Of Friends In Need and other short stories..

I still remember sitting next to this dude with curly hair writing my entrance for what was going to change my life forever. I mean..how many people actually sign up to spend the rest of their lives working the hardest when the rest of the world is partying the hardest. I did that, and with me, another very curious young fellow.
It was at the Taj Coromandel in Chennai that this entrance test was held and just before sitting down to take the test, (a laughably easy one) I just asked him for a "rubber". He politely corrected me by saying, "You mean, an eraser?".
That was the start of the only love-hate relationship I've ever had or ever will. I used to laugh at people who used those words, love-hate. But to know Dr is to Love-Hate him.
A few months after this short conversation, I ran into him again at the Hostel. Ah, the Hostel. Some people probably get nightmares when they think about the hostel. But me, I get a feeling of warmth, with laughter bubbling up from my centre of gravity, ending up in a throaty cackle/laugh, only to be replaced by a long sigh and deep sense of loss. But I'll save that for another day.
So we kept running into each other more and more and exchanging(read giving one-sidedly) music. I remember, at one point, when I opened my drawer of tapes, I only found 4 or 5. A couple of Megadeth, an Ugly Kid Joe and a coupla nameless assorted tapes. This couldn't be happening. Besides my wit, charm and obvious eloquence, I'm nothing without my music. So I walk up to Dr.'s room and ask if I can have my tapes back. He responds by handing me two peices of plastic with a lot of casette tape wrapped around it and says, "I've got the rest as well, but they're all pretty much in the same condition. Do you still want them?" At that point, I'm thinking, "What do I wanna do with tapes that are not in their casing anyway?" But I shoulda known better. This is Dr. we're dealing with, here. He probably had kept them better than I ever did and made it part of his own private collection. Till I he got to see my CDs, that is.
Dr. is your typical mercurial madman/intellectual psychopath. I guess he's not so typical after all. But he is close to my heart. And this is an Ode to you Dr. The name Dr came about one rare evening when he actually sat up from his bed to roll a J. Rare because he barely did. Turns out, that when he did, he made fantastic, straight, cigarette like Js. These were consistently neat, standardised and a pleasure to toke. I mean, if you weren't in the room and you came in after it was lit, you'd know first by looking at it and then get assured when you smoked it. It was not so much the actual J that earned him the nickname, but his focus and organised preparation before and during the act. Like a scientist. Anyway, stories about Doc are plenty, but this one's about how he was by my side, during my toughest times. Like Bruno, the Doberman in Poona. I think our bond was stregthened when we went for our OJTs to the Taj Residency in Indore, for Kitchen and HK. We were the only ones who could relate to the other and we were both re-doing the year due to all reasons, but academic. Indore was crazy. We'd work hard and then party 42 times harder. Just the two of us. We even asked the HR Manager, whom we were sharing the flat with, by the way, for an advance on our stipends!!! He was like, "Hmmm..I've been in this industry now, 22 years and no trainee has ever asked me for his stipend in advance, but why not!!" And we got it! Bought a crate of beers, some good food and threw a party. We ran up bills with the STD booth, the internet cafe, the mithai waala, even the medic and we ended up telling everyone, "Nikhil paisa dega!" I'd go to one of these places and say the same thing and so would Doc. Now there was a third guy called Nikhil who never seemed to come in to pay these bills and we kept racking them up!! Hilarious. What a scam that was, huh, Doc!! I remember when I'd broken my wrist during a drunken, mock fist fight. Doc actually came to my room, asked me to get dressed and we took an auti to the hospital where they put my wrist in a cast and we came back to the Institute to convince everyone that we hadn't just bunked Front Office Theory class. There was a legitimate reason! Come to think of it, that might've been the reason he came, but it doesn't matter, cos I remember how that created a bond between us. He has been the same brash, foul-mouthed, callous prick throughout the time that I've known him, but times like this make me think. Another time, I got involved in a little drunken fight, which turned out to be not so little after all. I was hammered, complete, with a swollen, black eye and I couldn't raise my arm for over a month. Some nervous injury. Brachial Plexus or some other. He was the one who came with me to the hospital to do my tests. He'd offer to hold my books, pick up my chair, get me a smoke, a tray of food at the cafeteria. Doc just doesn't do stuff like that for people. Anyone.
Not that he's always been great and someone I can count on at all times, he's caused me quite a lotta damage as well, but that's just me blaming someone else for my errors in judgement.
Later, in Mumbai, we shared a few good laughs, fights and good, honest bloke talk and we still do. The occasional drunk dial and reminiscing about the good old days. The occasional wall post on FB.
We've even spoken about starting something together. Someday.
Doc, I know you'll agree with me when I say that this is one of the most biased opinions anyone has about you. Everyone else will prolly give you a lot less credit. And call you the prick you are. But then they don't know you as well as I do. Cheerio.