SLOG: Dogs and Long Hairs

SLOG: DOGS AND LONG HAIRS
SLOG means SMALL BLOGS

Annanagar is a decent posh area of Chennai. Everyone, from people to dogs, is friendly unless you are weird in their sense.

I love walking on the wide and beautifully brighten dead late night roads of Annanagar. It feel good when cool wind blows against me, for the reasons it feels soothing and it feels nothing less than a Hollywood hero (who appears against dark horizon after having deadly fight with werewolves), when you see your shoulder blade reaching hairs waving in air without any constrain.

But, that was my description, a person who owns long hairs. For a decent and totally non-drug-addicted dog, it is stranger than fiction to find out a six feet long walking Hydra with his active one foot long tentacles being super excited to see living being dwelling around for a good dinner. This dog makes sure he wasn’t hallucinating and decides to save human race from this over grown Hydra. He follows me closely.

I, completely unknown to the dog’s psyche, feel something’s following and growling. I turn back to find out a dog, barely inches behind my leg with its jaw open. I start a panic run. The dog, now completely sure of the evil, runs behind me… and then I pick some pebble from road throws back to the dog that hits it in its ribs. It runs away. Phew…

Suddenly, it reappears out of nowhere, jumping on my legs to catch a fleshy part and pull down the villain. Now, I – out of my wits – also start jumping. I don’t know what to do and never remember afterwards what I did. But somehow three-four security guards appear from the nearby ATMs and I am saved – barely.

This is one of the three similar occurrences on that day. And that day was one of many similar days when I leave the office late without hair band.

Terror Trips: 2

Terror Trips – Bangalore Bruises (Part 2)
This story runs into 2 parts. Read Part 1>>

With my laptop in hanging side bag (hanging to left) and my airbag hanging to right, I started running up the flyover. At the top, I found it was barricaded. ‘Shit!’ I almost shouted watching I have lost one more minute and then thought that I wouldn’t go back via subway. I just jumped over the barricade. And then broke into a run.

It must have been very funny seeing a plump jelly bag running with two bags jumping by the side of it in perfect synchronization. A good example for a physics student to explain how forced oscillation works. But I was not in image makeover mood. The last thing I wanted this time was a phone call (not really, nature’s call could have been the worst). And it did ring. I cut it.

I was by the side of the road. (“Use subway.” you are not supposed to cross road here – the black painted words on yellow isosceles triangular board were barking on me.) ‘Now I need to cross the road, jump over high divider, then run through the parking, cross ticket booking counter, look at the electronic board for platform number, cross the over bridge to get to the appropriate platform. Get into any of the coaches. And the rest would be dealt later.’ I was straightening up the plan.

I was amazed by the speed I ran. It was 11:42 when I reached here.

I had got stuck now; vehicles on the road were not getting me any chance to cross the road. For a moment I thought I couldn’t do it because all I had was three minutes in hand and a job which was daunting for a spineless serpent. Then I recalled Uncle’s formula, ‘desperate conditions need desperate measures.’

You can call me extremely lucky because I ran through the road without even looking on coming vehicles. All I realized was Marla Singer from Fight Club (2002) movie was right and I should not follow these kind movies!

Now I was on the station side of the road and no big boundary to break, so I ran without caring who I bump into. It was 11:44, I was near information center. Surprise! All the information boards were black. No information about any train. Which platform should I go? Without wasting any other moment I ran to platform one expecting the display there would be working. Alas! Blank screen! “No, it cannot happen to me. I still have one minute in hand.” I was aggressive this time. (Which is the rarest of my emotions, for most of the time I am depressive.) I could see trains on platform 2 but cannot read the number of the train from platform one. I jumped climb over the flyover that connects platforms when I reached at the top I could see that trains were there on each of the platform 2, 4, 5 and 6. And no display was working on any of the platforms or on the flyover on which I was.

‘I cannot climb down each platform check and climb up until I get right train. If my train is on platform six, I would surely loose this way.’ I thought and I ran on the flyover and reached to a place right above platform two. I started shouting to people standing on platform two, ‘Hey! Hey you! Hey Man! Bro! Oye!’ No reply. I ran down to platform two to find out that it wasn’t the train I wanted. I asked one fruit vendor at the platform about the train. He thought for two or three precious moments and said, “may be on platform five.”

I was high on adrenaline, I had almost ready to do the most courageous task at the moment. It was 11:44 when I was on platform one, I did not know how much more seconds I had got before the train would whistle and depart. I didn’t have luxury to think and evaluate the risk associated with going via flyover (which may risk catching the train) and going through the rails, crossing one standing train which may move any second (which may risk my life). I chose the second one.

Jumped, crossed the rails with my head turning left to right frequently and horribly looking for any clue of any coming train. Then I crossed through the standing train. And here I was on platform five. The digital clock says 11:45. The train before me was 6221 Chennai Express. I asked Ticket Inspector, confirmed with travelers, and reached to my compartment. The birth was empty. I jumped over it and lied down. Curled myself in, perhaps, a perfect circle the way balances forces make perfect circle of a head to tail tied string when it is put into soap bubble to show tenth standard guys an example of surface tension. I started feeling pains and response from different parts of my body which was never ready for a Die Hard kind of adventure.

My thighs were thumping hard like drum skin, gut was wrenching. I found that I had smaller lungs than I needed at that time. I was breathing heavily. I was drenched in sweat and was dying of thirst. I was the least of the surprises of the day to find out that I forgot to take water bottle. I wasn’t angry rather I was very calm. Perhaps I was too happy with myself or perhaps I didn’t have enough energy left in me to be angry, whatever.

I think the next time I would plan Bangalore trip carefully.

---- The End ----

Terror Trips: 1

Terror Trips – Bangalore Bruises (Part 1)
This story runs into 2 parts. Link for Part 2 >>

This was the fourth time in last six months – every time with more commitment to make it more organized and fruitful the next time and, evidently, ending up doing exactly opposite. This story is about my last trip to Chennai from Bangalore.

First time, in September, Chennai Central railway station 4 o’clock in the morning Saturday, I had no idea what to do – one thing I knew that I had to go to Bangalore today, at any cost. I was lucky got Shatabdi express at six.
Returning was the same. Sunday, Clueless on Majestic bus stop Bangalore. A cunning broker gunned me down for twice of the cost for a private bus seat. I took countless big red etching spots all over my body as a souvenir for one full week by bed-bugs provided by the bus service.
‘Organize the next time’, I decided.

Second time, first week of December, coming back from Mysore trip, I cut short the trip detoured to Bangalore while coming back. I reached there with very foul feeling in my stomach.
Returning ticket was at quarter to twelve on Sunday. Unclear whether I’d get a bus at that much late night from the place where I stayed (which is a remote area), so I left the place at nine and reached at the station at ten. Rest hundred and five minutes I kept on counting – counting number of pillars on the platform, counting numbers of LEDs in the big digital watch etc.

Third time, December end, perfect plan – got up and down journey tickets reserved by bus. Came by bus without any warm clothes, at morning 5 o’clock I reached to Bangalore almost half dead by cold. I had two glasses of hot tea before starting from bus stop to Nihar’s place.
While returning, surprisingly, I lost the return ticket and when reached to the bus stop (without ticket), I found the bus stop was too confusing that when I got to the place where the bus stands it had already left ten minutes ago. Withdrew money from and overly crowded ATM, re-reserved in next bus which came seventy five minutes later.

The fourth time – this time I have got up and down train reservation one week in advance which was in waiting but had got confirmed by the journey day. Left office at 7:30, planned to catch a bus from nearby bus stop to my place at 08:30. I thought that I had too much time, but I was panic before I could reach to my place. It was 08:30, I had not packed yet. There was no guarantee that I would get a bus from the nearest bus stop (from my place) for the railway station. And even if I got one, I wouldn’t be able to get the train which was scheduled to leave at 09:30 at night.

