reached the top, saw the sunrise and came back, ate at the same dhaba, had the good tea there and returned. Came back to the hostel and slept. We had internal test in two days. We wanted a change from the usual routine, routine of wasting time in the hostel, the best way was to waste time somewhere else before the tests.
4) Devrayanadurga
5) Balaji Bar
The filthiest place I have ever gone to eat dinner. Not once or twice, at least 20 times I have visited the dungeon of vomiting men, drunkards and some lecturers from the college.
I don’t understand why we used to enjoy that place; every time we went there, someone would vomit or create a scene, the only nice thing about the place was we had very intellectual conversations there. I remember speaking about supernatural sciences, world politics, computers there with guys who would never talk sense elsewhere.
The fat Panwala called Thakur Sahab below used to entertain with vulgar jokes and filthy language.
6) Useless Srinu, Tirupati and Kavali
7) Projects at night
In 6th semester we had to develop some projects, Ankit, Ratesh and I used to code at nights. We had worked very hard and called the project RAP, picking the initials. Rape without E.
After working till about midnight we used to go to the night canteen to have chai and bread-omelet.
8) The tense era
The IT slowdown in 2000-01 caused anxiety. I had to get a job at any cost. I don’t think my parents followed the slowdown too much. I don’t know what my parents felt about the job scenario but personally I was tensed. Writing GRE and leaving the country didn’t seem like a good option. It was a phase during which I felt joining engineering was the biggest mistake. People around me were not able to understand this as they had either dad’s business to look to or had other plans.
I stopped playing cricket and started improving at my tech skills. I had no one to guide.
9) Blind date
Amongst all the anxiety and tension there was more fun and foolishness. I was told by my friends that someone wanted to date me. I refused initially but then it was Bansal who MISGUIDED me and I went for the “Blind date”. There was a girl who supposedly and unlike other girls had a liking for me. We met and again like the case with Smitha for lunch, this time I didn’t want to take a risk with food (the most important thing in the entire world) so I had lunch in the hostel and went out. I spoke shit again.
That was the biggest mistake of the week; from classmates to juniors everyone came to know about my misadventure or rather miss adventure. I had a tough time explaining things. I used to try my best to run away from her because had one of my friends seen me with her, the entire hostel would know.
I remember Jaideep sleeping in the room, he heard me coming in, generally he wouldn’t bother, but he got up and asked me what I had been up to, I knew from that moment I was in trouble.
10) GRE and TCS
Everybody was writing GRE, so I had to write it as well. I have done almost everything in my life because X, Y or Z is doing that. An entire bunch used to go for GRE coaching. It was more of a get together than anything else. I used to study with Sundeep Ravande, we used to prepare for verbal section in GRE by pronouncing the words the way we wanted. I was not too keen about going abroad; all that I wanted was to get a job.
It was somewhere in 7th sem that TCS came to our college and after some rounds of interviews and sweet talk with the HR female, I got the job. That’s it; all that I wanted was achieved. But, as usual the herd mentality in me remained, I wanted a better job, and succeeded in getting placed again. I sometimes hate myself for doing things just because others did it.
11) Bryan Adams
“Summer of 69” is one song that most of the college kids enjoy, here we had a chance to see the man in flesh and blood. Honestly, a huge, cheap, hooligan crowd gathered for the show, if I am not mistaken it was the first time that someone that big was coming to Bangalore, all roads lead to palace grounds, the venue.
It was drizzling that day and we had loads of fun, while returning, Sundeep, kaka and me and physcho sagar walked back. It was a long walk, and as usual the night got the philosophical best in us, we discussed what success meant to us, what we would do if we became celebrities and some more nonsense.
12) The Local cricket tournament
A tennis ball tournament was played every year; there would be teams from college with weird names like cool dudes XI, Blaster boys, Thunder Boys etc, some censored names too. The faculty participated as well, their star was a lecturer called Manikantan, a good player and a bit of a show off. But he had a terrific personality. The organizers were students from mechanical engineering who would make enough money for the entire year for their booze by allowing teams to re-enter the tournament even when the tournament was supposedly in the league stage. The hostel team would enter the tournament thinking they played for India, and the hostilities cheering as if India was playing. The organizers made sure that their team entered the finals and eventually win it by hook or crook. It was a stupid tournament but we being the biggest fools did play it.
13) Militants
This is one of the most exciting things to have happened, it was just after sept 11 attacks on USA, some Islamic militants had brought RDX to blow ISCON temple. They were killed in an encounter. The next day we all went to see the house where they lived, it was full of bullet marks and tear gas shells.
The rest of the day, I and Nilanjan (was called mullah Omar after the legendery Al-Qaeda militant) discussed how much fun it would have been had the militants blown the entire area. We discussed the composition of RDX and other explosives. Sometimes I feel had we got a chance to get acquainted to these militants we would have joined them.
