George of the EPCET (Jungle)

Hi guys. I am still not back from the last post’s flashback mode. I would like to take you all into little more past of mine. It was the time when I had joined engineering. I was a very good and bright student till my school (10th). Then it was the time for turnaround in my career. In my high school days, lack of discipline, love for cricket, and of course love itself made me go deep and deeper in dirt. For my love and love for cricket I started bunking schools, and started becoming famous (intelligent readers, read notorious) very fast. Everyone was always on a lookout for me. Then few more incidents and accidents, I had reached till the extent of receiving suspension orders for a month from the school. (This was due to fighting in the school premises, nothing non sense ok). Anyway, this one month was a blessing for me, as I enjoyed my time most and was almost completely cut off from the school. I will neither tell my school’s name, nor my marks which I got in my high school, because I am still trying my best to wash off those ugly spots and dents off my image. But even surf excel was a failure in this case. In a way I had depressed my parents, and they were almost shattered. In a big joint family, it always takes the same baby step to be crowned as ‘Fit for nothing’. I knew only my good work can change my image and nothing else. Got great support from my parents, even after not qualifying for my state engineering exams, and my dreams IIT, I sat for CET, Karnataka exams.

Little bit of plot spoiler here. Those who are thinking that at the end, I will be transformed into a new person, hero like, and great achiever; their only half guess will hit the bull’s eye. Yeah I will be the hero of course (after all I am the writer, I can’t always put myself as laughing stock), but great achiever, huh I don’t think that notorious tag will be off me so fast. And after all, this is not a bollywood story, and I am no way inspired by Abbas- Mastan duo, so no much surprises lying below. Pray continue.

Sad story over, and a new sunshine came. I came for my CET exams with my friend in a special train. That train was specially provided for this CET exam and it was supposed to reach 24 hours before the exam time. It was full with students and hell down under for the guardians accompanying the girls. The bouncers hurled by the guys reminded those guardians of the bodyline series. I will not go into those details. This train was only driven by the driver, but the control was there in the hands of students. Whenever they used to feel that train journey was getting too hectic, they used to pull chain, get down off train, go and pluck fruits from the adjoining trees, be it coconut also, we had experts! They crossed limits when seeing a pond; they stopped the train and went out to take bath too. Ha ha ha. The driver and the guard of the train had already surrendered everything except the controls. This was a fun journey, and finally we reached our destination 12 hrs late, very late night. Thankfully I met with one of my acquaintances (my old school teacher, and currently lecturer in Acharya College) there and he took me to the hostel of Acharya College. Let me tell you one thing before I forget. If I know something of mathematics today, I owe him 80% of that. The way he had worked behind me in my school days was so precious. And yes, he had told me that if I am taking a seat here, join any college but not Acharya, as the management is not at all good here (Acharya college students, now you know how you people missed a hero among your ranks). Ok back, morning, they provided the college bus and dropped me to the centre for the CET. I had reached there in time, but without any pen. Took the pen from my bench-mate and he was shocked seeing me in exam hall without a pen. Exam went ok, went outside, had lunch, and bought a pen for the second half. This exam was for 2 days. Somehow I liked Bangalore lots. Or maybe I had no other option except going to UP or Karnataka, I thought of choosing this. Results came and I had qualified, as each and every student who applies here, does. My rank was 17070. I came for counseling, and my luck, I got JSS college seat. I took that and in evening went for a college visit. Found the college in the centre of town and again lots of distraction which had spoilt my near past career. I had to take a decision, before it was too late and I was off hook again. One of my friend, had taken a seat in EPCET (yeah you got it correct, this is that garbage box where even I jumped), and he told college is far from town but with a good environment. And without even visiting the college I had decided that this is the one. :)

30th September, 2002 we landed in Bangalore with our baggage. We four people, four Bihar’s gems in fact, came together, as we had met with each other during counseling period. I have already told you our first auto travel experience before, will not repeat that. College chairman greeted us all with open hands, but couldn’t provide us rooms, as the construction process was yet not over. We had to share rooms with other people for around 3-4 days. During those days, those people had mentality that they have given us shelter, and they used to try to boss on us. We never used to say anything, first because we didn’t know if they were seniors or what, and second we were still not accustomed to the new place and pitch. We went through ragging process, also and that too by the so called senior group which was consisting of 90% our batch-mates. I will not get into those details, as this is a family blog, and no vulgar things here. ;-). In a nutshell, the hostel was filled by freshers only, as no senior can fall in the same trap for two consecutive years. Even we had left the hostel gracefully in second year. :)

