Thursday, August 18, 2011

A-B-C(Part 2)

If haven't read Part 1 already, you can find it here.

Gossip: "Guess what X and Y are going out!", "What!?! They were canoodling outside the library?", "And then she puked all over your room? Gross!"...and many more! Who doesn't love mindless ramblings of no importance at all? They were exchanged in hushed whispers in the class and they always began with "Oh my god...I have to tell you something. But swear that you won't tell ANYONE!". After 2-3 days, you were sure to hear the same item from another friend!

P.S.: It's a misconception that only girls gossip. Guys do it too.


Hostel Life: Hostel was what made college infinitely better. Every room, corridor, terrace had a story to tell.
-> Late night chats on the stairs
-> Walking in the corridor and talking to every single person on the way till you remember that the tingling feeling is actually an indicator that you wanted to go to the bathroom an hour back
-> Telling ghost stories during power cuts and stifling a scream at the sight of a basketball on top of the cupboard(it looked like a cut-off head, okay!)
-> A cappella performances in the bathroom at 8:15 A.M. even though class begins at 8:30 A.M.
-> Locking yourself in while having Maggi so that no one smells the aroma
-> Reserving bathrooms by leaving a minuscule soap
And, last but not the least, stupid politics. Ah it was fun while it lasted and I still miss it :)


Icy(Ice-cream parlour): Kadalai and Gujaals place! Basically, major flirting used to take place there. There have been many incidents where I'd forget all about the chocolate ice-cream slowly inching its way down the cone just to fall on my sparkly white dress. Why? Because, I'd be staring(shamelessly, I admit) at the couple on the corner sharing one ice-cream. And they won't have spoons. Can it get more interesting than that?

P.S.: Yes, I am cheap.

P.P.S.: I came to know in my pre-final year that our Icy was actually called Mt. Zion!


Juicy: Yes I miss Juicy. I had my first taste of ragging there. I skipped meals to have juice there. We knew the prices by heart and the lady at the place(fondly christened "Juicy akka") knew our orders by heart! Easy on the pocket and the exact opposite on the stomach, this was the hangout for people frustrated from classes. We learnt a lot from this place. For example, tyres apart from being used in vehicles, can also be used to carry ice. And, never stand under the tube light, unless you want little black insects to have a swimming race in your juice. And, never listen to the little boy at the Juicy. He is one sly guy and he will do anything to sell you a juice.


Kaycees: Sometime during our third year, we came to know about Kaycees. It was 30 minutes away from our college. They had decent food. They had amazing juices. I know it doesn't sound very awesome. But here comes their selling point. They had beanbags! Beanbags, you guys! Do you know how rare those are in Trichy? What about Beanbags in an Air-Conditioned room? Kaycees FTW! Although I never got to sit in them because another NIT group would always be there. Always.

P.S.: Their french fries are the best in the world(even better than McDonalds'). Just ignore the flies fried with the fries(Hey, tongue twister!).


Library: Our uses for the library deteriorated and degraded with each passing year. In my first year(first semester rather), I used to go there to study. But I'd sleep off. So I took S along once. That was a disaster. We spotted this guy staring at us, so we gave him a horrendous time by staring back, pointing and laughing, making fun of his electric blue pants, etc. Good news: we stayed awake the whole time. Bad news: Turned out EBP(or Electric Blue Pants) was the lab guide for us that entire semester.
After that disaster we never went to the library. Slowly, the library became lonely but it was frequented by the not-so-lonely. Now, that library has morphed into IIM Trichy. A new library that looks like a cross between a temple and a castle came up right across the old one. But it just doesn't have the charm(read dimly lit areas) to pull in a crowd.

Part 3 is here!

A-B-C(Part 1)

I am a sentimental person. I get attached to things/people/places. So it surprised me that when we were leaving college, I cried for a grand total of 10 minutes. That is it. A guy later on told me that his friends and he had cried for 2 hours! And I thought to myself: Am I not sentimental about college? About my friends? About my experiences...that I could not cry for more than 10 minutes about them? Let me add here that I know crying isn't the definitive sign of sadness/sentimentality. But the thing is apart from those 10 minutes, I did not for a minute think about/reflect back upon my life in college. Till now that is. So I have decided to compile from A-Z the things I miss about not only NIT, but also the beautiful(I realize it now) city it was located in, Trichy.

Anna/Akka: Those were the magic words. You prefix or suffix them to any sentence and lo behold! Your word will be their command! So accustomed we all were to this word that when I went to Bombay once and I called an auto rickshaw driver Anna he responded with a spiteful "Anna hoga tera baap!"(Your father must be the big brother)...sorry, the meaning is really lost in translation!

Birthdays: Birthdays were celebrated in Opal(the girls' hostel) in a grand fashion. The friends of the birthday girl would go around the hostel inviting everyone to the terrace/stage. Cake would be stored in a room where the birthday girl would never venture. Once the clock strikes 12, cake would be transported hurriedly, matches would be begged for to light the candles, and the birthday girl would be lured to the venue using a phony excuse(In most cases, she WILL know about the party). The strength of the crowd at the celebration depends on the cake. Chocolate Truffle attracts everyone! And of course, once the cake cutting is done, if any cake is left, face-beautifying and hair-nourishing happens. Let's not forget the bumps as well. Close to 12 :30, one can see the birthday girl rushing to take a bath complaining about how she had washed her hair just that morning. With a smile on her face of course!

