On this day...4 years back... I started college...!!

As I heard somewhere, that “college is the longest vacation”, yes it is, I truly believe in it. As I saw the date on my laptop this morning. It said, 10/13/2012, it took me a minute or two to figure out the significance of the mm/dd part of this date, and then I realized that on 10/13/2008, I started this vacation. College.

SHALEEN and I came together in the route no 3 bus, as we reached the class, we found many empty places, but just for no reason we chose 2^nd last seat of the window row, we were followed by MURTUZA and GAUTAM in the seating arrangement. I made all the notes properly, paid proper attention to every single thing that came out of the mouths of my faculties. I kind of promised myself that I will study from now on. I was innocent. I was a kid really. Among others I remember was UT, he wasn’t looking at me when I anticipated he was. Later I found, he can see two things at the same time. Ha-ha. I also remember DINSHAW, She was really enjoying everything. I regarded her as the most laughing creature of my class. And I remember SHAILLY and AMATULLAH, Shaleen and I was interested in knowing the people who has the next roll number to his or mine. MOHIT TONDE was most interesting, he was smart and a good speaker and I liked his persona. Sir ROHIT JOSHI told him to speak about something and he talked it in multi lingual skills that are in English and Hindi. He understood there were people from villages nearby and for whom English is big deal. The funny part is he categorized me in the Hindi part. There was this Big Man, I never forget. He is one of my best friends now…!! ABHISHEK. He was lousy but funny. I don’t remember KHALID, because he was absent that day, although we were already 2 weeks old friend. I don’t really remember ANSHUL. He became my best friend, but for the truth, I never remember things about him on the first day. And how I remember SHRAVAN, he was strange, lazy and was premature ever since he came out of his mother’s womb. And everybody remembered ASTHA, she was a victim of good looks, seniors made her presence more significant than anybody else. I don’t know why, personally, I never thought of her that way, but that’s how things were, that’s not her fault. 4 years later, I remember that day and realize how we matured as a human being; our points of views have changed, academically or personally. Aggressive ones became peaceful, the ones who looked forward for every plan became reserved and uninterested and the uninterested ones became more participating, changes struck us in different way in each and every one of us.

-Amritt Rukhaiyaar

And what happened after my counselling

I told you how my "preparation began to being an engineer", but did I mention to you what happened after that, so here I am after some 10 months to conclude  the next episode of my endeavors in Indore, since the 1st one have been read and liked like a bestseller book or a blockbuster movie, I still have no idea...why it attained such a cult status among my other blog posts, it was an ordinary post, but perhaps SEO played an important role to make this ordinary post a legendary one.

What happened straight away was the first college day, which I wrote in great detail in this post, and described how I met my best friend Khalid Khan on that particular day and how our frequencies matched perfectly.

Here is what happened next:

MY FIRST RAGGING SESSION

On the way back home, I went to my bus to reserve a seat to make myself seated, I realized in the bus only that there was no rule existed that could win a seat to the juniors except for pleading to the seniors, and the most terrible thing of the day was that there were only two of us as juniors, the other one was Jayesh, the rest of all were seniors, and guess what, it was bus no. 3, the most ragging struck and controversial bus of the college, I gave infinite intros, sang like a radio and danced like some robot, Jayesh and I were sort of enjoying these ragging sessions.

Here is a picture of mine, when I was in the first years:

L to R: Shaleen, I, Anshul and Vijay. Photographed by Gautam Gupta

The "Thud" Effect at the water park.

The Day before yesterday, I went to this water park called The Mayank Blue Water Park with Akshay, Anshul, Khalid and Thakur. On this kind of summer, it was the best place to spend an afternoon. We reached there at some 4 pm, we were already too late because water parks in Indore are not operational after 7 pm.

First up, we went to the beginner's pool, which ranges from 0 to 7 feet, and being a non-swimmer the four of us except anshul, kept ourselves pretty much up to 5 feet of depth only, but it was fun diving into the water with adding another 3-4 feet to it. Life seems so light inside water. I never wanted to get out of it, it was awesome being inside the water.With your head in or out, either way, it keeps you happy.

