We all have an inbuilt mechanism to make judgements, put people into categories. We like certain people and then there are some that we don't. Sometimes we struggle to find the category that they'll best fit in, only to find that they're in a class of their own. There are some that we're indifferent to(I'm indifferent to people who don't have an opinion, as is amply evident in my previous post). And there are some that you just can't keep out of your face.
I walked in to the college hostel to see people as different as Gems in a packet. There were people with different last names, accents, hairstyles, fashion sense and attitude. My Person-Category filing cabinet was a mess. I've always maintained that I'm a horrible judge of character and the first few weeks of college was the first time that I got wise to my own character flaw.
I became part of this bunch that was fun, diverse and typical. We'd hang out together, go for dinners and poke fun at people with funny accents and bad English. Most of us liked similar music, which was one of the primary reasons for us getting along and watched similar movies and shows.
On the other hand, there was a bunch of guys who seemed like 'bad boys'. Now, remember these were days that I was fresh outta the comfort of having grown up at home under the care and more importantly, the supervision, of mom and dad. The 'bad boys'in question were definitely smokers and drinkers and wore kurtas with 'Om' and 'Shiva'and other such pseudo-religious symbols and signs. We had a few run-ins sheerly because of the force of our personalities, but that was that. Nothing major.
Meanwhile, I was having a blast with my new-found friends and developing an active interest in one or two of the girls. My buddy, who is your corresponding roll number in the senior years, was a hottie, I'd earned some brownie points from the seniors cos I'd taken their ragging quite well and I was somehow voted Mr. Fresher and I was over the moon. Couldn't've asked for a better beginning to my life in college.
I also met this senior who was quite an amazing musician- he had a raspy, bluesy voice and fingers that'd wrap around the neck of the guitar and make it look like an extension of his hand. He took an active interest in teaching me the basics of guitar and always chastised me if I didn't show up for our appointments. The funny thing is these 'bad boys'were found hanging around him, every evening, just before I was to meet him for guitar class. I couldn't figure it out and we just ignored each others'presence.
A month or so down the line, I don't remember how, but things began to fall apart with my 'friends'and I pretty much couldn't get anywhere with the girls that I'd gotten interested in. To fill the void, I tried getting along with my two roomies and looking for others whose company I thought I'd enjoy. That kept me going for a bit, though I wasn't very happy, till I started spending time with this cute girl from the culinary course- a sweet, pretty, fresh smelling, curly haired Maharahstrian girl from Pune. We started spending pretty much all our time together after and before classes and were soon quite inseparable.
Meanwhile, back in the boys'hostel I'd begun to hear lots of stories of fights and plots and drugs and alcohol and I was pretty sure I wanted to stay away from it all. But, like most plans in my life, this one too, didn't quite stay the course.
There I was sitting in my room, minding my own business, when I was startled to hear a loud thumping on my door. I got off my bed, to open the door and as soon as I'd unlatched it, it burst open and in came 4-5 guys. These were from the bad boy category- smoking, drinking every day and listening to monotonous bass and treble music and indulging in all sorts of clandestine activities behind closed hostel doors. There was Gobnoxious- a loud, Delhi boy with a filthy mouth and an air of arrogance that reminded you of Reggie van Dough, Richie Rich's not so rich cousin; followed by Doofus, a short fat boy with hair like Salman's (from Tere Naam. To his credit, it hadn't released at the time)from Mumbai with origins in Mangalore; a tall lean brace-wearing Sardar called Smurfy and the last guy to enter the room suprised me. It was my guitar tutor. So Gobnoxious swaggers into the room, all red-eyed and with an aura of alcohol around him and asks me," Who put oeuf mayonnaise on Smurfy's bed?". I had no idea what he was talkin about and before I could deny any involvement, felt a sharp, blinding sting on my left cheek. I reflexively clenched my fist and let rip, connecting lightly with his jaw as he stumbled, and fell flat on his ass, disoriented. Before I could gain the upper hand, 4 strong hands gripped my shoulders and two more pushed me back on the bed. I was now cornered in my own room.
They kept asking me why I'd put oeuf mayonnaise on Smurfy's bed, I continued to deny it and after about 10 to 15 minutes, asked them to leave. But they were in no mood to listen. I began to understand that the oeufs were just an alibi for Gobnoxious to provoke me into fighting and to give me, what he hoped, a sound thrashing and a lesson in who NOT to mess with...EVER!
