A day to remember

Indeed, today was one day I would remember for a very long time to come. Before my friends just go too ahead and think that it was they who made the day special... hmmm... I must be honest here and say that the unforgettable moment occured at sometime between 1 and 1.30 in the afternoon. [:D]

9.00-10.30 a.m. - After a very long night spent on reading a novel and burning the laptop's charge (alright, it was just my weak attempt at a paradox for midnight oil [:P]) I went to sleep very late (by home standards) the previous night and hence woke up at 9! Just as I wake up I receive a message from MG ( as usual, our jokes and 'fun' and all the innocent souls who we planned to annihilate today. I must say that we wake up each day thinking as to who the unlucky martyr for the day would be!) and the reason for that particular message was to check whether her free message offer still existed, considering I am the one who takes note of all this for her [:D]. Unfortuantely not, and I knew that I would have a very dry day today without all our joint expert opinions and polls and what not. I woke up and as I was just getting out of the house, appa calls me and asks me to do some paper work which I promptly finish and leave for a chore that he asked me to do before I left. I come back to realize that he had come back from office and was waiting for me and his little paper work. Then just as appa was getting into his car I ask him for cash for the lunch today and I asked for 100 because I had loads with me anyway. And he gave me 200. LOL... And that is my appa. Then I take my scooty and started leaving right behind him just to see the driver uncle waiting for me and appa calls from inside and says, " Varsha, wear your helmet and drive carefully sweet heart. Or you can come now in the car and have it for the day." for which I go like, " Appa, it is ok (I did not want to trouble the poor driver uncle considering how weird my friends' plans could be) and the helmet is broken. I meant the front glass is and that was the only reason for me to wear the helmet. Get me a shades and I will wear the helmet then [:P]". Appa said, " Next time darling". [:)] .And then I drive all the way to kowdiar and realize that my sweet lil friends had taken a detour and asked me to come to zoo. On calling they said they were just on their way. So i drove half the way back and returned back to museum. After all there is no point in me staying put at the zoo till they come!

11.00-12.45 p.m. - Even after I did all the driving around town I ended up in museum before them and I had to wait for them though I constantly pestered them with my incessant messaging about making me wait! After all this fighting we entered the zoo and I was not spared or rather the monkeys were not. Poor creatures I must say. Let me just say, we are descendants or rather We are family or in my friends words (who all had serious claims to the title of Mojo Jojo) I was family! I guess my friends were not tired of the zillion photos they had taken of me with the monkeys the last time we went. Not only the monkeys, ranging from the King Cobra to the Painted Stork to the Hippo, no animals were spared. And at the end of the trip all that my friends could say was NIT had made me very logical (it was just a dig at all my jokes or should I say jokes on me?!) From the beginning of the tour till the end, all that VS could say was 'I'm sleepy' or 'I want to eat'. And since we had not yet decided where to have lunch from, we finally decided on Sindoor Palace, our home as usual. And with every passing 15 minutes each and everyone was getting hungry. I finally got fed up of all the grumbling about food and we called it a day at the zoo. Though I must say that I never really wanted to go to the zoo because I had already seen all the animals in front of the zoo as they were entering:my friends! [:D]

1.00-1.30 p.m. - As usual, everyone takes turn on my scooty and this time VS was lucky or rather unlucky to be sitting behind me. I drove from zoo to sindoor and I noticed a police jeep in front of the restaurant. As I was about to take the turn into the restaurant, the police asked me to park and to go along with him. And it was then that I realized that I was being caught for driving without a helmet. LOL. It was a first-time experience and all I wanted to do was burst out laughing. I was struggling to keep a straight face. The police inspector asked me for all the documents and God bless my mom for having kept all that properly in the scooty. And as my other friends came behind me, they got confused; they could see the police and thought it was something serious but on seeing my face they thought I was laughing over some joke! Well, I must say that this police inspector was one big MLA or in other words a despan. After checking all my documents all he had to say was, "First impressionil viduva. Fine onnum adakenda. :)" . I just turned around and did :P and all my friends just burst out laughing. Oh my God, it was very hilarious. Starting from the very first minute till he finished liteally studying the documents I was just hoping that he does not question me as to why I was laughing or rather take a dig at my feeble attempts to control it. And the funniest thing was, I then wore the helmet from the entrance of the restaurant to the parking lot inspite of him saying no need. It was just that I could not help playing a joke on him there and I guess he also did understand this because it was very evident. Anyway, because of all this my friends had a mighty good laugh. And thus today proves to be the first time I was caught driving without a helmet and hence will remain precious for a pretty long time!

1.30-2.30 p.m. - After all that walking in the zoo, sindoor had to feed 7 hungry girls who almost brought the whole place down talking and chattering.

2.30-4.00 p.m. - We spent the rest of the afternoon in the comfy settings of CCD. All of us just crashed into CCD and chatted and chatted and chatted. After everyone almost came up-to-date with everyone else's lives and after we had one of the best ice creams we have had for a very long time we dispersed the area before anyone could throw us out. [:D]

Then as usual I dropped one of my friends back home, the person keeps on changing every time though. And then after a very joyous and eventful day I entered home late in the evening much to the annoyance of my grandmom who wanted me to spend the day with her. But as I always say, 'There is nothing that a kiss cant heal' and thus a peck on her cheek was enough for her to forgive me though I had to promise to spend the next day with her much to the delight of both of us. As usual, I ended up chatting with MG (or Anju on other days) till late in the night.Thus as the night dawns and I yawn, I regret that the day has gone. (yes MG, I understand, it is a very poor two-liner [:P] )

Courtesy for the day- All the places that would have kicked us out if we had not emptied the area in the next 5 minutes, Moni, Pri, Deepz, Achu, Jani, VS, MG (and all the innocent souls who were subjected to our comments today[;)]),Anju and most importantly the anonymous Mr.Police. [:D]

Study Time

Study time in room 209 was always one to remember. I was presumed to be the acting teacher and then there were my roomies who sat through my hilariously confusing conceptual lectures. Be it mechanics, physics or maths (though in s2 I had one of the most awesome teachers of all times who was confused herself) I slithered my way through all that.

These sessions were informative like in physics I sat thinking about the various annels of quantum mechanics and finally ended up saying, "Hell, why are we even bothered about the dates. One person ends up finding something and another person comes along half a century later to disprove it and we as engineers are bothered about that. Why cant we just learn the right thing?! And beware you all, if you all grow up and find something that my nieces and nephews have to worry about, I'll come over and kill you all!!!".

Mechanics, on the other hand, was fun. Let me just say that it was a subject i loved. And I still remember that fateful day before s2 endsem when all of us were huddled together trying to get a grasp of every little concept. By afternoon, when I was mentally tired, of having to use my brains once in a while like this, my caring and loving roomies forbade me from 'taking a nap'. Well, had I been in their spot I would have done the same thing considering the fact that waking me up for studies can be more difficult than studying itself! While my roomies happily took turns taking naps I sat there pleading to the rest of them for a 5 minute siesta, but to no avail.

