Onam '08

This day has always been looked forward to. Partly cuz it brings a lot of joy and harmony but mainly because I had not joined the class during the Onam celebration last year; I had gone on a North India tour with my family. The last week had been the longest so far. It had been nearly two months since I had gone home. I wanted to go home asap, but more than that, I considered it an obligation that I be present for the Onam celebrations at college. But the saddest part was that, most of my classmates decided to go home before the day. The celebration was scheduled on Friday, but the girls staying at the hostel had started to go home by Wednesday. One of them, Rasmi (a.k.a ;-)) said, “You don’t know how boring it is to stay here in hostel. I better go home.” She added, “I don’t want to be the last one in my room to leave for home”. Strange! All of them had gone home, except a few. This included my very close friend S@chu. (Note the ‘@’ in place of an ‘a’; she simply loves it!! Strange! :-) ). Though she had hesitations about wearing a fancy red sari; said it made her look thinner! But finally she replied in the positive. But what was more disheartening was that last time I was the one to go on tour during Onam, while this time most of my good friends were going. Reena had gone to Delhi on a family trip and Rasmi on a Chennai trip. Lina had planned a Bangalore trip. However, it was scheduled after the celebration.
September 4th, the day before celebration. We had class till noon and the preparations for the next day were on from the afternoon. This included stacking up the benches and desks and cleaning the floor. I had a terrible headache since morning and I wanted to take rest at any cost. I had to leave college at noon. The pain was excruciating. I must at this point thank my friend S@chu for massaging my scalp. She was there with me for over an hour, rubbing my forehead and trying to sink a vein that had protruded on either side of my scalp! It happens to me every time I get a severe headache. I felt better after a few minutes. My friend Renju was also beside me. However, my condition started to worsen with time and I decided to leave. I apologized for not being able to stay back and help and left.

The Genesis-Mithun,Mukundan,Jobish and Vijith
September 5th- the most awaited day of the week, at least for me! I was awakened by my friend Deepu. He came in clad in Kasavu Mundu (the traditional Onam wear for men, ‘dhoti’ kind of outfit!) and a pink shirt. I got up and got ready in a few minutes. I wore a Kasavu Mundu with a red border and a red shirt. As soon as I got dressed, I rushed to my friend Prashant’s room. He is not used to wearing Mundu, particularly cuz he’d been brought up in Delhi. I had a tough time getting him dressed. He is not very patient, and by the time I would be making the crease, he would have finished tucking in the end to his waist. I somehow made it up. Next destination was Vinit’s room! Another North Indian rascal! Fortunately, he had already been dressed up when I reached his room, with a belt around his waist, as a protection to prevent any chances of wardrobe malfunction! ;-) All of us rushed to college. Vinit had doubts walking all the way to college and opined for an auto rickshaw ride. It was turned down by me though! When I got to the class, the design layout for the Pookkalam (Flower Carpet) had already been drawn on the floor by Vijith, Mukundan, Jobish, Mithun and Lina on the previous day. Everyone in class looked beautiful: boys in mundu and girls in saris. There was an unusual, yet pleasant aura filling the whole classroom. Everyone was happy. We were greeted with the tag-name “OCSC troupe”! At every corner of the classroom, and even on the floor, a few of them were gathered, pinching and cutting the flower petals to the appropriate sizes to be laid down in the Pookkalam. There were photo sessions going on in the meantime. A few of them were “group specific”. There are groups in our class! The prominent groups being IBBA, ABS, BADG and LSDRap, in the order in which they were conceived! IBBA stands for IT Back Benchers’ Association. ABS, BADG and LSDRap were formed from the first letters of the names of members. ABS includes Archana, Bindhu and Saranya, BADG includes Bindhya, Anisha, Dakshayani and Greeshma. LSDRap has Lina, Sajna (or S@chu), Darshana, Renju, Anup (that’s me!!) and Prashant as members. I was the last to join this group; two earlier members were kicked out by the rest, for reasons irrelevant to elucidate here! ;-) The bottom line is that they were two-of-a-kind! In spite of having groups, there was no group-ism of any sort. We were essentially one class. The layout on the floor looked nothing more than a labyrinth of curves, lines and circles, arcs and what not! Last year, we had bagged the first prize in Pookkalam Competition. But alas, I wasn’t present to be a part of the victory! I too joined in the business of pinching the flowers. The violet Vaadamulla (or Undamalli), the smallest flower in the lot was the most difficult to pinch. There were over 6 friends involved in it. There were also a few involved in pinching other flowers. Everyone had doubts of how to pinch the magenta Kozhivaalan flower. I took over the job and hired a few associates and taught them how to do it. Please excuse me for my explicit usage of Malayalam names for the flowers. I don’t know if these flowers have any common names in English and frankly, I’m unaware of the scientific names! Please bear with my ignorance. I shifted from different flowers and had my hand on every flower present there! It was fun, the flowers were beautiful, but some of them had a pungent smell hidden under the veneer of their beautiful colors.

The OCSC Troupe -Me, Deepu, Prashant and Vinit

Me, Azar and Deepu engaged in the pinching business

The deadline for the Pookkalam laying was 11am. By 10am, everyone abandoned photo capturing and was solely involved in making the flower carpet. The pinching of flowers sped up and the Pookkalam began to take shape. The curves and arcs were filled with flower petals of different colors- orange and yellow (Jhendumalli), white (Jamandhi), pink and white (Arali), Vaadamulla and Kozhivaalan. Only the usage of flowers was allowed in the competition. Using any kind of leaves disqualified the participation. We were running against time to finish making the carpet. There were last minute changes in design. The Pookkalam was almost done when there was a confusion of which color to fill in the last circle. There were a lot of suggestions. A few opined to half the last circle and fill each half with a different color. There were also suggestions to use three outer circles. Finally, a consensus was arrived. The former design was chosen and the process resumed. The pinching of flowers came to an end and the circumference of the Pookkalam was now crowded with over 10 of us kneeling down, filling in the patches and making finishing touches. Once finished, it looked like a masterpiece; a creation accomplished by the involvement of every one of us. Once the Pookkalam was all set, it was time for cleaning. The leftovers of the flowers and leaves had to be removed from the floor. The girls hesitated taking up the cleaning themselves, saying “we are in saris, you can imagine how difficult it is for us to sweep the room”. In a sense, they are right, cuz most of them were wearing a sari for the first time. It was evident from the way they were walking; half-a-step at a time! Many of them were literally hopping while walking down the stairway, from the fear of tripping over. Once the room was cleaned, it was time for decorating the floor. Mukundan wrote Onam Greetings and Jobish, Prashant, Vijith and I decorated it with flowers. To give the floor a more cultural effect, Vijith drew the Kathakali face on the floor. Kathakali is an art form of Kerala. It is a musical narration of a myth, involving dance and complex facial expressions. This was followed by the drawing of the footsteps of Mahabali. Legend has it that King Mahabali visits his subjects every year for Onam. However, it was Prashant’s feet, which was outlined on behalf of the real Mahabali!

The bloggers - Me, Hari and Prashant

After the floor was set for the jury to judge, it was time for us to go bird-watching! Birds dressed in saris; birds which did not fly! Mithun, Prashant, Anand, Vinit, Renjith and I set out, apparently to check out the Pookkalams of other classes, but essentially to stroll throughout the campus on the look out for rare breeds! We started off with the juniors’ block. The catch there was not very impressive. But those who never looked pretty otherwise seemed to have some appeal in sari. We being seniors were not affected by any restrictions on ogling. Who is gonna question us?!! Humph! Next we went to the seniors’ block, but this time we were a bit cautious. They are seniors after all! They could question us, in any manner they wished! I personally had someone to see among the seniors. I had seen her in the morning, with a little help from my friend Sree Reshmi! But that was just a blur! I wanted to see her again. This time Vinit helped me spot her in her class. I was ‘kinda’ satisfied! She looked pretty. She always did. Once we had finished preying around, we went straight to the Paayasam stall. It was noon, and very hot. We were hungry. The morning was spent mostly making the Pookkalam, crouching and kneeling throughout. My knee joint was aching with the same intensity as my empty stomach was. By 1pm, most of them had left for lunch, while a few boys went for the usual boozing session. The sport events had not yet started; neither did they announce the winner of the Pookkalam Competition. The much awaited Tug-of-War, Musical Chair and Uriyadi (A kind of Piñata game, in which an earthen pot is hung over-head and the participant has to break it while the pot will be pulled up and down to prevent it being hit) was delayed. We were getting restless and by 2 pm, all of us decided to leave. A few more snaps were taken and everyone said goodbye and started to leave. Prashant being the class representative, stayed back to hear the results of the competitions.

A fun filled day had finally come to an end. Everything was a blur. It all seemed to end in a jiffy. It was fun to have a day off after the long series of exams. But sad that it all happened in a matter of hours. Walking back to my hostel, I thought about the last days in my college. How sad it would be to leave all my friends and bid farewell…barely two years from now…

A three-hour day!

