Disorientation days

"Room Number F-13, Tagore : Vikram Kumar, Diwakar Singh, Madhur Jain and Shubhankar Rai. Last boy doesnt get to have the bookshelf.", announced Chaubey, warden of First Year Hostel, as he handled me a key.
Not having a book shelf seemed to be a major deprivation in the undersized rooms of the hostel. That meant, my books would be lying all over the place. Little did I know then, that books are of little significance in the so called "teaching" of MNNIT.
The rooms were so small that after 4 beds, 4 cupboards and 3 bookshelfs, there was hardly any walking space for the occupants. My bedroom at my home seemed to be posh hotel suite as compared to this. The room had shabby walls where our seniors had scribbled their names, as room fathers and unoriginal quotes like "99% of the gals are beautiful, the rest 1% are in my college" were present, clearly expecting honour and reverence for it.

" Hi guys .. I am Shubhankar.. from Baroda.. Gujarat.. Computer Science and your fourth room mate?..You must be Diwakar..?" I said as I looked towards a nerdy looking guy who was neatly arranging his bed.
There is a thing with the names of guys, u can virtually guess the personality of a person by his name. Rahul, or for that matter, Raj, named guys are extremely popular with girls, and are mostly never single. Vivek are mostly very intelligent and generally toppers. Ashishs are loafers with a big gang of friends. Diwakar seemed to be a very nerdy name.

" Hi.. Ya .. I am Diwakar.. I am from Bareilly.. Electrical engg." Bingo ! I was good at it.

"Bareilly.. nice place ... nice meeting you.. where are the other two? Vikram and Madhur?"

" Ohh they have gone to the canteen to have a cup of tea... Lets join them... I was just arranging stuff so couldnt go.. but I am done now."

First Year's First Day

24th July 2004

"Yahan se seedhe chale jao.. left meh sulabh sochalaya aayega..uske saamne MNR ka main gate hai.." told the listless rickshawwala as I moved to the place where I would be "sweating out" with the best brains in the country. I had cleared the entrance exam with quite a good rank helping me get into NIT Allahabad. I had many other options too, but they were in the southern part of the country, which I had rejected because of the scarcity of good chicks and good north indian food there. The concept of college has a very rosy picture in most new entrants - lots of chicks, bikes and no studies at all. Perhaps, this was a reason I didn't want to give the "just-for-geeks" IIT entrance another shot. I have no idea about the origin of this school of thought but perhaps the good old bollywood movies of 90s propagated it most.

I reached the college and it seemed dead to say the least- No bikes, no chicks and geeks all around. The Panditji canteen, as the crumbling board called it, seemed to have been long abandoned by everyone with only the birds interested in sitting there alongwith a few old babus who were sipping in the morning chai. I wondered that maybe the cool guys hanged out at sum other side of the campus. I was guided to Tagore hostel where our registration was to be held. The place seemed crowded with hordes of anxious faces. I looked and found a long queue with confused moustached uncles in it.

I went up to one of them and asked "Hi Sir, Where is the queue for the BTech admission? "

"This is it" he replied in the least interested tone.

I had presumed it was the Mtechs queue seeing the people standing but I guessed perhaps he was one of the parents who had come for his son's admission. He wore filthy rubber slippers with a loose shirt and outdated pants.

" Ohh hi uncle.. this is Shubhankar..from Baroda.. Gujarat.. I have come here for B Tech admission in Computer Science and Engg... What about you? You are here to register for someone ? "

"Hi.. I am Chandrashekhar.. from Chennai...n even I have come for my admission in B Tech Computer Science and Engg. "

Clearly, not the best first conversation with sumone. I left the place immediately and after a while, turned back to see him. He still was giving me that stern look, I acted to look somewhere else and engaged my dad in a conversation.

I felt bad as I knew I was going to be a misfit in this place. Most of the guys had dropped years to slog out and get into the college and I was just a fresher. They must be knowing so much more than me and would be so intelligent, some may even have IIT seats as back up and preferred NIT Allahabad in greed of a better branch, I wondered. I, meanwhile, was a mortal who barely got through IIT screening only to be slaughtered by the Mains paper and I thought I was very lucky to get into this college by clearing the exam for NITs. I would be dumb as compared to these guys and would be an outcast as there would be noone of my "age group". I got registered and left the place with my dad to stay at my relatives for the night. I couldnt sleep that night wondering what was to follow from the next day . My life was about to change and the start surely had not been good. All the images of hot girls and bikes in colleges seemed to be fading away.

PRELUDE

4th March 2006

I had been waiting for this day since eternity. I woke up to her sweet voice on the gtalk call. I had spent the last few months doing just that - talking to Tamanna on gtalk calls all night. I simply loved the idea. It helped me make up for the time she wasnt around me. Her hostel had set a restriction upto 8.30 p.m. for all the girls in the college. That meant, I could be with her only uptil 8.25 after which I talked to her on the phone on my dash back to my hostel so that the gtalk call could begin immediately. We studied together, dined together and slept together. I truly loved her and nothing mattered to me more.

I put aside my CREATIVE headfones gifted by Tamanna, and immediately lighted a Marlboro. Gtalk was a revolution for me, it saved me from spending extravagantly on my telephone bills and hence I could afford a pack of Marlboro now. Meanwhile, being with a gal was a status symbol in college so I realized I shouldnt smoke what 'any other MNNITian' was having - gold flake or a navy cut. It just added to my respect in college. Having a marlboro pack also helped me go one up on Andy. No longer I had to beg him from late night suttas and also, people preferred asking me for a Marlboro rather than asking andy for a classic (he never ran out of stock or money thanks to his filthy rich family) . I certainly obliged, which earned me more brownie points. Andy had been my antagonist ever since he once tried to hit on Tamanna and later, passed on some deregatory remarks about her when she refused to go out with him. Although we were part of the same group, I couldnt see eye to eye with him.

I set off from my hostel for college and joined Vikram, Harish and Parth on the way. Vikram and Parth were frantically discussing the quake match with the final years they had lost on the previous night. "Yaar tum sale q-zone pe cover dene aate nai ho.. jhande pe baithhe rehte ho.. Wo saala gajodhar flag kar jaata hai.. sirf cover ki wajah se.." pointed out Vikram aka Shaggy is his typical frustated tone. " Meh hamesha aata tha but tumhe chulli rehte hai jaldi bahar nikalne aane ki.." retaliated Parth aka DEAD_MAN, referred to DEAD by most. Quake was what we were in college for... to the extent that people in college knew us by our quake names. I used to play but i had almost quit playing because I found gtalk calls with Tamanna to be a better usage of time than fragging my friends for pleasure on a computer screen. Harish, meanwhile, didnt play quake then, because he regarded socializing in real life as more important. He could drop at anyone's room at the oddest of hours and bug them with his boring stories of Kuwait.
He kept quiet all this while and approached me for a conversation.
"Hey man, heard the latest single from Korn? They say its the most expensive video ever !" said Harish as he took another puff from the Classic, which clearly he had got from Andy.

Harish and I shared a lotta interests. For one, we belonged to the few in the college who believed English music wasnt just about Linkin Park or Backstreet Boys. We were the few who dared to listen to the Slipknots, the Megadths and the Metallicas in the sleepy town of Allahabad. Apart from that, I think booze and cigerettes are perhaps the best catalysts for friendship.

Meanwhile I was still day dreaming about Tamanna - her sweet giggles, her innocent talks and beautiful voice.
" Dude.. I think I m gonna marry her ! " I said in a totally lost tone.