Sijju Joy came to rescue. I asked him if he would be able to ride me up to the train station in ‘FIFTY’ minutes. He misunderstood it with ‘fifteen’ minutes and took it as a challenge and asked me keep watch of the time.

Chennai roads were very busy and full of one-ways that makes a rule following excellent bike driver to take a minimum of thirty minutes to reach from my place to the station.

Sijju told me that if there is no traffic police he would do all the malpractice to make the trip shorter than fifteen minutes duration. Then he started. He saved times by turning using smaller radius at higher speed and at highest possible inclination, sometime by jumping over red light which was green a moment ago, some other time by overtaking the vehicles from wrong side, some time by escaping from very narrow gap between two vehicles and sometime just by shouting on the preceding rider for neither riding fast nor giving pass. And once he drove through a one way from wrong side.

I was sure that the ride was going to end well within fifteen minutes. At the end of fifteen minutes either we would be dead or on the station – in any case Sijju was going to keep the promise of making the trip within 15 minutes.

I reached safely with my heart exploding inside my rib cage. Thanked Sijju for helping me out in such an odd time. (And also for not killing me)

Returning was weird. It was GP’s job treat – Barbeque Nation Hotel, enjoyed, overate and at the end of the dinner we realized that returning to Nihar’s place, packing and then running to rail station by bus would be a sure shot method to get late for the return train. So, Nihar triple rode – GP and I were looking curiously for any traffic police who could catch us, so that Nihar could strategically run away. We reached back Nihar’s place safely.

When I got the bus from Nihar’s place to railway station, it was five minutes to eleven. The train was at 11:45; and in general it takes more than an hour for a bus to reach from Nihar’s place to train station. It may take fifty minutes or less because it was night – I thought for a moment and then, instead of abandoning the journey, I took the risky decision to take bus and try and fail (or pass). Bus ran unexpectedly fast and I was there at the closest bus stop to railway station at 11:36 as the station’s tower clock said. I was yet around half a kilometer away from the station.

If you haven’t seen me recently, you can assume me as a plastic bag full of jelly, the way you think blob may look like or perhaps boneless cheek flesh stuffed in closed skin. And note that sports and me are antithesis. Now this piece of utterly lazy meat was in pathetic condition. I was in a sport challenge without practice. The distance that I take 30 minutes to cross, I had only nine. I jumped from the bus and was confused because I didn’t jump where the stop is, I jumped before it to save time, to make short cut but the place seemed to nowhere connecting to the way to the station. I ran in Brownian motion, sticking from all possible knowledgeable blokes in my circle of visibility – in the same manner nucleophile searches for a positive rich site in an organic reaction. Finally started running towards the way where the bus would have gone had I not jumped out of that. Reached to the place where bus was stopped. I got it. Yeah. This was the subway that connects bus stop to the station.

11:39 tower clock said. ‘Now I would go through it to reach the other-side – the railway station side. But wait. Remember? The last time when you came here it was closed half the way. No I wouldn’t take risk. I would use the flyover and then cross the road. But it is rule violation. Let’s risk it. I had nothing to lose.’ I thought these things in nanoseconds or perhaps picoseconds whatever.

Read part 2 >>

B.U.F.Y. 11: THE END?

Baby, Uncle and the Final Year (B.U.F.Y.) 11: THE END?
Links for Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4, Part5, Part6, Part7, Part8, Part9, Part10
[This is the last part of the series]

F**k you Tavant Technologies: Tavant Technologies is one of the worst things that ever happened to me – they are one big cheat. On 27^th of April they informed us that our joining date is December the 10^th, which means six months of unemployment – or in other words, they were saying that they have hired us but they aren’t capable to pay us so we should get out in the market searching another job for ourselves.

There are many aspects of this organization which I knew from my different sources inside Tavant at the time.

1. Their major (perhaps only) client which accounted for 70% of the revenue had pulled off their project from Tavant.
   
   
2. At the point of out recruitment, a wave of resignation was dominating inside Tavant. Their recruitment spree was a fail-safe, or may be a show off.
   
   
3. They didn’t have the courtesy to respond to our queries.
   
   
4. HRM never talked to our Training and Placement in-charge, in fact, they rudely behaved with Professor Sinha. Professor had got pissed off but he couldn’t ban the organization from Training and Placement. I do not understand this. Perhaps it was heavy load of getting higher placement percentage or ignorance or lack of gut, which refrain him from blacklisting Tavant. All we could get out of him is ‘wish you all the very best in your future endeavors’ which I readily translated into ‘guys, see I have thousands of other important things to do than cleaning the mess that you have made. Go get yourself something that suits you and get off my back. I, hereby, declare my surrender.’
   ‘You are lesser of the two evils, sir. Thank you for not wasting our time.’ I thought.
   
   
5. When we came down to Bangalore, we met this really friendly employee of the company who advised us that we are luckier not to join the company.
   

And for my miserable sixty days, I will never forgive Tavant Technologies.

See you Kgp: May 10, 2007, I was a winner. My presentation was one of the best and my guide was personally congratulated by the invited invigilator. After presentation my guide called and congratulated me for a really great presentation and asked me whether I would like to work more on the project and get it published in technical journal? I denied. Had you asked me, one day before this day, about my professor, I would have told you he one of those non-believers who thought students can never do anything worthwhile. But now, he kept on appraising and I melted.

Throughout Kharagpur’s life, I have been blaming this institute for the reason that except for the days of Robotics events, my life was too static there – doing nothing, there was nothing else that kept me interested there. I was one of those guys who dragged the years of their higher education second by second, or may be millisecond by millisecond. Still, leaving Kgp was a painful experience. Once it was decided that we have to leave, we were fractioning every second to get the maximum out of it. We were trying to pull the sun hard to prevent the end of each remaining day. But then one day, no one knows when it came, we were moving out. To my disbelief, it hurt.

Ask me three best things in IIT Kharagpur. I would say,

1. Central Library: The richest library, I have ever seen. I was in absolute love with this place from the first day when I saw it and the love kept on growing. Anything and everything, you can get on pages, were there. Muse yourself, explore anything you want, surprise yourself. It is one of the least utilized resources of IIT Kharagpur. Majority of Kgp think that it is good for nothing, I certainly couldn’t convince them but neither could they to me.
   
   
2. Robotics: I had this wish to own one of my R2D2 robot. Frustrated as anyone with that kind of wish could be, when he comes to Kgp to find a white elephant namely, iLab which runs IIT’s robotics society headed by a know nothing Tuglaq – Prof. CS Kumar. It is one of the examples of how bad an organization can become when its values are rotten by student politics of accruing certificate for doing nothing but praising seniors and professors; and whose sources of inspiration, the professors involved, are busy in self appraisal. It reminds me Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, Gilderoy Lockhart from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
   
   I was lucky enough to find two really serious guys who were damn interested in Robotics and extremely hard working. They were confident of making a robo-servant, R2D2. I feel myself really blessed to have them with me. They are G. Vijaysagar and Kiran C. I admire them.
   
   It used to be high time for us; once the problem for institute’s national level robotics competition problem is out. It is, usually, start of November when we start thinking, January is full of work and excitement. February start is anxious because we used to have only a few days to the competition. And somehow we would manage to finish our robot by the day and have something, really, to be proud of.
   
   We started from 2^nd year failed to even make a working robot this time, learnt it a very hard way of failures. We were at a point of being breaking off after this failure, but then situation stabilized when we did some projects and participated in some other robotics events. Finally, got prepared to win the 1^st prize the next year and then again next year.
   
   I used to resurrect in every November to die again in coming February from 2^nd year to 4^th year.
   Amazing days… huh, all I wanted to do is to make a team with my wing-mates but they had other priorities – I was a dreamer.
   