With the university exams over, it was time to relax. But not for long. The usual fun and frolic that follows on the last day of the exams was not there. This time it was much different. The internal lab exams were scheduled 3 days from the day of the last university exam. No one would be in a mood to study after an almost month long series of exams. The thought that the exams were over was even more frightening. Now I had to ‘focus’ on lab exams. I don’t think the word ‘focus’ ever suited me. Fourth semester was never one during which teachers came regularly to class. They were less concerned, but we were least concerned whether they came or not! Not their fault though; they say we were the worst batch the college has ever seen, until date. And I don’t defend the fact too. They are right, in a way! The usual 6-month tenure of a semester did not apply for S4. We got very few working days. It started in February and ended in July. Yeah you can count and very well see that we got 6 months indeed! But not in reality. There was (fairly)regular classes in February. But in March, the IT department teachers were attending a 3-week long Teacher’s Training Program. This gave us the freedom to spend the whole day chatting, playing and fooling around in class. We barely had an hour’s class each day. Then there was a new wave of interest – playing cards! Many joined in the card bandwagon, and unbelievably, the girls were in the frontline. If the morning was spent playing cards, the afternoon would be spent on charades. That meant almost a month of fun. It was April, and with the swearing in of a new Head of Department, we had hopes of getting a tour sanctioned. We got the green signal and the first week was spent touring. By mid-April, the University had declared a new scheme for the academic year. They called it ‘Sem-break’. It was not a study leave. It was rather a leave for the teachers, a month long vacation! Classes were temporarily suspended from 18th of April till June. Now all these meant over 2 months of vacation, and not to mention the intermittent hartals and public holidays. Classes resumed from June, for the sake of it. It made no much difference though. Class hours were few and the student attendance too!

During these times, the thing that was most affected was the laboratory sessions. We have two labs- Data Structures and Java. While the basics of the former were taught in semester 3 and it also had a theory paper in semester 4, there was no theory class for Java. That meant we either study for ourselves or go for tuition. I, for some reason, could not join a tuition in Java. I never thought it would be such a tough subject (probably for me). But by the time I realized that, it was too late. In fact, I realized it on the day before the lab exam, day before yesterday to be precise. At midnight! The book was open in front of me, and I stared into the book. Undoubtedly, I could not understand a word! All I could recall was the ‘import’ statements! I could see they were analogous to the ‘#include’ statements in C++! (Brilliant me!). I was losing hope. I decided to memorize the program codes. I knew I can’t do that. Cuz if I were capable enough to memorize stuff, I would be doing Medicine instead of Engineering! Memorizing is not my cup of tea. I thought of alternatives- cheating, taking bits to the lab et al. But preparing bits would consume a lot of time. I had decided to fail. I had no choice. I do not know how to start doing a program. In C++ there was the main() function, but Applet programs don’t. So where the fuck does the program execution start? Frankly, I still don’t know! Finally, I managed to study two class definitions, which were common to 3 programs. I hoped to type in at least something on my monitor! I realized staying awake late at night, was not gonna help this time, cuz I did not even know what to expect, let alone what to study. I went to bed before my usual time and got up just 30 minutes before the exam! The college is nearly 15-minute walk from hostel.

I reached college, and to my relief, there was no power supply in the lab. Yes! That meant no lab exam today. How could they conduct a lab exam without power? But unfortunately, the teachers managed to run 11 systems on the UPS and we were called in for the exam. We were distributed answer sheets to write down the algorithm, before we could proceed. The teacher was hopeless seeing the algorithms of each student, and without much hesitation, she gave the green signal to everyone to ‘try’ the program. Luckily, the program implemented the two classes I had memorized. I started out typing them but got stuck midway. I lost track of what I had fed in my memory and I could not carry on. I turned around and looked at everyone around me. I could see heads turned intently on their respective monitors, while their fingers did the job. I peeped onto my neighbor’s monitor and could see what I wanted. I started typing out what he’d typed. But unfortunately, he had to make a few changes in the code he’d written before and he drifted to different parts of the program and made modifications. I lost track for a second time. I was left staring into the blank. Often, the power supply got tripped, giving me hopes, but resumed in a few minutes leaving me lost again. It was 1130, still over an hour to go before I could leave the lab. I had been sitting idle in front of my system for almost an hour now. Twice the lab assistants came over to me and warned me “to keep my eyes on my computer screen”! The java lab is a smaller one and the teachers could easily see every student in the room. I knew there was no way out. I have not been used to keeping thund (cheat bits!), though I resort to all other means, I did not have the balls to take out a slip and copy inside the exam hall. At 1145, I decided to leave the lab. Tell the invigilator that I won’t be able to the program and that it would not be any fruitful to stay in the lab any longer. I was about to get up from my seat, that the power supply went dead for an umpteenth time. All the active systems lost power and shutdown. Suddenly I got this feeling that I will be saved. What if the power did not resume in an hour? But then again, I knew it was a distant possibility. 5 minutes, 6 minutes, 8 minutes. My hopes were rising. But alas, within 10 minutes, the power resumed. All the systems came to life and I went dead! I looked into my monitor. To the right of the scroll bar of the Eclipse SDK text editor, I could see a plethora of red patches. I clicked on one of them and the editor showed me an area where an error had occurred. It gave the description of the error, but fuck, I did not know how to rectify it. I did not even understand what the error was in the first place. I peeked at the other monitors. I could not see red patches. Instead, there were only yellow and white. I did not know what that meant, but I guessed it posed no ‘danger’, cuz conventionally, red is the color for danger!

I was left alone in the crowd; my friends were starting to get the Applet window (that’s where the program output appears). I turned to my neighbor’s monitor and could see a pile of cards, and a grid layout. The guy was clicking on the pile and cards were being placed on the grid. Wow, he’s gotta be a genius, I thought. For the second time, I decided to leave the lab. But then, the invigilator started summoning each us for the viva voce. I could not leave the lab until that was over. My viva voce was a wreck. She asked me over 6 questions, and I could only manage to get a half-answer right! She looked at me hopeless, and asked me to return to my seat. It was 1230. The next batch had to come in for the test. That meant we had to leave. I prayed for the power supply to go out. It did not. The invigilator rose to check our outputs. She started from the front row. I was in the third row. I could see the so-called Applet Window displaying at least something on every computer screen she checked. What have I got to show? Nothing! In a while, I found her standing next to my monitor. She asked me to show what I got. I said I’ve got nothing!! I tried to sound sad and gentle, to convince her that I tried my best, but could not get the output. She asked me to scroll down the length of my program code. It ended quite fast! She was surprised to see such a small program code! In fact, I had not written anything to even make the program appear lengthier. She took my answer sheet, scribbled something on it and told me I could go. I have never felt better! I left the room with my head bent. I did not want to face anyone. The next batch had entered and I could feel they were looking inquisitively on me, wanting to know how it had gone. But I did not want to talk to anyone. I left the lab. I sat in the sun outside. It was hot, but felt much better than the air-conditioned lab. It was all over. I had done my part (or have I?!!! ;-)). Now it was at the mercy of the teacher. My friend Anand came out after a few minutes. We talked to a few of our friends. I did not talk much. In fact, I was not in a mood to. The both of us stayed in the college for a while and then left...

A Day well-spent!!!

August 18th. One of the crappiest days of my life. A day spent wholly in front of the PC, not at home, but in the Data Structures Lab at college. A day spent literally glued to the rotating chair in the software lab.

There were a few of us. Vinit, Prashant, Swaraj, Darshu, Lina and me. Everyone had come to take the godforsaken printout for the record to be submitted next week. Writing the never-ending 25 programs in the rough record was a gruesome job. And the fact that we have to write all the goddamned algorithms in the fair record made me even more fucked up. There were a lot of them. From Linear Search, Binary Search, Tree traversals, Graphs, to the Turing award winner- Dijkstra’s Algorithm!!! (Now, how the hell do you pronounce that?!!!). Lina and Darshu were the first in line to take the printout. No sooner did Lina take a few pages printed out, the lab assistant declared that they had run out of paper. Goddamn it! What a great start. Today’s gonna be awesome. Someone from the lab rushed out and brought a new bundle of paper and the printing resumed. It took almost an hour to print about 60 papers. Lina isn’t the scapegoat! ;) Our age-old Dot Matrix printer is the one to blame. They say the ‘toner’ of the Laser Printer will go out of ink if everyone took printout from it. So we have no choice but to rely on the Dotty! And it takes a life time to print a few pages, not to mention the time consumed to convert the document from the A4 size format to the Letter format, to make it compatible with our Dotty’s paper feed!!! By the time Lina finished taking printout, it was noon. Darshu was the next. She started off and five pages into the printing, we had even better news. The so-called ‘ribbon’ of the bloody printer had dried out. Bloody hell. Swaraj and Prashant went to fetch a new ribbon. They returned in a few minutes and for the second time, printing resumed. Swaraj got tired of waiting and left. I was determined to take the printout, no matter how long I have to wait.