One small incident and a person who came into light was ARD here. After settling in the hostel, we four planned to roam about in evening. Let me describe my college location to you. It’s around 4 kms down from Old Madras road. And out of those 4, 3kms will be kind of jungle. Very few transportation services were available, one bus every hour, that’s all. Anyways we went to a nearby tea shop for tea (and smoking also). We were there for around 1 hour and it was pretty dark by then. The entire place seemed to be fit for exorcist shooting. But still we had no other option than to counter it. God is there, and they come in disguise, and sometimes they carry torch also. :) One guy came ahead, with a big torch in hand and he told he will accompany us till hostel. He was ARD. From school time onwards, I have mostly stayed with Bengali people, but I don’t remember if I had anyone as my close friend. But this guy was different. He was not sounding Bengali at all, yeah he was looking little bit because of the torch he was carrying. He he he. That was the day, and he became one of the integral parts of my college life. Thanks ARD, for all those moments, which we shared together, including dhik chik dhik chik of chin lung. :)

The very first day of our college, and you will not believe, we four bunked it and went to city and watched a movie there. Next day was anyways, 2nd October, Gandhi Jayanti, so holiday. 3rd October, I stepped into my classroom. Jeans, shirt flying outside, slippers, I don’t know if I had combed also properly. One of my friends had told there is a bomb (a hot girl, not linked to terrorist activities ok) in our class. But I never found any; my class was a gifted one, where everyone was a diffused piece. Within few days I had got reputation in class for being a rude, insensitive and indecent guy. Nobody had courage to tell me all this anyways. I was happy, my first target was achieved. I never wanted to be centre of attraction here. We were 60 in total in class. Around 25 girls, and 35 guys and out of them around 20 guys were from hostel, or even more than that. There was a big concern for rivalry between north Indian and south Indian students, so almost naturally we all hostel dwellers were always united. That sense of unity had flown between us from day 1, and even when we were not happy with each other at times, we had a common wavelength for our unity. We 50 people in hostel used to sit; stand, sleep and errr… do everything together. Everyone was afraid of us.

I have written about the unity among us. Let me give you an example of that. One fine evening, someone found an insect in the hostel snacks. I don’t know if that was true or just a rumor. But anyways, we decided to boycott hostel food. The same night during dinner, we went and altogether 47 people took food, and without eating any grass of that, emptied our plates in the dustbin, made lots of noise, and went off. We all caught a truck passing by, went to main road dhaba, had food there and came back. When we came back, we came to know that we all were suspended from hostel after complain from the canteen person, and were not allowed to enter our rooms, and we will have to pay a fine 1000rs each to get entry back into the hostel. We had few friends residing in neighborhood, and we all distributed there, and then due to our unity, chairman melted and called us back to hostel. Later we came to know that some one among us was a traitor, and he had gone and told chairman, about everything, and whose plan was this and all, and that’s why he had called us back. If you are reading this Mr. Traitor, let me tell you, I still hate you. Rules became stricter from that day on in hostel. No more smoking in rooms, fine 100rs. No more late night outing, after 11 pm return 100rs fine. At the end for every rule there was a penalty amount, and there hanged the greedy face of our chairman.

Anyway, I was never caught smoking in room, as for putting fine, smoke was not enough, cigarette butt was necessary to be located, which they were never able to find. I was always smarter and one step ahead of them. ARD was caught once and had to pay fine, ha ha. I was caught for some other offence. Annual fest had come; I will give a detailed report of it in the next blog, and this fest had woken up the sleeping Gaurav. I was coming back into groove. I had newly tried climbing on pipes and ascend to first floor the previous night. Some activity was going on, so all college guys and girls were there. I thought of showing off to all girls present there and impress them. Yeah I never became Bhigi Billi, succeeded in that act, and managed to impress girls. Only problem was my warden had seen me doing this stunt. In the evening I got bill of 100rs, and after a lot of negotiations, I managed the issue in 50rs.