There were countless other subjects. Oh I almost forgot electrical. It was funny how in s1 I had electronics and I ended up teaching my roomies all the network theorems in s1 without learning it myself and initially my friends were gulping at how I knew all that and all I had to tell them was 12th standard physics or more specifically AO sir.

Anyway after s2 when all of us entered our different branches we also put an end to our small but fun-filled study group. And just as I thought that those days wont come back ever again I had a very surprising end sem. Maths still remained to be a common subject and me and anju ended up doing combined studies for that. Statistics and distribution were the topics and I still remember how we studied all that formulae. There was regression with me almost getting aggressive with that topic and finally how aggressively we had to regreesively fit those curves! All those Latin dance forms seemed better than Latin squares. Once we think we are done with two proportions we come across several proportions and in the end i felt like tearing up the notes into several proportions. And now even thinking about all that I am in splits.

Even during this time we had all the fun possible. This end sem was no different. There have been times when we used to play antakshari 2 hours before the exam or comment on jokes from malayalam movies, the most recent ones involved Punjabi House and Akkare Akkare. And our solution to excessive-studies-boredom was a dj session which ended up in robl (rolling on bed laughing)!

Now my combined studies involve MG and those sessions last barely 5 minutes before I end up sleeping. MG then packs everything and returns to her room fearing induction of this epidemic of sleeping! I can't blame her seeing how me and anju end up sleeping most of the time. Though we try taking turns sleeping and waking each other up all these efforts turn futile in the end.

Whatever it is, all that I can say is this combined-study or not-so-combined-study sessions are the only times I enjoy during exam and also my incentive after the exam- sleep...

19th Birthday Bash

15 October, 1991 - the day when this little brat let out its first cry and let the universe know that she had entered this world after all. I must say that I was born on Durgashtami (mallus would definitely know of this auspicious day especially thanks to the movie Manichitratazhu) and that made it all the more special for my family members as I did prove too hot to handle!

And now 19 years after that, my family has still not found the perfect solution to contain this little devil. This 19th birthday of mine proved pretty good for me, rather I must specify that it was good till 2 pm in the afternoon! Friends and family alike made it all the more special and God alone knows what all preparations went into this birthday bash of mine. First and foremost let me start of by saying a big thanks to all the my near and dear ones for making the day extra special (though I did spoil some of the surprises, sorry [:)]). A big umma to all my roomies, extended roomies and my family!!!

14 October,2010- I had my LD lab in the afternoon and it ended pretty fast and so me and MG (Marilyn) met in front of the MB and started walking back, describing all our lab events and commenting on it not even sparing a single moment. Then both of us headed straight to our mess (this month MG ending up in the veg mess for a change) for tea or rather some more evening gossip. While we were sitting there and chatting, I see anju and akhi enter the mess with a big bag in their hand. I saw them animatedly talking to the mess chechi and I knew the reason! MG suddenly sees anju.

MG: "Anju's not in this mess. Is she?"

Me: "No man. She came to keep the cake in the fridge here [:)]"

MG: "What caaakkk....... Oh shit... Anju..."

She ran to anju's side and explained to her that I knew of everything. It was worth seeing anju's face. ROFL. She ignored me and with that million dollar expression of hers, she ran out of the mess. Akhi, in the meantime, tried to change the topic but she herself could not help laughing at how embarrassing a situation they had created for themselves.

I came back to the room to find anju hiding behind a book and trying really hard to not look at me. And out of nowhere both of us just burst out laughing. MG entered the room and then I was trying to calm anju down saying that the surprise was just broken earlier and when anju left the room, I kept on making fun of them saying that I needed to practice that surprised Miss World expression for that night when I had to cut the cake. " No thanks... If you do something that idiotic, you wait and watch.. ", MG said.

At around 6 pm, anju gets a call in her mobile. She sees the number and says, "Varsha, Varun achachan is calling". I checked my mobile and seeing no call in mine I told her to answerr her call. She answers it and gives her mobile to me and all I had to say was, "Its for you. You talk to him [;)]". Then it strikes her. She runs out of the room with the mobile. MG, sudhi and nids enter the room then just to see me lying head down on my table and laughing.

All: "What happened?"

Me: " Varun is planning a surprise for my birthday with anju and I just got to know of it."

All: "OMG..."

MG (running out of the room) : "Anju forget it. She knows it."

And after all the conversation outside my room, they enter to see me grinning widely.

MG: "For all the pain and trouble you have caused us, we are surely giving you a special GPL tonight.'" And the expression in everyone's face said that clearly.

The truth was I was feeling pretty bad that I had poured water over all their plans. But it was so hilarious to see all of their faces when they were caught red-handed.

At around 7, everyone disappears from the room and I realized that all of them had gone to meet Varun outside the LH gate. I just look out my window and I see two familiar figures on the walkway behind the BB court. And suddenly anju screams, "She saw us." That was it. I had reached the zenith of controlling my laughter and I just burst out laughing. In 5 minutes, the entire 911 gang was in the room. Their vicious expressions said it all. With much venom in their voice they made it clear that the night was one I would never forget thanks to all the kicks I would get!

I promised myself that I would not spoil any more fun and I swore that I would atleast act as if I knew nothing (though later I realized that I did not know most of the things), after all I was a dancer. I got ready to take a shower and as planned earlier by my friends I was to wear a party top for the celebration. On seeing the top they went like, "ohho.....ooooo." And when I said the 4-digit price tag of the top, all that MG could say was, " For that piece of GLASS??!!!!"

I took a shower and only later did my friends realize that it was to escape all the cake facials that I otherwise might be subjected to. But my friends have always maintained that there are better uses of the cake for the stomach than for the face! My friends on seeing me in the new and hmm (other adjectives) top, passed various comments the MOST DECENT one being, "Hmmm... This is a Ladies Hostel.. No point!" [:O]

At 11.30 (after 2 hours of everyone missing from the room) , MG enters the room and closes my eyes and leads me outside for the apparent surprise birthday bash with the cake I had seen earlier in the day. I must say it was a sweet celebration with all my friends there and we did have a lot of fun!

Returning back to the room, I told anju that I was going to take a power nap for 20 minutes and that I had to wake up and study for my exam scheduled for the next day. MG and anju, meanwhile were perched on anju's bed and gossipping about me and since even after my persistant questioning they had no plans of revealing it to me, I just dozed off.

In the middle of the night I hear another birthday song and it came from pretty close by. When I opened my eyes, I saw that all of 911 were standing there with a nicely lit cake in the dark room.

Me: "OMG. You guys are crazy. How many cakes man?!"

All: "Its from Varun achachan."