Meanwhile I went out to the College Store (that’s where we get our record books, and college stationery) to buy a record book. The store had been shifted from its old location, and ya there were a few changes too! The rack that usually held textbooks now stocked a more essential stuff! Whisper Choice!!! For once I felt as if I had entered a medical store, for they had not just a few, but an inventory of it! I could indeed see tangible evidences of a renovated College Store! I brought the record book and a few toffees for the change. I walked back into the lab. The Dotty was still making the obnoxious grating screech and the paper kept moving. I had a chat with everyone, distributed the toffees and got back to my seat. There was nothing to do so I got online and read a few of my friends’ blogs. It was getting late and I was starving. I have this typical problem of getting a headache if I don’t eat on time. I had skipped lunch and I could feel the pain starting to build up. I prefer being in the dark when I have a headache. But now I had no choice. I was staring at the old merciless CRT monitor and the Air Conditioning made me even more uncomfortable. And to top it all, the Dotty’s repugnant shriek was tearing my ears, through the tympanic membrane and going right into my head. I can’t stand even the slightest of sounds when I have a headache. This was unbearable. And unstoppable.

After an hour or so Prashant was into the printing spell. It was when Prashant was almost done with his work, that my Linux Terminal hung. What else can be more annoying?. I was browsing the internet and without a reason my system got stuck. I got furious. I shut the system down and went on to check another one. Unfortunately, none of the systems would let me log in to my account. To fill my slot, Vinit rushed to the printer as soon as Prashant was done. I did what I could (that might mean unfair means, like logging into someone else’s account!) and made the final additions for the document to be printed. Headache got intensified and my temples were getting numbed with pain. I turned off the monitor and sat with my eyes closed. I slept for a while. When I woke up, Vinit had almost finished. I turned on my monitor and logged in. By quarter past three, I was beside Dotty. At last!!! I made the final formatting and gave the document for printing. Mr. Dotty once again started its vicious work. The squeaking and scratching resumed. My headache had subsided, partly cuz I took a short nap, but mainly at the thought that finally, my document is in! Page by page, Dotty printed out Searching, Sorting, Merging and what not. Last 10 pages left and the teacher said "it's almost 4 o’clock". That meant shutting down the lab and going home. I asked for a five minute extra time and got my thing printed.

One more day into my list of well-wasted days! Well, not wasted cent percent, I read a few blogs and browsed Wikipedia, and ya got a topic to write for my blog!!!

My First Tag!!!

Thank you for your tag, Hari. In fact this is the second time that I have been tagged. Both times by you! The reason I did not post the first one was due to mere ignorance. Frankly, I had no idea what being “tagged” meant! And by the time I learnt about it, it was too late! No compromise on this one though! :-)

1. LAST MOVIE YOU SAW IN A THEATER: “Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na”. A good film on the whole. I won’t say it is a superb film. In fact I felt rather as a fairy tale. A few of the sequences were exaggerated more that what was actually necessary.

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING: “Five Point Someone” by Chetan Bhagat, for the third time!

3. FAVORITE BOARD GAME: 'Scotland Yard'. That’s the only board game I’ve played other than chess and “snakes and ladders”!!! ;-)

4. FAVORITE SOUND: The innocent chuckle of little babies. Muah! I simply love it!!!

5. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD: When my best friends say they no longer wanna have any kind of relation with me. I’ve been through this dire situation twice in my life and that too in the last week! It felt terrible.

6. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE: “My mobile phone”! The first thing I do even before fully returning to consciousness is check if I had received any calls or messages while I was asleep. And there used to be atleast one missed call!

7. FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE: Shaji Chettan’s ‘thattu kada’! The best thattu kada near our hostel! He makes great omelets! ;-)

8. FUTURE CHILD’S NAME. Boy: Garry (the guy who taught me the F-word, while I was in my 4th grade!); Girl: Sophia (The salsa girl I saw in the Discovery Channel (a few years back! ), and had a crush! Gawd!!!)

9. FINISH THIS STATEMENT."IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY I’D… buy a Mercedes or BMW, a monster music system at home, and a fully fledged music room with all the instruments ever made!

10. DO YOU DRIVE FAST? Not really. I prefer taking pleasure in driving rather than thrill. I care for the comfort of the others going with me. Ahem, I’m not a chauffeur though! But yeah, at times I feel like boosting up the bass and burning the road! \m/

11. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL? Hell NO! Only my pillow!

12. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR? The “Hotwheels” car that my grandpa gifted me on my birthday when I was a kid! I loved Hotwheels, I have had a dozen of them. First car of our family: India’s own car- the Maruti 800.

13. FAVORITE DRINK : Tender Coconut water.

14. FINISH THIS STATEMENT, “IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD… learn to play the guitar, make a living out of the internet, spent hours in front of my PC (as if I don’t do that now!).

15. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI?: I have never eaten broccoli, I’ve only had cabbage and cauliflower. How does broccoli taste by the way?!!!

16. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE? : Dark brown would be my choice. I hope it goes pretty well with my not so fair complexion.

17. NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS YOU HAVE LIVED IN : Kolkata, Thrissur, Ernakulam, Thiruvananthapuram.

18. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH: Football, Tennis and the X-Games.

19. ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU: He’s the one who always gave me the push to start blogging- Hari Shanker. In fact, he is the reason why I took up blogging seriously.

20. WHAT’S UNDER YOUR BED? : 2 plastic buckets- one blue and the other red ;-), two duffel bags and a suitcase! I stay in a hostel, where else can I keep all these things?!!!

21. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE BORN AS YOURSELF AGAIN? No. Not again. I prefer to be reborn as someone who can make things happen, rather than someone who just thinks of doing great things, and be complacent with what comes on my way.

22. MORNING PERSON, OR NIGHT OWL? Of course Nocturnal! My day usually starts after 11pm. ;-) I’m serious.

23. FAVORITE PLACE TO RELAX? Alone in my bedroom, with music in the background.

24. Of all The People You Tagged This To, Who’s Most Likely To Respond First?: Hari Shanker.

25. And I'm passing the tag to:
Prashant, Hari Vishnu

For You Mom...

July 26th. The most embarrassing day of my life. And it had all the reasons to make me guilty for my mistake. On the 25th, mom and dad had called me to inquire about my studies and well-being. Dad being away from home does not call often. But mom calls almost on a regular basis. Most of the days, she used to ring me up in the morning or by noon. But on this particular day she had never called until afternoon. I thought she might be busy with household affairs, especially when grandma is sick and she had to take care of the house alone.

In the evening, she called me at 5pm. I had just woken after a siesta. I picked up my cell and said “Hello”. She said “Do you want a piece of cake?”. I was puzzled and took a moment to think about what she exactly meant. I said: “I didn’t get you, mom. Cake?”. She was silent for a moment and said, “Today is my birthday”. I had never felt so embarrassed in my life. How could I ever forget her birthday? I felt guilty but couldn’t even apologize. In fact, I did not know how to react. I was more ashamed than guilty. There was a tone of sadness in her voice and I was not in a position to console her either. “I have done a mistake I’ll never be able to fix” was what passed my mind that instant. This had never happened before. Even the last year, I had called her on the dawn of 26th, while I was in hostel. She was so elated back then. It was almost the exact opposite of what I had felt in her voice last year. Everything was the opposite. Instead of me ringing her up, she rang me up. Instead of me wishing her, she reminded me of her birthday. Even when everyone at home forgot to wish her, I never had. I remember while I was a kid, I used to present her with handmade birthday cards. I used to do the same during their wedding anniversary. All these memories just came rushing into my mind. She even reminded me of the last Birthday Card I had gifted her when I was eleven. She said it had a smiling face in the centre with arms wide open, which projects out when the card is opened. I had a vague recollection of it. I had made it when we lived in Kolkata. I wished her belated Happy Birthday, its better late than never, I thought. I said sorry for my negligence.

After I hung up the phone, I thought to myself. I had never forgotten to wish any of my friends on their birthday. In fact, I wish them on their birthday eve, at midnight. But this was awful. I wanted to make up for my mistake. I told my friend about what had happened. He asked me to send her a Birthday Card. I was pleased with the idea. My mom would least expect a Birthday Card. The very next day my friend and I went out to the Archies outlet and bought a ‘Belated Birthday Wishes’ card. I am sure mom will be delighted to get a card delivered by post when she might have almost forgotten about her birthday!

The longest day of my life (so far!)