   I still am.
   
   
3. LAN: Hardly anyone can deny that Local Area Network (LAN) was one of the list toppers for everyone’s ‘Things I miss after IIT Kharagpur’ list. It was alive, dynamic. Like the library, anything that you can wish for a computer can hold, is there on the LAN.
   
   Aladdin must be jealous of IIT Kharagpur’s LAN. For everything, Kgp is dedicated to the service of Nation but the LAN. LAN is dedicated to service of the students, in all possible ways.
   MOTD: Bow to the mighty little green Dinosaur.

E for enjoy Electronic City: June 2007, with the clear picture that Tavant had screwed us, Uncle and I were calculating our chances of getting a job in next 30 days. Later we knew that we were wrong with our initial assumption of 30 days.

It was 06:30 PM at Electronic City, Nihar and GP were back from their office. Uncle and I were sitting on the Hall bed waiting of their question what we did that day (for job search). I was frustrated because I knew that we did nothing that could assure them that I had moved one step ahead in the quest of my job search. And they did ask. I was thirteen year old again and my father asking how I managed to fail in History. Although, in both the cases, they were thinking the best for me, but I felt like micro organism being viewed with single weak naked eyes of a giant from over the universe. And just then, my phone rang, I ran to the roof with the mobile. It was fierce wind with drizzling. Opposing wind, then, felt like saying that everything is against me.

I clicked to pick the phone, the first few letters that spilled out of the receiver, were ‘Student life is over, dude!’ It was Saumya Kant Sahoo, trying to make me realize that the time has come to put off the pink glasses. It was more a sort of irritating babble which followed this line and I, really, never cared what he said after this line. It was a sort of chanting that had started running into my mind – out of my control – ‘Student life is over, dude!’

Standing on the roof of the four storied building, sky grayed with depressed watery clouds, with cold wind to trying to throw me out of the roof, lights in neighborhood coming alive one by one, the balloon at e-Inn and I were strongly in conflict with the environment with our (balloon and me) feet steady on the ground (assuring each other) and then, suddenly, the surrounding buildings started shattering down one by one as someone had put a mass destruction plan all over Electronic City and here it goes, as end scene of the movie ‘Fight Club’, with loud heavy guitar with lyrics
‘ With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Your head will collapse
But there's nothing in it
And you'll ask yourself

Where is my mind ...’

……. End of the Series …….

B.U.F.Y. 10: Ready to fly, Ready to fight

Baby, Uncle and the Final Year (B.U.F.Y.) 10: Ready to fly, Ready to fight

Links for Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4, Part5, Part6, Part7, Part8 , Part9(Links to future parts will be available in comments)

Dhoti, Kurta and Bang-Bang: In fifth year, we were able to create a new synergy among the people of 5^th year Mechanical Engineering of Manufacturing Systems and Engineering (by ‘we’, I mean all fourteen students and all professors who taught us that year.) This used to be a dysfunctional, throw mud on others group. I kind of started feeling a personal attachment with the group and the year ended too soon to relish.

We decided that all of us fourteen would wear dhoti and Kurta on the last exam of our last year of the course. Arrangement were made, dhotis and Kurtas were brought from Gol Bazaar from a shop which provides clothing for drama groups. They were distributed to every person. Cameras were checked, rechecked. We were kind of fearless from the exam, so we went with minimal preparation of exam that made sure that we did not fail - the bare minimum.

In morning, between a lot of confusion and hubbub, we started moving to examination hall from our hostels – five minute after the exam had started. We reached to the examination hall at 9:10 to find out that none of us were there in the hall – AND IT HAD ALREADY BEEN 10 MINUTES SINCE THE EXAM HAD BEGUN. But as I said, we had become fearless by then. So we asked the invigilator to come in. And here comes the show stopper – the party pooper professor releasing a fatwa of either to go back change the cloths with something more sober (and I used to think that Dhoti-Kurta was an Indian dress!) or come next year again but sober.

We all hurried up to the nearest toilet. Fourteen people inside the toilet hall – all changing cloths – was a bit uncomfortable for the people who were already in there relieving themselves. They left the toilet immediately with a weird look and fake smile as if they were saying, ‘what a nuts!’ We did not deny.

Wrote the paper and we all came out around half an hour before the final bell rang, buried the question paper in a hope that ‘may god provide peace their poor souls, which always bear the burden of turning a normal person into anything but sane, on a mere flick of a professor’s hand.’

We went back to the same bathroom – all fourteen again – shooed off everyone inside, changed into Bengali Dhoti-Kurta and roamed around the campus, Clicked every single corner of campus wherever our legs took us. Had a nice lunch at Harrys, talked all big air-castle plan around our near future. Obviously, we were far beyond the ground reality when everyone of were claiming that they know the world out there.

I was just 22 days away to learn the first lesson of “ground reality” when I boasted my semi-truth claim of ‘I know because I have seen!’ (And tighten my neck as a proud crane.)

I am attaching few snaps that you may find interesting.

Uncertain goodbye: I thought it to be a joke when Uncle came to my room dry mouthed, half worried and gasping to inform me that Nitisha and he were provided with a joining date of December 10, 2007 by Tavant Technology which was the same organization I was placed in. I thought it as a trifle matter that would be solved by some talking. And I wasn’t much involved until I had got the same.

I was ignorant until I realized that IIT Kharagpur’s Training and Placement department was as feeble as we were. All they could do was to say ‘we hope the best for your future endeavors.’ The moment these words came out of Professor Sinha – the then TnP in-charge, I felt like someone punched a powerful kick into my gut, I was on periphery again. All plans were subdued. When everyone else were calling home to inform that they would come on the certain date, I was playing juggling with my plans, spreading a confusion whether I would go home or Bangalore – switching back and forth, I was one poor soul asking for mercy from someone whom I did not know for something which I did not do. I was desperately searching for panic button.

B.U.F.Y. 9: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Baby, Uncle and the Final Year (B.U.F.Y.) 9: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Links for Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4, Part5, Part6, Part7, Part8 (Links to future parts will be available in comments)

Uncle’s Bear Bottle Bottom-up: With yet another treat by Bio-Techies for the reason of why-do-we-need-a-reason-for-after-placement-party. Uncle came, drunk, straight to my room and announced aloud that he had managed to drink a full bear bottle without getting sleep in between. For your information, Uncle used to be a great drinker in his boasts only. Uncle had this habit to doze off after having half a bottle of bear, at most. I disbelieved and continued listening Iron Maiden. Uncle left the room in frustration.

Half an hour later, late in mid night, Baby knocked the door to go and check whether Uncle was alive. Uncle was watching South Park with immense concentration and was cutting the skin near to his thumb’s root. (It always gave me creep!) We sat next to him and kept bugging until he shut the show and was ready to dance on ‘Namak Ishq Ka’ song. (I really amazed how we had come to this decision.)

Dancing, dancing… suddenly half the way of the song, I didn’t know what came to Uncle’s drunk brain, he popped his shaking bums out (as if it wasn’t a part of his body) and pulled his tracks down showing his bare posteriors. I certified that Uncle had had a full bear bottle inside his belly.

This was the third time in two semesters when Uncle did it without any regret in future. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention the second time. It was the time when Dharmu came to Kgp for our placement treat and Uncle made a camera captured show of his pee-pee.