As Gobnoxious was readying himself for another attack, there was a knock on the door - a couple of do-gooders wanted to find out what was going on and to see if they could help me. I, in an act of bravado, refused their help and said I'd sort it out by myself. I don't know if this changed their opinion of me or scared them into thinking that someone else might walk-in or complaint to the hostel guards that there was trouble in room no. 5, but they gave me stern warnings and dirty looks and left.
A couple of days after this, Crickey, the quintessential boarder - he always wore track pants, polo shirts, a cap and sports shoes , walked up to me and said, " Bro, why don't you hang out with us? We'll be your friends." Coming from one of the best boarding schools in India, I'm sure he'd seen many people in my situation and had possibly been part of many groups of friends who'd helped those people.
I got introduced to the rest of the gang - NoFuneesh and Small, were his room-mates. NoFuneesh was a , smart, devout muslim boy from Pune and Small, an overly effeminate export from the Steel City.
Curly, who I'd met during the entrance exams for college, LongNose, a calcutta boy who fancied himself as one of the best looking and the most talented cricketers around; Jerky, a South Indian boy with a Mumbai upbringing who dropped out of engineering college in search of a less punishing course and lastly, Sumo, the big Parsi from the Steel City.
We bonded over music, cricket, girls, funny accents and mischief. I was taken in by the guys and we had a blast over the next few months.
I first got drunk after I downed a quarter of White Mischief, to prove a point. Soon, as the buzz was settling, we sat around a rickety steel table, with slippery and dirty, white plastic chairs placed on gravel with blades of wild grass peeking out from between the stones. The conversation moved to confessions and the boys began to fess up - about girls they'd been with, ones they'd like to be with, about lies they'd told each other and the negative thoughts they'd had about the other. When my turn came, I took a dramatic pause and said, " OK guys. I wanted to thank you guys for taking me in and helping me out, but I feel that you guys ignore me sometimes and I don't feel like I'm part of the bunch, yet." No one said anything about it, they just moved on to the next confession.
When it came to Crickey, he said, " Bro, you know why you feel ignored and not like you're part of the bunch? That's cos we try to lose you when we go smoke grass!"
I was stunned! "You guys smoke grass?!!"
"Yeah. What do you think we're doing at Playa's place when you're hanging around trying to learn guitar?"
I had no idea.
So that evening, after we went back to the hostel, I saw them smoke weed and have a great time, laughing their heads off at stuff I didn't find funny at all. It even got to a point when I was nearly in tears, feeling bad for how stupid they were, wasting their lives away smoking weed and enjoying it.
When Jerky began coring an apple, very carefully and everyone else shouting out instructions about how to do it, I got curious. I knew that one apple wouldn't be enough for everyone in the room, so he couldn't be coring it to eat. Before I could ask, Jerky began stuffing the hollowed out apple with a potent wad of weed and then finished it by stuffing the other end with a loosely rolled piece of card board. It was an Apple Chillum. The boys all drew deeply and blew thick, white smoke and raved about the flavour. The apple went around the room and just when it was with the person next to me, he asked, "Try karega?" . I politely refused, but then I really wanted to. Moment of Truth.
I took the Apple Chillum and pulled hard. I passed it on and everyone waited and watched - expecting me to cough my lungs out. I coolly exhaled a cloud of white smoke and made a face as if to say, "That tastes like shit!"
This was the beginning of my education. 1st year of college. I learnt so much in those 3-4 years, I don't think there'll ever be a phase where the learning curve will be so steep.
I began to listen to music by artists I'd only heard of, but never cared to pick up a cassette (CDs were prohibitively expensive then)to listen to, properly. I went from sharing the odd cigarette with one of the boys to making sure I had at least 5 in my pocket when I returned to the hostel and definitely one to smoke on the throne next morning. I had a cute looking girlfriend from Pune. We were crazy about each other. We all hung out with our girls, went drinking, on hikes to hillocks behind the hotel, borrowed bikes and rode with them to a little hill station close by, studied together before exams, discussed F&B and decided what we'd like to do after college and what we definitely wouldn't. We woke early Sunday mornings to play 20 over cricket matches and had the girls over, cheering for us and bringing us bottles of chilled lemonade. Life was good.