Phew! Let me take a breath. It’s been the most hectic day of my life. 10th July 2008. It started at 6am. I haven’t seen the rising sun for months! But this time I had no choice, I had to be up early. Not to jog or take the dog out for a stroll, but to ‘pack’! Yes, we had to pack up cuz we were moving from our present home. Anyone who had shifted houses might know how gruesome the work would be. Moreover, my dad being a bank employee, we have to shift places every three years. The last time we shifted was after my 12th standard. But then, the ‘packing’ never seemed so hard, cuz we had the hands of our relatives. This was different. Packing up to leave to our native place- Thrissur. No “packers and movers”, just us! The week long packing had to end today, for today evening, the truck was scheduled to arrive, to load our stuff and set off to Thrissur.

Most of the smaller things – utensils, boxes, books- were packed beforehand to make the work easier. But we made the mistake of leaving all the monster things for the last day. These included 4 wooden beds, refrigerator, steel shelf, sofa and a 68 kilo washing machine! As always, preparations go on until the last minute no matter how early one starts the anticipation and planning. In fact, the truck was arranged and finalized on the evening of the day of departure. The kitchen utensils and the stove were also packed which meant no more homely food, all the ‘two-and-a-half’ meals we had were bought from a nearby restaurant. It can be really disgusting if your brand new Pioneer Car stereo goes dead on the day you are planning for a long trip. We’d installed a new Nokia Car Mobile Charger the previous day of the departure. On the morning of the day of leaving, the cigarette lighter got malfunctioned and the fuse got burnt. There was not a minute to spare and this happened on the very auspicious of days! My brother and I rushed to the service centre and got it fixed, they replaced it with a new connection and fuse. Back to packing. It was the turn of the bigger, heavier ones. First in line was the steel almirah. The mirror was covered with a few layers of news papers and cardboard cutouts. It was not a big task to wrap up the almirah. But the pain came when it was the turn of the washing machine. There were only my dad, brother and I to lift up this goddamned ‘thing’ out from its platform onto the floor. It was after covering its edges that we realized the cardboard cover for it was all shattered, which meant we had to find something else to wrap it up. It too is new and we did not wish to compromise on its safety. There was a lot to do despite packing, which included transferring the Cooking Gas connection, some bank transactions and a little bit of shopping. By the time we were busy making plans, it was already noon. After the things with bank and Gas connection was done, I went off to the market in search of some cheap sack cloth to cushion the sofa and washing machine. I bought a few rolls of sack cloth, loaded it into the car and went home. The sacking up started, literally, with the sofa. Then followed the washing machine. This monster was one hell of a thing. It took all the three of us over thirty minutes to pack him up. We were running against the clock. It’s been a week since all of us have slept properly and I hoped it would all end today. After the biggest of them all was packed, it was time to unlock the wooden beds frames. Two of them were ancestral - from our great grandfathers! They were of pure teak and were damn heavy. I picked up the relatively easier task of unlocking all of them; the separated parts were carried out of the room by my bro and dad!

It was after the PC was packed and the Broadband disconnected that one of my friend messaged me saying the University results were published on the net. What’s more? I was getting calls and inquiries about my marks, along with the usual chat messaging! I had no choice but to keep away from all these. Intermittently, dad would ask me – “what are you poking so intently on your cell phone all day? Come help me out.” It was evening and that meant we had to finish up the packing soon. The truck was to arrive at 7 pm. We finished the packing before the truck arrived. After a few minutes into the loading, the power went off- the load shedding. It was cloudy and so the loading continued despite the power cut with lighted candles and flashlights. The driver and his helpers did all the work in no time. Meanwhile, we met our neighbors, said farewell to family friends and got dressed to leave. We had to go along with the truck to direct it home. Having got my driving license last month, I had the ‘right’ to drive the car! Though I had been driving for over four years now, illegally, having a license meant a different thing! And what best than to drive 100 kilometers on the newly constructed Main Central (MC) Road, from Muvattupuzha to Angamali and then on National Highway 47 to Thrissur. By the time we had dinner from a highway restaurant, it had been 10:30pm and we had not yet left Muvattupuzha. We started our journey to our native place and in a few minutes, it started to rain. The car stereo played the track “Alvida” from Life in a Metro. It suited well for the occasion. Mom was silent, lost in thoughts, nostalgic and emotional. Dad was awake for a few minutes and then he started to sway on the front seat. He was tired after a week long preparation. Bro sat on the rear seat along with Ma. By the time we got to NH47, the road got bumpy and mom could no longer sleep.

Driving for over two straight hours on a night journey can be really tiresome, especially when you have skipped sleep for a few days. The journey never seemed to end. By the time we reached home at Thrissur, it had already been 12:30am. Our tenants had not moved out yet. They had cleared a room to ‘dump’ our stuff. As soon as we reached home, dad’s younger brother and brother in law also arrived and they helped unload the truck. We left all the heavier goods to be unloaded by the truck driver and his assistants. We did not want to take the risk of spraining our backs. One by one, the goods and chattels were taken down from the truck and kept in the living room. Finally, the truck was emptied, and the fares and wages cleared. My watch read 2:15am. My head felt heavy but I was not sleepy. It was long past bed time, and there we were standing in the porch. We had a word with my uncles and started off to my dad’s home. My dad’s youngest brother stayed there with his wife, two kids and grandma. We reached there at around 2:30am. Grandma was awake waiting for us. As we entered, dad asked grandma – “Why are you awake still? It’s too late.” And she replied “I lay down and tried to sleep, but I couldn’t”. I remember her saying the same thing every time dad gets home late from office on busy days when Grandma used to stay with us. Even if everyone at home falls asleep or takes a catnap, Grandma would be awake until dad gets home.

All of us took bath, and had our dinner (or was it breakfast?!). Our beds were already made before our arrival. I was happy to finally lay down after a day’s hectic schedule. My brother and I were on adjacent beds. He laid down and disappeared under the blanket. He fell asleep in no time. I laid down staring at the ceiling recollecting the days back at Muvattupuzha. The pictures that started out bright began to fade away and then, darkness…

Blackout Bash

A two week break from blogging has literally made me lethargic to typing. But what could I do? I was running out of my purse and had no choice other than cut down my ‘extra’ expenses. And that means no more regular surfing on the internet. Further, the series exams at college and never ending submission of assignments didn’t leave me with much time to even think! Now they are all over – for the time being – until the dates for the university exams are published.


Now that the Kerala Government has introduced a 30 minute load-shedding, we at the hostel are happy to have thirty minutes extra at night to relax. It’s not mentioned in the Hostel Prospectus how to spend this thirty minute period. So, we have the time of our lives. The den - Room no: 21. Last week the blackout was from 9-930 pm, that’s just after the dinner time, and the beginning of the study time. But there’s no power supply, so who gives a fuck about study time! A few of us gather in no: 21 and decide what to do. The ideas are random and interesting. Well the first day a few guys took their vengeance on the assistant warden – “Kuttichathan” (or ‘the little elf’) - that’s what we call him! Well if you’d ask any OCSCian whom they despise the most, there would only be one unequivocal answer – Kuttichathan.

The night started off with the usual 7 o’clock bell. There were more than 5 guys in the most wanted room, Room no: 8, which is a triple room! As I’ve mentioned in one of my previous posts, it’s a crime to be in a room other than one’s own during the study time. Seeing the assistant warden approaching the door, Prashant rushed to the door and slowly closed it. Before he could close it fully, came a push from the other side. Instinctively, he pushed the door back in an attempt to close it. But before he could react, Kuttichathan was already in the room. Then there was silence for a moment, followed by a myriad of abuses and complaints from him on everybody in the room. None reacted, hoping there’s always an opportune time! And it came soon, the same night indeed, thanks to the load-shedding! One of them commented, “He’s not had enough even after locking him inside or throwing a burning cracker into his room through the ventilator!” This rivalry is age old; in fact it started on the day of his arrival several months back, when 8 of us were caught in my room, singing and howling, accompanied by plastic bottle percussion at midnight! And it was after the fear of getting burnt alive (which we wouldn’t do!) inside that Kuttichathan’s room was sealed, the ventilators shut and the bolt on his door was replaced with a key system! The lights went out at 9 and everyone inside room no: 8 rushed to the second floor to rebel! I did not know what was happening. I was in one of the rooms on the first floor and all I could hear was loud thuds on the stairway. Being dark, I hesitated to leave the room and check out. After a moment, there was howling and yelling from the second floor and I could make out it was the devils’ protest against their leader! There was a myriad of sounds from the upper floor, from those of owls to frogs, vultures to bats! And all the assistant warden could do was bear with it until the power was resumed. Guess what, time just drags by when there’s a blackout! Thirty minutes locked inside in the dark can seem a life time. To add to his turmoil, one of them turned off the line to his room so that he wouldn’t realize when the power supply came! I’m sure he had a very tuff time inside having no way other than to bear with what was happening just outside his room. I bet he didn’t have the courage to come out in the dark and shout at the offenders. In fact no one would. That was the first day of our blackout bash. Yes, a few were apprehended by the assistant warden on the following days out of suspicion. But who cares, there were no evidences!

