Welcome

You’ve read ‘Five Point Someone’ now read ‘IIT BYPASS’ an exclusive original novel which is your own life story where all you smart guys are the heroes and all the beautiful girls are the Fairies ha ha… Especially written for all the losers…because remember ‘YOU CAN LOSE’, Shivkhera made a fool of everyone :-)

All characters of the story are bogus. Any resemblance to the characters dead or alive maybe the effect of Vodka you had last night…

Alright Beer…Don’t Argue

Read it live on http://iitbypass.blogspot.com and don’t forget to read the chapter ‘How to get a Girl’, ‘The Art of Passing Exams’, ‘Ek kauwa thaaa…’, ‘Phone-a-Friend’, ‘First Results First Drinks’, ‘Karma Baby’, ‘Drinking and Smoking’, ‘Don’t forget to take her Number’, ‘Enter the Hostel’, ‘Common Room’, ‘Outcast’, ‘Girls Hostel’, ‘Yellow Rose Red Rose’, ‘How to Name your Kids’, ‘Workshops’, ‘When a Girl proposes a Boy’, ‘Hate Being the Senior Most Batch’, ‘Asking her out for a Movie’, ‘Harry di baraat’ and my personal favorite ‘Tazzy baba da Love Test’.

See if it motivates you…else…have a Beer…everybody Cheer!
I’ll have Foster’s… my ancestors were Australians ha ha.

Whatever your Bypass to IIT was; whether REC, NIT, DCE, BHU, BITS, ISM, BESU, HBTI, PSG, NSIT, Manipal, Vellore, JNTU, Amity, GNDEC, Thapar, UIET, CCET, PEC or any other, I know you won't trade it for any god damn IIT in the world. If you were this beautiful lass who didn't escape any eye on the campus or a stud who had a damsel everybody envied or you were a member of this insane college rock band that took forever to tune their instruments. If you were the one who never studied or the one who always did behind closed door, then you might just find your name in the novel. So read it.

42. Tazzy baba di Jai

“Hmmm…” something suddenly stuck me, the night when Tazzy had made us pledge that we all will follow our dreams. I recalled that nobody had asked Tazzy about his dream and it was a great temptation for me at this point of our conversation,
“What if now I ask you the same question?”
“Which one?”
“What do you want to become?” I asked. My question made him quiet, a beautiful smile appeared on his face and he said,
“I want to become a Buddha” he said with such love that I could not ask him another question and spoil the moment. I just nodded my head and smiled back.

‘Saying goodbye is not easy, it is impossible’ I bet this is true.
Next morning Tazzy left…

…and yes, for those wondering whether I did or did not let me tell you that I did try Tazzy baba’s love test.
…and just the way I had always suspected the answer in all the cases was a big ‘Yes’, ‘I still want to be with this girl’.

…Dedicated to my dear friend, Harjinder Singh, who now rules the Heavens…

41. Buddhahood – How blessed you are

Tazzy meditated and then again opened his eyes and spoke,
“Let me show you how blessed are you” he said, “Close your eyes and travel with me” Tazzy closed his eyes again and began concentrating. Simply trusting him, I too closed my own eyes and began waiting for his words to fall on my ears. He was silent for about one minute, during which I contemplated what he was about to do or say to me.
“Let your mind relax, leave behind all your thoughts the good ones the bad ones, imagine you have wings and you are flying amongst the clouds, some Siberian cranes have just passed you and you are waving your hand at them saying bye-bye, the cool breeze is hitting your face and chilling your mind clearing all thoughts, now you are above the snow covered alps, and below, shahrukh and kajol are dancing you can see them, ‘jara sa jhoom lon mein, arye na-re-na-re-na…’ Now you are flying upwards towards the sky leaving behind the earth…”
I was mentally travelling just as Tazzy was directing, I could actually see kajol dancing in her red skirt on the mountain snow and shahrukh with his unkempt hair twisting his rear assets,
‘O ji mein raj…’
‘Na kon raj…’
‘O tuhada juai…’
‘Hain…’
‘O tuhada juai hai na kuljeet, oda jigri dost raj…’
‘Haye bada pyaara munda hai’
Funny, I wondered what my friend wanted to show me, I curiously followed him.
“You are passing by the beautiful moon, white beauty. Now you are moving deep into space far-far away from the earth and the moon, in the unknown darkness around you and there in far distance in front you see a big-bang happening a flash of explosion, light and only light there is cosmos are being created, you see that for millions of years they keep moving away and away farther and farther the whole universe is at work, the galaxies are forming, the stars are forming it’s taking them millions of years they are burning they are working, now after billions of years the sun has become, the earth is forming it’s hot right now, for next millions and millions of years it is working hard to bring down its temperature, it’s revolving incessantly working tirelessly, then the first life form appears on earth you can see it, then the earth spends the next millions of years beautifying itself more and more and more…”
Tazzy fell silent and his silence meant I was very close to what he wanted to show me. I was in suspense, and he asked me a simple question,
“Then the earth spends the next millions of years beautifying itself more and more and more… tell me Harry why?”
I was clueless, I had no answer and instead I wanted him to say those magic words which would unlock this beautiful suspense he had created.
“To give you four beautiful years with Ansh, to give you three beautiful years with Aneesh, Sehej, Avneet, Saher, the whole universe has worked so hard for billions of years just for you, that is how important your are to this existence, that is how blessed you are…”
His words hit my mind and heart like spear of light. I was speechless thoughtless humbled. I suddenly felt warm all around me and inside as if the whole existence was embracing me, that is how important I was to the existence and I had never realised that.
“Open your eyes”
When I opened my eyes, he looked into my eyes and asked.
“You could have well been born alongside Hitler, as a Jew in the times when they were being mercilessly killed, but you walk this earth alongside Aneesh and Ansh and Sehej the girls who fill your heart with such joy and bliss, that is how blessed you are, look at that smile on your face that comes just by hearing their names” Tazzy poked his finger in my left cheek, and by now I was laughing, he was right, even hearing their names made me smile for no reason, I didn’t know why.
“Why does this happen?”“Because you are pure and sensitive to love, it’s rare, especially the ability to fall in love so easily and with so many girls at the same time ha ha ha hee hee hee” Tazzy laughed and I blushed…

40. Buddhahood – Something that Scares

…my last question about physical desire led me to think about something that had troubled my mind time and again for a couple of years now.
“Something scares me when I think about it”
“And what is that?”
“Say I loved this girl and I imagined so many future moments with hers, some of them very personal to a relation, physical especially. Now she is gone, now she will marry someone else and she will…” I shook my head I couldn’t say, ‘o god’ I was so scared indeed didn’t want to think about it also, “… you understand?”
“Yes I do, they will do all that you imagined for yourself”
“…yes, she’ll be sharing bed with another man, she’ll be producing his kids not mine. The thought makes me go crazy… my god, this really scares me, it is an unbearable thought” I cried.
“I understand it is very difficult for you, these thoughts are merciless” Tazzy consoled, and meditated for a while…
“So what if you can’t marry her…” he began, “…these four years of her life she is with you and you with her, at this time she can’t be with her husband and you not with your wife, so forget everything, love her this moment without worrying about the life and marriage. On the contrary it is good that you don’t get to marry her, you will not have to see her growing old and ugly, you will not have to see her decay and die. Let her husband carry all that load of misery, ha ha ha ha hee hee hee…” Tazzy laughed like a mad man.
“You just love her this moment and let this moment be timeless. Even when you are old she will remain young in your mind and memories, because you won’t see her grow old”
“You mean if I or the person who gets her will be disadvantaged?”“No, all I mean is that even if you don’t get her, you are not disadvantaged. Therefore stop sorrowing about not being able to get the possession of her body. Love all the flowers in the garden, they are all yours, without being sad if you are unable to pluck and possess even one of them. You are in this garden of beautiful flowers all around you, you are blessed to be in this garden, feel so…” said Tazzy.

39. Buddhahood – Tazzy baba da Love Test

What I wanted to ask next was what I am sure comes to many minds,
“How does one find out if he really loves a girl or it’s just physical attraction, a sexual desire?” and the answer that I got from Tazzy babaji knocked me out of my senses at once,
“Have Sex with her!" he beamed.
"Are you serious?" he knocked me off with that one; it was a ‘strange’ answer.
"Yes" said Tazzy firmly and I didn't really understand him.
“But that may not be possible all the time?” I expressed and pat came the reply,
"Then imagine having sex with her, imagine the face of the person about whom you have such a doubt, bring that person in your thoughts and do it. You know what I mean? Soon you will reach the point of orgasm and just when you have an orgasm, in that instant just after the orgasm answer this simple question ‘Do I still want to be with this girl?’ and you will know. If the answer is 'No' then your love is only a physical attraction towards that person because you no longer want her after an orgasm and if the answer is 'Yes' then your love for that person is true because even after an orgasm you want to be with that person, so it is not only physical attraction that you have for this person there is a lot more to it" Tazzy explained. I had never heard something like this before, a weird test but somehow it appealed, I had never thought of (that) as a love test.
"Does this work?"
"Of course it does, just try it, no harm in trying?"
"Yeah, no harm in trying" I replied willing to try it some time but I couldn't hide my smile.
"Why are you smiling?" Tazzy's question only made it worse I began laughing.
"Why are you laughing?"
"Your love test, it's funny, ha ha"
"So it is, but it works"
"Have you tried?"
"Of course, you think I am guessing?"
"Alright, ha ha" I just couldn't avoid my thoughts.
"Just be sure of the timing"
"Of what?"
"Of asking the question, ask it at just the right moment, just when you've had an orgasm, within that split second" Tazzy elaborated.“Alright, alright, ha ha” I couldn’t help laughing at Tazzy baba's love test.