Uncle, Baby, Kgp’s Psycho and all about ‘Indian Flag on Mars’: Very few notice that the iron giant of Frankenstein age that stands next to Tagore Open Air Theatre (TOAT) near IIT Kharagpur institute gate is supposedly a coal refining plant. It is a group three great tin cylinders, one main cylinder of 25 – 30 feet height and 2 feet diameter is accompanied by two relatively smaller ones in height and diameter. All the three were having a conical cap at the top, like a chimney. The main cylinder had pipes connecting it to the auxiliary ones and a big iron pipe coming out of the main cylinder and going into the ground by making three weird elbow turns. The color was Communist Red with rusty red variation in hue which was giving it a perfect look of a ‘once a great technology now abandoned’ look. (Unfortunately, it was painted with water-proof shiny color in mid 2007)

With our now (after placement) more frequent visits to staff canteen and Nescafe, we happened to talk about this ferrous crap occasionally – comparing with all kind of thing that could remotely look like this (believe me you are not going to like if I tell you all the stuffs we compared it with). Uncle and I came up with this fantasy story about ‘Did Indians Land on the Mars?’ It was a conspiracy theory, which proves that Indians actually went to Mars in AD 1952 much before USA guys claimed to flag Lunar. We, actually, had a plan to create a video documentary on it but could not.

The theme follows closely with ‘Did we land on the moon?’ except the motive. This documentary proves that Indians did land on the Mars contrary to the mentioned one. The story goes something like this.

Characters:

R and D Center: IIT Kharagpur.

Chief Design Engineer: Prof M. Ramanujam. (Mechanical Engineering Department)

Astronauts:

1. The mad Bengali Communist whom you can see shouting on the road with a side cloth-bag. Legends tell that he was a research scholar at the institute when he got lunatic (or marsite). Since then he never left IIT Kgp campus somehow managing his living necessities. One can easily find him near Harrys’, barking in Bengali mixed English – some time on real big issues like American monopoly and intrusion in Iraq.
   
   
2. A weird red dog. It was one of those dogs that give you a shiver in spine – not because they are monstrous but because they look like one of those Resident Evil dogs. You feel pity and angry at the same time.

The Martian: Imagine someone whom you enjoy to torture.

Continue reading >>>

Did Indians Land on the Mars?

Did Indians Land on The Mars? - A Documentary

Very few notice that the iron giant of Frankenstein age that stands next to Tagore Open Air Theatre (TOAT) near IIT Kharagpur institute gate is supposedly a coal refining plant. It was a group three great tin cylinders, one main cylinder of 25 – 30 feet height and 2 feet diameter - was accompanied by two relatively smaller ones in height and diameter. All the three were having a conical cap at the top, like a chimney. The main cylinder had pipes connecting it to the auxiliary ones and a big iron pipe coming out of the main cylinder and going into the ground by making three weird elbow turns. The color was Communist Red with rusty red variation in hue which was giving it a perfect look of a ‘once a great technology now abandoned’ look. (Unfortunately, it was painted with water-proof shiny color in mid 2007)

With our now (after placement) more frequent visits to staff canteen and Nescafe, we happened to talk about this ferrous crap occasionally – comparing with all kind of thing that could remotely look like this (believe me you are not going to like if I tell you all the stuffs we compared it with). Uncle and I came up with this fantasy story about ‘Did Indians Land on the Mars?’ It was a conspiracy theory, which proves that Indians actually went to Mars in AD 1952 much before USA guys claimed to flag Lunar. We, actually, had a plan to create a video documentary on it but could not.

The theme follows closely with ‘Did we land on the moon?’ except the motive. This documentary proves that Indians did land on the Mars contrary to the mentioned one. The story goes something like this.

[read this story real s--l--o--w.]

Characters:

R and D Center: IIT Kharagpur.

Chief Design Engineer: Prof M. Ramanujam. (Mechanical Engineering Department)

Astronauts:

1. The mad Bengali Communist whom you can see shouting on the road with a side cloth-bag. Legends tell that he was a research scholar at the institute when he got lunatic (or marsite). Since then he never left IIT Kgp campus somehow managing his living necessities. One can easily find him near Harrys’, barking in Bengali mixed English – some time on real big issues like American monopoly and intrusion in Iraq.
   
   
2. A weird red dog. It was one of those dogs that give you a shiver in spine – not because they are monstrous but because they look like one of those Resident Evil dogs. You feel pity and angry at the same time.

The Martian: Imagine someone whom you enjoy to torture.

The Story:

IIT Kharagpur is India’s first national engineering institute. There was a reason why unlike all other IITs, this IIT had no foreign collaboration in its foundation and why is it situated in the mid of unknowns of a remote jungle in the least developed area of west Bengal. The reason was secrecy. IIT Kharagpur was founded for development of World’s first attempt to send a life form to Mars. The institute was named as an engineering education institute just to deceive the world and this fact it still a truth – you don’t learn anything there.

The documentary starts with black and white footages of weird places like automobile lab, people working as concentration camp labors in foundry lab and other weird yet technical places of Kharagpur. It talks about how they captured brainy guys of that time and turned into highly sophisticated bio-robots (zombies) that work relentlessly, environment friendly and efficiently.

The conversion from genius humans to genius bio-robots is a batch process namely, Manufacturing classes and labs where they are psychologically dosed for three seemingly never ending hours a week and then three hours of lab a week to actually screw the sensible part of the brain out. After 8 months of such treatment you are left with insane bio-robots. At this point this documentary shows black and white Nazi looking video footage of a three fourth sleepy class in fully packed Raman Auditorium. This may be a scene from Chemistry lecture of 1^st year. And another footage with similar effect which shows Transport Engineering Lab or Machining Lab. Few more footages goes in this section which shows acting-monkey guys and girls from Spring Fest (SF) and the narrator says that they are the bio-robots that went out of control and then it focuses towards SF Control Tents which, narrator says, is responsible to keep out of control bio-robots busy in monkey-act and keep them from disturbing the project.

The second part of the documentary starts with the present video footage of the coal refining plant. Narrator says that it is actually a space craft that flew up and down between Earth and Mars, Indians had renamed it to a coal refining plant to avoid any attention to the great machine of all times. The narrator then explains the technical sophistications of the spacecraft. And a very short launch film of the launch is shown with a shaky camera in black and white. This footage is hazy and unclear with salt and pepper noise and was taken from a big distance. At the corner of the footage red ‘EXCLUSIVE’ would be blinking.

The narrator now announces that now he is going show us some footage that our eyes would never believe and our consciousness would refuse to accept the fact. He continues with a pause, ‘this exclusive footage and documents were provided by one of the key member of the project who agreed to hand over a copy of the material on our guarantee of not to disclose his name and one day Bandh in West Bengal.’

Here starts the footage of mars.

We decided to shoot this part of documentary on an abandoned red ground near IIT Kgp, which looked perfectly like a Martian land in red lit evening sun during March. The special effect would be done in a manner that looks the video a very crappy ‘50s color video with a lot of blurs and audio and video noises.

The footage starts with blinking red ‘EXCLUSIVE’ at the top left corner. This guy, the astronaut, totally wrapped (which looks like someone hastily done the job of wrapping) in Aluminum foil with a one foot long antenna, also wrapped, coming out of his fore-head – jumps out of the spacecraft. Unable to manage to stand on the surface he rolls and then stands up embarrassed. And the screen freezes at the moment and a Windows pop up message comes saying, “A small roll by a man, a giant gyration by Mankind. To continue with the video, please click ‘Agree’ button.” The video continues when the narrator clicks the agree button. Now, the astronaut starts picking different stuffs from Martian ground sniffs, analyses and some time licks the things and puts them into his side bag. (the cloth bag)

The narrator starts, “The keen eyed and brilliant minded astronaut sneaked out some very crucial things from the Mars which laid the path of modern technology on the earth which includes diet Pepsi among the others.” Then the footage shows the stuffs that he picks from the ground. It shows the man is madly picking up stuffs. First he picks up Diet Pepsi with the message “for obese Americans of late ‘90s”, then he picks up a credit card, followed by a CD which is labeled as

‘Hotmail Installer.