Nothing much happened the following day, except for beating up every one in the dark! And a few guys even got belated Birthday Bums! I somehow sneaked out of getting beaten by the group. But I wasn’t lucky enough. Some had noticed that I wasn’t beaten up! A few guys followed me. Two of them (Prashant and Akhil) lifted my feet in the air hoping to lift me and beat me up. But alas, somebody had forgotten to support my back, and down I went! I fell on the concrete floor with a loud thud right on my upper back. The pain was excruciating and I yelled out on them – “What do you m*****-******* want? What the fuck were you thinking assholes?” But before I could make a next move, everyone had fled.

Each passing night was getting more and more interesting. The blackout seemed to be our stress buster! The third day a senior – Zackhu Bhaiyya – joined in too! Vinit, Akhil, Joseph, Koshy, Samuel, Prashant and I were the others. The topic for the day was – First Crush! Pretty interesting one! It may sound weird that some even had crush in their kindergarten! Zackhu Bhaiyya for instance had his first crush on his KG classmate! :-O The story flowed in. He still remembers her bringing Arrowroot biscuit and he eating Krack Jack biscuit during the break time! And yes he remembers the minutest of details. She’d break her biscuit along the holes in it and share a half with him and he does the same with his Krack Jack!!! Hell! Joseph’s story is one with a cinematic twist! He had a crush on a senior school girl. She comes to school early in the morning to practice basketball and he would reach before the scheduled time to see her. And the thing that attracted him to her was her mini skirt (almost the same reason I had my first crush; I’ll come to that later). The first turning point in his crush life was when he literally touched her! OMG! He was rushing to the class late after watching her bounce balls in the court. He took a turn to his class from the stairway when she was coming down. He hit her accidentally in his rush and turned around to see it was his crush, right in front of him. It hurt a bit, but it was rather a gentle caress on him, which I think he still cherishes! Vinit’s story is the one I liked the most! A crush on his teacher, and that too his Biology teacher! Well he was bowled over by her beauty in err…his 4th grade! Then she was his math teacher. His feelings for her intensified when she came back to teach Biology (Hmm…) in his 9th grade. You know, its puberty and stuff and no better person to teach ‘him’ Bio other than her! No wonder he secured 92% in his 10th! He remembers back in his 9th, his teacher (or rather crush!), would call each of her student for viva. She would be seated on a chair on a raised platform above the ground level. Each of them would go up to her on the platform and attend the viva. Being a 6 footer (he might have been nearly 6 feet back then), he had the advantage of having a clear top-view of her… you know what! And yes she used to wear low necked salwars and sarees! But it seems like the teacher soon got to know things more clearly and after some time as soon as Vinit would be starting to step up to the platform, the teacher would say – “Vinit, you better stay there, so that I can see your face when I ask you questions”! He’d gone to his old school last December. And guess what, she is now teaching Biology to his younger brother! Vinit says she’s still the same as he’d seen her years back! Prashant had his first crush when he was in his 5th grade and Jacob Koshy in his 8th.

Next it was Jacob Samuel’s turn. This one was more of an emotional bond, though temporary. The girl was his neighbor’s cousin, a Bengali beauty! (Man, I must tell you Bengalis are really pretty!). The girl was introduced to Samuel by his friend (her cousin). She was a year younger to Samuel. Her cousin introduced her to him and they got to know each other. Though there were only a few minutes of chat between the two, he seemed to be attracted to her quite very much. The urge in him to meet her again increased. Once he saw her standing in front of his friend’s house. He could not resist the temptation, or may be necessity to go and talk to her. But he could only talk to her for 5 minutes or so, cuz something seemed to inhibit him. Both of them came to know each other and soon there was this “emotional” thing coming into play! It was when Samuel least expected a separation that she announced she would only be there for another week. He waited outside his house to wave goodbye to her while she was leaving. He had her company for over a month, but her parting hurt. Well now it was my turn! I have had many crush, but to start with, it happened when I was in my 2nd standard. Her name was Lakshmi. I had a crush on her for over a year, but it got literally crushed when I had to leave the school. Dad got a transfer to Kolkata, and everyone had to shift there. I did not have any crush for the next three years (at Kolkata), cuz I studied at a Boys’ School! My first serious crush was in my 7th grade, when I returned to Thrissur (Kerala). As far as I could see, she was the most beautiful girl in class (but later on, I came to know that it was not just my perception, every boy felt the same!). What attracted me the most was her outfit. She dressed well clad in a shirt and a short skirt (she wore the shortest in class!). She was perfect! I stared at her every chance I got. Getting an eye contact was the greatest accomplishment those days! And undoubtedly I was lucky. It was the PT (Physical Training) hour. She and I had not gone out to the ground. I made up an excuse that I had headache and convinced the trainer that I couldn’t stand in the sun. I don’t know what her reason was (may be me!). She was sitting in the front row and I, on the second last. She was lying with her face down on the table, and I was continuously staring at her from behind, lost in thoughts. At some point of time, she had turned around and was looking at me. It took a moment to realize that she was now looking at me! Oh my god! My day was made. I was more than amazed when she got up and made her way to me. She sat down on the next seat beside me and we talked for some time. She left to her seat before the PT session got over. It was 7th standard and sitting alone with someone of the opposite sex would be adultery in a Convent School (no offence to my school!)! This acquaintance continued for a year more when a new character came unexpectedly into my life, for the wrong reasons.

Now that the chapter with crushes is over, its time for a new more interesting topic to light up the blackout! Adios…

The NIT Experience: PART 2

Continued from the previous post

The Hostel

Exposure to this new atmosphere was a whole new experience. The second day (Saturday, 29th March) Anand decided to take part in some event or the other. After one day at NIT, Vinit and I were almost in an awful trance - partly because we’d seen a hell lot of vivacious young girls(emotionally numbed at first sight, but later got used to it!), but mainly because we both had high dreams of making it into some reputed college after our schooling(IIT or NIT). But we did not do what was least expected of us and ended up reaching nowhere. We lost interest in everything. Both of us even wondered why we had come all this way after a long boring journey. To add to that, it was just the three of us who had come from our college. All this made us hate our college even more- no participation, no support, no cheering, no nothing. Anand was however more stronger and wanted to take part in some event, no matter what. He registered for the Spelling Bee Competition. He cleared the preliminary rounds and qualified for the finals. However, he could not make it through the finals. That day at NIT can be considered as one of the most lackluster days of my life. My mind was flooded with memories from my past- of my misfortunes, which I myself invited, and made me reach where I am now.

Anand(right), with Vinit preparing for 'Spelling Bee'!

We were running out of money and we had to cut short our trip by one day. We’d planned to return on Sunday, but staying at Calicut one more day literally meant bankruptcy. After we were done with Anand’s Spelling Bee Competition, we packed up, said goodbye to a few school friends of mine at NIT and took the bus to town. We got down at Palayam New Bus Stand. It is very close to the 'Mittayi Theruvu’- which translated to ‘Street of Sweets’ in Malayalam. Calicut is known for its exquisite variety of sweets and delicacies. The city is famous for its Halwa. The best quality and the most popular Halwas are available here. We had a couple of hours to spare. We walked down Mittayi Theruvu- now known as SM Street. It’s a dimly lit narrow street with shops on both sides of the road. We were surprised to see that there were no Sweet Shops except for a very few. The once infamous Mittayi street was now occupied with contemporary textile and footwear outlets. The only sweet shops we found was a very few of them at the beginning of the street. Returning from Calicut empty handed would be a shame. We asked a pedestrian where we could get good quality Halwa. He directed us to a whole sale shop near Moideen Palli-a mosque at the end of the street. We bought different varieties of Halwa for home, hostel and college, had dinner and reached the railway station.

Anand off to sleep!!

The train bound to Thiruvananthapuram was scheduled at 9:30pm. There was a rush of people on the platform, mainly students who had come for the NIT fest. Again, we had not reserved the ticket and that meant no guarantee of getting a seat. As the train arrived, people rushed in to the already crowded compartments. We had the advantage of getting in easily with just one backpack. But we were not fortunate enough to get a seat. The three off us somehow climbed to the upper berth- meant for luggage. There were already few people on the berth and we could barely sit. Vinit and I sat on one berth and Anand on the opposite berth facing us. Even in this rush, there was an asshole who way lying down our berth with a charade of sleeping. We did not mind his presence and took our comfort in reclining on him! Anand was already dozing off, while we were not at all sleepy. The memories still haunted the both of us. It was then that we noticed there was a beautiful 'girl' lying on the berth behind us! We were back to our rascal selves! We could not see her face quite well in the beginning, but she had a perfect shape. She was lying down facing up and her flawless curves accentuated her beauty. We were elated to see the young teen. She seemed to be accompanied with her family. But it bothered us the least because everyone except her was sitting on the lower seats. Her being on the berth behind us, it was a difficult task for us to turn around and get a peek of her. However, it had not stopped me. I even tried to stick my head around the partition and have a view of her over the aisle! The fact could not be ignored- she was pretty. Over two hours had passed by. We would turn around at every station to see if she’d left. Unfortunately, on reaching Thrissur, she left the train, or rather she left ‘us’!! Anand seemed to be comfortable sleeping on the opposite berth reposing on the partition curled up with a posture which Vinit described as “a foetus in an embryo”- so comfortable, unknown of what’s happening outside!! After an hour or so, I too had slept off and when I woke up I found the rush had subsided and Vinit and Anand were sitting on the lower seats. I too got down from the berth and sat down on the seat. A few more hours passed by and we reached our destination- Thiruvananthapuram. We got down from the train, and as we were walking down the platform, we still were trying to figure out why we had taken the trip to Calicut. It did not serve a purpose. But it very well served a treat for our eyes!