38. Buddhahood - Ultimate Love

I felt light but there were still some questions in some corners of my heart, these were the after-effects of unrequited love. I expressed my mind unconditionally,
“Why is it that even when Ansh has left me, I don’t feel any hatred towards her? I should have felt that she betrayed me but I didn’t feel that way, I don’t know why?” I asked and Tazzy responded spontaneously,
“That means only one thing, that, you have tasted the ultimate love, the only love that exists. There is nothing called true love or false love, there is no categorisation as such, there cannot be different forms of love, love is one and the only one, either it can be or it cannot be. How does one know whether love is or it is not, the test is very simple, see if there is any condition in what you are thinking is your love for someone, say for Ansh or Sehej, if there is a condition like the condition that she should marry you or that she should also love you back, even if there is one condition, it is not love it is a desire and when the desire is not fulfilled there is a vacuum inside you, a void. This void has to be filled with something; it gets filled with anger, hatred for that girl, with revenge. But you are the blessed one you have passed this test, there is no condition in your love for the girl you love, what you have tasted is love, it is not a desire, so there is no void in your heart because it is already filled, filled with that ultimate love and there is no room for anything else there no room for anger or hatred and that is why you don’t feel what you think you should have felt when Ansh has left you, you still love her the same, there is no condition in your love that if she leaves you for someone else you will stop loving her and start hating her, you are blessed and you have attained the ultimate love and now you can hate nobody leave alone that girl. This is also the explanation for your ability to fall in love with so many girls at the same time, Krishna had this ability and now you have it, you will be happy if you get any one of them and you will not be unhappy even if you don’t get any one of them, you won’t start hating them. My friend you have attained and I am so happy to see your radiant face…” said he. His words kind of made me blush, he had praised me so much, never before had my one good quality so detailed out to me. This was the first time and all his logic seemed perfect, fitted well with what I actually felt.

There were other thoughts in my mind as well and I expressed them one by one…
“But how is love possible when there is only one, you need two points between which it flows?” I couldn’t help reasoning, and he said,“Love is not a two way flow; it does not require two people to make love complete.The phenomenon of love is not that your love should flow towards the other only if others love flows towards you. You will be surprised to know that love is a singular flow; if someone has tasted ultimate love then it will flow out of him unconditionally without any condition that something should reach him in return. Some examples of ultimate love, singular flow are, the love of humans for God, the love of a small child for his dead mother, the love of nature for mankind despite they the fact they pollute her. In all these examples the two subjects are separated over great distances, God from humans, he doesn't turn back and say that 'humans I love you too' A small child from his dead mother, they can never see each other; and humans from kind nature, the distance of ignorance. But still in all these cases the love remains, because it is the ultimate love, the actual love. The ultimate love should fulfil two parameters, one it should be unconditional, and two it should be a singular flow. Your love for Ansh fulfils the first parameter, that it is unconditional, because it survives despite her cold heartedness towards you, but then it does not fulfil the second parameter, that it should be a singular flow it still requires her presence for its completion. In this regard it is different from the above three examples, where the other person's presence or recognition is not necessary, love for god, love for dead mother, nature's love for you. So now stop worrying about the distance between you and her; that you may not talk to her for years together, that she likes and marries someone else. The ultimate love transcends all this. 'Let-go' her willingly and let your love be eternal. Love like the flowers love, spreading their fragrance all over, they do in one spring what humans can't learn to do in sixty, eternal love. They are blessed and so are you just realise It.” said he and then went into meditation again.

37. Buddhahood

I knocked on Tazzy's door with whatever little life remained in me. He would have expected me barging into his room like a tornado but today I was like a gentle breeze. I bet Tazzy had never seen that face of mine before.
"Harry what happened?" he asked getting up from his bed. I had no strength to stand on my legs; I collapsed to my knees and held his hands,
"Tazzy..."
"Yes Harry, what happened?" he asked and I just shook my head from one side to the other expressing 'hopelessness'.
"What is it about?" he asked pulling me up by the arms, "Ansh" I whispered.
"Come let's talk about it" Tazzy pulled me to the balcony and offered the plastic chair to sit. I wanted to lie down on the floor so spontaneously I dropped to the carpet which accepted me more lovable than the one who had just said 'goodbye'. I rested my back against the wall and slowly head too. I saw the broken pot in front on the retaining wall and the rose plant rising out of it. At its peak a rose looked into the sky and behind it shone a half moon, I could see her face in the moon.
"What happened?" asked Tazzy and I took it easy to reply; now there was no hurry. The one for whom I would hurry was gone.
"She called" I said as if under drug effect.
"What did she say?" and I was slow again, almost tears in my eyes, the moon seemed melting to my vision.
"Goodbye"
"Waheguru...waheguru..." whispered Tazzy and closed his eyes maybe to pray for my pain or maybe to believe his ears.

I was feeling very low and Tazzy didn't speak for quite a while, he sat there with his legs folded, back upright in a meditation pose. After a while,
"Close your eyes Harry" said he and I obeyed choice-less-ly.
"Sit upright, hands on your knees" he instructed and I followed.
"What do you see?" and I replied honestly, "Her face…in the moon"
"What do you feel?"
"Defeated"
"What do you desire of her?"
Here I thought for a while, 'what did I want of her', nothing specific came to my mind,
"I just want to be with her...forever" I said convincingly.
"With her body?"
I was stunned, 'what is this question' my reasoning ability was dead for now, so what I uttered was my most natural response.
"No, with her" I insisted.
"Then why do you grieve for her body?"
The very moment was turned into a dilemma, 'what is this puzzle' I asked myself and there was no light to see through this one.
"I don't understand?" I confessed.
"All that she has in her power is to take her physical being away from your sight, her body out of your reach. What is in your power is to be with her 'self' even if there is no body...
"Because you will not be able to see her physically anymore is causing you a feeling of loss. She is not her body, so don't grieve about not seeing her body anymore; continue to seek love that exists even if there is no body... It is like god, he can hide his physical form from all mankind, take his body out of sight from all mankind but he still can't take away the evidence of his existence...and hence man continues to search for him, love him, pray to him, believe in him...

His words were very soothing on my heart and on my mind, very pleasant. His thought on my thoughts began lifting me up and I began feeling light. Plenty of time I took to let his thoughts heal mine.
"What should I do now?" I asked.
"Let-go"
"How?"
"The attachment that you have of seeing her daily, let it vanish as if an illusion it was, because that is not her, the face that you see in the moon let it fade away. Do it lovingly, do it prayfully, be grateful, no hatred only love, immense, unconditional, the one that transcends, transcends the body, transcends marriage, transcend society, transcend ego, transcends the need of physical presence..."
I let my mind loose, I still saw her face in the moon, I observed, it was there looking at me.
"Recall the happiest face she ever presented you..."
I recalled as said, her charming face walking towards me in the cafe lawn, her glow matched the moons’.
"Let it fade...gently...say a prayer...say goodbye..."
I concentrated on her beautiful face, this observation began affecting me, my face relaxed carved a smile over it all pain drained away, bliss radiated from my head, and I could feel a magnetic halo around my head. Slowly the face was fading away in front of my eyes as the glow of the moon got brighter and brighter and finally there was no face. I opened my eyes and there I saw, only the moon, plain and serene the face was gone only the moon remained radiant, now even brighter; that added glow was hers. I had never felt like this before, never, the face had faded but not even an ounce of love went away, in these twenty minutes it multiplied, I felt full, no room for anything else than love and it lost all categorisation at once, all specification of 'for whom' 'this much that much' 'till death does us apart' 'the most'. For first time, since ages it seemed, my mind was blank absolutely blank. A gentle cool March night breeze touched my face and I closed my eye again. How long I stayed that way thereon, I honestly don't know...

36. Harry di baraat 2

That was it for the evening after our senior’s convocation, we returned to the hostel and since it was still too early to sleep I preferred star gazing in the outside balcony. I sat on the parapet where usually keerda used to sit. I was there for about half an hour when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I reached for it well knowing who it was at this time; I was expecting this one like every other evening of the last few months.
"Hey Ashu"
"Hi" her voice was always like magic on my ears, soft and hypnotising. I could feel her moving lips close to my ears and her warm breath filling them.
“I wanted to talk to you about something" she said softly.
“Yes of course, what is it” I asked her but she remained silent for a while after that.
“I wanted to say, that...” she paused and said something that frightened me at once, “...what you're thinking is not possible...”
I was not prepared for this, no never, it was unexpected. I had seen no signs of it ever. I didn't expect this, not even in my wildest dreams and from Ansh, unimaginable. I wished it were a joke, I wanted to believe she was kidding, but she had never made a joke of anything, she had never told me a joke ever and if this was the first one I wished it was so. I hoped I prayed within. I wished the conversation just changed course from the next word we speak. But my heart already began sinking; I guess the body has a better intuition of what is coming while the mind clings onto hope of otherwise.
“Why, what happened” I was just able to say that wishing the response never fell upon my tender ears, they were more sensitive than ever.
“...I can’t think that way about you" she said and it felt as if something within me snapped. Something happens to your heart at this time, like a 'thump', yes 'thump' kind of a feeling, just where the heart is, the chest feels heavy and full. You feel like taking in a big breath and exhaling, shaking your head and then hanging it low, you feel like having a free fall down from the edge of a cliff and wish there is no bottom to it. Abysmal.
"What happened, I thought you loved me..." was my mortal plea and she was quiet.
"...I have someone else in my life” she said and my heart was now in the deepest abyss. I felt as if my body was cut into two, I could feel some part of me being torn apart from me. I didn’t know what to say, there were no words, my grip on my phone loosened, I thought it’ll fall but the hope in my fingers still held on. Maybe something from the other side will be said and it will be alright. But she said nothing more…I was into pieces after she hung up. I thought I'd be carried away by the wind. I needed something to hold on to and only one came to my mind…

35. Harry di baraat

The entire next morning I was busy convincing all my guys to accompany me for the movie and because they knew it was all about me wanting to spend time with Ansh they agreed after lot of pleading and now for Ansh's friends. I started with sending them a sms and requesting them without realising that I was getting too many people onboard. My only thought was that my plan of being with Ansh shouldn't get ruined just because some friends back out at the last minute, so I was taking no risk.