Password of this CD is the name of Sabeer Bhatia’s mother. Wait till he takes birth’

Uncle’s Suggestion: In the back ground of this scene, we would show the dog, which went with the astronaut wrapped in aluminum foil with antenna projected normally his forehead, is fucking a red colored naked human-like animal (a Martian, in fact.). When finished, the dog picks something from ground and goes back in spacecraft. Later in footage, the dog is shown with a packet clutching in his mouth. Camera zooms in the packet, the label reads, “Condom. This is only for the prevention of the virus this animal is taking with it. It cannot be cured on the Earth because it needs a Mars grown herb. Thank you, visit again.”

The Mars part footage part ends here and the narrator starts with the documents given by the man.

The documentary shows an old paper with a very curvy dotted line joining Mars and Earth. The dotted line has a cross mark directly above the Earth, precisely above Pakistan, and a continuous red line joining the cross to Karachi. The narrator says, “Indian had this plan to drop an atom bomb on Pakistan from space. A very clever plan which is now being copied by USA under the name of Star Wars, the plan was failed because it crashed with a trial rocket projected by Russians. Unfortunately, Russians recorded it as mission failed due to technical malfunction while in reality, there rocket was perfect if it hadn’t collided with the atom bomb.”

The documentary proceeds with the current scene in IIT Kharagpur. It shows this astronaut shouting in Bengali mixed English by the side of ill faced dog. The narrator says, “This dog was the reason of HIV spread on the Earth. I still wonder how it passed to human and spread! [Pause]The astronaut was de-memorized. When shouts like a mad, he sometimes leaves sprinkled information about the mission in his seemingly mad talk.”

The scene moves towards Prof. M. Ramanujam. The narrator says, “The professor, who was the chief-designer of the project, was too obsessed with his work that after completion of the project he had gone out of his mind. Rumors have it that he was asked to design a water tank for PAN loop. He, supposedly, took Martian value of gravity and mis-designed the water tank and the result is that PAN loop of Kgp still suffers water problems.” Documentary shows few lunatic clips of the professor.

The narrator paused for 10 seconds when all the main clips are played once again.

Narrator starts, “So, the big question is why India is still mum? Our sources say that India is keeping a silence for its coming project. Indians are the biggest consumer of the world. They are eating up the resources like anything and growing big in population. Once the Earthly resources end up, their plan is to shift to Mars. Their next project is to consume earthly resources as fast as they can and then they would dig out whole India from the Earth, and pull it up to the Mars and settle there. In the way they may drop a neutron bomb on remaining earth to end up left outs misery and any future intrusion in their future earth – The Mars. Are you ready?”

The documentary end with the question

----------------

Authors Note: It is a hypothetical story.

B.U.F.Y. 8: Secrets Unveiled

Baby, Uncle and the Final Year (B.U.F.Y.) 8: Secrets Unveiled

Links for Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4, Part5, Part6, Part7 (Links to future parts will be available in comments)

Dharmu and My confession: Dharmu – I guess, I would never find a person who worth making friend more than Dharmu. He is a typical of My Best Friend essay that we used to write in school.

After everyone of our trio got placed, he came to Kgp to share our long awaited job treat. I drink vodka, then thought, ‘Okay! When doing sin do it completely.’ and drunk 3 vodkas, 3 cigarettes and guess, 2 beedis.

After this we went to TSC at night around 10 o’clock. With lying flat on our back, on dew drenched green grass and no light around us, January night’s moderate cold air was hovering over us from our feet passing over our tummy and getting obstructed by our noses, telling us that we were the centre of the universe for the moment. We started open heart discussion; I confessed a lot of good and bad of me, and of others. (Don’t have much to write about)

Dharmu was real emotional and for the first time I knew he was serious about someone. His talk was a mix of a responsible person’s thoughts (a less of Dharmu-like) and an emotional regular Dharmu talk. He seemed to miss his Kgp life too much and unlike now he didn’t like his job then. But then most of the time I found he was really frustrated about the fact that he didn’t have someone special… a girlfriend. (A summary of what Dharmu told on the day.)

We all felt so light hearted – no one was complaining there but it was something what AOL folks would say a ‘opening your heart’, we had one of the most emotional discussions of our Kgp life (I rate it one of my top 5 emotional discussions at Kgp).

Baby opened Uncle’s Biotech Biasing Discussion*, Uncle tried to give some toothless reason to back his point. Needless to say anyone was caring because it was not about what actually happened, it was about seeing yourself from someone else’s eyes – especially someone who doesn’t belongs to biotech group yet always less preferred over them. (As told by Baby on that day)

Uncle talked about Baby’s heavy dependency on his leaching friends, Baby was defenseless. He kept on talking making friends who eventually started over powering his own decision that he made for himself… talked about Mr. S. Singh, Mr. R. Agarawal, Lamboo and few others. But then moved back to his 2^nd year and repeated the story of an alumnus coming to Uncle’s room (which, then, was shared by Dharmu, Baby and Uncle) with his wife and daughters only to find himself in an embarrassed condition when he saw dirty porous inside-out under wears hanging in a row on a rope starting from door to one corner of a double room, and then the three universally unique cartoons somehow hiding their body with small knickers, who were in equally amazement of the moment and dilemma of playing goodie good with a previous student of institute or playing loafer and skimming the girls with their lesser girl-habitual eyes – supposedly they kept their speechless mouth open and eyes wide open, and remained movement-less until the visitors left the monkey show. (As told by Uncle on that day)

But again, it was nothing like blaming, accusing or getting an answer but more like opening up to the people you believe in. We had great 6 hours, probably the best 6 hours in the whole 5^th year.

* Biotech Biasing: This is a phenomenon in which Uncle shows his biasing towards his Biotech classmates. Uncle waves hand, shouts to his Biotech friends, who most of the time seemed to completely ignore this act of Uncle. Sometimes, Uncle leaves the companion who he came with and forcibly sticks to Biotech friends who, again, are not found happy to have Uncle with them. It doesn’t bother Uncle if a truck runs over the person he came with, if only he gets a glimpse of a Bio-techie in his range of view. (As described by Baby)

Bangalore dream and Supremo’s Extinction Plan: Here is the list:

1. Settle with GP and Nihar in a decent 2 BHK in a better place than Hebbagodi in Bangalore.
   
   
2. Get a decent broadband connection and old heavy tring-tring black dialing phone.
   
   
3. Recreate wing-like life.
   
   
4. Weekly mall view, movies and decent weekends and general hang outs.
   
   
5. To become a pain in Supremo’s ass: Who is Supremo? Supremo is some AB C college grad, who had got selected in Tavant Technology and was over –happy. He is the idiot behind the idea of starting a new James Bond copy-cat community for people who were selected to Tavant from 2007 batch namely, Tavant007. Supremo was the guy who gave this idea to place order for hand-bands exclusively for 2007 Tavantites which says – TAVANT 007. Stupidity has no start and no end, he also had this plan to show this band to their seniors and make them jealous.
   
   We realized that Supremo must be screwed; we decided to support his stupidity and amplify it with more stupid add-ons. So if he says to order a hand band, we would advice to order T-shirts saying – ‘TAVANT 007 – seniors were too idiot that Tavant had to hire fresh batch of lesser idiots’. And we knew he would like this idea with clapping hands and jumping feet.
   
   
6. Uh … oh, I was forgetting this plan to buy a Gramophone.
   Uncle Help me with other plans of ours I am kind of missing all the things that we had listed to do.

Baby and Suku-Suku: Baby has started taking long times on phone, long chats on phone with occasional suspicious smiles (blushing). We researched and found out, a particular girl keep on filling Baby’s Orkut scrapbook without caring the response from Baby side. Many times it is one liner like, ‘Kaise hain aap?’ (How are you) or ‘Aap to jawaab hi nahi dete.’ (Never answer you) and I am forgetting the typical word she used to call Baby with, I guess it was Natkhat (naughty) or Sharmeele (Shy honey-pot) or perhaps ziddi (arrogant).

