SOME DAYS JUST STAND OUT

Could college life be complete without some really oddball classmates? A rhetorical question, don’t trouble yourself over it, I am sure you agree. These were my four mates who were not the worst of the lot but more importantly, the most consistent factors of my life in engineering. Every college incident in the first year had their influence and their blessing. There were some hilarious incidents with them at helm of these situations. Rather than describing these young men, I think it would be best to let the incidents bring out the colorful aspects of their pleasing personalities. Do not be misled by my praise of these individuals, to some, their descriptions and behaviour night seem to be repelling but in first person, their eccentricity is endearing. I suppose I say so knowing fully well how eccentric I am! Well anyway, let us start in reverse order.
SSS, a surd. I am narrating this in a lingua that I am sure would be considered offensive by the community but I cannot stop myself from making those comments about this single individual. I would urge you to take this tale as a narrative relating solely to SSS and not in anyway link it to my views about the community. SSS hails from Delhi. As most Delhites, he too was an airhead. (You Delhites can argue all you like but this stands!) He is one those incredible people who could not complete a sentence without comparing Pune to Delhi and hammering down a point that proved Pune was but dirt as opposed to Delhi. Irritating is it not when someone does something of the sort? Well yes, provided you are not Bikram Snehi. Twisted as I am, I always love adding fuel to fire and never missed an opportunity to instigate a comment from both him and KU on the topic. KU too was an airhead, uh sorry, a Delhite. The two of them had a love-hate relationship. Before you conclude that the hate came from my wicked mind, let me clarify that the two of them could not stand each other. Had it been left to them, they would not have spoken beyond the first week of college. I was the part that ensured there was love between them! (Which couldn't have been a good thing either but...)
Tell me, what person could watch two individuals simply turn their backs the minute they see each other? It would be blasphemy to let them continue in that fashion, a terrible loss of an opportunity for them to network and be friends. I mean after all, they were from the same city so obviously enough in foreign lands, they would be best suited to get along and adapt together in the new environment. Besides, what good would it do if they did not crib and taunt and be at each others throats with the kind of rivalry that was potentially there for us to exploit? But hey, I was not the sole perpetrator of this crime. My allies were NN and SA. It was me that showed them how much they had in common and could share with each other. It was me all along that made sure they had some points to highlight in every conversation. It was me also, who always made sure that there was contradiction in the matter which they spoke about. To be more specific, the two of them loved being at each other's throats. While KU was always too eager to lend us an anecdote that us Puneites knew to be definitely false, (we live in a city too, Pune is not as backward as the two of them assume it to be,) SSS made sure that once Kunal was out of the picture, he gave us the ‘BARE’ facts of the actual situation. As soon as KU was off to attend to a phonecall (always from his mother at the rate of two an hour) he would snicker and admonish his claims! What do we know though? They both could be right and both had the right to know what happened behind their backs right? So who would tell them? The three of us who else?
It was always in good fun, never in distaste and always good humoured. Our way of bringing out the truth would be to quote SSS only stating it as something we had head from one of SA's friends from Delhi. Very soon, the tale would become fuzzy and suddenly the confident KU would be seen struggling to remember the exact details.
SSS is brilliant. To illustrate the point, let me narrate an incident at the canteen. In the first year, the five of us used to go to the canteen together during the short recess. The tea was better than most places (though I wouldn’t really know, I haven't tasted tea yet...) and I believe so was the omlette. Anyway, SSS was as usual in his cranky mode and was cribbing about how everyone makes fun of him because he is a surd. In his view, surds are generally smarter than the others who make fun of them. He said that a friend of his back in Delhi, loved cracking sardar jokes. In his words-
“My friend was telling us a joke. He said that he once asked his sardar friend the time while the sardar had a cup of tea in his hand. My stupid friend too was holding a cup of tea and he spilt the tea all over him while telling us the joke. Stupid fellow did not even realize that he was going to spill his tea all over himself if he turned his hand over like this…!!!”
Yes, he spilled the tea all over himself. Not just SSS's friend but SSS too- while narrating the incident! We were in splits and shameless as we are, we did not even hide our rolling laughter. We were all over the canteen floor holding our stomachs! He had us in splits. Could you believe the guy? He actually went ahead to say it could happen to anyone…
Anyway, some days just seem to stand out with brilliance! To get to the point, the previous night, me and AN had stayed awake all night long completing some drawing sheets and although he was coping well, I was dazed right through the day. All was well till after lunch. The food that day was the best I have tasted throughout the course of my three years at the hostel. I still remember, we had been served eggs for the first time at lunch and the cook had made awesome egg-masala! I had so much rice that day that I was full right upto my tonsils. Big mistake.
The first lecture after lunch was that of Elements of Civil Engineering. It was Prof. Joshi’s lecture and with due respect to him, the most boring lecture that I have had the displeasure of attending in my life. I think the fact that I was groggy only made things worse. To add to my misery, I have been a certified last-bencher throughout the four years of engineering. Me and SA had been bench-mates in the first year and had a very notorious reputation too. Reputations apart, staying awake during the length of his lecture, was an enormous task in itself and given the situation on that day, things were only getting worse.
I do not know how or when but sometime during the course of the lecture, I drifted off into my own sweet world of dreams. I think I was asleep for about half an hour. When I woke up, SA was standing up and the Professor was letting him have it. I couldn’t really comprehend what exactly had happened. I was the one that was sleeping and the guy next to me was bearing the brunt of the proffessor’s wrath. What a weird world I thought! I sat up straight from a position where I was sprawled all over my desk and the whole class burst out laughing, the Prof. inclusive. I was dazed and could not make head or tail of what was going on.
Prof. Joshi then proceeded to telling the two of us to freshen up, take a nice walk to the canteen and then return to the lecture. When we walked out, SA told me that I had been sleeping for well over ten minutes before he too had drifted off. When the prof. noticed, he shouted out our names and screamed at us to get up. SA had woken up immediately and the had frantically begun to wake me up. After both him and the prof. had tried for a good five minutes or so, they gave up and decided to let me lie. SA however had to face the brunt of the prof’s wrath and had been getting a good long lecture. When the prof. had calmed down and asked SA to go and freshen up, I had suddenly woken up with the most dazed expression anyone had ever seen before. That was the point when everyone burst out laughing. (I do sleep like a log don’t I?)
Well we washed up, walked down to the canteen and sipped some cold drinks and when there were just about two minutes left of the lecture, walked shamelessly back into class with the silliest of grins on our faces! What a day, maybe I should start writing a book about my experiences in engineering!