After the song, I blew off the candles and cut the cake. This cake was exclusively for the 10 of us! And while all this was going on, anju hands me another big bag and I open that to realize that there were two BIG packs of Celebrations and some comparatively smaller Temptations packs inside it. That was my birthday present from Varun. That made up for lunch and dinner for 2 days for the 10 of us!

Then came the funnier parts. My birthday presents from my friends.

1) Prank message- I get a message from one of my friends and apart from the birthday wishes there was something pretty weird to the entire message and later I realized that it was a prank from MG and anju! The video they took of this entire exchange was pretty hilarious and there are time even now that me and anju sit and laugh over it!

2) Bag - My college bag tore on my way to college and I had to make do with the new bag that my parents got me as a gift and I did not want to spoil it by taking it to college. My friends knew of that and they got me a sweet bag as my present. And till today I have been flaunting that bag of mine!

3) Card - This was the most enjoyable gift of all and I keep on telling them that. My friends were keeping on pestering me to open the bag and finally when I did, I found this huge card in it. I take it out to the incessant coughing from all my friends. I see the cover of the card filled entirely with one alphabet (an alphabet that comes in the first 13 alphabets of the English language, and nothing more will come out of this mouth of mine) and I just kept my mouth shut.

MG: "Hows the design? [;)]"

Me: " Thank you my dear. I can see your art work clearly in here especially the alphabet. I refuse to comment on the design of the card. *weird smile*"

MG: " That is not fair! We would not have done that to you had you not spoiled all our surprises. This is our sweet revenge. Hey, did you see all that little hearts next to the alphabet and to some 'key phrases?*wicked smile*."

Me: " I did see all the hearts and alphabets and all the coded things in there. And I am just going to keep my mouth shut." I knew that they were waiting for me to comment on all that and I was not going to play into their trap!

Anju: " Now that is how we add some 'personal' touch to the entire thing. [;)] " *hi5 between anju and MG*

Me: " I see all the 'personal' touch that you people have given it. Do you realize that I can't take it back home and show it to amma?! (But now considering the fact that even amma pulls my leg quite often taking it back home is not going to be an issue as I have already told amma the entire story) .The only person I can show it to is to Varun thanks to all your artwork with that one alphabet and the code-name in that!!! I made up the code-name, how can I not recognize it, you fool?!!!"

Anju: " Didn't we just make your day thanks to the card? [;)]"

Me: "No comments. All that I can say is that this definitely was 'one hard kick'!"

Apart from all that there were personal little mails from all of them behind the card and each and every letter was so cute that I actually could not stop laughing. Anju made sure that even that letter from her was not spared of the alphabet! After all this is the opportunity she got to make up for the earlier embarrassing moments!

After all the fun we could possibly have, mostly fun at making fun of me and more leg-pulling, all of us dispersed at 2 in the night and somehow me and MG could not even think of our supposed exam the next day!

The day went off well and then came the dreaded afternoon when I sat down to write my exams. The exams went so terribly bad that I came back and cried for the first time in my life over an exam. And all that Varun had to say was, " Ok. Maybe you won't get a 30 on 30. Please for God's sakes be satisfied with a 29 [:P] and stop worrying the rest of us. This is the problem when you get so used to extremely good marks. Welcome to engineering, my little sister!"

Apart from that exam of mine, it was an awesome day, well spent with friends and family and I must say that the 'surprises' were indeed amazing. Though the card caught me unawares (as I was pretty sure that my friends would not pull my leg on my birthday card) they made sure that I was embarrassed like anything on that card, the birthday was one Great Day!!!

Life in a Girls' School

I have done my schooling in Holy Angels' ISC School which is a girls-only school, the main reason for this post of mine. Well let me make this very clear, this post is not meant as a chauvinistic one or some sort of girl-power post but instead a frank account of a free spirit who enjoyed life within the four walls of that prestigious institution.

First of all the reason why I am writing this post is, in the last month or so when we friends chatted about our school, my roomie also being from a girls-only, I realized that the fun I had in my school knew no bounds, partly because of the above-mentioned reason. For everyone it was a different emotion, a different recollection-of-sorts, a different reminiscence, a different environment, a different life all together. After everyone had dispersed, I still sat in thoughts of my school and that is when i made a mental note that one day, some day, I would write on it.

I seriously have no clue where to start. I still remember the first day when amma left me at my school, my first ever assembly, my first ever teacher, my first ever friends, my uniform. Now that was something I was very proud of, our uniforms. It was a checkered knee-length skirt and a white shirt with a tie and thus we got ourselves a chic look. If I start talking about all that then I would just never stop. But I will never forget these special things in my life. What brought out the naughty people in all of us would be our 11th and 12th standards and everyone in my batch would agree to that. I mean the levels of insanity that our classrooms have seen in our year are inexplicable. Coming to the 11th, the penultimate senior year and the year when all the chains are broken loose and hell is released, when all the quiet, sweet and innocent awaken the devils and monsters lurking within them. Don't get me wrong here. It is just that the freedom one enjoys on reaching that year is quite enigmatic as it is that one year when you get to enjoy after your 10th boards and before 12th boards. So the students just utilize it to their advantage.

We had a rousing reception into our 11th and some Fresher's Day fun (organized by our seniors to just get some practice of ragging) we all settled into our classrooms knowing very well that come June, July and August we had be lined up with events after events. Our very first one was school elections. One fine recess our new Principal enters our classroom followed by some of our senior teachers and announce that we had to vote for our school representatives. Well it was all a joke then! Finally the results and posts of the elections were out (after meetings with seniors and juniors and teachers and God knows who all, the results were finally decided) and I was the Assistant Head Girl. Thus started my tenure as the AHG and as the Head Girl, the next year. And then in between all that started practice for the famous LaFest. Well let me just put it this way- it was just pure hysteria as far as some of the people were considered , after all this is the most prestigious inter-school event in Trivandrum. Well there were others but LaFest always enjoyed that supreme spot. All inter-school fests were enjoyable in its own sense and was different in some way when you were the team captain. I must say that the nervousness does get onto me during results time but after a few results we become pretty sure of our standings and I must say that we sweept LaFest in our 12th and lifted the trophy for one last time! And thus the rumors started- the all boys school would definitely have a soft spot for us and it was a known thing that we would finally win LaFest. But all that I had to say was, " Guys please check out the points table! The huge gap would in itself answer all that!". In school though, none of us thought twice before speaking. The endless conversations and teasing our corridors had been a witness to with bf's names being called and what not! Even our teachers did not stay back, "How are your guys in other schools? You would have seen them in tuitions yesterday right? So what are they saying?", and then would start a lively discussion on some of the tuition classes with expert opinions from our teachers too.