(Uncle, Help maadi**… what was the exact nick name of Baby that Suku-Suku used to call with?)

**Kannada verb: used for action

Uncle (tirelessly) tried everything to get her name out and Baby never uttered a single clue even in drunken state. One thing was sure that Baby liked talking with her because he never ignored her scrapbook entries and was in contact with her even after his number has got changed lately.

Baby kept this too secret to get us some material to make a story. We started referring her Suku-Suku – a word invented by Uncle for our reference. Suku – Suku and Baby’s story is still alive I guess, and it is going good. All I hope that in near future we would be able to know her name and if got lucky he would show us her picture and we would be extremely lucky if Baby let us meet her but it is unexpected looking on Baby’s behavior towards her!

B.U.F.Y. 7: Déjà-vu, Premonition and Eventuality

Baby, Uncle and the Fifth Year (B.U.F.Y.) 7: Déjà-vu, Premonition and Eventuality
Links for Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4, Part5, Part6 (Links to future parts will be available in comments)

Placement and déjà-vu: I was over confident, something inside me kept on telling me that I was going to make it big. I found myself in contrast with reality. But then many other who thought they would fail miserably, found themselves in contrast too. It was our campus placement time when conflict with negative reality could an unaffordable deal… and it was.

Surprisingly, Uncle was too calm by appearance until Jan 21^st when he got selected in Tavant Technologies and then he expressed it in all possible ways of expression a monkey and a human can give together. There was a moment, somewhere twenty days earlier to this day, when I made uncle so frustrated that he went for Flextronics placement process where he was the only non-Matka (Matka: M.Tech. parallel entry. we assume, they have lower intellect.) Uncle thought he under estimated himself. It was a fun to listen this story every time he recites it with expression.

Baby was utterly frustrated as me, we used to sit and compare others with us for hours. Sometimes it gave a feeling of comfort to find better guys lacking success and all other times it was a pain. Baby kept on blaming himself for not taking IBM’s sure shot success interview and Tata Motors, Jamshedpur campus placement process.

Tata Motors, Pune gave him a chance to dance.

For me it was all down, as I said earlier, I was over confident. So every day, in evening, after failing some two to three written exams (leave interview alone)we used to go to Harry’s, order Medu Vada and Tea, discuss and vent out our frustration, veil, moan, howl and do it again the next day. It was more like repeating the same day again and again. Uncle named this phenomenon – déjà-vu.

There were two important turning points

1. Uncle had got another chance to get interviewed by BPCL for some biotech scientist post. it was a decent job and in some concerns better than Tavant's. Uncle had good chances to clear it because two other selected candidates were from chemistry background while Uncle had a biotech degree.
   
   Uncle missed it; call him ignorant, lazy-bone, unfortunate or over joyed… your wish. Baby and I call him back-stabbed biotechie. The story is this, Uncle, after placement, reduced his frequency to visit placement notice board to very close to zero, and so did we. Someday between Tavant’s placement day and Tavant’s disaster day, a notice came that Uncle and two other blokes had got selected for the final round of interview with BPCL. This information was there with one of the Uncle’s very close ‘biotech’ friend who revealed this, days after the interview day was gone. Uncle could have two jobs in hand and we started teasing him that he was stabbed in the back for the second time by one of “the biotechie.” Uncle had rather simple answer to defend it that he wasn’t interested into that job. We stopped teasing soon.
   
   Then the day came when Tavant ditched (third dagger in Uncle’s back) and Uncle push himself very hard to accept the fact that only if he wasn’t chiseled, he could have suffering a lot less pain in his you-know-where. (He used to accept this with three trouble lines on his forehead screaming that he could kill this guy if he was found at the moment.)
   
   
   
2. The second was Baby’s similar chaos with Force Motors, Pune. This organization was paying lot more than Tata Pune and the interview panel was visibly impressed by Baby’s skills. He had got shortlisted for the final round of the selection process and in next two weeks they would process his information and send him a return air ticket to Pune and would also bear all the expenses. Great.
   
   After this Baby had got placed in Tata Motors within a week, yet he had all the right to go for the Force Motors interview – which he really wanted to do at that time. Someone – don’t know who, but Baby would say disgustfully that one of those idiot selfish selected Matkas’ it was – reported to the training and placement cell that Baby was trying to hog on two jobs. And our overly fair training and placement department mercilessly cut his name out.
   
   I guess Baby would get red hot with anger if I would tell him that Force Motors is going to own a F1 team for 2008 F1 championship!

Jan 1^st, James Bond, Nagina and Non-sense: Had many reasons to cry out loud but Casino Royle was the main. None of us was placed, didn’t go home, IBM was gone and many other.

It was January 1^st. They say last year was unlucky New Year will bring happiness with it. I say it is only matter of time when you’ll repeat this.

We planned to watch Nagina with Coffee and Kurkure treat. Change of plan, we had to watch Casino Royle. Did a lot of non-sense and danced a bit. At the end of the movie it was clear nothing was going to change in this New Year, it will suck too. And so did it.

Tavant Drama: It was mere a reason to go home that I have got placed in Tavant Technology, otherwise days were going so hard that nothing seemed to favor me. For placements, they did all the drama of test then test again, then GD then interview. Uncle and I have got selected.

Happy but not satisfied at the time, eventually I adjusted myself (too lazy to try anything else) and Tavant seemed fine for a career starting. We were two months away from Tavant’s real fraud. We found out Tavant was an over-priced deal – the placement was just a backup for them in case of large resignation from their already revenue and customer losing company.

As the time window of this story slides two more months from now, you’ll know more about Tavant’s fraud – in coming parts of B.U.F.Y.

B.U.F.Y. 6: Betrayal near Cheddis'

Baby, Uncle and the Fifth Year (B.U.F.Y) Part:6 - Betrayal near Chheddis'
Links for Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4, Part5 (Links to future parts will be available in comments)

Uncle and Mr. Trouble Maker (TM)*: Had I not been with Uncle, I would have described TM as utterly boring, big head muggu and must have told you that he never satisfied with whatever marks he got in examination and used to go to professor and ask to increase his marks by one.

Now, I describe him like this. Had it not been TM, the hottie from Chandigarh would have been Uncle’s girlfriend. (And we could have got more chances to make a feast for eyes)

In short, Uncle persuaded this real babe girl to join Kgp and TM was the one who was taking all the fun from Uncle’s hard work. Unfortunately, TM and the girl were bold enough to make public display of affection (including clinching each-other’s butt) and every time Uncle saw this PDA he felt like TM was nailing long, thick, rusted and blunt nail into his heart and then shaking it to widen the hole!

Once uncle was eating corn (Bhutta) TM came sneaking from the back and snatched it (and obviously started eating.) Uncle turned back to find out TM and then the hottie by the side of him. TM was smiling on his clever trick of snatching the food from Uncle. And Uncle was busy in calculating the amount of damage that TM had done to his ‘to be life’. TM had already taken the girl from him and now he was on his food too. All that Uncle could say at the moment was, “Kya kya chhinega mere se yaar tu?” (What else do you have in list to rob from me? Hmm, buddy?)

Poor Uncle, I feel sorry for you (and for us all)

*Mr. Trouble Maker: Mr. TM’s name is replaced due to strong opposition but believe me, Mr. TM does exist.

Gandi Maggie, Naale ka kinara, Chhedi’s and the Cow before the Train (Filthy Maggie, Drainage Odour, Chhedi’s and the Cow before the Train): A typical description of the most famous night hang-out place of our times, for IITians at Kharagpur – Chhedis aka 6ds.