Life came full circle when many boys, named here and not, who'd fallen out in Year 1, ended up sitting in one room, sharing a bottle or a J. Gobnoxious was one among them.
....watch this space!
I walked in to the college hostel to see people as different as Gems in a packet. There were people with different last names, accents, hairstyles, fashion sense and attitude. My Person-Category filing cabinet was a mess. I've always maintained that I'm a horrible judge of character and the first few weeks of college was the first time that I got wise to my own character flaw.
I became part of this bunch that was fun, diverse and typical. We'd hang out together, go for dinners and poke fun at people with funny accents and bad English. Most of us liked similar music, which was one of the primary reasons for us getting along and watched similar movies and shows.
On the other hand, there was a bunch of guys who seemed like 'bad boys'. Now, remember these were days that I was fresh outta the comfort of having grown up at home under the care and more importantly, the supervision, of mom and dad. The 'bad boys'in question were definitely smokers and drinkers and wore kurtas with 'Om' and 'Shiva'and other such pseudo-religious symbols and signs. We had a few run-ins sheerly because of the force of our personalities, but that was that. Nothing major.
Meanwhile, I was having a blast with my new-found friends and developing an active interest in one or two of the girls. My buddy, who is your corresponding roll number in the senior years, was a hottie, I'd earned some brownie points from the seniors cos I'd taken their ragging quite well and I was somehow voted Mr. Fresher and I was over the moon. Couldn't've asked for a better beginning to my life in college.
I also met this senior who was quite an amazing musician- he had a raspy, bluesy voice and fingers that'd wrap around the neck of the guitar and make it look like an extension of his hand. He took an active interest in teaching me the basics of guitar and always chastised me if I didn't show up for our appointments. The funny thing is these 'bad boys'were found hanging around him, every evening, just before I was to meet him for guitar class. I couldn't figure it out and we just ignored each others'presence.
A month or so down the line, I don't remember how, but things began to fall apart with my 'friends'and I pretty much couldn't get anywhere with the girls that I'd gotten interested in. To fill the void, I tried getting along with my two roomies and looking for others whose company I thought I'd enjoy. That kept me going for a bit, though I wasn't very happy, till I started spending time with this cute girl from the culinary course- a sweet, pretty, fresh smelling, curly haired Maharahstrian girl from Pune. We started spending pretty much all our time together after and before classes and were soon quite inseparable.
Meanwhile, back in the boys'hostel I'd begun to hear lots of stories of fights and plots and drugs and alcohol and I was pretty sure I wanted to stay away from it all. But, like most plans in my life, this one too, didn't quite stay the course.
There I was sitting in my room, minding my own business, when I was startled to hear a loud thumping on my door. I got off my bed, to open the door and as soon as I'd unlatched it, it burst open and in came 4-5 guys. These were from the bad boy category- smoking, drinking every day and listening to monotonous bass and treble music and indulging in all sorts of clandestine activities behind closed hostel doors. There was Gobnoxious- a loud, Delhi boy with a filthy mouth and an air of arrogance that reminded you of Reggie van Dough, Richie Rich's not so rich cousin; followed by Doofus, a short fat boy with hair like Salman's (from Tere Naam. To his credit, it hadn't released at the time)from Mumbai with origins in Mangalore; a tall lean brace-wearing Sardar called Smurfy and the last guy to enter the room suprised me. It was my guitar tutor. So Gobnoxious swaggers into the room, all red-eyed and with an aura of alcohol around him and asks me," Who put oeuf mayonnaise on Smurfy's bed?". I had no idea what he was talkin about and before I could deny any involvement, felt a sharp, blinding sting on my left cheek. I reflexively clenched my fist and let rip, connecting lightly with his jaw as he stumbled, and fell flat on his ass, disoriented. Before I could gain the upper hand, 4 strong hands gripped my shoulders and two more pushed me back on the bed. I was now cornered in my own room.
They kept asking me why I'd put oeuf mayonnaise on Smurfy's bed, I continued to deny it and after about 10 to 15 minutes, asked them to leave. But they were in no mood to listen. I began to understand that the oeufs were just an alibi for Gobnoxious to provoke me into fighting and to give me, what he hoped, a sound thrashing and a lesson in who NOT to mess with...EVER!