Finally when we started for the movie that lovely afternoon we were fourteen people, a bit too many to have the luxury of privacy amongst strangers and like Tazzy pulled my leg,
“Harry di baraat ja rahi hai…” and he went hee hee hee…hee hee hee. They were all there to peep into what I and Ansh were up to. All of us occupied the entire first row and Ansh and I occupied the corner seat. She was to my left, dressed in a t shirt and jeans, hair unleashed. It was all dark in here and the movie was running where Amreesh Puri feeds the kabootars in London. I was so engrossed in looking at Ansh from the corner of my eye that I hardly cared about what Amreesh Puri was doing. It was so damn unbelievable for me, that I was with the girl I loved in a theatre side by side watching a movie. The moment had an effect on me; love for this cute girl was oozing out of me like lava from a volcano. In that moment of immense love I felt so vulnerable, I didn't know which moment I will just get up, take her in my arms and kiss her. I picked up a conversation,
"You never wear suits?" I said, since I had always seen her in jeans and t shirts. As if she was waiting to talk to me,
"No I wear them but sometimes, at home only" and so it went on.
"And this?" I asked pointing at the karda on her left wrist.
"Babaji gave it to me when I went to gurudwara, I was small" she replied and started playing with it on her wrist, up and down.
"Here let me try" I took her left hand in mine, all this was a spontaneous thing just to feel her soft hands and I tell you it felt her skin was melting in my hands, she was that soft like malai. Her forearm was very thin and I held it across her lap and gently began removing the karda.
"It won't come off" she advised and I was happy to hear that because the more difficult it would be to remove it the longer I will get to hold her hand in mine. I felt her gently and worked to slip out her karda little by little. Finally, it did come off and she exclaimed,
"Oh you removed it"
"Yes and now I am not giving it back" I said.
"What will you do with it?"
"Wear it and keep it with me forever" I beamed.
"It won't fit your wrist, it's too small"
"Hmmm…"
"You can keep it, now that you have worked so hard to get it" she smiled and it took my life away.

We sat chatting and I held her hand, touched her hair and inclined my body over the side bar toward hers. My face was so close to hers and my lips just a centimetre away from her cheeks. Of this entire big-big universe and the distances between, this is how close I was from kissing her; however that one centimetre was still there. My body trembled I don't know why, I guess it does in times like these, my heart beat faster, I wished my trembling helped me cover that one centimetre accidentally or what if she turns her face towards me hers cheeks will touch my lips I was hoping. That one centimetre distance remained and I left it there for another time… didn't want to rush, that 'what if' came to my mind 'what if' she gets offended and thinks that my intentions were skewed. For next two hours I was lost by her side. I wished the day of Simran's marriage to Kuljeet never arrived and Raj kept trying and trying and the movie never ends, this way I could be with Ansh forever... But that stupid old lady, dadi falls ill and the whole matter is preponed and the movie picks up pace...

Guess what!The next day she came to the college in a suit, o god she looked so heavenly cute I wished I drop dead there and then. I was smiling in my heart as this meant a lot to me, it meant she cared about how I wanted to see her, it meant she loved to dress up for me, it meant she was in love with me. Some of my smiles appeared on my face and she reciprocated as she came smiling towards me at the verka booth… there were these beautiful butterflies in the sky…

34. Asking her out for a Movie

It was sometime in February of the last semester, the spring was in full bloom. I was closest to Ansh at this point of time than ever before. Aditya Chopra and his team were celebrating the tenth year of DDLJ success, and in line with that the Fun Republic multiplex was screening special shows of the movie. This particular movie was quiet famous amongst our hostel friends, often during regular gossip sessions we repeated dialogues from the movie, for example Tazzy would imitate king khan saying,
“Ab sari zindgi to doston ke sahare nahin gujari ja sakti na, senorita”
“Badde badde deshon mein, esi chotti chotti battein hoti rehtin hain… senorita”
“O ji mein Raj… na kon Raj…o tuhada juai…hain…o tuhada juai hai na Kuljeet, oda jigri dost raj…”
“Ja simran ja, jee le apni zindgi”
”Jo logg hume ache lagte hain, woh hume pyaar se Tazzy bulate hain...”
And everyone’s favourite,
“Yeh tumhare pardada, kabhi school hi nahin gye… Yeh tumhare dada panchvi fail, aur mein tera baap, metric fail… ha ha… toone to London mein fail hoke dikha diya…o koka o pochi …”
“Meine tujhe yeh tuntunna bajane ke liye peda nahin kiya hai…”

The boat was sailing well,
“Now it’s time you ask her out for a movie, Harry” my gang was filling my head with all sorts of fancy ideas.
“Hmmm…” I was thinking and my thought was that ‘am I going too fast, wouldn’t it send any wrong signals etcetera, etcetera’
“Shouldn’t we wait and allow it to happen naturally?” I asked and seriously meant it.
“Come on yaar, asking a girl out for a movie is a natural thing!” he replied and the logic seemed perfect to me, ‘o my love guide what would I do without you’, but then there was another problem.
“How should I ask her out?”
“With your big mouth”
“That’s okay but… how” I was literally shivering at the thought of asking her out. Though we had been talking regularly now for a month, but asking her out for a movie was a tough thing for me. I had never felt so nervous before, my heart beat was faster than normal. Even if your friends suggest you a good idea, that is only twenty-five percent of the job done, I still had to call her up and ask her out for the movie, now that was the difficult part of the whole process.
“Okay I will try”
“Don’t try, do it”
“Alright I will!” I said spiritedly.
“Yes that’s the spirit” he reciprocated.

That night after dinner we were in Tazzy’s balcony, just him and me and the screen of my mobile flashing her name. I was restless and scared, kind of different, my entire body was trembling. Not that it was the first time I was calling her up but what I was going to ask her was different and for the first time. The whole event was kind of big for me, ‘what if she says yes’, ‘what if she says no’. I was so scared I wished the call never connected. But it did connect and I was searching for words.
"Hi Ansh"
"Hi how are you" she responded in her usual soft voice. Then there was 'I am fine, your fine' routine and I thanked god for such fillers because it was difficult to directly get to the point, I had to beat around the bush, round and round before even getting close to asking her out for the movie.
"I've heard they are screening DDLJ for the valentine" I said casually, of course pretending.
"Are they, really?"
"Yes, they are celebrating their tenth year of success"
"It's my favourite movie" said she and made things easy for me to craft"
"Oh is it, it's my favourite too"
"Really! I was in class seven when it was released. I was small"
"I was small too, what a coincidence!" I quipped
"Time flies..."
"So it does" I agreed and then "How about seeing it again in the theatre?" I finally asked and waited in anticipation. She went quiet for a while, I guess thinking.
"Yes...but alone..." she seemed doubtful and before she rejected the idea I'd better said something to push my proposal through and what came to my genius mind was,
"We can take friends along; you can take your friends"
"Yes" she said half willing half not, "Then we can go"."That's great, it'll be real fun I bet" I was so thrilled to have her consent. I forget to talk anything else…

33. Hate being the SeniorMost Batch

We were now the senior-most batch on the campus and I tell you it was not a very comfortable feeling. It meant that we now had only little time left of our college life, only little time on the campus. When I looked at our super-super junior I could already feel a sense of alienation. It felt like I no longer belong here, like a leaf that would soon fall as the new ones were fast springing up. We were now ‘Sirs’ and ‘Ma’am’s’ to them, a sign of gap between two banks of the river, and widening. And many of our batch mates even tried desperately to keep this gap away by saying,
“Hey, please don’t call me ‘Sir’, I am Sarvnipun Singh Chawla” but I tell you it didn’t seem to work too good for them. It was difficult to get this hierarchy of ‘Sirs’ and ‘Ma’am’s’ out of their heads. Sometimes it seemed they did it purposely to make us feel that – ‘our time was over’; ‘So will be yours, smart boy’ I’d say to myself. Nowadays these juniors got conscious of our presence as soon as we got close to them. People had begun talking about farewells. I felt like a leaf heading towards fall, the only consolation was that many would fall with me, the entire batch ha-ha.

Around this time I joined MBA coaching classes starting in the summers like most of my classmates and by now I was doing well. Besides a placement which was primary, everyone was involved in either GRE or CAT, which also were…primary. Those who wanted to go for further studies, masters and things like that in the foreign lands prepared for GRE, while others prepared a shot at CAT which promised better packages in India itself. Since I didn’t like metallurgy so much to go on to master it I chose not to follow Avneet and instead follow Ansh. Yes she was in my class at the coaching, well it was just a coincident and I was so damn thankful to the f****** whole world. Ahha… how do I tell you, I was so damn on cloud nine that I didn’t follow the instructor for the first few days! All my efforts were dedicated to securing that seat right behind her everyday we reached the coaching centre. Once in this lifetime I got this opportunity of being her classmate and I wanted to make the most of every moment. Since my feelings for her were still no different than the good old times I rolled up my sleeves and gave myself up for love, yet again. I enjoyed a lot just because she was present around me. The whole time and space fell in a kind of trance when she was present. I purposely took the seat behind her everyday without fail. Her hair fell over the chair backward and I’d purposely drop my pen time and again to smell her hair. They were so alive with her fragrance, and sometimes even felt her hair with my fingers; just the slightest loving touch and she wouldn’t even come to know. I observed her so much, her every move, her handwriting and the curve of every alphabet she wrote, her every eye blink…

I wished we both cleared CAT with the same score, get admission in the same college and take up same courses and be together for next two years. Then both of us get picked up by the same company and work in the same location for the rest of our lives… sorry I mean till there is enough money, and then… we settle on an island far-far away and keep pet white sharks to keep off any intruders disturbing us… wait a minute, we’ll be old by then, no-no-no, I don’t want that, rewind, rewind…
I guess I wished we just stay in the MBA coaching class forever and ever. Ha ha…A memorable outcome of all this was that we came closer slowly and very slowly. About this time we began talking on phone occasionally…

31. Don’t forget to take her Number

We returned with a clean sweep at Spardha in the first week of Feb and Depesh returned a broken heart. Spardha was a sports tournament organised by IT BHU Banaras for all the engineering colleges. I represented the football team while Depesh accompanied us for the throwing events in athletics. During this tournament our macho fell for a table tennis girl of BHU, I won't forget he ditched me for next three days to be with her. She too hung around with him and they went places in the campus and outside. Her name was Swati and she was in her second year. On the evening of the prize distribution Depesh gave her his email id and didn’t bother to ask hers, I don't know why. When we returned he desperately waited for her mail and waited and waited...she didn't write back. Probably he was ditched again. He was very upset,
"Yaar mere saath hi esa kyon hota hai?" he cried. I had no answer to offer him, but just another question,
“Yaar why didn't you take her number?"
He didn’t reply, just hung his head.
"At least you could have taken her email id?" I asked as I didn't understand even now why he didn't do this obvious thing. He lifted his head and replied dejected,
"Yaar I thought saali ek baar to mail likhe gi, to mail id pata chal jaye ga..." he was hopelessly sad and angry. Anyway, that was that...