14) Class room – Proxy, Ramesh sir, SS bedtime stories, Gajju sir
We had the best department in the college, our HOD was GOD. We never had to attend classes or write exams without copying. We never submitted records on time. We never behaved properly in class. My class room was a typical Hindi movie class room.
In the last bench, Bansi, Sanjeev, Ashish and Jameel would sing hindi songs, we had Amitabh specials or Kishore kumar specials, our lecturer Mr Gajendra was disgusted with our behavior and begged us that we could talk in the class if we wanted to but not sing songs. He also had a trademark way of shouting “Silence”; it went something like “Sai lense”.
Mr Ramesh was the heights of patience, you could sing, dance, take snaps, give proxy attendance for a girl, and walk in and out of his class anytime. I remember friends from other departments coming over there and discussing the plans for the evening in the class.
We used to make noise, all he would ask us is “Please don’t shout, the neighboring class is getting disturbed”.
Baddu would misbehave with the teacher time and again; System software class was called SS. He would go to the board and write “SS-Bedtime stories”, the teacher would come, get annoyed and walk out, and the girls would be pretty annoyed as most of them loved to study or at least wanted to be in the teacher’s good books. The guys would whistle, clap and boo the teacher away.
15 Ghosts
Every hostel has a few common stories like a room where someone was murdered, someone was raped (wonder how women were smuggled in), some room with a suicide etc.
Juniors never wanted to take room 99 because there were some such rumors. One guy once went to that room on a rainy night, his shirt got stuck in the latch and he thought ghost held his hand. He pissed in his pants.
The room later was occupied by Kaka and Shekar, both were ghost busters, one would abuse the ghost away the other could eat anything including ghosts. There used to be a joke that Shekar, if was asked for a last wish before dying would ask for samosa.
I was in 3rd year. Some juniors got rooms in the old hostel block, which I am sure was built by keeping in mind jails. The saw some blood marks and a poem about death. They also saw some man running naked in the dark. This was our opportunity to get some cheap thrill. Sandy sir put multani mitti on his face and covered himself in a black bed sheet, he would go to each room, knock, and scare the shit out of juniors who were already scared because of the naked ghost.
Neelabh Maam and I went on top of the hostel and threw glass pieces, stones and made noises to add extra affects. Later, the next day a notice was generated that seniors were ragging. I don’t know if this is ragging. The hostel authorities knew a few words like – authority, ragging, notice, meeting, summoned, expel, etc, they reused these words for any event.
So, the same evening the entire hostel gang went in search of the ghost, there was no electricity and it was the right opportunity for mischief. People ran in a train, howling, breaking things, and shouting abuses. Somewhere in the train, a few guys got lost. They lost their torch and suddenly one of them did see some running figure. He was petrified. Till this day the mystery remains unsolved, except for a few guys like me who know the truth about the ghost or at least analyzed it.
15) Juniors going brutal
We were in final year and allegedly one first year student had stolen money. His batch mates decided to take the matter into their hands, burnt this guy with cigarettes, wrote obscene messages on his body and sprayed deodorant on his burns and other parts of the body.
Two wrongs almost make a right; the 3rd year guys took these guys and treated them in a similar fashion with extra belt whippings. A few felt that they deserved it. That was one problem with the hostel guys if things go out of control they go really bad.
16) Exams - curse
We all loved cribbing during exams. We wouldn’t have studied the entire semester and before the exams complain that the university was too old fashioned, there is no scope for creativity, compare with IIT as if we have done thesis in engineering there.
Had we used that time to study maybe we could have scored more. Neeraj, I and Jaideep would go to the library to eye the girls. Funny things would happen there, guy and girl flirting, so called COUPLES holding hands underneath the table, sleeping, chatting, everything other than studies. Jaideep would complain that he can’t study in hostel and then tell that he can’t concentrate in the library. The funniest incident was when a girl slept on my shoulder. Just before sleeping I would meet Bansal and revise the entire stuff. In the morning I would repeat the revision all alone, throw the books and write the exam. I never kept things till the end, burning midnight oil, as I could not compromise on my sleep. A lot of people went with the books inside the examination hall, I feel it’s stupid. A few guys would enter the class 5 minutes late so as to mug some more –losers. Most of the students have study ego problems, most of them say that they never study, I don’t know what kick one gets by saying so. As if studying is a sin.
We used to check our sitting arrangements at a small notice board called the “Mechanical Paradise”. It was called so because the attendance list also used to be displayed there and for mech guys not being fined was paradise.
I used to do a few things before exam:
1) I would go to the first floor and eye the babes, if I saw good ones I generally used to write the exams well.
2) The night before the exam I would call home and whenever my sister wished me I felt better.
3) On the morning of the exam I would go to the class room, check the sitting arrangement, and put papers underneath the desk so that it doesn’t wobble while writing.
4) Be the first one to go and sleep after the exam
17) Sleep
cheerful