As Gobnoxious was readying himself for another attack, there was a knock on the door - a couple of do-gooders wanted to find out what was going on and to see if they could help me. I, in an act of bravado, refused their help and said I'd sort it out by myself. I don't know if this changed their opinion of me or scared them into thinking that someone else might walk-in or complaint to the hostel guards that there was trouble in room no. 5, but they gave me stern warnings and dirty looks and left.
A couple of days after this, Crickey, the quintessential boarder - he always wore track pants, polo shirts, a cap and sports shoes , walked up to me and said, " Bro, why don't you hang out with us? We'll be your friends." Coming from one of the best boarding schools in India, I'm sure he'd seen many people in my situation and had possibly been part of many groups of friends who'd helped those people.
I got introduced to the rest of the gang - NoFuneesh and Small, were his room-mates. NoFuneesh was a , smart, devout muslim boy from Pune and Small, an overly effeminate export from the Steel City.
Curly, who I'd met during the entrance exams for college, LongNose, a calcutta boy who fancied himself as one of the best looking and the most talented cricketers around; Jerky, a South Indian boy with a Mumbai upbringing who dropped out of engineering college in search of a less punishing course and lastly, Sumo, the big Parsi from the Steel City.
We bonded over music, cricket, girls, funny accents and mischief. I was taken in by the guys and we had a blast over the next few months.
I first got drunk after I downed a quarter of White Mischief, to prove a point. Soon, as the buzz was settling, we sat around a rickety steel table, with slippery and dirty, white plastic chairs placed on gravel with blades of wild grass peeking out from between the stones. The conversation moved to confessions and the boys began to fess up - about girls they'd been with, ones they'd like to be with, about lies they'd told each other and the negative thoughts they'd had about the other. When my turn came, I took a dramatic pause and said, " OK guys. I wanted to thank you guys for taking me in and helping me out, but I feel that you guys ignore me sometimes and I don't feel like I'm part of the bunch, yet." No one said anything about it, they just moved on to the next confession.
When it came to Crickey, he said, " Bro, you know why you feel ignored and not like you're part of the bunch? That's cos we try to lose you when we go smoke grass!"
I was stunned! "You guys smoke grass?!!"
"Yeah. What do you think we're doing at Playa's place when you're hanging around trying to learn guitar?"
I had no idea.
So that evening, after we went back to the hostel, I saw them smoke weed and have a great time, laughing their heads off at stuff I didn't find funny at all. It even got to a point when I was nearly in tears, feeling bad for how stupid they were, wasting their lives away smoking weed and enjoying it.
When Jerky began coring an apple, very carefully and everyone else shouting out instructions about how to do it, I got curious. I knew that one apple wouldn't be enough for everyone in the room, so he couldn't be coring it to eat. Before I could ask, Jerky began stuffing the hollowed out apple with a potent wad of weed and then finished it by stuffing the other end with a loosely rolled piece of card board. It was an Apple Chillum. The boys all drew deeply and blew thick, white smoke and raved about the flavour. The apple went around the room and just when it was with the person next to me, he asked, "Try karega?" . I politely refused, but then I really wanted to. Moment of Truth.
I took the Apple Chillum and pulled hard. I passed it on and everyone waited and watched - expecting me to cough my lungs out. I coolly exhaled a cloud of white smoke and made a face as if to say, "That tastes like shit!"
This was the beginning of my education. 1st year of college. I learnt so much in those 3-4 years, I don't think there'll ever be a phase where the learning curve will be so steep.
I began to listen to music by artists I'd only heard of, but never cared to pick up a cassette (CDs were prohibitively expensive then)to listen to, properly. I went from sharing the odd cigarette with one of the boys to making sure I had at least 5 in my pocket when I returned to the hostel and definitely one to smoke on the throne next morning. I had a cute looking girlfriend from Pune. We were crazy about each other. We all hung out with our girls, went drinking, on hikes to hillocks behind the hotel, borrowed bikes and rode with them to a little hill station close by, studied together before exams, discussed F&B and decided what we'd like to do after college and what we definitely wouldn't. We woke early Sunday mornings to play 20 over cricket matches and had the girls over, cheering for us and bringing us bottles of chilled lemonade. Life was good.
Life came full circle when many boys, named here and not, who'd fallen out in Year 1, ended up sitting in one room, sharing a bottle or a J. Gobnoxious was one among them.
....watch this space!
