Showing posts with label hostel life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hostel life. Show all posts

Wednesday, 9 May 2012

Open letter to my batchmates

Dear friend,
                  Who am i kidding?, not all of you can be classified as friends, some are way beyond that,
Friends do not accompany you to the railway station just to see you off and decide to hop on to the train themselves to delay the farewell by a few hours, friends do not weep like freshly widowed army-wives, friends do not hug you and say "I'm not letting go", while meaning it.

Given the advancements in the field of medicine and the number of 90+ not out batsmen(and women) in my family, four years do not seem like a lot, but boy did we change ! I'd bet half my grades and inheritance( both equally insignificant) and challenge you to find one person who hasn't changed, some more drastically, but all of us have changed. We've gone through events together which(if filmed) could be classified under 2 categories, sequels to the 'SAW' series and sequels to the 'Hangover' series.

There are a million examples i could delve into to tell each one of you how special you are, I'm quite the social guy, be it online or in person and in my 13 years of schooling and 2 years of Pre-university College I've made friends, loads of them, some so special that they're family now,but it took time, with you, it was destiny, diverse backgrounds, nothing in common, not even a common language with some of you, but we clicked ! I guess living 24X7 with someone makes you family first and friends next, but i assure you, had we met under different circumstances, we'd still be the best of pals.

As most of you know, i'm usually the guy who looks at the academic calendar and goes "hmmmm... 3 days of bunking before the vacations begin and returning 2 days late makes it a fortnight's holiday...coolio", not this time, this time i made the mistake of staying back a couple of days after the semester(course) ended, and boy was it hard(boy am i starting too many sentences with the word 'boy').Seeing you off at the railway station or even those brief farewell hugs in the canteen or PMC (for non-BITians : Piya Milan Chowk, which is where one meets one's love interest or dou) , a little part of me died on the inside, with each farewell.

This might be the right time to point out that for the first time in my life, it has taken me this long to write a piece, if i weren't typing this out, the initial paragraphs might have been blotted, lucky for me, tears won't show on a blog, hopefully the anguish and pain do though.

Haven't really been myself this past week, i doubt any of you have, but the realization that the way of life one has been accustomed to ever since one entered adulthood hits you hard, you aren't just leaving behind a place and friends, you are leaving behind a way of life, one that taught you to fend for yourself while having someone's back, one where caring and sharing become apt descriptions of you, no matter how you walked in .

I could go on, but since the bottom line of this post is that all great things end too soon, i think i must conclude(see what i did there? ), but before i do, HINDI ! how can i forget Hindi?, Most of you had a major role in this department, i shudder to imagine how I'd survive four years without learning from you guys(or with you guys).

Three and a half years were spent grumbling about how we never "lived" for four years but "survived", this last sem, especially those last couple of weeks made me realize that we did live ! To the fullest extent,

 Life wasn't rosy,The rooms weren't too cosy ,No scope for being lazy,No hope for the crazy.
But we were always around to wipe them tears,never missed a chance to bump mugs and say cheers, Friends who were never described as peers, chased away home-sickness and all of my fears

I just hope I influenced your lives to half the extent you guys influenced mine, because whether one admits it or not, the greatest fear is the fear of being forgotten .

yours forever,
Nikhil ,voldy, suar ,piggy, joe,nik, joey or whatever name you know me by


Saturday, 19 November 2011

Oil- The great leveler

18 years of my life i spent training my body to wake up a little later than the usual on that day of the week which is the result of paganism evolving into neo-christianity(did i come off as too Dan brownish?...no offence meant), little did i know that one shabby sheet of paper would change it all- The mess menu, that torn-up,oily,smelly piece of paper which looks like a collage in which someone used clippings from a news paper called" The aloo and puri daily" , And the one dish powerful enough to make such an impact : Chole Bathura on Sunday mornings, The oilier,tastier,unhealthier bada bhai of puri, a melt in the mouth delicacy that makes little boys who miss ghar ka khana forego sleep and hangover remedies(at times, even taking a dump).

Wars have been fought, families and countries have severed ties, blood and sweat have been spilt (enough to drench any small nation), but that is not the aspect of oil i wish to talk about, the time has come for me to introduce you to the protagonist of this story, he goes by many names(all of which were provided by me): Tel man,fry-man, bhujiya-man, wok-man and my personal favourites- bandli-man or yenne-man. Ill use text from the respective languages in the future or italicize them, i promise(pinky-swear).

There may be one or more tel-men (dudes in-charge of frying stuff) in every hostel mess, but this is my blog, hence my subject shall be the Tel-man in my hostel mess. I'm sure most of you either watch or have heard of the NDTV travel/foodie show called "Highway On My Plate", anyways quoting Rocky and Mayur(the awesome hosts) while they were in Jharkhand (Episode aired on Jan 9th,2011), "keep in mind , good(food) in Jharkhand means, has excessive oil" and mess food is no exception, that makes tel-man a celebrity chef of sorts, it matters not if you're the most popular kid on campus or if you're a goon surrounded by 8 minions at any given time, he cares not if you're listening to bieber or mohit chauhan or floyd while waiting, but wait you shall , and its each man for himself, because when it comes to the golden brown piece of sunshine that is the chola bathura , there are no compromises.
Note to self: Find out Tel-man's name next Sunday.
Appendix-1(accepted usage of the word :tel(oil)):
1. "machi, see machi, how much tyel is there in this puris*squeezes a handful of puris like they were made of sponge*"-regular oil .
2. "viva kaise gaya?""*makes rude hand-gesture*, bina tel ka le liya bhai!": "How'd the viva go?""They did not even provide us lube bro !"
3. "CS jaaye tel lene, chupchap padhai kar" : "Balls to Counter-strike, cock-up and study"

And finally one last shout-out to the dude who makes us smile once a week and gives our sunday a fitting start. Go Tel-man !