One small and stinking incident in between, I will like to mention. I have told before that transportation facility was very poor in those areas. So for any work in town, generally we used to take lift and go. We accepted all vehicles, be it lorry, tractor, bikes, mopeds everything except the bullock carts. One fine Sunday, we thought of going to town for movie, good food and little shopping. We were two, will not name other, why simply to put him under shame. We came to bus stand, waited for bus, didn’t get and meanwhile one lorry crossed. We stopped that and asked for lift. He told that there is no space as already three people are sitting inside. We told that no problem, we will jump in backside. He tried to tell us something, but unfortunately that was in Kannada and we know only ‘Thu Maga’ till then. Anyway, we jumped inside and our journey started. It was a peculiar lorry, and its walls were made of iron wires in square shape, not like general wooden planks one. It was stinking lots and also it was very sticky below our feet. Somehow we covered that 4 kms distance and when got down at Old Madras Road, people started laughing seeing us. We assumed that they are just being racist, by laughing on north Indian people. We continued our trip and came back and it was evening around 6.30 when we reached same place in Old Madras road, waiting for another bus or lift, to reach till hostel. We both had lit cigarettes and we were enjoying it, when a big and nice car came around. We knew that it will not stop for us, still we asked for lift. Amazing, it went around 10 m ahead and stopped, and one hand went out and called us. We felt so proud on ourselves and thought of telling the story to hostel people that we got a lift from super car. As soon as we reached the car, lightning struck on us. Our chairman was sitting inside with one of his friend. He called us inside, and took us on a dreadful ride for next 4 kms. He had caught us red handed smoking and full way he was scolding us and threatening us of dire consequences. Finally when we neared hostel, he told both of us to meet him next day at 6pm, otherwise he will inform our parents about this. We were very scared for the entire one day, and somehow we reached his office at 6pm that day. We were told by his peon to wait outside as someone was already inside. After sometime, one of my classmate and hostel-mate came out of his cabin with sad face. He told us that he got scolding for smoking and had been asked to pay a fine of 100rs. He tried his level best to convince him that he never went out of hostel yesterday, nor he smoked, nor he took lift in his car, but he is not moving. We took a huge sigh of relief, consoled him and came back with him without meeting the chairman. We waited for next two days, and those two days avoided coming in front of the chairman fully. Then we could sense that we are safe, and the lightning which had struck us had been transferred to that poor chap. :) [Later we came to know that the lorry in which we were escorted in the morning was the garbage truck. Somehow we saved this incident to be public till today].

Let me throw some light on our class stories also apart from only hostel life. We had finished almost 1 month, and I was chosen as unanimous leader for all the wrong activities. Be it declaring mass bunks, or troubling teachers or doing something in hostel (1st floor); all were always on my shoulders. Innocent people from Bihar are common victims for such activities, and later they are blamed for their bad behavior. ;-). There was huge reshuffling going on across the branches, and people were moving from one branch to other, and daily we could see some new faces and some missing faces too. This was happening generally with management students. Computer science (forgot this was my trade) was in a big demand anyways. One fine morning, a new entry came to our class, but that face was no way new. It seemed as if I had seen same face many times before. The new face was very happy entering into this unit and joined and sat with girls. Yeah she was a girl, so sat with girls. Then I realized she was the twin sister of one of my batch mate. Oh my god, what a brilliant job done by god. Now it’s confirmed, Xerox machines are available there on top also. This was my first live experience of any twin entities. In the very first look, I can bet no one can find a single difference between both of them (except for the weight factor, one was Moti from beginning). We will call them Miss W and Miss X from now on. W is a fat character too, so you will know who I am talking about. Before her arrival, this X was a silent piece in class, but as soon as big sis came in, she showed her true colors. Both of them were undeclared leaders among the girls. Miss X was in my batch for practical and labs and I had spoken to her, but never to W. But whenever I used to see them together, I used to admire them so much for their similarities. Somehow I had thought of finding a difference among them, without talking to them of course.

The best comment they had got which I remember was in 2nd year. A new Math’s lecturer had come to our class, and as usual, even he was shell shocked seeing them. He told – “This is such a big coincidence. Both of you are twins, that too same face, that too sisters, that too from same house and place, and also in same class.” We didn’t know whether to laugh on this comment or explain him, being a twin most other cases had to satisfy.

Enough, my hands are paining now. Stories will never end, so will continue with in the next edition. :)

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