A Walk To Remember

12 July 2011

Once again I am back to that same old place that I have memories most about. Trivandrum. This is the place that I most loved staying, not because the place in itself was awesome; but because the life and the people that I met there and mingled who changed my life and the way of living. Even though I had lived in three different places during my four years of college life, the time I spent most definitely was Trivandrum, one reason being that I was at a hostel here and moreover because I loved staying with friends more than going home every weekend. :-)

Lot of things have changed over here. The place, the roads, the number of shops, takeaway counters and restaurants. The restaurants where we used to go sit and have à la carte have now transformed into almost drive in restaurants. Zam Zam and Noor Mahal being our mostly visited hangouts, where hours were spent together chatting, eating and making a mess are no longer the same old places.

I visited Lina at her home. She was to leave to Bangalore that Saturday after noon. In no way I could miss meeting her, because I never knew when I’d see her next and she mattered a lot to me. I was the last to enter LSDRap group – a  bunch of 6 cool friends. Small things she did that made me happy. I’d never seen her without a smile, except for once, during our 2^nd year tour. I was lucky enough to sit beside her and console and listen to her story. By the way if you are reading this, thanks for the half slice of Nutella-spread bread that you saved for me(or any one of us 6 who got late for lunch), and the crash course during the 2-hour recess between the two exams on a day (you are the sole reason why I had not failed in few, if not all, those subjects ;) ), and for the wonderful birthday treat at All Spice, the mousse, the pizza, the souffle and the smiles J P.S. I never knew Nutella even existed until you brought it for lunch, and I never knew peanut butter and Nutella would make a brilliant combination. ;-)

Revisiting those same places that I once roamed with friends brought back a lot of memories- bitter sweet. The Kovalam Light house is a special place, so are the rocks separating the two main beaches in Kovalam. The stone paved pathways along the sea shore with shops, pubs, restaurants and spas took me back to Goa during our third year in college. Even here in Kovalam, I’d walked those same pathways, seen those same shops and hotels, but now the faces around are all different. I would say I was the one who least enjoyed the family trip this weekend. For mostly, I was engrossed with the memories that kept beckoning me to the past. Snaps were taken with me and my family at various spots where exactly we both stood one year back on a final visit to the beach. The steps that led to the light house, the boulders that lined them to the base of the light house; all the memories came flashing in like a rotating reel of film – life in black and white. Truly there was no light or colors that I saw in my memories, it was all black and white.

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Beemappalli was the first place that we as a team from hostel visited, mainly because we heard that electronics were cheap there. In fact it is a miniature Karol Bagh for Electronics! Not just electronics, you could get everything that you hear a naïve normal Keralite say ‘gulf goods’; ranging from scents, perfumes, confectionery, ‘foreign’ snacks, ‘foreign’ candies et al. As boys we are, soon we learnt that CDs and DVDs were sold cheap too. Towards the beginning of second year, a couple of them in hostel bought PCs after quite a drama and persuasion on their parents. Just one dude had a bike and two of us would take turns to go to Beemapalli occasionally to buy cheap pirated movie CDs, mp3 discs, porn and game CDs. The NH bypass road was where it was almost customary for everyone to atleast once touch the magic 90 in the speedometer dial. It was Dawn’s old Pulsar 150 that was our mean machine! But for me it was my god of biking. In fact I learnt bike riding on this very bike, thanks to Dawn’s open-heartedness! Quite a few had learnt bike riding on his bike and it was a well maintained and fuel-efficient one, even though the looks spoke otherwise.