In between all this I was busy concentrating on my coaching classes. There were 7 of us who used to attend MathIIT from our school and that in itself earned us a lot of names like 'zombies', 'bujis' and much more (refer http://jani91.blogspot.com/2009/08/life-of-iit-aspirant.html for more details) and when ever we heard that we used to just fume thinking of our performances there and if at anytime one of us voiced it out and i seconded that opinion I would dig my own grave and the pastor leading the entire group would be VS starting off with, "Varsaji, you shut up. You don't have any right to speak about performances." But in between all this we used to have a lot of fun staying back in the school so as to attend the class and the ride from school to MathIIT and all the mimics that VS did the next day.

Then there were times in my class when our expertise was needed, especially in some of our boring classes. When people have had enough of learning for the day they would just pass a chit to me and request me to disrupt class in some way (Now that is a side of me only my school mates know while others just find it very difficult to accept that). I would usually have my head buried in the assignments or books that I had under my table and pondering over its solutions which unfortunately my school teachers always misjudged to be a contemplation of their questions and remarks. Then feeling pity over my friends who had suffered this lecture for some time now (though i had no clue what was happening) I would raise my head and stare at the board just to know what topic was being taken in class! Then if it was a topic that had already been done in MathIIT then i would ask all the questions that sir asked us, some very technical ones and baffle the teachers which was like 10 minutes of comedy time for all my class mates, seeing the way I put the question so that our teachers could not understand the question for 5 minutes and then when they figure it out they try to present it in the same complicated method that i had asked and finally end up saying, " Hope you all have understood what i said, though that is not there in your syllabus"! English hours were the only hours I listened to because they were interesting, what with Shakespearean plays and readings (in the true Shakespearean style with curtained doors and daggers and great stage settings within the classroom)and poems. Well that was heaven for me! At this special moment I must thank my English teachers for the fact that they were very instrumental in helping me disrupt classes. After all my simple questions were made so complicated just by the use of some English jargon not very commonly used [;)]. Shakespeare also proved instrumental in getting me a new name. 'Beelzebub' was picked up from Macbeth and immediately attached to me. Apparently this ruler of hell is what suited me the best and I always said that I had no problem because after all I was leading some devils and who called themselves Angelites!

In our 11th we also had to spearhead the Magazine Committee. Running around and going to all the classes individually and asking everyone to submit articles, then screening the bunch of stuffs we got, making soft copies of it, then more running around to do our own articles (thanks to being part of the Literary Club), then doing reports on events in schools, carrying out polls, in short an entertainment in itself.

There was a reason I mentioned about our uniforms in the beginning. Let me just put it this way, our corridors were pretty airy and even in a slight breeze all our skirts just have minds of their own which wander freely in that breeze. It was such a common phenomenon that most of the times people rarely bothered about it (after all shorts were an integral part of our uniform) and we used to howl from within the classrooms, " If the show is over, let us know, we need to close the windows :P". Eve-teasing was something we indulged in within our own classes thanks to all this skirt-flying and cheesy remarks.

Another interesting thing that happened was the introduction of a house dress. It was of growing concern for everyone including me and during the speculation period, I was the butt of all jokes with my classmates designing my dress to just irritate me. After all I had to represent all the four houses and hence the weirdest design was of a skirt with stripes of all the four colours. I almost had a temporary black out imagining that thinking that I belonged to some circus troupe. But when the uniforms came I must say that I had the most decent one of all! Mine was a pure white skirt and a white tee with just single thin stripes of all the four colours on one side and the school emblem on the other. It was just cool. My friends on the other hand had a disastrous time what with blue and red and green and yellow skirts and white tees with coloured cuffs. All that we could say was we turned heads in that uniform of ours! It was true because early in the morning when me and my friend went to AO sir's place nobody actually noticed any change in my attire, but when my friend walked in even the buji's (aliens as we called them) who would not take their heads off from the textbooks checked the uniform out and could not suppress a laughter. This was converted into a huge story in class that morning. In the evening when we had to make an entrance in MathIIT, I still remeber VS's plan- go just 5 minutes before the class starts, enter in a single file and that too like a colourful rainbow and from the front entrance (and with me, the least colourful, at the very back). We knew that we would be the laughing stock so we thought of making the most out of it. We entered like that into a classroom full of people and there was silence immediately. And after 2 people had entered the chit chat started and we knew that the topic of discussion was our uniform. The girls realized that it was a planned entry, after all we had to live up to our school's name (all meanings intended)!

In 11th, the other fun thing we had to do was organizing the farewell for our seniors and I still remember of how we had to meet our teachers with like every small thing and get approvals and sometimes even with the Principal when it came to catering and venue! Well after all the troubles we went through I must say that we did shed a few tears when our seniors bade goodbye to us.

Talking of farewell, how can i even forget that time of ours?! That was the time of the year when our desks were filled with slam books and memoirs. Well we decided to celebrate ours a bit more differently (apart from the normal sari-clad eventful evening and night we have). We blared music during school hours but trying our level best not to interrupt other classes, that is the least we could do, after all we had to study like that when our seniors had enjoyed. It was January and the boards were just coming up and we were all too busy with our coaching and everything. So as usual the MathIITians were seen sitting and completing assignments when there was music in class. All the MathIItians cuddled around me for copying the solutions while the some of us who had done it continued to think over some of the doubtful questions. With music and dance in class, these people had a very difficult time controlling me. But when 3 songs played there was no stopping me, namely Zara Zara, Desi Girl and Hips Don't Lie. Ok....Stop going by the lyrics of the song. The music is good to dance on. Anyway when these songs played my classmates would arrange 2 tables together and would push me on top of that and I happily danced away to glory not even bothering that I was right under the fan (refer uniform) . It was nothing less than a discotheque in class and since it was just us, all the lyrics of the song were given great importance(and the rest of the description I am censoring)!There were no reservations whatsoever! The dance continued till one of the teachers entered the room to find the Head Girl dancing on top of the table. And being the rep, it was me (along with the rest of the house reps) who finally had to meet all the teachers and ask them permission or rather put on an angel face and request, " Mam, last few days at school. Then we will all leave you. *sob sob* Mam please can you cancel class for today and may we pleeaaase enjoy?" to which we were always met with, " Ok girls for the last time. We will all miss you big time sweet hearts. Don't make too much of noise though". And we never waited to hear the last part. And today all this just seems like distant memories, but memories nonetheless.

Now living in a college were the female to male ratio is 1:4 , I pity all those people who have never been in such schools. There are always arguments to this saying that co-ed would have been a better option and all that crap but I genuinely feel that any individual would have to go through such an institution at least once in their lives to know what school-life actually means. It is from here that I learnt the meaning of true freedom, the ease with which I can converse with my teachers, the courage to take on anything challenging, those starting lessons of managerial, organisational, leadership, technical and soft skills, the confidence to just get on stage uninformed and give a speech whenever the occasion demanded (and have some fun informal moments on stage) and much more.

Well this place truly holds a special place in my heart...

