Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Bari B.E.



When a People’s Educational Society tries to produce “qualified engineers” through an Institute of Technology, what happens? For the frail boy, who was drilled with multiple choice questions for his preparation for CET, this descriptive question sent his mind orbiting into history, which was just 6 months back, yet, to him, that was history. He thought and thought and finally he could not think any further, he smiled back at a group of senior students, standing just outside the entrance of the college he had joined on that day. 

“It results in an oxymoron, you Moron!” shouted a senior looking student. When you don’t understand the question, it is understandable. But when you don’t understand even the answer, then you know that the situation is sticky. The only word that the boy understood in the whole answer was the word “result”. Fearing the “result” of this interaction with the seniors, he tried to sneak through. When a group of familiar faces are standing up against a new face, it could mean only one thing to the security guard who was standing at the gate. As he hastened the steps towards the group of boys, the bigger boys made a hasty retreat while the boy unable to decide whether to run or stand there, was looking around for cover, when another frail looking boy whizzed past him in his moped. Sensing that this boy should surely be a fresher, the boy followed this moped whizkid to the parking lot, where an elderly gentleman was ensuring that vehicles are parked in an order. “Boys, centre stand” he kept yelling repeatedly. In utter shock, the boy checked himself around his waist and below, to check if everything was in order. After an emotion of  shock, amusement, realization in that order,  the boy realized that the gentleman was referring to “vehicle’s centre stand” and nothing else. The elderly gentleman was insisting that the vehicles to be rested on their center stand so that more vehicles could be parked.  The boy completed the ACT, and quickly asked the whizkid, “1st semester?”. The other boy enthusiastically said, “Yes, E&C”. The boy felt he was meeting his long lost brother, who had separated from him in the Lalbagh flower show. (Back then, flower show was the only place chaotic enough to get lost in namma Bengaluru. If it was a present day narration, Silk board traffic junction, would add more drama and trauma to the “bichade hue bhai” saga ) .

Quick introductions completed, both the boys stepped into the classroom of wannabe engineers who would be their classmates for a period of 4 years, if destiny smiled on them, or more if destiny frowned. Having studied in a college which was “socially networked” the boy found the camaraderie a bit pale in that class. Not that he had romance oozing out of his twig frame, but he was of the opinion that a congenial environment that provided an opportunity look for a soul mate in a bunch of classmates would do no harm for his engineering degree. Little did he know that even a completely congenial environment, only to study, would not suffice to earn an engineering degree. 

By the end of the first week the moped whizkid had made friends with students coming from his locality and the frail boy made friends with a soft spoken nerd, who smiled more than he talked. The boy quickly realized that the need of the hour was a bench mate, more than a soul mate, with whom he could talk and try to understand what was taught in the class. So the frail boy always ensured that he sat next to the soft spoken nerd. Although he couldn’t decipher what the nerd wrote because of his cryptic handwriting, the nerd was kind hearted to “teach” engineering concepts whenever asked for. Because the frail boy was a cricket fanatic, his adventures in the college cricket tournament, made him acquainted with other cricket fanatics of the class. One of the fanatics was a non-obvious nerd talking to whom the frail boy felt that the non-obvious nerd was really good at everything else other than studies, which the non obvious nerd comfortably proved wrong, throughout, with the results of 8 semesters of engineering exams. His little asterix friend who was his “sleeping partner” during their journey to college and back home, was also in the nerd category, did appear that he was indeed studious. (Before we conclude about their “partner preferences”, let me clarify that these two had the innate ability to doze off to slumber in any given physical position when they were traveling to college and back home. No amount of jostling in the bus would put them off their balance. This equanimity had its bad effects as well; they would invariably get down couple of stops ahead of their intended bus stops while traveling back home.) 

Few months into the first semester, the moped whizkid had got around him a group of boys, and had even managed to strike a deal with a bajaj scooter bairagi that they would commute together in each other’s vehicles on alternate days as they were from the same locality. After getting introduced to the bairagi, the frail boy learnt that the bairagi had made an unsuccessful attempt at the great escape from the college through a mutual exchange with any engineering seat in any college from his home town.  

Making friends is not only a matter of convenience but also a connect that you instantly feel when you meet the person. Being on the same side of the city also helps, but is not a demeaning factor. So this connect amongst this bunch of boys, had made a group out of it. The soft spoken nerd and the non-obvious nerd always were above the distinction margin by some distance. The whizkid and the sleeping partner were no pot heads either. That left the frail boy and the bairagi languishing in the bottom of the group with regard to the semester scores. However, one thing was common for the group; nobody was interested in the rat race for marks. Because few were clearly ahead in the rat race and few were never even in the list.  A couple of local trips later to far off dhabas; the group had started to crystallize into a fixed number and they had started moving around in unison. 

During the second year, Bairagi discovered a human sloth who was apathetic towards the general activities of the class, which was only when he was disturbed from his slumber during the long marathon sessions of electronics classes. Bairagi was generally interested in such new species, and with his networking skills got him introduced to the group. This human sloth was apparently a victim of a “lost and found” scenario. He was “lost” for options in the process of seat selection in CET counselling and “found” himself studying in the college that was supposed to be a school of engineering. For most of us, this was a “school” for engineers. When the sloth was not sleeping, he listened to rock music and occasionally used “agile” methods; of physical activity like playing cricket, trekking etc. 

The group was a mix of extremes; a human sloth and a pocket rocket co-existed with equal ease. Everything about the pocket rocket was fast……right from his furious running….. to his speech. It was only after lot of interactions with him, that the group realized that his mother tongue was Malayalam, but was talking to us in Kannada, our local dialect all the time when he was interacting with us. Pocket rocket could get away with the filthiest of expletives, because the edge his tongue fluttered at such speeds, that it went on to become the communication data transfer speed benchmark for Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution; aka EDGE!!

Travelling was indeed a common interest for the group and had testimonials to prove; a successful new year celebration at Yercaud, an “economy pleasure trip/pilgrimage” to Goa followed by kollur, hornadu and Udupi :) and an economy trek to Mutthatthi all during the third year of engineering. 

By the end of engineering, the bonding between each one of them in the group had become strong enough to last for a lifetime. And indeed it has; almost two decades of friendship and not even a slightest sense of disconnect. We may go months together without talking to each other, and every time even after a long gap, the conversation just flows as it was like we had spoken yesterday!

If not anything else, engineering has given each one of us the best bunch of buddies for a lifetime. Everytime I get a call from anyone from this bunch, I can hear Bryan Adams belt out, “You've Been A Friend To Me” in my ears, and my first word is always “Helo!” instead “Hello” :D

A[V]I

Note: I don’t intend to name the pseudo names I have given the characters in blog. I am sure, everyone who was a part of the bunch would identify the person……and to others….well, it doesn’t matter!