The Valiyathura Kadalpalam(pier) was one special place for Prashant and me. We had visited there few times. It was used as a sea port years ago it seems for docking ships. But now the railings on either side have all been dismantled and worn out. The bridge spanned a couple of hundred metres into the sea. The way leading from there to the airport, has a small bridge en route, where we both along with Dany had once stood to gaze up at a landing aircraft. The place was great because the bridge stood perpendicular to the runway which meant flights came down right above us and landed just some metres away from the bridge. In the final year, one Saturday night after dinner, both of us had no mood to study for the University exam on that coming Monday. Without any hesitation, we both set out on Dawn’s bike for the ride of a life time. It was monsoon, just like now, the sky was dark, but since it was night, we couldn’t figure out that it was damn cloudy. The moment we reached the kadalpalam, it started drizzling. We had never been to a beach at night, let alone to this haunting place. There were none in the vicinity. It was dark and abandoned. We parked the bike at the gate and walked towards the bridge. The little light that came from the street light on the main road dimmed out completely and we were standing in pitch black darkness. We were only just few feet onto the kadalpalam and already we could see nothing. Drizzling got heavier and the roaring of the sea underneath got louder. We got a feeling of volume in the sea. It was monsoon and the sea sounded angry and powerful. To add to the horror, there was occasional lightening that showed us for a fraction of a second how far we were from the edge of the bridge. It was total darkness around us. We didn’t go much further, may be we reached only half way. It was too creepy to walk further. The eerie feeling and the gaze into nothingness left us mute and shivering. It was an experience I’ll never forget. Needless to say, we both reached back totally drenched in the rain which got even worse as we reached back to hostel! We were too rejuvenated and excited about the trip that we slept off in no time, while the rest of them studied.

***

I tried to live in the past these past few days. I visited all those places I could, that had strings attached to them. I even walked on the sprint tracks at Chandrasekhar Nair Stadium just to remind me of the sports day at college. Hey Divya, if you are reading this, I still remember your finals 100m sprint to become the Individual Champion of the year! :P The wind was to your advantage clearly. :D

On the first day here, last Friday, I visited the Palayam Church, along with my brother, sat on the bench and prayed for a few minutes. I went to the Chennai Chicken Pakoda stall that a man and his wife used to run. The woman realized me and gave a familiar smile. In the last year at college, I used to be their regular twilight customer. I used to go for a late evening walk around 6:15 – 6:30 pm when I used to go to the church at Spencer’s Junction or for a tea at the thattu kada opposite our hostel and walk towards Palayam just for having the chicken pakoda. I used to be accompanied usually by my dear friend Akhil to the church and then to the pakoda stall. On my way back I used to take the longer route, alongside Palayam mosque, around the circle in front of Kerala University and towards AKG centre, so as to finish munching before I reach hostel! This very Chicken Pakoda stall used to be three of our one-of-the favourite hangouts – Kunji, Rasmi and I. One of us would spark the idea of having chiken pakoda on some boring weekend evening, or a sleepy weekend afternoon after the both of them would be going back from IMS MBA training program to their hostel. I would meet them both at Spencer junction and accompany them to the stall and spend some time chatting, pulling legs and munching. This very place was exclusive for chicken pakodas. In fact this is the only place in Trivandrum from where I have ever eaten it.

My visit to the church at Spencer junction got postponed. I could visit there only on the last day before flying back to Hyderabad. This was a place I should never have missed out. It used to be a special place for me and Akhil. Towards the end of college life, mainly in the final year, or may be from the 6^th semester onwards, I had lots of reasons to be despondent. Every road that I walked was the false one and every turn I took to overcome those faults turned out to be wrong. There were times when I was in a fix, dilemma, impasse. If I were to write about all those, this post would lose its purpose. I’ll definitely write about all those once I’m confident enough to, once I’m settled and once I bring out a book may be :-) Almost daily, and particularly during the exam days, I used to have mental stress, not exam fever, but from friends, myself. There had been hard times between me and my best friends, cold wars, serious fights etc. Even my apologies and helplessness were not considered, but instead ridiculed. But many a times I now realize that they were just trying to hide their black faces by focussing the spotlight on me. And indeed it was true to an extent. And to my fate, the pinnacle of it all was during my sixth semester and I ended up with 4 back papers! :D Once I feel down, I lose all interest in studying and would go out on a lonely walk. It was during those times especially that I would go in to this church and sit in its silence, may be not pray, but just enjoy the calm around me. I’d only gone for the Sunday Mass just once in this church during the whole 4 years. I felt peace and solace just sitting alone rather than attending the Mass. Later on, seeing me leave for a walk and learning that I would have a short visit to the church too, Akhil too joined me on some days. Man, I really missed you when I once again went there after a year. LRemember months back I called you and told you that I dreamt that I was sitting on the pew and I was alone once again in Trivandrum? See now, two months later dad calls and informs me that he’s getting posted to Trivandrum. I never expected that to happen).