After some 30 minutes of "toddler swimming sessions" we went to something manly, the slides, Khalid and I, the two of us was in jeans, so they didn't allow us to go in to the slides, shorts were a compulsion. 'The desperate me' went to the counter and bought a pair of shorts, for both of us, and happily climbed to the top of the slide. There were 2 slides, the red one and the yellow one, god knows why i choose to slide through the red one.


AND THEN

     image courtesy: images.morris.com /google.com

I sat on the top and pushed myself to start sliding, just a couple of seconds and I realized I was not in a good position, I at least knew that the sensation of smashing into the water would be a little uncomfortable but it won't hurt, it took me some 12-15 seconds to reach the ground level of the slide.

I smashed into water quite comfortably and was collecting myself together when something hits me in my left ear "THUD". It actually sounded like that. IDENTICALLY. I was hurt bad and I went out of my senses for the next 50 seconds. And then another two minutes, I couldn't hear, I couldn't understand things. And then when I gathered myself again, I could feel vibrations all around my head, Sounds became less audible but clear, I could listen to distant things if spoken clearly.. huh.. what the hell.. am I a facilitated kind of deaf... I felt pain all day long and in the night too, but now its almost 48 hours since the infamous THUD sound. I have almost been like before.. but still the vibrations are there, at a lesser extent perhaps. The funny thing is I stillhave no idea what actually hit me, some prankster's slap or a kick by the one sliding behind me.!!!


-Amritt Rukhaiyaar

Today is bliss..what's in store tomorrow...?

My life has been blessed by god, rather personally, may not be academically. I joined an Engineering college in October 2008, a mediocre college with the best kind of people in there. I made some unforgettable friends there. 

I and my wolf pack, its been a roller coaster ride these 3 years 3 months. Some one made my birthdays great, by showing up in front of me. Some day they behaves mean and I feel bad, and just when I start to hate them, they show how special I am in their life, and I just say then.."bhag ja be..Paka mat..".

Friends.. of all kind.. an irresponsible roommate friend.. who despite a bad room-cleaner has the most clean heart among my friends...he is a gem, if you believe me. 

A friend, with a drinking habit, still he knows when he needs to stop and carry his responsibilities.

A Speedy friend, who is just fast, be it typing the keyboard or writing a program or riding bikes. He is a cute one though.

A reserved friend, who believes in religion, and values his Allah above everything, he has his own ways, and I respect that, he is a great friend too. 

A friend of all moods, most of the time underestimating his calibers, a protected one, a dominated one, a dominant one, he listens to his heart, I have noticed million times. 

A estranged friend, lost in the rush of life, used to be my ultimate partner, in every endeavour of mine, he leaves the college, but he is still as special as anyone else. 

A friend, who is rather sweet, we tease him for being sweet, but truly he is just a nice, caring friend. 

A selfish handsome friend, well that's what we call him for a nickname, and truly, he is not selfish at all.

A prodigal friend, makes fool of himself, by reacting abruptly to anything, but he is a like a kid, if you give him space, he will care for your problems as he cares for his own.

&&& 

A friend who remained with me all my life, when I was a 8 year old kid, I was introduced to her, When I was 14, I started to care about her, I was 17, when I started to miss her, she remained with me all the time, when I won, when I lost, when I was high or low, or when I was out of my senses, or when I was in love, she remained there intact. Truly, She is truly my one of the Best friends.

I don't know whats coming tomorrow but this is my 'Today', I am proud of it, every characters of my story are special in its own way. One just can't flip them. But I feel bad, what I am gonna do when they will drift apart from me in search of their own destiny. As I heard somewhere,

" College is the longest Vacation" and I believe this vacation is gonna end soon.

-I am not gonna miss them ever, I carry them in my hearts, for life now.

- Amritt Rukhaiyaar

The name is Khan.. Khalid Khan..