Hey all you smart guys, learn from my friend’s mistake, just don’t forget to take her number…

30. The Art of Passing Exams

Tazzy and I were sitting out in the open balcony and enjoying the evening sun. Tazzy was in his favourite shorts, a tee, and a black patka on his head that he tied in his famous black commando style. Just then a junior smart boy from IT knocked at the door. I had seen him in the college some times, but he was not a hosteller. Tazzy opened the door and soon pointed his hand at me,
"There in the balcony, is the master of exams, he knows how to pass even without studying, he'll tell you" said he and I saw myself telling this junior all my secret weapons of how to pass an exam,
"See on most occasions you will have little to write but many blank pages in front of you to fill; now that’s some real challenge" I was glad he was listening to me attentively,
"You will find yourself in a catch 22 situation; all you know is just a few lines of content and have to fill five big pages with it, that’s the kind of challenge you face in exams. Now to spread this little information you have in as many pages as possible is an art you see. It’s an Art" I said and he nodded.

"Say it is a theory question. First of all, you appreciate the question, even if it seems un-understandable in the beginning, just don't panic, appreciate it" the guy listened with such devotion that it inspired more passion about my art,
"You appreciate the question and figure out ‘what can I use from the question for my good’, try to pick the familiar words which strike you with some content in your fading memory, which inspire some definitions, let’s say you see this word 'defects' in the question just grab it, or say you see the word 'hardness' just grab it. These are the 'golden eggs'. Now, start with explaining the question itself, explain to the examiner what he has asked, tell him what you are assuming and then write elaborate definitions of the ‘golden eggs’ in as many words as possible. Maintain at least one inch gap between each word and the font size should be atleast fourteen, the lesser you know bigger the font, and, more the gap. You understand that?" I asked the boy. He was game and I now talked with even more passion.
"You see big font, big gaps; Right?"
"Right, I get it, big font big gaps, cool. I better write this down"
"Yeah I bet you do"
"Okay" said he as he sat down making notes of my advice.
"….and don’t ever forget the TENSES!"
"Tenses"
"Yeah, their use is crucial, very crucial"
"How?" the guy was very serious again.
"See whatever you know whatever, first write it in the present tense and after some lines of bullshit write the same thing again in the past tense and then after some lines of more bullshit write the damn thing again in the future tense, that’s real art boy, the real art! This will increase the content and fill pages, for example, ‘Harry loves Ansh’, then, ‘Harry loved Ansh’ and then ‘Harry will continue to love Ansh’. Right, Tenses?"
"Right, that's amazing! That’s so cool, Tenses!" cried the boy.
"But hey, don't overdo, remember don't overdo, okay"
"Okay"
"Remember, longer the answer more the marks and just add about anything that helps. Do backward integration, all the big words that crop up in your definition, go back to explain them and in doing so use some big words and then go back to define them. Linking you see, linking, alright?"
"Alright, linking I got that" the guy was excited. Good student I must say. He followed everything.
"And in the end UNDERLINE"
"Underline!"
"Yes about everything you feel is important, just underline. That means about ten lines on every page"
"Alright"
"Make that five and five, once at the top and once at the bottom, or maybe in the middle"
"Okay"

"And don't forget that 'HENCE' paragraph at the end. HENCE, this was the question, write it, and this is the answer, write it briefly, underline and that's it your master piece!" I beamed with joy.
"That's some art Sir. I am so thankful you taught me" said the boy in joy and then I guess he went a bit too far,
"Sir, Can you also teach me how to get a girlfriend?"
Now that was not my area of expertise, I pointed at Tazzy."Maybe he can" I said and let them be, while I marvelled at my own art description, chuckled and listened to their conversation.

29. Love obituary - Avneet

Avneet was the closest friend Sehej had and the two were always together. Avneet had studied at Carmel Convent before getting into engineering and I tell you she was a delight. It was so probable that a person starting for Sehej might end up falling in love with Avneet and the one starting for Avneet might end up falling in love with Sehej. Avneet too was very beautiful; both of them were so very beautiful, Avneet was a bit shorter than her friend but still quite tall and looked totally dazzling in black colour. It was surprising to find two equally beautiful flowers sticking together; there appeared never any competition among them as if each was unaware of her own beauty. Given a chance I would have been happy to fall in love with any one of them without any prejudice but frankly my heart went out for Sehej a little more because she was quieter of the two. Avneet had these beautiful deer like eyes, so deep that I feared I would get hypnotised if I ever look into them for more than a second. The two were always together and Avneet was most of the time engrossed in her GRE books. Had I been in her branch I might have been inspired to take up GRE but the fact for now was that I didn’t want to do master’s in metallurgy, I didn’t like the subjects didn’t want to read them any more than that was necessary, for four damn years.

During the lunch time the two would sit down on the stairs of their department and have lunch from their boxes. I wished I could be friends with them and I once even tried; it was a disaster… Avneet threatened me on the very day I tried getting close and friendly with them,“Next time you do such a thing I will take you to the chairman” she said the final words, I turned away and fled. So now I had one more reason why I would prefer falling for Sehej than Avneet. The damn girl just ruined my chance. She chould have helped one sincere lover to find his love instead she led Sehej to come and threaten me with ‘going to the chairman’ threat. I just wondered how the chairman would have handled this one especially after we managed to get a lease on last two occasions, one when we were caught swimming at midnight in the college pool and once for Tazzy’s bhashan at CII. I was feeling tempted to say to her, ‘who to humare friend hain’. Ha ha…

28. Love obituary - Sehej

Sehej was the cutest face I had ever seen in my life beating even the very fairy like Aneesh, because her face glowed in more innocence than hers. She was as beautiful as the fairy like Aneesh and as innocent as Ansh, she was slim and tall, treaded with the grace mighty Nile. One girl I could look for the first time and say ‘O god take my breath away’ or wish that I dissolve into her like a rain drop in the ocean, forever. That was her. I could sit and afford to see her for eternity and not get tired. Honestly, the three years that I spent with her presence in the college I never heard a word from her mouth and so I don’t know how she might have sounded when she talked but still I think I would never long to hear her voice, because her silence spoke so eloquently. She came to the notice of my eyes and heart on the very first day of her joining the college the year I passed on into the second year. She was roaming amongst the new crowd with a lone friend like an innocent lost sheep. She was from electronics, the elite ones, and she parked her kinnie in our metta parking. She was a year junior to us and spent most of her time with Avneet her only friend. She did her primary education at New Public School Chandigarh and some more things I found out about her. O my god I loved her. There was no doubt that she was the girl I woundn’t like to miss even for heaven. And I had no clue how to bring her in my life.

On one of those many days when I fell in love with her Tazzy and I were walking back from pec market when I plucked up a wild flower,
“What are you gon’na do with this?” asked Tazzy.
“See it for yourself, buddy” I said as we approached the metta parking.
“Do you know whose kinnie this is?” I asked smiling coyly.
“No!” replied Tazzy utterly confused.
“Hmmm…this is Sehej’s kinnie” I said spying, looking around if by chance she was watching us. One of her kinnie’s rear view mirror was missing, the left one which left a small hole in the dashboard. I stealthily put the little orange flower in the hole on the dashboard.
“O I get it now” said Tazzy.
“Let’s get out of here, hurry” I said.“How romantic, she’s gon’na find a flower and wonder, o my god, and then she’ll have sleepless nights wondering and wondering. Then one day she will find out it’s our dear Harry, the lover boy and it’s gon’na work, wah wah kya idea…” Tazzy sought pleasure in completing my love story that very instant. So that is how it went on most days of the week I placed a small flower on her kinnie hoping one day she will find me planting one on her kinnie and our love story will begin. I so very wished I get caught placing the flower on her kinnie…

27. How a Watermelon can get you a Girlfriend

Next day at about four in the evening we decided to get a watermelon for the night after dinner get-together. Just a mere coincidence that Bhupi and I went together. We parked the bike on the roadside and greeted the melon walla. We went for a four kg watermelon this time, considering Depesh’s appetite. I got on the bike and settled down to start it; Bhupi stood there holding the watermelon waiting to get on the bike. He was standing towards the road. I didn’t see exactly how events took place behind me but just as it was about to happen I saw it just seconds before, BANG…!!! came this girl on a Kenny and knocked out Bhupi. He fell over me and I fell off the bike. I fell over on the sidewalk towards the melon walla, and the bike hit the foot high retaining parapet. When I sat up and looked around I saw Bhupi lying on the road clueless and this dame was parking her Kenny. She rushed towards him while the melon walla helped me up. I staggered to assess where all it pained me, not much just a bruised shin which burnt hot with pain and bled profusely.

I walked towards Bhupi where this girl was saying,
“I m sorry, I m really sorry” she repeated while trying to be of some help. Bhupi was too shaken up to respond sitting on his butts with the smashed watermelon beside him. His specks had fallen off at a distance and hair all messed up. I picked up his specks and gave it to him; one of the glasses was damaged, cracked up in many directions. We picked him up but he couldn’t take weight on his right foot.
“Aaaa” that was the sound he made. We opened his shoe to find the foot swollen up. Hurriedly we took him to the hospital where the doctor plastered his foot. I was in the corridor with this girl who had knocked us down. Only now I realized she looked familiar. I just scanned through my mind and bingo she was this girl from electrical in our batch; a pretty face.