[I am sorry that I do not have an image of chhedis', I would appreciate if someone provides me with one]

SCENE: 1

3 AM at Chhedi’s, order Maggy and Tea. The boys, who worked there, were ambidextrous cleaner, waiter, cashier and cook… all in one, they lived shabby. Here is a list of activities of a boy that you can watch once you have placed your order. He goes to pee in bushes with slipper on; the way to bushes is dusty which makes his feet dust-full. Then while coming back through the dusty path he realizes that he saw a small dirty (perhaps spotted with red spit of Pan) piece of paper submerged into the dirt – the paper usually has a semi naked photograph, nothing else can be more exciting than a semi-nude woman pretty dirty and totally covered with dirt. Can anything be? – so he picks it up, sees it, momentary pause, then he runs to Chhedi’s to share it with other worker boys. They laugh. Then the boss comes and kicks their butt, and asks them to serve food to the customers. The guy with dirty, dusty and unhygienic hands, takes the steel plate full of Maggy in one hand with his four finger dipped inside hot Maggy and on other he carries four glasses full of tea, again four fingers dipped in four glasses (one finger to each customer’s glass, fair distribution) and he starts moving towards customers – mind that he hadn’t washed his hand yet – but then, on the way, he finds out that his slipper’s strip is loose. He puts the Maggy on one of the several benches lying by the side of road, where a stray dog smells the Maggy and finds nothing interesting to fight for. This guy tightens the slipper strip with Maggy dipped hand and holds Maggy again in same manner and serves us. While going back to serve other customer, He takes all the finished plates already cleaned by a lurking dog’s tongue.

SCENE: 2

There flows a very-very smelly sewage very close to place where you sit and eat your Gandi Maggy.

Chedi’s itself is a uniquely attractive place; they misplace the orders, make a delay and that gives you a reason to talk more and blame Chedi’s service for it. If you ask for more sauce you may not get it at all, but you would surely listen a reply from Michael (aka Mohan) that ‘Abhi saadi nahi hui hai humaari, saas kahaan se laayein’ (I’m yet a single where would I get a saas (mother-in-law) for you.)

SCENE: 3

And one more attractive ambience is ultra slow moving goods train. So whenever a cow or a goat or anything alive comes into the way of the train the driver stops the train; comes down and gently make it go out of the rail. He patiently does it again, if the animal walk in again.

We love chhedi’s for the reasons that no matter whether it is your worst day or the best, it gives you unknown pleasure to hang out in Chedi’s with friends or without them (I went there many times alone in the 5^th year.)

B.U.F.Y. 5 : My Girl vs Your Girl

Uncle and Girls vs. Baby and Girls:
Link for Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4 (Links to future parts will be available in comments)

[Please donot ask for real identities]

We were guys without guts; I mean I am sure for me at least. So there are three kinds of cowards. One is Uncle Type, who can talk to girls but nothing more or less than academics. Second is Baby Type, who can talk to girl and help them but it is more like brotherly talk and brotherly help. Third is My Type, the females whom he can talk are found in two categories, one Motherly category which contains his Mom only and other, Sister category which contains his sibling sisters.

Baby and Uncle had this habit of throwing mud on each-other while talking about the others girl-repelling power. I will just put it point-wise. Usually this discussion goes very long.

Uncle and Girls:

1. Got one hot Librarian who lived in Lucknow where Uncle was living at that time. Uncle used to go in the same train as her. Happen to talk her – may be two times. Never had guts to invite her for a coffee.
   A lot of push from Baby and my side made him to invite her to his room on our Hall’s Day. (We don’t know the truth whether he actually invited her.)Uncle for the first time in his CGE life cleaned the room and hid all the unsocial stuffs.
   She never came.
2. Got another chance on a hottie (Uncle, you son of a bi*ch!) from Chandigarh. Uncle single handedly persuaded her father to make sure the girl takes admission in Biotech Dept IIT Kharagpur.
   Uncle succeeded and perhaps the girl showed some tinny-tiny interested in Uncle. But Uncle remained “friendly.”
   This story will be discussed again during this sequence.

Baby and Girls:

1. Baby is too brotherly to girls. Unlike screw minded people like me, Baby has different POV. Not much to talk, he found out a sister who were kind enough to send him gifts and home-made sweets.
   Good for him, yet Uncle never left a chance to tease Baby that he missed a chance. (I call it Atom Bomb, whenever Baby dominates in ‘Uncle could not get a girl friend’ discussion. Uncle drops it and the discussion stops with sour taste at the end.)
2. When Baby came back from his summer trip to Saharanpur in 2006, he came with blush. Something fishy was apparent. Especially when he started denying that he had a girlfriend and started talking long hours on phone.
   The activity was traceable on Orkut. But again, it was like drinking water from black well with a straw (capillary).

We were the great losers in this arena. Lately Uncle started ‘Orkut Hunt’ but it was futile.

------

Thanks to esta.sketch for the illustration.

B.U.F.Y. 4: Brain Thief - Phone Thief

Baby, Uncle and the Fifth Year (B.U.F.Y.) Part 4: Brain Thief - Phone Thief
Link for Part1, Part2, Part3

Baby and Guide’s Chaos: Baby was one of serious guys in Mechanical Engineering although it never reflected in his grade point averages. He was one of those freaky big heads who choose their project guide six months before the project starts. He talked to Prof. Ghosh Malik who agreed to take him as his intern.

Happily in next semester when Baby went to the professor for official paperwork done, he promptly denied the fact that he was ever agree on the fact of Baby being his intern. Baby, now broken hearted, realized that even the laziest guy had ‘booked’ an easy guide for himself and that he had no other option than to choose Prof. XYZ Murthy.

Murthy was one of those professors who never believed in students (Mechanical Engineering had a majority of those) and no matter how hard Baby worked professor had a way to scold him. It may be as big as manipulation of data to as small as a formatting issue.

Baby shaves, puts on formals, wear no fashionable accessories on the day when he has to meet to his project guide. It was like he’s going for interview. He returns frustrated with mouthful slangs for his guide and comes to me or to Uncle with a wish to go out to Harry’s for Medu Vada and fag. There we used to talk how worse our life was. Obviously we never knew.

Baby wrote a poem dedicated to his guide which compares his guide to Hitler.

Uncle, Lamboo and Flip-flop Phone: Ever since we came to a conclusion that Nihar’s flip flop mobile was stolen by Lamboo, we kind of started hating this guy. We blame him for anything and everything wrong happening in the universe. So we could make a conspiracy theory that far inside the Andromeda if some planet collides with massive asteroid which tore it apart, it was Lamboo who designed this disaster.

Uncle seemed to enjoy this information the most. He assumes that Lamboo, who had stolen the flip flop, knew that we knew about his hand in it and since he was acting innocent, he would not disagree any less than Uncle when he stares straight in his eye and talk about the possibility of another mobile phone theft.

Uncle used to do it like this. He would stand straight face-to-face to Lamboo. He would hold Lamboo’s both shoulders firmly, shake it vigorously as if waking him up then would make stable eye contact and start, “Abe sun, saale. Wing mein mobile phone chor hai, bahut choriyaan ho rehi hai. Tu bhi apna phone chhupaa ke rakh pataa nahi chor ki nazar tere mobile par ho.” (Keep your eyes wide open, no one knows whose mobile is next. The thief is still in the wing and active.)

B.U.F.Y. 3: Blue Pill - Red Pill

Baby, Uncle and the Fifth Year (B.U.F.Y.) Part 3: Blue Pill - Red Pill*
Link for Part 1, Part 2

Bike and Lamboo’s Curse: When Baby got bike, Uncle and I was sure that it is not like Baby got a bike but it more like 'Baby got a bike to maintain and Lamboo got the bike to ride'.

It was very much true until Lamboo got his own bike. So it was very surprising that whenever Lamboo asked for bike – no matter Baby gave him or not – something wrong had to happen with the bike.

If he would give the bike to Lamboo, Lamboo would accidentally accident it, and if he would not he would find a shock absorber malfunction, tire burst or a warning note by Prof. Sinha to take care of his bike.