The NIT Experience: PART 1

I should have written about this way back. The trip to NIT (National Institute of Technology), Calicut for the ‘Ragam 08’ fest was interesting. There were three of us who had decided to go ‘on tour’- literally, because we had no plans of participating in any of the events. In fact, the decision itself was made on the night before the departure. Vinit, Anand and I were the ones who took up the decision and we were the only so called self-proclaimed ‘representatives’ of our college. We had called quite a few friends, but none of them replied in the affirmative, probably because we’d asked them to pack up the very next day!
The day of departure was on Thursday, 27 March. We were having mid-sem exams from 25th to the 27th. Vinit and I had always wanted to roam about and visit other colleges ever since we had joined our present college! The world outside had been beckoning us. The thrill that got into the both of us regarding our travel made us focus on Ragam rather than on our exams. We least bothered about the series test and wrote the exam just for the sake of it. The preparations were quick. We came back after college on 27th, packed our backpacks, and off we were- on our debut long distance journey.

Anand, Vinit and I

We reached the Thampanoor (Thiruvanthapuram Central) Railway Station at around 7:30pm. The train to Calicut was scheduled at 8:45pm. On the platform, I met a few of my friends from different colleges. It was a disgrace to realize that we three were the only ones from our college, while other colleges had reserved train compartments to allocate the students. Most of the colleges had almost one hundred students on an average. It was undoubtedly a shame on our college that none of them were willing to go. We had expected a few seniors at least, but in vain. None of them showed up. We had not reserved our ticket and so had to be complacent with travelling in the highly packed and noisy ‘general compartment’. Eventhough boarding from the starting point of the train, the bogey was jam-packed. Had we reached 10 minutes late, we wouldn’t have been fortunate to even sit. We managed to get two window seats. Being away from the aisle, we were not affected much by the rush that poured in with each passing station. We had not bought anything to eat while in train. We hoped to sleep through the night, but it never seemed to work. The only thing that we’d bought from the station before boarding the train was a bottle of water and half a dozen oranges! That didn’t help satiate our ever increasing hunger. I had brought half a kilogram of cake, but forgot to bring the knife. We hesitated to take it out and eat in front of all the others, and that too without a knife! However, hunger won! By midnight, we were at the peak of our hunger and finally decided to take out the cake and eat. Anand seemed to be a guy with strict scheduled menu for each meal! For him, dinner was at 8pm and breakfast at 7am. A midnight meal was not defined in his food schedule. But who can win over hunger? I made up my mind with inspiration from Vinit to take out the packet and savor it. By that time those who were sitting were falling asleep and those standing were struggling to stay awake. As soon as we opened up the packet and dug our fingers into the cake, the train halted at Kayamkulam. A group of teenagers rushed in with hopes of getting their asses down to sleep. Some of them tried to climb their way to the luggage berth- which had been raised even higher, lately, to prevent passengers from sitting. A few of them stared at the three of us nonplussed, probably seeing us eat mercilessly, stabbing, pinching and pricking the cake with our bare fingers. We were done with the cake in no time and still hungry, Anand and Vinit struggled to sleep. Some of them have this peculiarity that they lose their sleep once their usual bed-time is surpassed! But I was an exception. The first thing I try to do when travelling, is to sleep somehow. It’s the best way to kill time. Its almost a routine affair that as soon as I start off on a train journey, I simply sleep off. The long lonely journey home from hostel every month taught me this valuable skill! While Anand struggled to get some sleep, at times leaning on me and resting on my back, Vinit seemed to get some sleep. I was asleep almost all the time, and waking up in between to see Vinit swaying like a drunkard and Anand struggling next to me!

We reached Calicut Railway Station by 6am. We had no friends at Calicut except for one- Divya. She was at Thiruvananthapuram then and so we hesitated going to her home when she wasn’t there. We had to find some way to get fresh and worse, Anand had to attend 'nature’s call'! We tried the Station’s restroom, but it was crowded with people and so decided to rent a room for an hour or two. Renting a lodge was however out of our ‘accounted’ plans. But we had no choice. We took a room at a nearby Lodge, got fresh, slept for some time and got ready to leave for NIT.

We boarded the bus to Mukkam- that’s where NIT is located. It’s a 45 minute journey from Calicut town. On reaching there, the three of us were flabbergasted to see the flow of girls clad in appealing costumes and a few of them seemed to be with their bloody boyfriends- sometimes in apparently compromising positions! We walked along the road leading from the gate to the campus. In front of us stood them main building of the college. There was a huge banner hung from the top of the building painted in graffiti style. As we walked down the road with chicks on either side of the road, we thought we had seen it all! We walked in and completed the registration formalities, which was necessary to get accommodation at the college’s hostel. The three of us were allotted room no: 18 in the F- Block of the college hostel. The first day at NIT was spent mainly walking around in the campus and admiring the beauty of God’s creations! The campus is huge, rather humungous compared to ours with many buildings scattered in acres of land, interspersed with tarred roads with signboards leading to different blocks. There is a huge amphitheatre called the OAT or Open Air Theatre. We passed the whole day watching different programs at different stages- Chanakya, Aryabhatta, OAT and many others. On the road down the left of the entrance to the college is the OAT.

The OAT

It’s a huge amphitheatre in a semi-circular shape, with a rising gallery with the stage at the far end. All the main programs were held at the OAT- mainly the musical programs. The main attraction of the day was the live music show by Karthik. Entry was free for everyone who’d registered. Then there were other indoor venues, lecture rooms and seminar halls. These were meant mainly for the formal events like debate and extempore. Dance competitions were also being held at one such venue. Then there were also a lot of other temporary stages erected for Rock Music competitions and DJ. In short there were a hell lot of venues spread out in the campus. In fact we could not visit all of them. We could not even walk around the whole campus! One among the interesting event was the JAM- Just A Minute. It was in NIT that we saw the much hyped JAM- in an authentic form. It started off with the formal talk- any of the participant would speak on a given subject and the others would find out the mistakes (if any) either grammatical or others. Soon, towards the end of the event, the participants were spitting obscene words on others- it was part of the game and it was lot of fun! Karthik’s concert started off at 8pm at the OAT. The OAT was fully occupied by 7:30pm. There was a huge rush to watch his show and the show in itself was awesome. The crowd danced to the rhythm all through the program. It had lasted for almost three hours and came to a close at 11pm. We retired back to our room in the F-block Hostel.

(To be continued...)

Ho(s)tel California!

Don’t be misled by the title! This is not the story of a Californian experience, nor is it a sequel to the famous song by Eagles…
This is about the place where I live, my hostel. The infamous OCSC Hostel at Palayam, Trivandrum. In fact, every time I hear this song (Hotel California), I’m reminded of my hostel. The song even tends to speak a lot about OCSC.

After I got admission at GECB, Trivandrum, the next thing in hand was to get a place to stay. Great is our college that besides being a Government College, and established 8 years ago, it still doesn’t have a hostel. In fact the college doesn’t even have enough classrooms, let alone the possibility of a hostel! To every senior that me and my dad inquired about the availability of a near by hostel, their suggestion was the OCSC Hostel. I wondered what the reason behind this hype could be. One reason a few said was ‘cuz it was most near to the college’- it is only a 10minute walk. There were a lot of other reasons. The hostel is well disciplined as it is run by the MGOCSM- ‘I still don’t know what the heck that stands for! All I know is, the hostel is run by the Orthodox Christian Community’. And besides all these, it is a Ragging free zone!