For the next two months Bhupi was on crutches and out of action ha ha. Tazzy and Depesh drove him to department every morning as per availability and Bhupi hopped around the department with great ease. Within a week he got used to the new constraint and the crutches, when he didn’t use them Tazzy practiced crutch walking or just swinging it around and hitting our butts. This girl who hit our dear friend Bhupi was Ashmin, on numerous occasions she caught up with him to apologize. This turned into tea sessions, coffee sessions, dropping him to the hostel after college and then the matter was out of control, they were in love, simply inseparable. Bhupi went on to spend more time with Ashmin even after his plaster was removed. Not to mention now he had little time for us and this troubled Depesh a lot. So when he got drunk those days and everybody was around he sang out his heart loudly…’dost dost na raha…yaar yaar na raha…zindgi hume tera aetbar na raha… dost dost na raha…

Anyway, remember all you guys out there, a melon can get you a girlfriend. All you have to do is buy one and stand in the middle of the road…

26. Drinking and Smoking

Drinking and smoking had become like two religions in the hostel. For these two, guys always had time company money and capacity. No matter what, guys would just find a way out, for sample, consider the case of keerda. One evening I knocked on his door for tea and he sat there smoking. Over tea I confronted his habit and very enthusiastically he declared,
“Harry, here from now onwards I give up smoking!” he said and picked up his cigarette pack from the table,
“Enough of cigarettes I’ll never touch them again I pledge” he reiterated and chucked the packet out of his window. I never knew this was so easy and was very happy about the change I was able to bring about. That night someone knocked on my door at about midnight, when I opened the door cursing I saw him standing there,
“Yaar do you have a torch?”
“What? Why do you need a torch?”
“Will you help me?” he asked.
“Okay” I said and went with him holding the torch. You won’t believe me he made me search for his cigarettes in the middle of the night, in the bushes below his room where he had thrown them, and for company we had Mandi (the hostel doggy) and her pups helping us out. O god that was crazy…
After drinking people would become weird characters, Depesh became devdas and Tazzy became chunnibabu.
“Da se dil hota hai, da se dewangi hoti hai, da se Depesh bhi hota hai… ha ha ha hee hee hee”
“Asi movies nahin banani chaiye… chotte chotte bacchon par kya asar parde ga…” Depesh remarked.
“Kyon?”
“Are mummy bolengi ABC suno, to baccha bolega…
“A se apple hota hai mummy, B se bat hota hai, C se chocolate kab dogi P se promise kiya tha mummy...”
“Ha ha ha hee hee hee” yes that indeed was funny we had a good two minutes roller coaster laugh. Then Depesh yelled,
“Are o paro, kitne aadmi the?”
“Oye devdas ki aulaad, yeh to gabber ka dialogue hai…”
“Hain, gabber ka hai… ese kese… objection my lord…”Guys were real fun to be with when drunk, it was totally a different world.

25. When a Girl proposes a Boy

If you thought only guys sought Tazzy’s advice; think again. Once a final year girl came to him for advice; and that was the most amazing moment in his love advice career.
“I really love this guy, he is in my class…” she said hesitantly.
“Does he know about it?”
“No, he is not in my branch. But I know him through common friends”
“Why don’t you tell him?”
“I not sure; he’s very cute, handsome. I am afraid he will reject me.”
“So… in what way you want me to help you?” asked Tazzy. She thought for a while and said.
“Could you please let me know what will be the possible outcome if I propose him?”
Tazzy pondered over it for a while and then,
“Maybe I can… it will take some time though”
“Thank you so much Tazzy” she said and left happily.

Tazzy plotted his moves and some days later through a common friend arranged to get invited to a drink get-together where this ‘cute-handsome’ guy was coming. Soon the guy got drunk and Tazzy quizzed him. He went about asking him questions on love, girls etc and somehow managed to ask his opinion about this girl. To this he replied,
“Her, she is not that good. She is not that hot, ordinary, bhenji types”
“What if she proposes you?” asked Tazzy teasingly.
“I will have to run for my life… ha ha ha hee hee”
When Tazzy revealed this to the girl, she was very sad, real sad man. On one of the evenings when we were together Tazzy said,
“Harry meine ek shaer likha hai tere liye”
“Sunao, sunao” I said encouraging him and he responded.
“Harry shah, rabb khaeyr kare
“Tenu ishq da rogg na lagge
“Mein usdi oh kise hor da ashiq
“Jugg ek duje nu thugge”
And we all appreciated his shaer in a chorus, saying,
“Wow!!!” and then,
“Wow-Wow, Wow-Wow”
“Wow-Wow, Wow-Wow”All of us were sad for this girl. Two months later she and her batch passed out.

24. Love obituary - Saher

The first time I saw her was under the big banyan tree in front of the computer electronics departments besides the cafeteria. She was standing leaning against a car, wearing a light pink suit and looked like an epitome of Punjabi beauty. We were going to the cafeteria for some cold coffee and snacks. On seeing her I intentionally slowed my pace to have a longer look at her. Her eyes were desperately wandering around looking for someone, maybe be company of her friends as if she was feeling shy of standing alone, kind of uneasy. This was the reason that I was attracted towards her in the first place. We went on to the cafeteria but some part of me was left behind under the tree thinking about the pink beauty. Once our order was served,
“It’s hot in here, let’s go out” I said deliberately, there was no suspicion about my intention so we all walked out towards the banyan trees; I led them towards the parked bikes. While the other three got busy eating and chatting about the upcoming exams, I sneaked glances of this beautiful girl. It was late afternoon and she was still there when most had left for the day and the campus was slowly getting deserted.

So this was the most important thing that happened to me that spring. The only other important thing that happened was the Columbia disaster and since one of the martyrs was an alumnus of our college, loads of functions were happening around the campus to remember the great heroine Kalpana Chawla who graduated as an aeronautical engineer from our college I eighties. They named the girls hostel after her, as if it was something great they were doing. Some days later they even brought a helicopter to the campus in her memory and set it up in front of the admin building. That is when I saw Saher again. She was in her second semester of Information Technology studies and kept quiet most of the time. She observed the helicopter very sincerely and then looked up at the sky, maybe at Kalpana Chawla to draw inspiration or maybe if there were some aliens up in space and that one day she would make information technology to find them, ha ha. I didn’t know. I just found her cute, wanted to be with her. Inspired by my over enthusiastic friends and my love guide Tazzy, who said reading my hand that ‘love is in the air’, I dared to call her one night. O my god, I can’t believe I was able to do it. I was trembling and my heart beating twice as fast. I talked to her beginning with an introduction and moving on to ask about her interests and stuff. It was a good first chat. There were a few more like that and then one day she didn’t respond, then some days later she changed her number and that was a loud enough sign that I give-up the quest and I did.

Some months later she fell for this guy junior to her and taller than me. With this and in company of her new friends she changed dramatically, I’ve never seen such a transformation in so little time, from a quiet shy girl, she now frequented movies parties, outings and stuff. There was no coming back for her, but she looked happy and I was happy for her. I continued to feel thrilled at one sight of her in the campus.

23. Karma Baby

The new semester began with a new verve, new subjects and new faces on the campus, of our immediate juniors. Though we were drunk that night but we remembered what we had pledged, that we would try to achieve our dreams. All of us began making parallel efforts with all enthusiasm; Depesh joined a high class gym and spent long hours working on his body. Bhupi came down hard at jotting down lyrics, composing them on his guitar and rehearsing even harder, looking for avenues where he could perform, cultural shows around the city and functions in various colleges. Joining some college band would have been a good thing but then all these bands were those interested in funky rock type music which he didn’t like. He was a more sufi type, so he continued to sing alone. For me it was time to learn the skill of filmmaking, since I could not leave engineering to pursue film studies, I sought Tazzy’s advice.
“You can begin with writing small scripts… and maybe buy a digital camera, start photography.”
“Yes that would be a good start.”
“The most important thing in filmmaking is the skill of storytelling and you don’t need any coaching for it no need to spend money or run around, just get a pen and a paper, explore your own ideas, observe, think. Let us start cheap and easy, with a pen and a paper writing short scripts…”

His advice was brilliant ‘cheap and easy’ no panicking, patience and perseverance. I shopped for a special pen and a colourful smooth bunch of papers. The first short script I wrote was a love story of an air-bubble and a water-drop. The air-bubble is the lover and water-drop the beloved; they live in this big deep-deep ocean. Water-drop sees the air-bubble after a very long time in the ocean, and she is mad at him,
“Where have you been?”
“O baby I tell you my tragic story, after the last time we met I was gulped in by this big whale, huge, three days later she farted and I was launched through the backdoor into the sky, there an eagle breathed me in. Instead of the lungs I fumbled into her stomach, it’s a bad place I tell you full of rotting rat meat, two days later when she let out from the backdoor I fell into the ocean and here I am” the air-bubble says proudly narrating his adventure.
“O honey….puchi puchi puchi, but why is that you always come off the backdoor?” she asks confused. The air-bubble twists his nose, thinks for a while and says with a snap,
“Karma, baby”Ha ha…so went my first script.

22. Workshops

The very first summer we were suppose to take training at our college’s workshops. Each branch was split into two to three batches and each batch had to go through eight different workshops like carpentry, sheet metal, auto shop, electric, foundry, welding, machine shop and smithy. In those hot summer days we began with the sheet metal shop, Depesh and I were in one group because our names began with alphabets that were relatively closer together D and H, while Bhupi and Tazzy were together in the other group because of their alphabets M and T. They began with electric shop making circuits and fitting wiring on a practice board. While on the other hand we guys had to beat the shit out of this sheet metal with a wooden mallet and turn it into some good shape, a box. It was hot and all the beating made it even hotter we guys went to drink water once every fifteen minutes. It was sweaty especially because of those brown workshop coats. In the second week we were in the smithy shop, this is when lady luck came Depesh’s way or so it seemed. Here we had to beat the shit out of a piece of red hot iron and make a chisel out of it. And this time we had to beat with a heavy iron hammer. As a coincidence our group was paired with a group of computer’s branch and it had some half a dozen pretty girls.