HOME...

"Next week, this time, you would be in college. And i would lose my favourite person in the whole wide world, you know pulling your leg and talking to you or rather listening to you and seeing your drama and special effects for even an ant walking! :P " - Amma. (Let me add, am i the universal victim of leg-pulling?, even Bertie Wooster would not have been subjected to such leg-pulling by Aunt Agatha). Well this is the dialogue i heard when i got up today morning and it somehow unnerved me. It also made me happy because it just reminded me of what i am to my mom (Take that Varun [:P]) and to my family in general. As my grand mom puts it, it just takes me to be in the house to give everyone the feeling of being at home [:)]. It is always a different world when you are with your family and living in that world is just a bliss - a bliss never to be forgotten, a bliss that will always remain etched in the deepest chambers of your heart, living with your loved ones with whom one does not realize the passage of time and who have no problem with any stupidity that you do (in my case that is pretty much the case [:)]) . Having to live in a hostel is a different experience altogether but as I always put it, hostel life combined with living with parents is the best life I could ask for.

Yawn...Enough of the serious talk. Being back home after a grinding schedule in college and that too in the middle of the semester has its own perks. Let me just say that getting pampered is not something i would complain of especially when it comes to pleasing my sweet tooth! The only thing that is frustrating me is the rain. Any plans of making amma loosen her purse strings might not work this time. Any of my family members should hear this and i had most probably be grounded for a week for having even thought of something so innocent [;)]. Their only argument can be " a summer vacation full of shopping extravaganza has not tired you? Well it has, the some of us are really tired :P " The only person who has not come shopping with me has to be Varun. Or come to think of it, i did get a huge present from him recently [:)]. The best presents that i do receive from him are books and novels. At least now he gets me the books i want to read unlike in my 8th standard when he got me books like 'Mein Kampf' and 'On the Line of Fire' thinking that i needed to switch from Hailey and Archer to non-fiction.

During my summer holidays, half of which was spent in Hyderabad, I had a blast. It is a great city and conveniently situated was my dad's house. Every afternoon my main job was to call appa and ask him to send the car so that me and amma could just roam around. Since i live in hostel and apparently deprived of a lot of things, i put on my charming self and got amma to buy a lot of things for me. Appa usually gets me anything that i say but amma is more of the miserly types, as i always tell her. I was surprised that i did not have to do a lot of coaxing and pleading and that she was much too eager to get me all that i wanted. Well this is what i say as one of the perks of living in a hostel [;)].

Food- Come back home and you are bestowed with all your favourite dishes. Umm.. My mouth is watering now. Every day i get to decide the menu, but the longer holidays prove to be a problem because then food apparently gets repetitive for the family (not for me, as those are my favourites). Even yesterday i had one of my preferred dinner and i had to keep on running between my laptop and kitchen so that i could have spoonfuls of it in between. That is another perk.

Of all things, the comfort that i would be most thankful for is SLEEP. I mean, no more getting up in the morning to attend class at 8 and that to everyone in my family is my height of laziness! Well you cant blame me or the scores of thousands of other students who share the same opinion as mine. At home all that i have to worry about is getting up in the morning to say bye to amma and then lock the door and then again back to bed till amma calls me from office in one of her vain attempts at trying to wake me. I should point out that i do not throw a tantrum. It is just that i don't like to get up from bed unless and until my emergency services are required somewhere immediately. Though it must be said that whenever I have some work of importance i do make sure that i am up and about completing that work, much to the surprise of everyone. At home though, there is nothing worthwhile to be done rather than just lazing around and so i pretty much stay in bed, though amma does get really angry when she catches me reading a book right after i wake up (thank God that I always leave the book that i was reading the previous night on my bedside table) without even brushing my teeth!

I could go on like this forever but above all these there is something that i enjoy the most when i am at home and that is spending quality time with family. Recently i saw my all-time classic list of movies- Manichitratazhu, Punjabi House, Kakakuyil.. and how i missed my entire family at that time [:(] . All those Sunday evenings when the entire family sat glued to the television sets watching nice malayalam movies, those jokes we all had a hearty laugh about and all those mimicking of mallu comedians that appa tried to do but ended up failing pathetically (though i will give him credit for the Chief Minister's mimic). All the virtual football i played with Varun which ended up in wrestling, all the couple dance with appa which almost ended up in me breaking my bones and all the disastrous cooking experiences with amma. All that was fun. I miss all that *sob sob* [:(]. I guess this is all the baggage that you will have to carry when growing up, or that is what amma says.People say that you cant always be a kid and have all the fun you want. But isn't life supposed to be what you want to make of it and i don't think that there will even be one person who would not want a dash of fun in it. Just a nice pleasant chat with important people in your life, a word of comfort to the elderly (which i keep on doing to amma and i make sure that i add that she is a senior citizen [;P]) and as far as i am concerned just goofing around here and there and doing some mischief around the house just to see that smile of 'OMG..This kid' in amma's and appa's face and that face of 'GROW UP' on Varun's face...That will do. Here is to having great times with family....

The Month that Wasn't

So much for my wish of eating mess food at 7 in the night starting 26th of September! What was to happen was the least i could imagine, considering my weird dreams that is so famous within my friends circle [;)].

It all started .....err..(I am extremely bad with dates,) one day when suddenly out of nowhere my friends call me up and ask me to come to the LH RC at 9 in the night for some audition and since i was pretty jobless at that time (as always) i went there to realize that it was the audition for the Western Dance team of our college. Finally after some gruelling sessions with the seniors and embarrassing myself (as auditions are always supposed to be) i came back to my room to notice that anju was missing. Well after searching the 5 rooms that she could possibly be in, i understood that the entire 911 was present in nidhash's room watching some movie. I enter the room and realized that i was the only one missing [:(] . Going by the antics my friends are famous for (only amongst us) i had to go through a recap of the entire audition once again though this time on a 25cm*25cm space!

So much for the auditions and finally practice started, or should i say practice continued. My friends started seeing less of me in the days to come. Well i cannot blame them. Then we finally made a pact that after i came back from practice at 11.30, i would go to Marilyn's room where everyone will assemble and we will talk and thus catch up on each other. I must say that we are a close group of friends who till today have had so much of fun just being in the company of each other and blabbering nonsense! While this talking and in some cases bickering was going on i tried munching my way through the chappathis that had been taken for me from the mess, to put in anju's words " Onakka chappathis". For sure, having taken them like 5 hours before, by the time i came back the chappathis had become as hard as stone. Well let me just say that it was a price to pay. And so by the time this talking and pulling of leg continues (mainly mine) self-realization strikes me " Oh no...Water, I need to take a bath guys". And i rush to the shower while my friends continue the chit chat, later to be spoilt by the entrance of the one and only me! This continues till 2 when Marilyn realizes how late it had become and kicks us out of her room asking us all to go and get some sleep. So after a good night and some more leg-pulling we retreat to our respective rooms. Then after that till both of us fall asleep, me and anju would be talking of the day's things that we had missed and more chances of leg pulling. It appears that 911's favourite pastime was pulling each other's legs and sometimes one's own. Weird, i know.