The OCSC Hostel(the blue 5 storey bulding)

My dad and I walked to the so called OCSC hostel. Fortunately, we were accompanied by an inmate of the hostel, so we didn’t have any trouble spotting the hostel. As we walked up the road beside the AKG Centre, I could see a five-storey building looming ahead. The view of the hostel was large and I felt proud thinking that I’ll be spending the next four years in this hostel. But little did I know about what awaited me inside. I walked through the portal to the hostel and followed the sign leading to the Hostel’s office. There was an eerie silence all around, as though haunted by an evil spirit. A few feet from the gate, there was a small passageway to the right. I could see a small door at its end. I wondered what hid behind it. I looked up and to my surprise saw a bell hanging seven feet in the air just next to the door with a string swaying in the silent afternoon breeze. I walked ahead and reached the office. I looked inside hesitantly to see a man in his fifties clad in a cream shirt and a dhoti scribbling something intently. On our arrival, he raised his head a bit and looked at us peeping over his glasses which were resting low on his nose. We entered into the office. There was an array of questions that he threw on us, from my native place to my school, family, interests, hobbies, academics (to which he seemed to give a lot of stress!) and everything else. It was like attending an interview to get into a prestigious company. He told us about the hostel, rules, restrictions and fees. I half-heartedly agreed I’d comply by the rules of the hostel and he handed me the application form and asked me to fill it up. I was filling the application form when I felt somebody behind me at the office door. I turned around curiously in the hope to see somebody -like me- coming for admission. Against my anticipation, I saw a huge man dressed in an all white dress. He was over six feet tall and stoutly built. Fair and bearded, his whole body was covered in white except for his face and arms. From the first look I could figure out this could be none other than the warden himself. His large figure contradicted his silent entry into the room. His looks were frightening but still appealing. He took his cell phone and a bunch of keys and left the room without a word. We finished the other formalities for the admission, paid the advance amount and left. On my way back home, my mind was filled with the memories of the hostel and fear of the unknown. Even though tired of a hectic day, I could not take forty winks in the bus.

Two days later I returned to Thiruvananthapuram with my belongings to start my new life. We toured the city in the day and reached the hostel by around 6:30 in the evening. I took my mattress and my bags from the car and bid farewell to my family. It was a long way back to the hostel from the gate. It was already getting dark and I could see a few inmates scurrying out of the hostel. All this activity coupled with the dark atmosphere surrounding the hostel made me feel numb. I was allotted room no: 35 on the second floor. I walked in and followed the long dimly lit corridor in the ground floor leading to the stairway. The handrails were shaky and the stairs dusty. I walked past the reading lobby in the first floor which had an empty notice board on its wall. I climbed up the stairs and finally reached my floor. It was a long dark corridor with rooms on either side. All of them were painted yellow with the room numbers etched in white in a black circular background. My room was almost in the middle of the corridor on the right side. I opened the room with the key the hostel caretaker had given me and entered inside. I was flabbergasted at what I saw inside. The room appeared a concrete cubicle with two not so wide beds and two tables. Mine was a double room which meant I had to share the room with one more guy. There was no space in the room except for the narrow gap between the two beds and I wondered how I would be able to adjust with another guy in this rat hole!

My roommate arrived in a few minutes and as soon as he arrived, he took his bucket and rushed to the bathroom. I unpacked my mattress and was settling down when I heard a loud bell ringing. At first I thought it was the church bell in the nearby church. It was only when my roommate told me that I realized it was the ‘Hostel Bell’. He told me the reason he rushed to the bathroom- ‘everyone has to take their bath before 7pm, that’s when the bell rings indicating the commencing of the so called ‘study time’. It is weird to have a prescribed study time when you are no more school going students. I was reminded of the ‘mission bell’ described in the song by Eagles! After an hour, I heard the same bell ring once again- it was “prayer time”. Fear of getting ragged by seniors I joined a silent group of guys which I figured was the freshers in the hostel. We walked down, past the office and turned left to the dark passage way. The door to its end was open now and I could see inmates sitting down on the red coir mat in the hall. It was the hostel’s chapel. The evening prayer took 15 minutes to end and all of us walked to the mess hall for dinner. The bell rang once again indicating dinner time. It was needed to inform those non-Christian students to down for dinner. At 9, the bell rang indicative of the second session of study time. The hostel has a prescribed “mandatory study time” in the night. It is in two sessions- one from 7pm-8pm and the other from 9pm-10pm. During this time no inmate is expected to see outside their allotted rooms. Even though it is also forsaken to stay away from the allotted room after 10pm, it is a bailable offence!!! The Hostel Bell also rings at 7 in the morning- not as a wakeup alarm- but to beckon the believers for the Morning Prayer. This is compulsory too- for Christians. But since we being nocturnal, don’t even get out of bed unless it is 7:30.

The time for food is when the so called devils (inmates!) of the hostel ‘gather for the feast’. Well, we don’t have steely knives to savor our food, but instead we have to get it down our esophagus with our bare hand – which in itself is a tough job! OCSC is the best place to shed some fat. I personally have lost five kilos in the first week of my stay! The only thing that is eatable is ghee roast, which is served on Monday mornings. And the worst? Idlis – in order to keep the idlis soft, they don’t even cook it fully! What a tactic! After the sumptuous banquet :D, the devils return to their cells. Yeah, cells here refer to the rooms of the inmates. As I mentioned earlier, they are four walled concrete cubicles, which give a perfect Hell in a cell experience to the ones inside. And as always, hell is inhabited by devils, and we devils are a great community never observed in any other hostel.

The hell would be incomplete without the Leader – Lucifer! None other than the warden himself! He’s the one who reins supreme, the one who controls the three floors of Hell under his watchful eyes. Clad in an all white outfit, with a hood laid back behind his neck (I don’t know what purpose it serves!), the huge six foot figure prowls outside the cells of the hostel at night – in search of prey, literally. He’s on the lookout for some mischievous souls which roam around in the hostel after 10pm. He lurks around with his hands crossed behind his back (The Sethuramayyar CBI style!) and appears out of nowhere. Its only when the busted soul turns back that he realizes he is face to face with Lucifer. That’s when ‘he’ crosses his fingers!!! Once busted, they are given two more lives. The devils are given three excuses, and if busted a fourth time, the convict is penalized (fined). After that its sudden death – he can either be booked again (with fine) or exiled out of Hell (thrown out of the hostel, literally!). With the frequency of captures on the rise, each floor was assigned a watcher-cum-informer, who’d find out if Lucifer is on the prowl and pass on the message to representatives of the other floors. There has been a substantial decline in the number of captures since then!

A word on OCSC:

“You can’t check out any time you like (there are strict timings)
But you can always (at anytime) leave…!!!”

The legendary hostel is known for its three ‘-ells’. Bell, Cell and Hell!!


Epilogue
Nonetheless, the hostel in itself is a good one. And it is not a real Hell as it used to be a couple of years before. And the present warden – he’s the least strict in OCSC’s 32 year history. He’s one who understands the cry of the devils – probably because he is way younger than all his predecessors. And even though I hated my hostel in the first few months, getting busted thrice in a week, I soon got used to both getting busted and evading capture! But now, sometimes, I miss the place and the inhabitants more than my home.

PART III: The (not so Grand) Finale...

Continued from the previous post

Nirmalamatha Central School, Thrissur

Finding an old friend has always been very elating but not in this case. She was my high school classmate, a very close acquaintance. Her name, Manchu. I’ve known her since I was in my 7th grade. That was when I joined that school. We have not talked to each other since our 10th grade, for reasons I’ll explain later on. Finding her scrap in my Orkut profile was most unexpected. It was the usual ‘how are you, how’s life’ inquiry that anyone would first ask. And I replied in the almost formal way, answer to the point! Soon, it turned out that we were chatting almost on every weekend. I could not believe what I was into. The girl, with whom I hated talking, is my newest buddy! May be it was because I was lost and alone, and passing through, as I mentioned, my dull days. She turned out to be my good companion. In fact, she was the only one with whom I had good contact with among my old school mates. And I’m still figuring out how I got into this good contact! Cuz I once despised of her beyond limits and now, I found no reason to hate her.

In a few days we both had each others cell phone numbers and our communication became part of our daily routine. I still hated going to college but her company gave me a reason to be happy. Both of us had Airtel cellular connection and as everybody knows it was a time when Airtel gave its customers the best tariff plans. With cheap call charges and even cheaper SMS rates, calls lasted for hours in a stretch and messages were filling our inboxes!!! Moreover, she and I being hostellers favored our liberty. It was almost a secret affair between the two of us. No one at my hostel knew about our alliance in the beginning but soon my roommate, Jacob, seemed to sniff something odd. He was skeptical about my 24-7 mobile usage and incessant messaging. At times, he would ask me to whom I’m messaging so intently and I would say it was my college classmates. But one fine day, I made a mistake that drastically changed the way things were going on. I left my cell on the bed and went to take shower. Curious as he is(and my other friends who were in my room!), he took up my cell and to my misfortune, there was a new message in the inbox, and a pretty intimate one too! When I returned after my bath, there was a group of guys in my room. Finally the cat was out of the bag! It however did not stop me from communicating with her. I utilized every opportunity that I got to ring her up or message her.

In no time, our affair took an emotional twist, an even more intimate one. We talked about everything. We got to know each other better, our problems, aspirations and desires. I found myself at a point where I could not pass a day without talking to her.