      29^th September, 2008 was the decided date as the first day of college, I was new to this city, I hated Indore then, I went there taking a taxi, as I was unaware of any other source. It cost me a good 350 bucks, really it did. As I reached there in a hurry, I saw a seminar was going on and Rahul Sharma, one of the faculty members, was giving tips on “how to handle ragging”. I felt irritated for my 350 bucks. I could have managed to save some money there, had I known, there isn't any classes to miss, but anyways, I made 5 friends on that particular day, Khalid, Akhilesh and Alok from my Dept. IT, while Shashikant & Yogesh from CSE and ECE branches respectively.
I didn’t get along very well with the latter four, I struck a chord with KHALID KHAN, and I tell you what, I selected a gem of a friend on that Monday, I quite find him very interesting straight away, I figured out there was something in him, I knew he is going to stay on the "sacred" list of true friends. We were totally different from each other, and in a way it reasoned for our great friendship, you just can't get along with a shadow of yours, for life to be fun, you need differences. Khalid became one of those special buddies in my life.

...to be continued...

The Preparation Begins to being an Engineer: My Counseling

      In the last week of august 2008, Mummy, Papa and I left for Delhi and after spending 10-15 days there, I alone left for Indore on 5th of September, Rahul and I took a room at a rent of Rs.2600 and shifted the same day, so I decided even before the counseling that I am going to spend my next 4 years in this city. It was totally a different thing for me; I never lived in a house where the owner was not my Dad. I waited for the counseling date patiently, On the 10th of September my parents also joined me in Indore, I felt better, I was feeling alone in this city, Indore not at all resembled my hometown or the state I was born in, you can’t say that with Delhi, you can start loving Delhi at once with all the glamour around you, but Indore is a different deal, Indore had its own ways.

      Finally the Day came; we went to the SGSITS campus, my parents, Rahul & I. I was called for a day schedule but the whole process with each and every student’s counseling formalities was too lengthy and too slow, so because of that the pre-scheduled ‘Daytime’ counseling happened at 9.30 pm, My Dad & I sat at the counseling hall, the operator led me to the computer screen and asked me the choice of college and department I wanted, I went for an IT branch in a college called PCST. Abb. Patel College of Science & Technology, located near the famous lover’s point “Ralamandal”. Anyways in this way, “my fate had been sealed” and I took admission in the next two days that followed.

Ragging: Govt Colleges vs Private Colleges

I was shifting from the School level to a collegiate one... my brother graduated from the most talked about college of this country and the college who owns the Star Performer of all the companies who hires engineer, that is Indian Institute of Technology, so disbelieving him was as stupid an idea as me myself.

Anyways,

In IITs, ragging is as hazardous as malaria, once you messed it, you will be in deep shit for a long long time, my brother narrated me a dozen stories about ragging in IIT and I used to have the fear of ragging since school.

Keeping that in mind, I played it very safe since my first day, and as a result of that, i became a dumb, speechless, tongue-tied, incoherent junior who only looked down due to fear of seniors, but I forgot that its no IIT, it is just a mediocre engineering college and your seniors are no star performers or entrance crackers, they are seniors only because they have born a year before than you did, 

I obeyed all the shittiest rule made by my seniors, only after watching the patterns for 6 months in this college, I find out that how exactly I should frame myself in this institutions, actually saying frame is inappropriate, in private college, one should be natural and fearless, seniors hardly have guts or authority to create problems for you neither they are going to help you with your degree. 

Our juniors learned it very earlier and the super juniors came with that natural and fearless essence.

we were the last Ragged batch of my college, I guess I believe.

The Un-usuality of my Character...

Well, It started like this... I never ever cried while going to school since my KG classes... I started partying at only 5 or 6 with a friend who lived nearby... I studied in a school where the principal disagreed on taking any tuition fees for my education until class 7th... I chose sections according to my personal needs, the needs had ranges from liberal teachers to proper locality of the class although most of the time I opted for a 'B' section as there were less competitive guys and I myself is the least competitive man I have ever met in my life... I believe only & only in improving my personal best every time I appear in a test...once in my 4th standard I noticed my class teacher did my attendance with a pencil while others were done in ink, I felt sad then...but now I realize thats the difference between the common and the different... but the true fact is that I never been different in a positive sense...

Today I guess I am going to be an Engineer in some years ,but still I am not very loyal to my degree, everyday I aspire to do something heroic, a larger than life stuff... sometimes I wanna join the Indian army, the other day I want to become bollywood superstar or sometimes a more powerful someone... All I want is to follow my heart... I am no brainy... I should be one but I am not...

I am no perfect..... not even closer to that..... but I remain happy... because I am different.... I am not that.....

............... AS USUAL BEING...............