But as time progressed and work load increased, i came back to see that the bed next to mine would be occupied with somebody already dreaming of being in AUH with family or at least that is the subtlest version that i come up with [;)]. Being a EEE student was taking a toll on anju and i did not want to disturb her slumber but she always assigns me with the job of waking her up when i come back so that she can stay up the entire night doing class work. But after an hour or so i just give up. After all how can i wake up anyone? Known to be ' The Sleeping Queen' of our floor last year and having received comments like ' eternally on the bed even a day before exams' , how could i possibly awaken somebody?! It all depended on much work anju had to do and considering the branch she was in , everything was just hypothetical. But in the final week there was a change in fortune with all my friends swarming to my room at 12 and sympathizing with my troubles (according to them) and telling me that i would be able to live a normal life after the 26th. Come to think of it, it was a hectic schedule! Getting up in the morning, rushing to college, sitting in class and making four liners (which i was supposed to do the previous night according to my deadline) and messaging all the IPF girls and ya how could i even miss, messaging Marilyn all funny coded things that only both of us could comprehend ( for the safety of both of us), waiting outside ELHC for Marilyn and then walking back talking crap as usual, changing and leaving for practice which continued till 11 in the night, coming back to 312 and getting sympathized. But after all this me and anju used to sit and talk about the Mock GD of IPF and what all i had missed out on. The funniest thing was that though the GD was only for 3 hours each day we ended up talking and commenting about it for hours together! Life was fun. [:)]

Life had been going on like this till the 23rd when some things happened in college, to put it in Arthur Hailey's words, i felt as if history was being made in front of my eyes. Though i must confess that i had rather not have such history being made! Anyway the repercussions of that resonated into something least expected. So much so that i had to call up anju from train and ask her to pack my bag and send it with Varun so that i could pick it up from IIM on my way back. The weekend i spent at NIT trichy was enjoyable though i missed 911 really badly and i kept on messaging them because of which in two days i spent around 50 bucks courtesy roaming! Well now that i ended up at home all that i am sad about is not having been there to see off my friends but now thanks to gtalk's call i have been talking to anju almost every other day for around 5 hours! The funniest thing is that i am still indecisive on whether i had ever want such a month back in my life....well all that i can say is not at the cost of having fun with friends and just having to listen to the fun everyone has!

Pit stop 1- Madurai

Leaving for Madurai my main worry had to be getting up at 5 in the morning as the train reaches my destination at that time. But the Gods helped me here and delayed the train for almost 2 hours and so i was not sleep deprived. After reaching the hotel, i banged on the door to awaken my bro who was comfortably dreaming away to glory. After having beaten him (and kicked him) to my mind's fill we started pulling each other's legs, the best job for us! Lets see, the entire fight was for his brand new mobile gifted to him by two of his college friends and that too Nokia E-series. I kept on bugging my brother telling him that his friends should know better than to buy him a pure white E-series, and i quote " Kurangide kyil poomala" ( for people who don't know malayalam, go and learn some :P). After mom and dad tried to referee the entire match we were told to freshen up and be ready by 9 but not before i was promised a new mobile, no not any series but something i will like! And then we proceeded towards the famous Madurai Meenakshi Temple.

All through the way appa quizzed me on the temple and the city. I was not spared even inside the temple. The lotus inside the temple proved to be the butt of all jokes. Appa tried to fool me saying that the lotus floated on water and i ended up checking the construction of the lotus! Stupid me, I must say. Then after a tour of the temple, which was smaller than i thought it was, we headed back to the hotel. As usual i had my siesta while everyone around me packed to leave for somewhere. On waking up i realized that our next stop was going to be Rameshwaram. That was the height of everything. All throughout my life i had been branded by my family as an atheist but i have always tried to maintain a no-temple-visit strategy. I believe that one need not visit places of worship to seek God and that my friend is an atheist according to my mom. Innumerable times have i showed the dictionary meaning of an atheist to my mom but with no avail. Only on my birthday do i enter a temple that too because mom blackmails me of something or the other. So my routine of one-temple-one-year was just a far cry out from what i experienced this summer and in one particular occasion monsoon too as i was drenched in rain when we decided to walk home from a nearby temple. And above all this my mom was whining about the fact that a trip to Pazhani was not possible! Duh. All i had to say was " Just because there were 2 senior citizens (mom & dad) travelling with us i decided that a trip to Madurai wont hurt and now you are stretching that luck. Wait till next time. I am definitely going to look for places without any temples!" And as if that was the joke of the millenium the entire family just burst out laughing. It did not end with Rameshwaram. Every place had its share of temples and i was taken to pretty much all of them. Now in Hyderabad it has come down to the fact that we go to one temple every time we go out, which comes down to one-temple-a-day! Now i keep on saying that our driver uncle himself knows how much of a temple freak my mom is, so much so that every day when me and mom go shopping he takes us to a new temple!!!Somehow i used to like the one-temple-a-year idea, at least the fascination for temples was kept alive. But now times have changed and amma has come to the conclusion that i have become more of a christian, though she considers that it to be for a secular common good!

The Plan

No, it is not a movie review...It is actually the extensive plans i had made for my vacations. Started of with plans to West Bengal. I must say that the place holds a very special place in my heart. After all i am a bengali by birth...ahem i meant place of birth. Having heard a lot about the place from mom and dad which include their childhood stories, how golguppas and jaalmoodi were the staple food when young and after having seen my baby photos there, it was like an all-time wish for me to visit my birth land again. I have always told that i would want to go see our house there and roam around all those places of which only stories i remember. I wanted to enjoy the real sandes and wanted to enjoy shopping in the Great Market which amma so lovingly describes as street-shopping is like heaven with her for i just need to chose what i want and she gets it for me in the price she wants. What do i have to complain about at the end of the day- i propose and mom disposes. So when we were looking for a place to go, it was just an obvious choice for me to suggest WB, or rather i suggested Kolkata along with a tour of the north-east. Then comes the real problem that the tour is on just for a week because Varun had only a weeks time before leaving. So that idea was dropped.

Then my cousin came up with this idea of going abroad with Varun seconding the idea. But here again there was a problem. Since i had turned 18 my passport had expired and i had to renew them, something i had put off for the end of my vacations. Never thought that me becoming an adult was going to be such a big problem! After a lot of discussions we decided to drop that idea and decided to settle for a small trip this year with the promise of an awesome tour abroad to a place (or places ;)) of my choice next year.

So after a lot of planning, deciding and vetoing we finally decided on Madurai- Kodaikanal -Pondicherry. Well in the end all that i can say was that did not prove to be the final destinations.