On the first day late afternoon everyone was winding up his or her job with people helping one another making chisels. Almost everyone was done but for four of us. Depesh was helping me hammer the piece into shape, when this pretty girl from computer’s branch walked up to us and said,
“Will you help me with this please?” it was for Depesh to help her because he had the biceps. Only a fool would say no and Depesh didn’t.
“Okay” he said and went out to help her leaving me to fend for myself, ‘sala kutta’. And from that day on he helped her everyday, one day beating the hoe, another day making a sickle, then a hook and so on. He kind off ignored me, he was falling in love with her and she too approached him everyday. Depesh would come back to the hostel and tell us stories how he was progressing that he had found the love of his life and so on. Finally we moved on to the next workshop and our groups split. Now when Depesh tried to approach this girl she ignored him heartlessly and stayed with her own group. Depesh tried desperately but she finally ditched him, he was heartbroken,
“Bitch was only interested in me because I could beat the hammer for her”
“Ha ha”
“Ladkiyan hoti hi esi hain…”
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho ho ho ho…” it was funny, his situation, girl ditching him after getting her work done from him,
“I feel like a donkey”
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho ho ho ho…”

And so it went on the entire summer, sometime it got so hot that we were tempted to hunt for some home made cold drink, lemon water et al. when there were no lemons we took turns and barged into Tazzy’s room and said,
“Yaar sharbat pila de” his mummy had specially sent it for him, a big jar of sharbat concentrate. When I called upon him pleading like a beggar, he first had a good laugh at my act,
“Allah ke naam pe sharbat pila de baba” I pleaded. Then he got up and religiously prepared sharbat for me putting two spoonfuls of sharbat concentrate and cold water from his cello ‘super cooler’ container, then stirring it. When he offered that glass to me and I had that first sip,“Ummm, ahhhhh” it felt like heaven, it was so damn refreshing, sweet and cool, so damn well prepared. I couldn’t thank him enough for a glass of sharbat…

21. Ek kauwa thaaa…

Bhupi returned with a diary and flipped through pages. We sipped beer and fetched snacks from the plates and newspaper spread in the middle. Believe it only half of it reached our mouths, rest just fell midway, we were drunk, hee hee. Then suddenly Bhupi struck the chords and addressed us,
“Okay, here’s an original one. This will suit the situation. That nothing is impossible only if you try. When we all were small there was this story about a thirsty crow. Because of his will power he was able to quench his thirst on a hot summer afternoon. That crow is, let’s say Depesh and body building is his thirst, hot afternoon is like our constraints and now with his will power he will achieve his dream…” Bhupi struck some chords again, the sound seemed familiar.
“You must have heard the tune of the song ek hasina thi…ek diwanaaa…, I am going to use that tune here…” and Bhupi started singing this beautiful hilarious song that was really unique and left no doubt about his creativity. The song was as follows,
“Ek kauwa thaaa… kauwa pyasa thaaa… kya tapan thi, hawa garam thi, june ka wo mahinnaa thaaa… kauwa pyasa tha…” and so on he went and we were all smiling listening to our childhood story of thirsty crow as a musical composition.“…kauwe ne dale, usme pathther, dalta hi gyaaa, kauwa pyasa tha…”

20. Dreams 2

“So why don’t we do something different right here right now. Why don’t we try and live our dreams” roared Tazzy.
“How?”
“Start working on them”
“But where is the time?” said Depesh giving a lazy resistance.
“There’s all the time in the world. We are free for two days every week, that is hundred and four days a year, in three years remaining it will amount to one full year of free time, add the time you get within the college hours, bunks, evenings, nights. There’s hell lot of time, waste it or use it to make your dreams come true,” said Tazzy. Depesh was impressed with his calculation and motivated too.
“Amazing; there is so much of free time in engineering. It makes sense, we can devote ample time in any activity we want, screw the society screw the constraints we can still achieve our dreams, at least try. I am going to do it” Depesh pledged hitting his fist on his thigh.
“I will become a professional body builder; I’ll open my own gym.”
“That’s the spirit” said Tazzy, “and you Harry?” he asked me.
“Count me in, I’ll do it” I said without doubt.
“That’s it, filmmaker. You can be a filmmaker, go to all the beautiful places in the world shoot there, and it brings fame and glamour…” said Tazzy and I kind of liked his idea a lot, of doing parallel efforts. That very moment it felt as if all my thoughts had found a harbour,
“Yes that’s what will bring all my dreams alive, of living many lives in one…I will do it, thanks Tazzy you are great” I hugged him, I was drunk.
“And Bhupi will try to become a singer, right”
“Yes I will love to” he said. I guess he was already on the task, he could sing very well, he just needed to expose himself to opportunity and luck.
“CHEERS to our dreams,” yelled Depesh, we all were very happy and motivated.
“Bhupi isi baat pe ek gana ho jaye”
”Which one?” he asked all charged up.
“Something original” I begged.
“Yes now that you have decided to go for your dream, sing something unique” said Depesh.“Okay give me sometime” he said and went to his room.

19. Dreams

“Why are we here?” roared Tazzy raising his beer bottle towards the sky.
“For the glory of Rome, Caesar,” I said playing the role of Maximus the Gladiator, raising my bottle of beer.
“No tell me seriously, Harry why are you here?” he asked again. I was in no mood for such a talk so it was difficult to shift gears; I thought earnestly and declared,
“Money
“Is that it?”
“Yes”
“And you” now he asked Depesh.
“Money”
“And you” now from Bhupi
“Same”
“Hmmm…” Tazzy went thinking for a while through his drunken thoughts.
“Okay, let’s say I give you a million dollar each, then… then what would you like to do with your life?”
“Not enough…” quipped I.
“Okay, one billion”
“Pehle de…”
“Ha, ha, ha…”
“Come on guys be serious…”
“Serious, after a beer in my belly, ha ha, that’s waste of money” Depesh retorted.
“Okay Bhupi, you tell, if there is no money problem in your life, what would you like to become?”
“A singer”
“I would become a professional body builder” said Depesh flexing his biceps.
“And you Harry”
“A filmmaker”
“See that’s the point”
“What?”
“Nobody is living his own dream; everybody is living someone else’s dream, of parents, of relatives, of society. The entire world binds you to a road you don’t want to walk. Ninety percent of students in this college would not be here if there was no constrain of money of parents of society. This is a secure way of getting money, to become a singer is risky, that’s why every student is pushed into something he doesn’t love. Why are there these clubs and groups, music club, dramatics club, rock bands, cricket club operating in our college because still there is some hope somewhere within these people to live their dreams, hope that it might happen, that it might come true their true love for something might find its destiny. Don’t you wish that way?” Tazzy looked at Depesh.“Yes I wish. I wish something happens and I am free to go and do what I love to do.”

18. First Results First Drinks

Depesh got a reappear in the first semester and all my efforts to cheer him up were in vain…
“Let’s have beer” his words left us all dumbfounded…
That night in Tazzy’s balacony when all was in place we sat on the carpet and chairs. Our stocks had four beers, two for Tazzy and one each for Depesh and I, salad, chips, peanuts and for Bhupi a bottle of sprite. Tazzy opened three of them and it was that 'once in a lifetime picture perfect time' when we held a beer bottle in our hands. Tazzy said the toast,
"Here and now, in this moment of friendship, we celebrate the first re-appears we ever got, CHEERS"
"CHEERS" we all said together and banged our bottles with one another and Bhupi his plastic sprite bottle. I lifted the bottle up to my lips and took the first sip of beer,
"God, its bitter!" was my immediate reaction. I had always thought it tasted real good the reason why so many people liked having it.
"Yes, it's bitter" said Depesh but he didn't seem to mind it much.
"Don’t be misled by the taste, the magic will soon begin”
“Let’s see” I said taking another bitter sip and so it went on. Music played in the background…
Yes the magic was coming over me, like a trance, Newton’s gravity was becoming weaker and weaker and I felt I was getting lighter and lighter, body loosened up and my movements became very free flowing and so did Depesh’s tongue,
“Bhupi jaldi laga doosra gana…” he yelled. Now our senses were gyrating and hearts were like an open book, Depesh blurted,
“Guys you know why I got a re-appear?”
“Is there a story?” I quipped.
“Yes, bardi dukh bahri kahani hai, is mein emotion hai, drama hai”
“What happened?” I asked and he narrated his tragedy during the semester chemistry practical where all of us were provided with a salt and asked to do a series of chemical test to establish what salt it was. After laborious hours of testing and use of acumen Depesh concluded that his salt was ‘silver chloride’. He declared his conclusions to the professor,
“You are a genius son” said the professor and Depesh thought that was true. When the professor realised that the muscle boy was taking the meaning literally, he elaborated for his benefits.
“Son, this is a poor government institute, it cannot afford to give you silver salts. I myself have never seen it. God knows how you found it in plain Tata Namak”
“Tata Namak?” I looked at his face.
“Yes, that’s what this is, taste it”.
“But sir, then why did it react with hydrochloric acid”
“It didn’t, that was nitric acid I gave you fool, get lost”“Ha ha ha ha hee hee hee” Tazzy laughed holding his belly, literally throwing out the beer in his mouth. I too couldn’t control myself but laugh aloud, Bhupi just giggled. It was hilarious, how Depesh ended up with a reappear; he left old professor no choice…

17. Yellow Rose Red Rose

When the spring arrived Tazzy made it known to us with a pleasant surprise.
“Harry, come fast I’ll show you something” he said excitedly at my door one evening.
“What’s it tell me” I said waiting no longer as I walked behind him to his room.
“Surprise, come” he replied building my curiosity. Once in his room he took me to the balcony and there it was, the surprise,
“It’s yellow, and that stands for friendship” he said pointing to the flower pot. A tender yellow rose looked out amongst the countless green leaves.
“What was your guess?” he asked me not able to contain his happiness. He surrounded the flower with his palms like a cup and then lowered his head to smell it.
“Red”
“Hmmm… maybe the next one will be red, you never know.”
“This is amazing; I never thought something like this would happen. It is beautiful.” I said appreciating and actually it was amazing. From almost nowhere he had made this possible, starting with that broken pot that anyone else would have simply chucked away. Now there was a healthy lush green rosebush.
“Smell it, it’s so refreshing” he said and I did just that.
“Great, it smells good. You did it man, you did it” I punched him on the shoulder.
“So are you planning to give it to somebody?”
“No, maybe you can give it to Aneesh” he said, “or Ansh”
“Okay, if I reach that far. But that will mean only friendship?”
“Good enough to start with, by then a red rose may blossom you never know.”
“Red stands for love?”
“Yes, red blood colour for love”
“Cool”We sat there for quite some time appreciating the effort nature had made in Tazzy’s balcony.

16. Ansh 2

From that day on it was like a part of daily prayer to find her in the campus and have one good look at her with all my love and tenderness. And that was not very difficult, I usually found her near the IT department, café, verka booth or pec market. On most occasions she was with her one or two friends and on others patiently waiting for her friends, tall slim ‘a babaji ki potli’ type bag hanging from her shoulder. At college she was always dressed in jeans and t shirts tops, she always looked so serene that my heart went out for her. I just felt like taking her into my arms and caressing her. I remember one particular incident when it tempted me so much; it was during the times of our physical education examination in early march, where each one had to run around the athletic ground for about twenty minutes. At the end of this they measured how much distance each one had run and this contributed to our grades. When we reached the athletic ground for our run, the IT branch students were in the middle of their run and there she was amongst them, jogging. She looked so exhausted I feared she’d collapse any moment. I just wished I could go and pick her up in my arms and get her to the sides and then relax her down, put some water in her mouth and set her hair around her ears with my fingers, then wipe the sweat off her face with a handkerchief. By the time she was done with her run, there were many others to take care of her, a couple of her female friends. I was too far to have that opportunity.