We never knew whether these things were intentionally done by Lamboo or not but by seeing the pattern we called it ‘Lamboo’s Curse.’

Baby’s Gate Score: It was shiny golden star stamped beautifully printed on nice paper which was holding your photo saying this guy had cleared gate and was eligible for scholarship. A paper which you wouldn’t like fold (yep, it was better in quality and more authentic in appearance than fake looking original IIT Kgp’s Bachelor degree.).

We surrounded the postman when he came with gate score card, Baby was able to find his first. We started pressing him to show how it was. We never knew his folded psychology, seeing us wishing to see his card he folded it cruelly (the star must have wept!) forced push it inside the tight jeans pocket and ran to his room locked it from inside.

What was the thing he was trying so hard to hide!

Uncle’s Dilemma: Dilemma was to be happy because he was one of the only two students in whole Biotech department who were able to clear gate (Even Dilip Singh couldn’t) or to Requiem for being one of only two unfortunates (other one was Ravi Agarwal) of RK Hall who wouldn’t be getting scholarship even after clearing GATE until end of next two semesters. (That, too, was not clear whether they would get it.)

Uncle’s face expression was one of most watchable feature when someone asks regarding the fellowship. I can quote three-four varying answers (varying in sense) which uncle used to give depending on person and amount of knowledge that person had about Uncle’s case.

Throughout the year , this was a pain in Uncle’s ‘you know where.’

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* Blue Pill - Red Pill: Neo's Dilemma from The Matrix movie. Represents 'Uncle's Dilemma' theme for the post.

B.U.F.Y . 2: Baby, Uncle and Bike

B.U.F.Y: Baby Uncle and the Fifth Year Part 2

Link to Part1

Uncle’s Promise

Summer end, end of June. It was quite hot out. T came to Baby’s room to take them (Uncle and Baby) with him for lunch. Out of the blue, discussion about Bengali vs. non-Bengali started. (We start it almost every time when we find someone who can easily be irritated by the sensitivity of the topic. Bad we!) Discussion quickly took a form of serious altercation and soon it became more like a one on one challenge game.

T started shouting out his frustration, ‘Loda dikha! Loda Dikha!’ [Show your tool.]

Uncle, who was fully charged by the time, challenged back, ‘only if you’ll show your buns!’

‘OK!’

Uncle pulled his lower down even before T could finish his words.
Now, it was T’s turn, who was sensible enough to shout back and left the room.

Baby, who was only a viewer till now, suddenly came to life and realized something highly immoral, unethical, devilish and nasty event had just taken place in his room and that too in presence of gods (He was a theist). He started chanting ‘Are baap re!’ [Oh my God!]

He pushed Uncle out of the room, cleaned the room (Although they did not make anything dirty, it was Baby’s own feeling of insanitation). He put some scented stick, sprinkled holy water (Ganga Jal), asked for pardon from the gods and took a bath.

This incident gave Uncle a way to maul T whenever and wherever he used to see him. He enjoyed this for a long time.
(Based on description given by Uncle, Baby and T)

Baby, Bike and Uncle’s Fear

Actually the headline should be Baby and Bike, Uncle and Bike and Baby and Uncle. Anyway, here the story.

Baby (who did not have a girlfriend) got a bike so that whenever we miss Chhedi's, we can reach there in no time and effort (We did not go to the classes, anyway). But the big, twisted Q was: Baby did not know how to ride a bike. WTF!? Who was going to take this life threatening job to teach him? Uncle took the lead and within a couple of days, Baby was able to ride his bike with hiccups and few weeks later, smoothly.

Now, Baby started picking Uncle on his riding skills. He used to mimic Uncle. He used to make a posture as if he was riding bike and then shakes his hands (which were supposed to gripping bike’s handle) vigorously with his eyes wide open and concentrating as if riding at 120 miles/hour while (he shouts) actual speed was 20 kmph.

And the second point (I support it) that Baby used to make was that whenever a road turn comes, Uncle becomes queasy. Even if the bike inclines just 3 degrees from the vertical, Uncle grips the driver as tight as if he is going to plunge the flesh out of the rider’s body. He tries to push the driver in a way to make him vertical again.

Uncle had nothing to argue, he would just say, ‘I taught you bike riding!’

Baby, Uncle and the Final Year (BUFY): 1 Introduction

Baby, Uncle and the Final Year: Part 1 (BUFY 1: Introduction)
This story is divided into parts. This is part 1.

June started with Nema leaving the institute, and thus ending the list of closest friends that I have ever had in the campus. It was bizarre to realize that most of the closest friends of mine were in four year courses. I calculated how much aloof am I going to feel in next 10 months. Pretty Aloof – I thought.

I had these three aliens in my wing; each had its own way to alienate itself. Moving left to right in the order their dorms appear, first is Uncle. This guy remembers our first meeting like this (He acts it too.)

[Scene: 1st Year, Someday Dinner time, JCB Mess some discussion about fairness of SN Hall girls is going on. Surroundings are like Chappal Gang is beating one of its own members and relishing on their own foolish uniqueness]

Someone: (being skeptical) How come these SN girls are so ‘white’?

I: That is because they eat a lot of Safedi (Whitener / White substance).

That is all what he can remember of me!

Then the other guy: Lamboo. Lamboo was the least preferred acquaintance that I would ever like to have. Causes are many but one of best is perhaps his unique art to take you into trust and betray you. I really admire this skill. But this kind of skill you really like in yourself, not in your friends. On top of that, he was a kleptomaniac. I did not want to loose my music system.

And finally, this really friendly guy: Baby. Baby was way too friendly that he almost always becomes dependent on his friends. And they obviously exploit this nature to the extent they can.

It was unappealing to befriend the three. So I started my initiative of making friends elsewhere. I started making my places in already developed friend circles (these circles are like cult. Secluded with each other. A circle member talk within their circle. But I was an intruder anyway, so I select when to go to which circle). I was much involved with RP-CTW, Vixy’s Maggu group, Shubhang Band Party and Maths and compu junta.

But unlike any other, I enjoyed the new relationships with Uncle and Baby. I really miss each single moment with them – with all the stupidity and ups and downs. Here I would like to share a few of them.

These stories may contain sprinkle of foul language, but believe me, the description is dead without all those adjectives. I apologize in advance, if I happen to make anyone feel bad. It is not one of my intentions. All the characters are real.

This story would run in parts here are the bullets I have decided to write on.

Baby, Uncle and Bike
  Uncle’s Promise
  Baby, Bike and Uncle’s Fear

Blue Pill - Red Pill
  Bike and Lamboo’s curse
  Baby’s Gate Score
  Uncle’s Dilemma: GATE crossed but no scholarship

Brain Thief -- Phone Thief
  Baby and Guide’s Chaos
  Uncle, Lamboo and Flip-Flop phone

My Girl vs Your Girl
  Uncle and Girls vs Baby and Girls

Betrayal near Chhedi's
  Uncle and Tanul Mehta
  Gandi Maggi, Naale ka Kinara, Chhediz and the Cow before the Train

Deja-vu, Premonition and Eventuality
  Placement session and déjà-vu
  Jan 1st, James Bond, Nagina and Non-sense
  Tavant Drama

Secrets Unveiled
  Dharmu and My confession
  Bangalore dream and Supremo’s Extinction Plan
  Baby and Suku-Suku

Close Encounters of The Third Kind
  Uncle’s Bear Bottle Bottom-up
  Uncle, Baby, Kgp’s Psycho and all about ‘Indian Flag on Mars’

Ready to Fly, Ready to Fight
  Dhoti, Kurta and Bang-Bang
  Uncertain goodbye

The End?!
  Fuck you Tavant Technologies
  See you Kgp
  E for enjoy Electronic City