18th Birthday

I must say that i don't remember much of what happened during that time but I am just penning it down so that i never forget what my friends did for me and a lot of firsts that happened. It was the time of 'Tathva' in college and i ended up being on the dance team. It was just after test 2 in s1 when i was down with high fever. Incidentally that was the first time, and now surely the last time, i ever visited our Health Centre. The doc on seeing my condition advised me to skip the exams and do makeup exams but the thought of staying in college even for a day after my endsem exams was quite revolting. So she prescribed some very strong antibiotics and told me not to stress myself. So i did do as was told to me. By the end of the exams i was back to my normal self and the next week started a hectic schedule ( now come to think of it, it was nothing compared to Ragam) with classes and dance practice.

Now a new problem arose. My fever was long gone but i felt tired like anything even by just walking and i had those gut-wrenching pains. Initially i had those only when i danced during practice but the more i strained the more painful it was. I called it quits then and went to bed just to awaken the next day with the pain three-fold. I got dressed and decided to ignore it and get on with my life. But it did not seem that easy. Even walking proved difficult and returning back from college i was glad that my friend was there with me and she literally put me to bed on reaching hostel. I decided to contact my usual escape-route and told him to book my tickets home that weekend and told him specifically to not tell our parents and worry them. Instead of getting some soothing words he literally blew away and told me to talk to mom first before booking anything. I talked to mom and dad and after a lot of persuasion from me they finally allowed me to be in college till the weekend.

This indeed was a twist to my friends who were planning a birthday bash for me. Since i would not be available to give a treat on my birthday i gave everyone an ice cream each two days before my birthday on the 13th.I packed and was ready to leave on the eve of my birthday on the 14th. So i had to celebrate my birthday with my friends around six hours earlier than they would have expected. There was my entire close friends set in my room- people i already knew from home and my new friends there. The cake was spared of any damage it would have suffered on my face or any other's. After all i had a train to catch. I was also spared of the famous, or should i say the infamous, GPL. That was purely a consideration on my health. After a blast with everyone and getting a sweet present of which i had no idea i left for home. On my way home at exactly midnight i get flooded by calls from family and friends. It was kind of an embarrassing situation since i was travelling by train and my phone kept on ringing but there is always a solution. I put my mobile on vibrate mode and continued answering them. After all i do disturb people at midnight with phone calls and it was revenge time and i did not want to be the spoilsport!

I reached home thinking i could just sleep off the entire weekend but my family had other plans for me. I could not get forty winks before my mom pulled me to a place i am terrified of- HOSPITALS. It just sends the creeps down my spine. I knew what their answer would be. First on the list was a blood test. The old and the young (in my family) alike know how terrified i am of needles. I have had just 2 blood tests in my entire 18 years of life and both times they were not event-less needless to say. And finally hugging my mom, closing my eyes and clenching my teeth i went through the ordeal. The tests were normal. Well what did they expect? Anyway in spite of it being my birthday i was not spared any medical procedure. A first of many sorts were in store for me. A girl who was petrified of preliminary tests was asked to take a scan, x-ray and what not. Seriously, it was high time that the doctors accepted that they had no clue as to what exactly they were looking for. Not only was my birthday spoilt but also Diwali (17th). With 3 days of hospital life, i had had enough for a lifetime. All this while my friends were worried about me that they flooded me with get-well-soon messages and i called one of my roomies on Diwali night. After all it was her birthday the next day and my mom was definitely not going to allow me to stay up till 12 thanks to my health. So i called her up earlier and wished her and in turn she was telling me what all was happening in college, how much fun they were having and how worried they were of me. After a long phone call of jokes and facts and truths i hung up and decided to go to bed not wanting to think about anything in my life.

And finally on the 18th the doctor finally admitted that he had no clue as to what was wrong. And then came the highlight of the day, the doctor had the nerve to suggest a surgery to know the reason behind my fatigue. I must say that my tongue just got stuck in my throat but i was able to utter that i would be leaving that night for college and that i would not be back for another two months. The doctor's disappointment was evident on his face and so was my joy on release from the hospital. Going under the knife was the last thing in my wish-list for my birthday. All the plans i had when i was coming home was shattered. I was so disappointed in my weekend that i ended up going home the next weekend too missing my first ever Tathva in college. When my mom asked me to come home i never knew that she had other schemings. In fact that week she had been to other doctors for second opinions and God knows how many other opinions. The first time i spoke to her itself i made it very clear to her that i would go only to our family doctor for i trusted him and he very well knew my phobia of needles and always diagnosed me correctly with almost a 100% record of not sending me for any tests whatsoever. But only after a harrowing weekend with me in the hospital that my family remembered my favourite doctor. And as always he was very sweet and told my mom that all the tests were not necessary and that it was just an overdose of antibiotics that i had taken from our dear HC and that it was not supplemented with vitamins... Well so much for the surgery i guess.

The second weekend holiday went without much events with mom just revealing to me the doctors she had met in spite of me telling her that i was not going to spoil my weekend again and that i was not coming within a seven-mile radius of any hospital. Anyway in spite of all the mental and physical fatigue i must say that the birthday will remain close to my heart. After all it was proposed to be my first one away from home but it turned out to be something else. So enjoying an awesome cake from my friends and my favourite kheer at home, the birthday was two-fold happier for me. Setting aside all the unpleasant moments i will look back to 15th Oct,2009 as a special day and that would be due to my family and mainly my friends in hostel and all i want to say to them would be ' Thank you guys for making the day so special'.

Cooking Expeditions

It all started way back- the year, day and time i exactly don't remember. The entire family was all gung ho about me trying to do something in the kitchen. But the only relationship me and the kitchen ever had was me entering it once in a while to fix a snack for myself or mainly to get chocolates from the refrigerator. The earliest memory of me making anything was a lemonade for my dad and uncle. It turned out to be a fabulous lemonade that my uncle finally had to tell me not to show my anger on the lemon and that i had to squeeze the lemon pretty softly to prevent the lemonade from tasting sour. :-)

The next one had to be with Varun. Whenever grandparents were not staying with us, then mom left it on us to make our own evening tea. Age was definitely not a barrier in making tea as far as he was concerned! I took up the responsibility of making tea for both of us. When one day we had our usual fights i challenged him to make his own tea and thus my sweet bro tried his hand at cooking. He stood in front of the gas staring very hard at it. Come to think of it now, whether he thought himself to be the X Men or the Fantastic Four fire guy only God knows but it was as if he was waiting for the fire to just come from somewhere. All this while i was sitting there and laughing my stomach out. Finally after what seemed to be like an eternity of staring and laughing matches he had the presence of mind to ask me. After i helped him light the stove he managed to do things on his own...