The next time I felt this way was the day when I saw her in the auditorium a few days later. She was volunteering to donate blood. So sweet of her but I really wished she didn’t because she looked so tender that I didn’t want any needle pricking her soft forearm and taking out even a tiny drop of blood. I thought she’ll faint if she ever donates blood; I wanted to be there to hold her in case she’d faint but then guys think alike, many would have dived to catch her (god break their knuckles). I had fallen in love with her there was no doubt about it and the response was positive she would smile back whenever we crossed each other, though we never talked she didn’t try to avoid me at any point of time. But what next was the question in our camp…

15. Ansh

One reason why I would not fight with LAD (rival of Mazes) and forgive them was because of Ansh. She was a member of it and fighting with it was like standing up against her. Now she was so cute and innocent looking girl that fighting with her would be a sin and I a sinner. I remember the day she became so dear to me. It was on a Friday. It was this time near Valentine, first week of February before our Mazes project in the second semester. We were on our customary stroll towards the cafeteria in a free lecture. After taking a cup of coffee each we came out in the lawns and found four chairs in one corner to rest our butts on. The crowd was having an easy time, eating drinking and most of all chatting, topics all trivial, harmless inconsequential chitter-chatter. The flow of students was incessant; some came in groups some came alone some as couples; few bikes came in a few left the scene. We sat there chatting and sipping coffee, just the usual, Bhupi was explaining the two some leftovers from the last lecture while I was observing the activities of the people around. I liked doing this, it filled me with a lot of happy energy, happy feeling, for some time it felt like an ideal world a piece of heaven. Just about this time I spotted an angel on the other side of the lawn. Wearing a grey top, she sat behind a desk covered with white table cloth, her eyes looking around innocently, her face was so calm like a lake and her mind appeared so peaceful, she was fair, slim, tender her silky black-brown hair tied in a ponytail. Behind her was a banner of LAD advertising their project and she was sitting there making registrations for the counselling program. When somebody came forward she gently went about making the entries, and handing over some forms and pamphlets.

“So she interests you?” that was Tazzy snooping my mind and he made it known to other two also.
“Yup, she’s cute”
“Kon, mujhe bhi dikha” inquired Depesh, and I showed them the direction.
“No reason why I won’t fall in love with her, she’s mesmerizing” I remarked.
“Then why don’t you go and register for the counselling program” Bhupi suggested.
“No way, they will know I am from Mazes, they will not consider me”
“So what, you’ll get to say hello to her” said Depesh.
“Yes, use the official means to personal end” Tazzy encouraged and I was on my way,
“Okay” I said, “let’s do it”
I got up and casually walked through the crowd, my heart suddenly sinking heavy, ‘how will I speak to her’ was my nervous concern, but registration was a good crutch to support my fluttering heart. Once I reached there and she was sure I was there for registration, her eyes looked at me and I melted there and then,
“Would you like to register for our counselling program…” she began speaking and her voice was pure music on my ears, I didn’t bother what she said instead was drowned in the magic of her voice, o god I can’t describe, it was like snow flakes falling on my face, like gentle cool breeze caressing my face, like honey on my tongue, like the first sip of cool water in a hot summer sun, I feared I would just fall in her arms like a dead leaf falling in a lap.
“For which course counselling would you like to register?” she asked but I didn’t want the moment to pass.
“MBA” I replied and she noted it down with a pencil in her fragile fingers, she held it tight and I feared her fingers might buckle under stress, o my heart just pained for her.
“Here is your time and group for the program” she handed me a piece of paper, “Thank you, have a nice day” she smiled… o god it was so hypnotizing.“You too” I said and turned away only wishing the moment never came to an end. I walked back to where I came from where monsters were waiting for me to feast on my juicy romantic encounter...

14. Saying it to Aneesh

My time in Mazes (we are an unofficial group of students working together for…. blah blah blah) was very memorable. Here I came in touch with Fiza, a tender hearted and a very sentimental girl. She was two years elder to us and one of Aneesh’s close friends and that was a reason of all my joy. Soon she became friendly with me and we enjoyed good conversation. Tazzy had observed this over a couple of days and one fine evening he gave me this brilliant idea.
“What good will it do,” I argued with him.
“Ok tell me, if some girl likes me and she tells you. Now you are my good friend, what will you do?”
“I will tell you” I said rationally.
“Exactly that is what is going to happen, my friend! You tell your feelings to Fiza and she will go tell her”
“My god, genius!” I exclaimed with excitement, “But are you sure she will go and tell her?”
“Absolutely, you know girls, if she doesn’t tell she will get a tummy ache.”
“That’s right, so she can’t afford not to tell!”
“Yes, she will have to! Believe me this is the easiest way to let your feelings known to her. And because she will be hearing it from her trusted friend, she will believe all the more and think about it and maybe even respond” said Tazzy with as much hope as he could. I felt elated.
“That’s what I am gon’na do, yes” I said determined.
“But be careful, don’t let Fiza suspect that you know about what she’s gon’na do”
“Absolutely, I will make it look that I am only telling her and no one else, and that because she was my close friend, ha ha” I said adding my bit of cunningness to the plan.

In coming days, guess what…
It worked!
Fiza came telling me after one of those Mazes meeting,
“Harry”
“Yes”
“I told Aneesh that you were in love with her.”
“You did!?” I said, a bit pretending that I hadn’t expected her doing so. While in my heart I said to myself, ‘I knew you would!’ and chuckled.
“Yes, she said she respected your feelings.”
“That’s nice of her”
“But you know she already has a boyfriend.”
“I know that, and I will be happy not to intrude” I said earnestly.
She went ahead and told Aneesh even this, and the response was,
“That’s very sweet of him” and boy that made me sooooooo happy.

In the end I think she was way to forward for me, the way she dressed, the way she kept herself, there were no means to go any closer to her, no great money, no fame and nor some outstanding physical attributes, not that tall-dark-charming types. So I continued being in love with her from a distance. This, my friend told me was the more important thing, being in love whether the other person reciprocates or not. She passed out a few months later and I saw her for the last time in the corridor in front of the college auditorium…

Whatever, one thing is for sure, that, 'Girls cannot digest anything' ha ha...

13. Phone-a-Friend

It was post noon and I was attending my SOM class, the lecture was nearing to a close. The attendance was about fifty percent; and by now I had already received three missed calls from Tazzy and my phone was ringing for the fourth time. I couldn’t pick up the phone because of the professor and didn’t want to reply by sms because I didn’t want to waste two precious rupees. I was just praying for the lecture to get over and meanwhile wondering what Tazzy was calling me for. Just as the lecture got over I was in time to pick up the sixth call,
“Hello Tazzy”
“Yaar where are you?”
“I am in the department”
“Yaar toon jaldi hostel aja”
“Why, what happened”
“Don’t ask, bus toon jaldi aja”
“Ok I’ll just be there”

I didn’t know what the matter was, but his voice appeared as if there was some fun waiting in the hostel and Tazzy wanted me to be a part of it. I stepped out of the department and walked briskly towards the hostel through the light drizzle breeze, it fell like weightless cotton strand on my face and all over. I walked the road, pec market to my right and cca on the left, towards the hostel. Just as I entered the hostel, Tazzy called again.
“Yaar where are you?”
“Almost there” I said climbing up the stairs. I rushed towards his room and to my surprise it was locked. I gave him a missed call and he called back.
“Yaar, your room is locked, where are you?” I enquired.
“Turn back, come towards the stairs” he said and I obeyed. Reaching there,
“Yes I am there”
“Turn left”
“Yes”
“Now turn right”
“But this is the washroom!” I said a bit confused.
“Yes, I am inside”
“What? What are you doing in there?”
“What do you think I am doing in here?”
“Okay… then… what am I doing here?” I asked even more confused. There was a bit of silence, some hesitation before he revealed,
“I have NO WATER”
I was silent…
I didn’t know how to react whether to laugh or sympathise. I tried but couldn’t help laughing. I tried containing it but in vain.
“So you are laughing?”
“No, no” I denied and continued laughing holding my stomach.
“Will you do something?” he asked earnestly from behind one of those dozen doors.
“Yes of course, just hold on” I said and went about looking for means to help him. Some time later he stood there in great relief and some kind of a worry.
“Yaar” he said very sincerely, and I was paying attention.
“Don’t tell anyone about this, okay.”
“Absolutely not”
“Swear”
“I swear” I said knowing well I couldn’t keep the secret for long. I let it out to Bhupi and Depesh that evening and Bhupi went crazy laughing and rolling… Tazzy chased me for telling his secret.
Some days later I was in that same place, as I sat down my eyes caught this note pasted on the back of the door, it read,

“Please check the availability of water before you start; if you have already started god bless you. If nothing works there is still a lifeline, ‘phone a friend’…”

A well wisher

12. Tazzy di Balcony

Besides the common balcony for every six room set, each room in the hostel had its own small balcony that opened towards the rear. Tazzy maintained his balcony well. With all his heart he had accepted the entire legacy that his predecessor had left behind in the room and the balcony. Amongst this was a cracked flower pot, a three legged plastic chair, a carpet with a missing corner and a burnt out bucket. He brought back some fresh soil and a wire from his walks around the hostel lawns. He filled the cracked pot with this soil and then wrapped the wire tightly around the pot. Once the pot was strong again, he planted some rose grafts in it. They looked like dry twigs to me and I was sure nothing would come out of them. But Tazzy seemed very hopeful, every visitor who came to his balcony he would ask,
“Guess the colour of the flower?”Everybody said some colour or the other and he asked them to wait and watch if their guess was right. The carpet with the missing corner was used for sitting and enjoying the warm winter sun or the sunset or the night starry sky. Tazzy named it ‘Aladdin ka carpet’. The burnt bucket which could still hold water to half its capacity was used as a makeshift refrigerator to cool the fruit we wanted to relish and later on also for chilling the beer. The three legged chair had to wait for a long to be converted into a masterpiece.

11. Kurukshetrsa Hostel

About two months from the day I first set foot in the hostel, the place was bustling with activity; it seemed like a poultry farm. Guys were all settled in their rooms and bathrooms, mess and common room. Guys rushing to the bathrooms with a bucket and a towel around were common; the tussle to remove each others towel was contagious. The most borrow-able item was,
‘The Balti’
“O yaar balti de de” was like the wakeup call. The process of rechristening was over. Now one could hear new funny names of almost everyone, even the professors weren’t spared.