Class: I miss class. A lot. I miss walking in late to class. I miss sitting in class and passing chits. I miss pretending to take notes in class when the professor looks in my direction. I miss talking away to glory. I miss getting caught by the professor and back answering thus forcing said person to unceremoniously kick me out of class. I miss walking out of class, almost with a slight arrogance, after being kicked out. I miss slipping out of class(conspicuously I may add) when the professor enters. I miss concentrating and actually taking notes(spectacular ones I may add :P) in the very few classes where I actually respect and enjoy the professor's teachings.

Dhaba: The saviour! Bamboos was our(R's and my) favourite. We never experimented. Our order was always the same: 1 Gobi 65(copious amounts of Gobi fried to a crisp), Malai Kofta(spicy with real vegetables...not just stalks and stems and leaves like in the mess) and 8 parottas. With another clique, I used to go to D3. That was where I discovered the joy of kalakki(a messy egg preparation), aloo fry(the desi french fries!) and 90(a delightful concoction of Miranda, Pepsi and Mountain Dew along with some lime juice served in dirty glasses). And of course, the one and only time I went to Sam Fox and had two delightful dosas(the specialty) and chutney laced with insects thanks to the tube light right above our heads. Ah fun times!

Exams: I know it's a weird thing to miss but I miss it nonetheless! I never really prepared for them well unless I liked the subject/professor. I would fool around the entire day spending time making timetables to study. They would change every hour owing to me watching episode after episode of some sitcom. Let's put it this way - people came to me to feel better about how much they had studied. I will always be the last person to come in and the first person to go out of the exam hall. And my scale for grading my performance was "Two digit, good. One digit, bad."! I somehow got out of that with a degree...so yay me!

Friends: An indispensable addition to the list. I made so many friends. I can say proudly that I belonged to many cliques. There was of course R-my closest friend ever, a work of art like me. Another R who I loved and enjoyed with. And there was R, who is the complete opposite of me. I am surprised and I feel blessed to be her close friend! There was S and R who I became friends with later on. I became extremely close to S, who surprisingly was like a twin. And there was A, A, A, K and S. And there was crazy S and M(Haha sounds bad I know :D). Amazing friends and amazing moments with all of them...deep conversations about life, confessions after "parties", laughing for no reason at all, dissection of characters, friendly banter, heated arguments, silent treatments, reconciliations, movie nights, food weekends...the list goes on!

Since this post is going to be a long long one, I will come up with a Part 2 and Part 3 soon :)

Note: Part 2 and Part 3 is here!

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Why I Love My Bag

Most of you already know how I have the worst experiences when it comes to travel. I have come across some messed up shit. Like this one time, I was trying to complete an assignment in the train. And this guy sleeping on the upper berth(I was on the lower berth) climbed down and sat on my berth. He started an intensive Q & A regarding Computer Science and all its wondrous sub-areas. He also threw in bonus information regarding his God-levelness in Networking and how even though I was an NITT-ian, I would never...(pause for effect)...ever be as good as him. After an hour he asked me if I would get up early to wake him up. I snorted. He got the point. He left. And he woke me up to say bye. Puke!

I have many more murky travel-related stories. And in all of them, all I do is stare really intensely at the person irritating me hoping against hope that the person gets the point. They usually do leave me alone once my one-word responses regress to curt nods. I recently came across an exception. Last weekend, I flew to Bombay. And I had an experience I can never forget.

I opted for an aisle seat as always. And sitting next to me was an extremely dirty "gawaar" guy. He looked like an Orkutiya...need I say more? And here's the kicker...his elbow was permanently in contact with my hand. Being a gawaar, he just could not grasp the fact that I wanted him to move his hand even though I kept adjusting my bag, and in the process, pushing away his hand. After about 20 minutes of relentless adjusting, I decided to just tell him to move. And for a minute there, he did.

I was so proud of myself. I was a daring female of the 21st century. I spoke my mind. Bollywood will make movies on me. I was...oh wait...his elbow was kneading my hand again. I had two options:

A. I could tell him to move his hand again.
B. I could just bear with it for another hour or so.

Being the fearless female that I am, I decided to go with option A. Sadly, option A was always followed by a minute of respite and then aforementioned hand kneading activity. This continued for a while and then finally the pilot (bless him) announced that the plane was going to land. However, my happiness was short lived as epic What-the-fuck-ness was about to ensue. The gawaar taps me on the hand and asks me if he can lean on my shoulder and sleep. I mustered the most disgusted expression I could, channeling the smell of good-curd-gone-bad, and said "Obviously Not!".

And then he actually leaned on my shoulder disregarding my response(and in addition grabbed my knee while landing). What happened next isn't an exaggeration or an imaginary event. In a split second, I grabbed my bag and beat the man. Not once, not twice, but eight times.

As soon as the plane landed I got up and ran to the flight attendant(who was quite cute by the way :P) who stood with me till the gawaar deplaned. And after my conversation with the flight attendant, I realized that I should have actually picked secret option C - Stop being a fearless female and just complain to the flight attendant. Bah.