College for Social Networking!

A boy with neatly combed hair very well oiled, half sleeve “printed shirt” tucked in a pant with a belt comfortably making at least three rounds around a 24 inch waist, just to make sure the pant doesn’t fall off :), slipped his legs into a pair of Bata slippers, a bag on the back, vehemently protesting against carrying the “dabbi”, with some cash in his pocket, hopped on to his HERO cycle, started his journey to the whole new world of boys in jeans, boys in jeans riding Yamaha/shogun bikes, boys in jeans riding Yamaha/shogun bikes with girls hugging them tightly sitting in the back seat, (so tightly that it went on to become an inspiration for the Fevicol advertisement ;)) girls and boys sitting in a dry gutter chatting away... As he reached closer and closer to the destination, the college culture which he had only heard and imagined before that time, slowly started opening itself up in front of him. Groups of students few with books, few with cigarettes, few with helmets (yeah wearing a helmet was fashionable, then!!!) were spread on either side of the road leading to the college entrance.  Although he was not a little town boy, he hardly had any “social” life outside his cricket and studies and hence all these students seemed to be from a different planet altogether! The dry gutters at the road junctions around the college were packed to the brim….. with.. with students, both genders, clasping each other so tightly that there was always room for more from the gang to seat his/her bum in that coveted place, the alma mater of total time pass!! Amazed at the space management of these seniors, the boy started looking around for some familiar faces. It was easy to identify who were the first timers for the college, Girls with their mom, dad or brother along with them, small groups of boys in a huddle at a distant corner away from the seniors, he could identify them all!!!

But where is his group? Frantically he was looking around for familiar faces so that he could hide from the seniors of the college, when familiar voices “Lo avi baaro illi”… was heard. Much to his relief, the boy hurriedly ran to the comfort of his group, in which he had friends/acquaintances for the past few years!!! Few were his classmates from his school, few from his same school, but different sections, and few were friends of his friends!! All in that huddle, giggling, bubbling with enthusiasm about the so called very good college that they had secured a seat in.  Yes, human mind feels far more comfortable in known territory, and about certainties in life!!

I had always been the happy Joe in the sense that I used to go with the flow. All my friends had chosen Sanskrit as the first language and English as the second language. I dint have any special love towards Hindi and hence I went with what my friends had chosen. When I was wondering how the students would be divided into two different classes, one simple logic put my friends away from me, not far, they were only put in an adjacent class. The simple logic was an alphabetical order! Students whose first name started with letters between A-K would be one class, from K – P would be in another class!! S – Z in another class!! Prashanth, Prabhu, Pramod, Shashi kiran were thus pushed to other classes! Few guys and girls, whom I had perceived as “nerds” during my Excellence Class anecdotes in 10^th standard, were my class mates at 1^st PU B Section in M E S College of Arts Science and Commerce!!! The first steps in an environment where I would cherish two wonderful years of life had begun!!

The big hoopla surrounding the perceived “College” environment was evident from the way my friends were dressed. Forget branded clothes, even a jeans pant was considered a novelty by me and believed it was the same even for all of my friends. But no, not for all, few of them wore the best of the brands, shoes and even had got themselves a bike to travel to college! And yes, there were always these little vehicles fitted with a 60 cc engine; few with gears, few without, which fuelled the urge of these kids to showcase their newly learnt macho driving skills!!! And of course there were these typical Bollywood hero types, who could flirt with girls all day long, zip around the college in shogun/Yamaha bikes and yet get a first rank in the class, with attendance shortage in every subject. Looking at all these various species of homo sapiens, I felt a bit inferior, but to my relief there were others too who peddled their way to college, wore a non-catalogued dress and were almost bare foot except for the Bata slippers that adorned their feet! Made me realize why we wore uniforms to school!!!

For a college that was conventionally traditional, the percentage of students of both the genders that were together was surprisingly high! There were only two places in the whole college where the boys and girls could not move around together!! The first place is quite obvious… and the second place was surprisingly the staircase!! For some strange reason two separate stairs were made for boys and girls, as if it caused inconvenience to the students who used them. I guess the college authorities felt that soon after the prayer, (one of the many hilarious events right at the beginning of the day) the students would be in a tearing hurry to attend the classes, hence two separate stairs would offer convenience go to the respective classes in the above floors. How witty!! The fatheads forgot that single stairs would have made the boys find convenience in inconvenience and yet reach the classes along with the respective female classmates without even complaining! The fairer gender in the anxiety of missing the classes would eventually make it to the class, despite the hardships (supposedly!!)  However, why gender bias was made only in using the stairs is something which I fail to comprehend even to date!! Coming back to the prayer, the Sanskrit lecturer, Ramakrishna, (The Cacofonix of our college!!!) standing inches away from the mike, would recite the prayer (I personally felt in his vociferous best, he dint need a mike, however, I guess the prayer was supposed to signal the entire Malleshwaram locality that the college had started!) and in the excitement of performing this mundane activity, would sprinkle his sputum in all generosity on its head. As he hit the high notes, the sprinkle would get extended to the potted plants in front of the stage, a few feet away from the first person standing in the row for the prayer!! I had always stood almost at the end of the line for the prayer, hence never got a chance to see or talk to the person who could have at least once received the “abhishekham”, albeit only a couple of drops!!  No prizes for guessing why the Sanskrit lecturer was the chosen one for performing this activity; be it Prayer or Scolding, Sanskrit was his language of preference!!! ;) The seniors from the college generally gave the prayer a skip and would run to the busiest and most happening place on the campus, its Social Networking Site!!! (in an non internet environment, the verbatim would translate to CANTEEN!!)

This site in MES College was strangely tucked in one corner of its campus, and was cramped for space throughout the day I must say! Jam packed during lunch hours!! More the rush more the fun!! Yes the college canteen had stood witness to many budding love stories, romantic encounters, wannabe lover boys campaigning with the best of their wits, trying to woo that one gorgeous looking girl from the class!, groups of boys admonished as reserved snobs generally having a hearty laughter at a naughty joke in an “All Boys” group, students completing the never completed lab records, groups of boys and girls yapping happily sipping coffee/tea. Amidst all this, the CANTEEN owner Sudarshan, would churn out not exactly lip-smacking delicacies, but something that would satiate our appetite!! After all canteen is not the place meant only for eating food!!

Another popular social networking site was the parking lot in front of the college main entrance. Ideally two girls would be sitting on a kinetic Honda, and adjacent to that, in another Kinetic Honda or a Yamaha bike a guy would be seated, frantically making attempts at wooing at least one of them!! A guy standing in the middle of these two vehicles, would either be a common friend or be waiting for the guy on the bike to get started as he was supposed to drop him! Also, there would be guys under the pretext of copying notes, would take an eternity to take their vehicles out of parking lot, so that they could speak to their probable love interests for a couple of minutes more. The Valentino Rossis of the college and other colleges would definitely find the platform to showcase their talent of riding their bikes on single wheel in front of same parking lot!! 

As I look back, many from my generation and the previous who studied in MES College, would agree that they would have spent the best part of lives in that college! Even now, while I drive past this college, my car slows down, and as l happily look back at the stone building, Bryan Adams belts out “Those were the best days of life….” in my car stereo!!  

A[V]I