Now after so many years the entire family which includes me, papa & varun decided that we will make life easier for mom and that was by making me enter the maidan-e-jung of kitchen! It all started by me helping her cut some vegetables. And guess what the first vegetable was...onions! I had read before that it is the odour of onions that is responsible for all the tears that one sheds while cutting it. I hinted that to mom and all that she could come up with was to stuff some cotton in my nose...PJ i know. Anyway, i cut 2 onions without much of any accidents (as i am generally prone to) i did finally end up with one. Cutting the third onion i was just checking how sharp the knife was and i soon got the answer to my question in return for some blood and skin. After cleaning my wound and having properly attended to it i continued with the cutting process and i realized that it was not such a good idea after all. The stinging sensation in my wound was so evident on my face that mom took the knife and continued with the rest.

So much for helping in cutting vegetables. But mom did say that i cut the vegetables so small and cute that it reminded her of her mom! So one medal! I decided to give myself the degree and graduated to the next level.

The next day i saw mom preparing dough for chapathi and it was my all-time wish to make round chapathis. So finally with everything settled with mom i settled into making gol gol chapathis. With flour all over me and almost 3 or 4 retries i finally managed to make one. That is when mom noticed that there were traces of flour in vessels kept at least a metre away from me! But i continued to make chapathis and finally ended up making perfect good-looking chapathis and i let my imagination run wild with that. I kept on commenting that one chapathi looked like an old man's face, the other like Varun's face and all. Well in short, me and mom had a blast making chapathis so much so that i ended up giving her demo of how messy a work could be done. Thus finally i made gol gol chapathis and aloo masala, though the masala was mainly done by my mom except me cutting and putting garam masala in it.

The next day i tried making dosa and i realized that eating dosas are much easier than making them.Finally i ended up making small cute ones that were of the size of my fist while my mom made huge ones. Such cooking expeditions continue till date and my mom is pretty worried with the sudden change in my attitude towards kitchen and she just has this weird doubt whether i will stop studying. All that i have to tell her is 'When did i ever start studying for me to stop? ;-)'

The beginning....

Never thought that I would become one of those people who finally end up living out of the suitcase in one’s own house! Yet that has what it has all come down to. Four months of hostel life with frequent visits home has allowed me to stay somehow glued to my home and its surroundings. Well I better say that this butterfly never dreamt of coming out of the cocoon of her home. Though my brother gets quite irritated with the fact that I’ve not become one of his disciples to find a haven away from home in my college but I can safely say that I would sooner or later be ‘his sister’.

After what seemed like a lifetime of college life in s1(of 4 months duration) it does sink in now that I have just got 7 more semesters left!!!

I still remember the first day I came to my hostel- july 21. The previous days were spent in trying to coax my father to take leave earlier because I did not want to end up in my college on the last day of registration. But fate had it otherwise and I was here just on the nick of time. After completing all my registration details (once more after the 1^st allotment) and having ‘puttu’ for the first time in my life I found myself standing on the doorstep of LH Block IV waiting to be assigned a room. When I was asked to sign the entry register, I noticed for the first time who my roommates would be. I saw Akhila(aki), Angelline( anju) and Asura( asu) entered under room 209.

From my fifth grade onwards I lost the ability to befriend anyone within a few minutes as dad came to stay with us and I never really had a deficit of friends in Trivandrum. Till then I was quite capable of initiating a conversation with anybody, yet on having forgotten that gift I was a little apprehensive of meeting my roomies. I still remember entering the place with dad and mom and I see that two of my roomies had already settled in and all that dad could think of was, ‘nice setup. Much better than BHU’ and I as usual, ‘Obviously, that was Varun’s college’. My mom settled into arranging my cupboard, as always, I got busy chatting with my friends from Trivandrum. Then I talked to Aki for the first time. Then our parents started talking. Suddenly out of nowhere a girl in a Capri and t-shirt enters the room, clearly an indication of how well-settled she already felt and that was when I realized that it was anju and all the while I thought it was asha( anju’s sister), who was perched on anju’s bed all the while, who was my roomie. Then asu entered with her sister, a senior in our college, and found herself amidst three crazy people( as she was to realize later). She keeps on saying now that kuthiravattam ( a mental asylum) is near and that she would have the privilege of admitting some soon-to-be mad people.

The usual confusion scenarios that haunt me in tvm did not intend to leave me even in calicut and infact it seems to have boarded the same train I did ( I know PJ). Inspite of dad wanting me to take south Indian mess I was forced to reconcile with north veg mess. And I was given clear instructions to switch to south Indian mess in august and nothing turned out like that as the food in my mess turned out to be much better than anybody could expect. And to date I have kept up the tradition of not changing my mess! Though I did go to south mess for a day, I ended up feigning sickness to switch back to north veg mess the very next morning. Even people who cannot live without non-veg gave thumbs-up to my mess with chole bhatura being the highlight of our mess. Being a vegetarian, I never had problems with eating just ‘veggies’, as my friends in tvm call it.

Meeting 211: Sudhina (sudi), who was one of the very few people I already knew, was in room 211 and it was she who introduced me to her roomies namely Nidhasha( nids), Marilyn( called anything that sounds plausibly close to Marilyn!) and Divya( divs). It was then that I realized that nids and anju where fiends from Abu Dhabi. There was this natural bonding between these two rooms mainly because marilyn, divs and me ended up in C-batch, nids, anju and asu in J-batch and sudi & aki in M-batch. Unfortunately there was the staircase and the Resident Tutor’s (RT) room in between our rooms but that never stopped us from having all the fun that 10 minds could come up with. It was only later that Garima(garims) and Monica( monics) entered rooms 209 & 211 and then there was no looking back for us from there!

July 22: I got up early in the morning; just my very sincere effort to try to start a new beginning which always ends up getting flopped and this certainly was not going to get any better in the near future. I had spent my first night in the hostel without much of any accidents or making myself a fool. Well at least that gave me a slight hope that life would not be so bad after all. The day was spent in orientation, a word I have come to dread every time I hear it now. Infact we were even telling that our college should conduct an orientation for us to attend an orientation (again a PJ)! That very afternoon mom and dad left me to fend for myself (so unlike the meaning of the words) and I never even thought in my wildest of dreams that I would spend a few tears at this occasion. I never thought that I would miss mom the way I miss her now. Since dad always used to be away from home it never was a big issue for me as far as both of us heard each other’s voice atleast once a day. The way I missed Varun was nowhere near to anything. Though we fought worse than cats and dogs both of us knew that our separation would be really difficult for both of us, crying and cringing yet letting each other in on other’s secrets! Dad and mom left to see Varun’s friend in IIM-K. From then on I knew that I would not have mom or dad the way I had and Varun on whom I could put all the blame of my mistakes, though in vain, though I still do it in spurts. The day progressed without any surprises.

From then on hostel has gone on without me missing any part of it but college still eludes me of the fun that it promises to provide.