The visit to my alma mater – my college, Government Engineering College, Barton Hill  - was the most touching one. Many of the teachers who had taught me had left, but those who most mattered were luckily still teaching there, except for one. Krishnan Kutty sir, our HOD had passed away few months back. Seeing his vacant chair and the unoccupied huge table in the middle was upsetting. Balu sir, Manju ma’am, Deepti ma’am and Shamna ma’am are still part of the IT faculty. Though Balu sir’s exam used to be the most dreaded of exams, whichever subject he might have taught, all of us respected his humbleness and composure, but most importantly his in-depth knowledge in the topics of his interest. It is in fact true that that we guys feared taking any topic related to networking or cryptography during our seminar because it was certain his questions would leave anyone in distress, mumbling for words! Manju ma’am is someone whom I and Prashant got to know better quite late. Someone who was portrayed as mean in our mind was actually not. And the reason for this very realization was in fact blogging! She happened to read about it all from one of Prashant’s earlier blogs in which it was mentioned how badly we despised her! But later on, we used to talk, first formally, then informally. In the final year Prashant and I had gone to ma’am’s home for studying Compiler Design. Both of us had failed in CD in the second attempt too B-) :D. My dear friend, Narasimhan had taught me Theory of Computation (TOC) and CD. I passed in TOC in the second attempt, thanks to his genuine and humble efforts to teach me, despite the fact that he never had any back paper. He used to come to college just to teach me TOC. I couldn’t pass CD in the second attempt, cuz Infosys’ placement drive was on the eve of the exam. ;) I’m not to be blamed :D. That day at Manju Ma’am’s home, she welcomed us with a wide sweet smile :-) After she was done with the teaching, she insisted she make something for us to eat. To our shock, we had another realization! She was not just good, she was a great cook too! The hot fresh-from-the-thawa Dosas were delicious and so was the beef pickle and chatni. There was chicken curry, but I loved the beef pickle like damn! Poor Prashant, being veggie was left with nothing to eat. Ma’am made instant noodles for him. :) That afternoon is one that I always cherish. Not only did I clear that exam, I realized I had found a good friend too. As we were leaving her home that day, ma’am said she loved when her children students came to visit her and she loved making us something to eat. Ma’am, this is no award for you, its just my symbol of gratitude, right from within. :)

I walked along with Narasimhan to every corner of our college, the new 7-storey building, the IT block, the newly constructed ladies hostel (unoccupied, now ;)), canteen, labs. The mechanical workshop too was not missed. The library, class room number 306, the electronics lab, panjarakkuzhi, all had its own relevance in my life at college.     

I even met my good old chap Deepu. I waited for him in front of Saphalyam complex the evening before my departure back to Hyderabad. Dude looked different, in that formal full sleeve shirt, black pants and black shoes. As soon as he saw me he rushed in and hugged me. I felt so glad. He is the same old buddy now, the same old funny tensions, anxiety and the lovable way of speaking. Prashant and I used to scold him and shout at him when he gets tensed at the tiniest of situations. I’m happy for you, for numerous reasons. :) 

I visited almost all the nearby places that once used to be my frequent hangouts, except for Shanghumugham beach and Museum. The huge nude sculpture of a lying mermaid at Shanghumugham was where we Hooliganz (our batch at hostel) brought out the photographers in us, trying “perspective photography” ;). It was fun, and being in a group makes us forget about the shame and shyness of doing insane stuff in public!

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Once again I’m back at Trivandrum, but at the wrong time. It would have been like the sweet past, if all those now scattered in different parts of the country are here with me. It has already struck 2 AM and I’m still writing. It’s high time I got to bed. I’m too lousy to make my bed, so here I go, collapsing into the couch!