I remember how we used to back in school days. I never wanted to talk to her. Even seeing her face would make me upset the whole day. I first met her in my 7th grade. I had not much talked to her that year, cuz I was new to the school. But towards the end of 8th grade, we were best friends. We would sit next to each other, share our lunch, we did everything together. But it did not last for much long. My attitude towards her changed. She would make blank calls (ring up and keep mum when somebody attends the call, and stay silent until the receiver hangs up the phone) repeatedly to my home phone. Its so irritating (to someone who had really experienced it!). She’d start her play as soon as she reaches home after school. I guess that’s when her parents go for the evening mass. One evening, she called the usual way and I attended the call. To my misfortune, my elder brother was on the extension line and he kind of overheard our conversation. He got the name of the girl, and well, that evening I had a question hour in the family room. Even my grandma joined in the conference and… aargh…you know how it feels to be advised by an elderly (or in this case, an olderly!!). Tired of her play, I approached her a couple of times and asked her to stop fooling around, but she’d never stop. I was looked upon by my family through eyes of suspicion in everything I did, especially if it had anything at all to do with the opposite sex. Apparently I had no choice but be rude to her and I did what anybody else would do for that matter- break the relation, be silent. The pretty good friendship that we had was no more. The next year, the students were shuffled and we both ended up in two different classes. I was relieved by it, literally.

Two years passed by without any involvement of either of us in the other’s affairs. After our 10th grade, unfortunately, or fortunately (for her), both of us took up the engineering stream and once again, we ended up in the same class (its true, history repeats itself, you like it or not!). This is the time when new gals and guys hit the town. The state’s best Entrance Coaching Centre (PC Thomas’ Institute, Thrissur. I think it still is the best!!) being at close proximity to our school attracted students from different cities of Kerala. First day in the 11th grade was one hell of a day! Man, I must mention- city girls are different!! Newbies arrived and my eyes fell on a girl from Cochin. Her name, lets say Ms. S. She was cute, dazzling and attractive- a city girl indeed! I got to know more about her and soon we were good friends. This apparently did not impress Manchu. She made friends with S and would try to intercept every conversation we had (maybe, in a way to get back to me- you know, reconcile). Soon both of them were seen together almost all the time and I had no chance to talk with S in person. My friendship with S did not end there but Manchu’s presence made me uncomfortable. I did not talk to her or S very much after that, in fact I did not feel like.

Days and months passed by and unexpectedly I found Manchu online, as I said on Orkut. We talked about our past and she apologized for what she’d done back in school days. But now, I could not consider it all anything more than fun. I look back and feel “why did I even make a big deal out of it?”. She was still trying to get back to me. But the only difference this time was that, there was no ‘resistance’ – from my part. Was I falling in love? Well, frankly I didn’t know. But all I knew was that I no longer hated her. My day would be made if she just rang me up. It was like everything was flipping around and running in the wrong direction, but I loved the change. We continued our companionship for a couple of months and in the August of that year-2007; we decided to limit our correspondence- for the good of both of us (yeah… you guessed that right too..!).

But as always, its not easy to break up a relation in just a jiffy. It takes time. And it did. Both of us rang up each other a couple of times after that. The relation soon came to an end in a few months.

And today afternoon, after months of communication with her, I got a message from her cell number and I thought there could be no other finer day to end this post…This is what she wrote:

"Anup, I think I need to stop all correspondence with you as we can never remain friends. And that’s why I started avoiding you recently… Just wanted to let you know…"

PART II: The Dull Days

Continued from the previous post

The classes soon commenced, made new friends. Days were just dragging by. Boring classes, teachers reaching on time, strictly taking attendance, it all made me feel like I’m back at my ‘school of restrictions’ (I studied in a Christian Convent School)! And as usual, the classes got more and more boring every passing day. We had to find new methods to stay awake in class, let alone be attentive! A few of them came up with Bingo and Housie but a breakthrough was made by my dear friend Hari Shanker- the pioneer in exploiting the use of a USB MP3 player in classroom! It was best implemented in the Electronics and Communication classes in which the teacher barely left the podium to interact with the students. In no time college life was getting to be in its true sense. Bunking classes, making proxy attendance hoaxes and mobile gaming became the usual phenomena in class.

But all this while, something was missing. A girl. I’ve always had this starting trouble in talking to anyone-particularly girls. And the same reason made me stick to the boys’ side of the class. Shameful as it is, I seldom left my bench to interact with the opposite sex. I wondered what they would feel if I ever talked to them, how their response would be. The 1st semester was coming to an end and I had not talked to more than eighty percent of the class, while a few were in their pursuit to ‘happiness’…(yes you thought it right)!!! In my case there was just this formal talk with girls, we talked about weather…
Me: ”Hey do you think it’ll rain today?”
She: ”I hope it doesn’t, I haven’t taken my umbrella”.

and studies…AArgh…
Me: “Did the assignment?”
She: ”Yeah kinda, just half way through”.

I started hating myself. Why do I even start such stupid conversations?, I used to ask myself. But it never helped. I remained the same old shy guy when it came to talking with girls. As it is said, Birds of a feather flock together, all the guys on my bench were similar to me. But there was a slight difference - while I had the urge to talk, they seemed to lack even that. It was as though they did not care. I somehow had to device a way to fill the emptiness in me. Besides all these, the thing that haunted me most was that I had not talked to my angel. I had just a few good friends among girls and I once had to pay a price for being friends with one of them. A senior caught me accompanying her back to the college bus after an afternoon Graphics drawing class. He summoned the both of us. On knowing that she was to catch the college bus, he let her go. It was the first time I was caught by a senior and I did not know what to do. I tried to keep calm and kept smiling as I approached him. I expected a cool reaction from him seeing my seemingly innocent expression! But I was very wrong. He broke the momentary silence with a roar…

He : “Enthada ithrem santhosham ninakk? Entha ninte bharya petto?”
(“You seem very glad, has your wife delivered?”)
Me: (keeping mum)
He : “Ni pennungalude koode mathre nadakkuo?”
(“Is it that you only walk with girls?”)
Me: “Illa chetta, angane onnum illa”.
(“No, nothing like that brother”)
He : “Ni mixed schoolil ano padiche?”
(“Did you do your schooling in co-ed school?”)
Me: “Athe chetta”.
(“Yes”)
He : “Veruthe alla payyanu ithrem moda”.
(“No wonder he behaves so audaciously”)
Me: (standing still, no comments for this one!)
He : “Ni oru karyam cheyyu, ninte classile ella penpillerudem perum veedum ezuthikkond nale

enne lunch breakinu vannu kanu”
(“Do me a favor, bring the details of all the girls in your class by tomorrow afternoon”)
Me: “Ayyo chetta…”
(“But…”(hesitantly))
He : “Paranja pole cheytha mathi, manassilayoda?”
(“Do as I say”)
Me: “Hmm…chetta chettante peru?”
(“Brother, what’s your name?”)
He : “PPa m@!** ninakk seniorinte peru ariyanoda?”
(“A$$***e, how dare you ask the name of your senior?”)
Me: (keeping mum)
He : “Aa po po, pinne adikam angu pennungalodu olippikkalle…”
(“Eff off, and don’t ever let me see you flirting with your girls again…”)

That was my first ever treat that my seniors gave me! I had not dared to even pass by the senior block since that incident. I had to lurk around in the college to evade from this senior. How am I supposed to ask the details of the girls in my class when I haven’t even talked to most of them? Days passed by and my senior almost forgot about the assignment he’d asked me to do.

Soon seniors got friendlier with us and the fear of them was gradually receding. Despite all the fun with boys, there still was this something missing. It even reflected in my self. The glow in my face – as my parents said- was no more there. I guessed them to suspect if their son had started drinking. So I started to fake. I always faked a smile on my face that got everyone believe that I was very happy indeed. But deep within, I was the same guy who’s bored of college life, whose dreams of a rocking college life was shattered the very first day he entered the college. Well, the only thing I liked about my new life was my hostel. Staying away from home gave me a lot of freedom which I’d always dreamed of. The camaraderie at the hostel was great. Indeed it was a new home for the lonely me. Often I felt to stay at the hostel and not attend college. College was that boring.

In no time, the mid-sem exams were underway and I couldn’t concentrate on nothing more than my text books. Night-outs, combined study, record work, last minute preparations… There was a chaos in the hostel; I would rather say an ordered chaos! The study lobby at the hostel is the place where we are supposed to study in groups. But everything except studies was prevalent there! A few of us would gather there in the hope to study over-night and we end up cracking jokes and imitating the hostel warden. It’s true we stay awake all night, but with the same page of the text book open till dawn!

The exams got over and so did the Christmas vacation. And once again I was back at college in my old state of an apparent depression. It was a period when I was hooked to several social networking websites and I came in contact with many friends and incidentally I stumbled upon one of my old classmates, who happened to be, well… to be precise my ex-girlfriend…

(To be continued...)