The hostel had two big lawns, well maintained through out the year, lush green surrounded by some trees and flower beds arrays. Anytime when the weather was apt it was the perfect place to sit down and chitchat. And at other times it was perfect for a game of cosco cricket. And if the players were too few, then they played indoor in the balcony. This was a small place for cricket, about twenty feet by twenty feet, so the rules here were more rigorous,
‘Direct hit on the windowpane is out’, ‘One-tip-one-hand is out’, ‘No fast balling allowed’. Hitting the ball on Depesh’s door was counted a six. And to no one’s surprise, he wrote on his door,
“Yahan chakka matt marna, varna mein maroon ga”
Even Tazzy’s door was counted for a six, but his instruction was benevolent,
“Please take only singles when I am asleep”

The rooms in the hostel were small and exactly how small they were I learnt in days to come. Sometimes I got up to make my bed early morning and my butt would pick up colour from the wall behind. So often, one could see many white butts around the campus. In all probability you’d hit your head on the table while looking under the bed for slippers. Depesh’s room was next to Tazzy’s and Bhupi’s thereafter. He covered one of his walls with posters of body builders and the other had a lone poster of Drew Barrymore, where she was spider-walking on a reflecting floor. Her lips were strawberry red, one always felt like kissing the poster right there. The only hurdle was the instruction Depesh had put next to the poster,
“Don’t kiss her, I have just smooched her barbarically”
So now you didn’t want to touch your mouth where he had ‘barbarically’. I think this was a good repellent, I mean it worked! He would introduce her as his girlfriend and one day he proudly said,
”Yaar no matter where in the room I stand, she is always looking at me…” and smiled. There was nothing more I could say than,
“She does the same to me as well! Maybe she’s fooling us.”
“Shut up yaar, don’t hurt the feeling yaar!”
Now that is love, I must say. He would sit in front of her and lift dumbbells for hours together. What attracted us most to his room was the variety of health drinks he always kept. We went like,“Yaar thoda sa bournvita de-de”

10. Love Obituary – Aneesh 2

In these days I had a few more glimpses of her and I tell you she was extremely beautiful, the best word that comes to my mind to explain her appearance is ‘fairy’. That is how she looked, like a fairy. Many posters show how a fairy looks like, if I were to find a human model for it, it would be her. She did not have wings but she was no less even without them. She had this buoyancy of thoughts and dreams and a beautiful mind, the charisma of a mountain rivulet dancing down the rocks and calmness of a desert stream. She was so fair and her face so flawless and delicate, that no one would want to touch it fearing of spoiling its beauty. Only if I could show you her picture, would it save me from finding the right words to describe her. She was from the hills, Shimla hills, and her cheeks had the redness of an apple. Her features were universal, and not typical to the land she belonged to. Every guy would die for her and take another birth, the whole college made whispers about her beauty, she was that beautiful. I had no chance with her I knew that much right from the beginning. Going by the fact that she was so very beautiful, I didn’t consider myself handsome enough to make the first move, and moreover she was two years senior to me and from computer science branch. But then I didn’t want to look back many years later and sigh, ‘O I could have at least tried’. The best time to communicate my feelings and compliment to her was when she was with me, in the same campus and I didn’t want to lose this opportunity and I was not at all concerned about the outcome. I knew precisely that just the fact that she knows about my feelings for her would make me the happiest person alive. So I vowed to try one day…

9. Love Obituary - Aneesh

We had a free class after the initial two lectures in the morning, so Tazzy and I decided to go to the verka booth and have some snacks. I was inquiring about sandwiches just when Tazzy walked up to me hurriedly and pressed me on the shoulder,
“Hey listen” he said in almost a whisper.
“What?” I asked impatiently.
“There, that’s her”
“Who”
“Aneesh”
“Where?” I asked in excitement.
“There in front, the two girls walking in this direction. I need not tell you which one is Aneesh”
Yes of course there was not need to say a word about which one was Aneesh, she was the cutest girl that I was ever seeing in my life and for once the rumours were correct. Her beauty was unparallel. She was walking from her department towards pec market, on her way she had to pass by the verka booth and I didn’t want to miss even a moment of my chance of looking at her, so I forgot all about the sandwiches and set my eyes on her. She was dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt, her hair hung loose on her back and sunglasses rested on her head, a purse over her right shoulder she held a diary and some papers pressed against her bossom. Tip tap, tip tap she walked gossiping with her friend. She passed me from just a two metre distance and I watched her dumbfounded, so shy that I couldn’t even look into her face, she was so breathtaking, my god. She walked passed me within a moment and only a moment and then she was gone giving me that one moment that will remain forever mine. I watched her for as long as my eyes could see her and then the silver-oak tree hid her from view. I stood there a bit lost. Tazzy came over and shook me,
“Bas kar yaar, ab to wo chali gayi”

In days that followed I spent quite some time finding out facts about her in order to know her better. Since I didn’t have any female friend and nor did Tazzy who could tell us things about her, so my best alternative source was the internet, orkut. Luckily she had an account there and it was not very difficult finding her there. She had put up only one picture of her where she stood amongst the hills looking down upon a valley with a backpack over her shouders. On the very first page of her profile she had described her as follows,
I am the rosebud blooming soon
A riverbed pebble round and smooth
I am the breeze caressing your face
A drop of rain in a falling race
I am the waterfall breaking aloud
A half moon peeking through the clouds
And Yup!
Am the last sip of coffee in your cup
Am the tear that’s waiting, the heart that’s beating
Am the hug your are longing FOR
Dreamer, drifter, dazer…
That’s me…

Now from those words, you can run your own imagination about the kind of girl she was, how full of life she was.

8. How to Name your Kids

“Your topic for class presentation tomorrow is social communication, ways of effective communication and communication barriers” said the nasty humanities professor to this guy whose name began from ‘A’ and thus it went on till the last person alphabetically. Tazzy and I were in different groups, however the new boy Depesh was in my group because his name started from ‘D’ and mine from ‘H’ and there was no one from ‘E&F’ and only one from ‘G’. Sometimes having you name begin with ‘A’ is not all that good afterall; you just might be the first one to get screwed that ways. This just reminds me to advice you on naming your kids once you have them. See if you name them from the first six alphabets then they might be advantageous where the good things are concerned for example if there is a sweet distribution event on republic day or convocation etc because they will get it first, but if it is the case of going into the professor’s room (the devils den) for viva or a practical submission then they are the first ones to come under the axe, and believe me it’s not a very pleasant feeling going in there first, your heart beat accelerates and you feel like peeing all the time.

That’s one side of the story. Now if you name your kid with an alphabet after ‘O’ that is towards the end of the series then he might have to wait the entire day to give his viva. Say your name starts from ‘T’ then by noon the professor will be only half way through the viva thing and you keep waiting for your turn, then he will call for lunch and you will have to come again after lunch, it will be late evening by the time your turn comes and one is dead tired by then literally begging that ‘please take my viva and let me go for heaven sake’. So the most logical conclusion is to name your kid, (kids if you plan to have more than one) with the alphabets between ‘H’ to ‘M’ so he doesn’t have to wait the entire day for his turn and nor he is the first one to come under the axe, on the contrary he can take the advantage of the sufferings of the ones going into the professors room first, by asking them the kind of atmosphere prevailing inside and the variety of questions being asked because after some time the professors start repeating their limited set of questions, they don’t actually have that many different questions, repetition is inevitable. Your family pundit might say that Aabhishek with an extra ‘a’ is a good fortune name, but believe me Gabbar Singh or Jagga Daku may be more beneficial names for him, because they will save his ass on a number of occasions. So no matter what your pundit or the priest says, name your kids strategically.

7. Girls Hostel

“Let me show you around the place” said Tazzy. We left the common room and he went on to show me around the hostel, the telephone attendant room, the water coolers, the lawns and from far away the other boys’ hostel, our seniors.
“And the girls hostel” I asked curiously. He smiled at me and replied,
“That’s on the other end of the campus, you wan’na see?”
“I promise, yes”
“Naughty boy, naughty boy, I know what your concern is”
“What”
“That will I get I girlfriend from computers, IT, electronics or not?”
“Okay”
“I assure you, you will find one. Toon handsome munda hain yaar”
“Okay, so you are pulling my leg”
“O nahin yaar, sachi, Tazzy babaji da promise hai”
So we rode about the campus on his brand new bike, with him murmuring this Punjabi number which was making me laugh aloud.
“O jis din mera viah hove ga, chaulan walla palao hove ga…” something, something. Cool breeze was hitting my face and there was this amazing unexplainable feeling in my stomach about seeing the girl’s hostel. I was so happy I tell you I don’t have the words to explain how I felt. It was this wonderful feeling, very light, ultra light. We went straight for some time, whizzing past an old train engine.
He turned the bike left and we sped a downhill road,
“Here these are the workshops” he pointed to a long stretch of buildings to the left.
“And this is the athletics ground,” this time he pointed to the right.
“This is the aeronautical department here” he pointed again to the left.
“You know about Kalpana Chawla?”
“Yes the astronaut, I’ve heard her name,” I replied.
“She was from our college, this was her department.”
“Okay, and the girls hostel” I asked teasingly.
“O thandd rakh yaar, woh aagya”, he pointed straight ahead to a building on the left we were approaching.

Tazzy slowed down the bike so that our observation of the hostel was good and long enough. It was an isolated two storied structure, the reasons for isolation you know, surrounded by ten feet high walls and open grounds beyond. The hostel had that typical Indian security system; broken glass planted all over the top of the four walls, then a four-feet barbed wire fencing and an old guard at the gate that opened on the road we were on. We rode past the hostel slowly and had a glance of the inside when we were right in front of the gate. It was quite inside, only few lights burning. I was feeling good, some kind of a warm feeling surrounded me. I felt as if the girl who would love me the most in this world was maybe within these four walls, like they say ‘love was in air’, I was feeling it. The security guard banged his AK 47 patrolling stick on the concrete floor to remind us that he was there, but we had already crossed him.
“Harry, are you there?”
“Yes absolutely”
“In days to come you will hear one name on everybody’s lips”
“And what is that name”
“Aneesh”
“Okay, who is she” I asked curiously.
“I have not seen her but my cousin told me that she is one of the prettiest girl god has ever sent to earth”
“Is that so” I enquired excitingly.
“Yeah”
“By the way she is two years senior to us”Frankly, this information was a bit disheartening but still it didn’t dampen much of what I was starting to feel already.