roll 21:DWAIPYAYAN

Awesome 3sum

Ahh! How long have I waited to write this post! If ever any of the posts in this blog was close to my heart-this one is. forgive me folks, for I might well forget all strains of restraint while writing about this guy, dwaipyayan, he is the person in my class whom I’ve known for the longest time, and may I dare say, known him more than may be he knows himself! For easier reference I will refer to him for the rest of the post as ‘frustoo’ the title I, myself, had conferred onto him for extremely valid reasons. Till this day, he wonders why I gave him the name, I think I don’t have to spell out the reason out here, once you are through reading this post, you will surely know why I call him so

Scottish church college-physics honors 1st year’s classroom.1st day in college: in frustoo’s words I was this nerd looking sheepish guy who looked every inch a studious guynow if that qualifies frustoo’s observation power, then he will get very poor grades, for I was too busy to notice all the notable ones in class, and unfortunately frustoo didn’t quite register in my mind the 1st time around, and that is how he is: he just doesn’t make much of a first impression when you meet him-but he is one of those persistent river streams, who come in blow by blow-with each blow etching a deeper and more permanent mark in your mind till one day you suddenly realize that,”arre he is such a wonderful friend yaar!”for me this moment came, a few days after swapno (a hunk of our physics class and later who was to join our college too, he will be posted some time later in here), frustoo and myself were having a walk around the hedua swimming pool, looking hopefully for a glimpse of some accidentally mishandled clothing of any of the swimming gals in the pool and meanwhile if possible discuss a bit of our wbjee plans. There was frustoo, in his usual fast talking mode, when he seems to be in such a hurry to make his point lest someone else spoke something else and interrupted him. the other really apparent expression on frustoo’s visage is when one of his eyes gets a bit crooked when he really concentrates giving him a look of one of the pirates that plunder and loot the seasthis magnificent piece of observation was brought to my notice by suprovat,a master at observing minute details in characters and we will come to him later on.frustoo really gets annoyed when one even taps him on his head, just watch him spring to annoyed denial every time someone does that, this is not really funny, to try and tap someone in that sensitive cerebral area, but to watch frustoo react like only he can is unbearably repeat value worthy! Arguably the most notable incident regarding frustoo’s features came to limelight when around 2nd year we suddenly spotted a ‘startling similarity’ of his side profile to a certain small hero in Indian cinema-mr.hritik roshan. Till this day, I remember the sheepish grin of dreaminess on his face and the occasional look at his biceps as he flexed them to check the similarity that he was being reminded of by nearly every member of the batch in turns. May be it wasn’t an attempt at leg pulling after all? may be there was some truth in this rumour,right?these were the exact questions that we hoped plagued his mind, and it seemed we were right, as he obliged one request after another to flash his side face for one whole week!

When one comes to know that someone is actually observing him/her one is bound to get conscious about it, but in frustoo’s case it is just the extreme form of getting conscious about himself. he gives this funny expression of looking at you shyly, and shifting in his seat from side to side, rubbing his palms and may be mutter an almost silent “ki hoeche re be?” by looking at you with that one squinted eyenow that is what I call a typical frustoo posture, I have in fact lost count of the number of occasions that in the train or elsewhere we have pretended to whisper something about frustoo in our ears, and then watch the ‘conscious frustoo’ show for the next half an hour or so!

Frustoo’s style of walking is the easiest giveaway to his state of mind. When frustoo is really down, he has this typical slouched shoulder posture, when he suddenly appears too short and kind of tiny (almost giving tanima competition) and his face is just too funny to feel sorry for him, and his bag free hand almost doesn’t move on his sides.on the other hand when frustoo is a trifle confused he is right there with this puzzled look on his face, and almost disbelieving every thing around him supposing that all are trying to pull his legat the extreme end of his emotional spectrum, when frustoo marches ahead, with his head held high and his chest swelled, and a huge broad grin on his face and with his hands dangling dangerously on his sides, you just might be lucky to pester and ask a glass of nimboo pani of him. Why this ‘little’ treat is to be reserved for such a happy mood is what I want to talk about next-his miser nature. Now let’s get one thing straight, till this day I believe that the single reason that I was titled the biggest miser in college is because this character was always lurking behind me, egging people that I deserve exactly that title. I do agree that I wasn’t a big spender in college, but what of frustoo?? I bet there isn’t a single soul in campus whom he has known and whom he hasn’t pestered and egged on to get a free cup of tea or a glass of nimboo pani.frustoo and bani decided to do this dirty act along with me, but unfortunately 9 times out of 10 I was left out of the nicest of ventures, and there they were, the 2 scoundrels,frustoo telling me, in his usual, dragging way of speaking, when he seems to drink the words as pleasantly as the glass of nimboo pani just consumed at the expense of someone else,”janish toh.khelam…uff..Ki khete…Ar best hoche…ota free chilo…sponsor chilo arnab/Danish/ashu/subhankar/praloy/…”you can complete the dots with as many posts as I am going to make out herehe probably has the record amongst us of the fewest number of van rides to the college-be it torrential rain, scorching sun, or bone chilling winter, there will be the effervescent frustoo marching his way to college-to earn another episode of his saved incomes(rs.3.50,later progressing to rs4).he walked from sealdah to moulali on his way back to save further bucks. This was one of the principal reasons that he hated to miss coming to college.

In the beginning in college, frustoo was damn scared of the ragging phenomenon, and I remember till this day how ananyo and myself used to scare him with made up stories of the atrocities committed by seniors on innocent juniors like ourselves. He absolutely dreaded Fridays when the seniors returned from hostels, and I won’t ever forget the sweetest rendition of the “idhar chala main udhar chala” from frustoo that he sang during one such Friday. I remember almost giving a standing ovation to him for singing the song in the most straight faced national anthem way that is imaginable! then there was the bit when frustoo was damn scared of the reactions that he would be getting from the co passengers once we got off at our respective stations having completed our routine notorious acts and then frustoo had to travel all the way alone till sealdah along with those passengers. in class he was this real timid fellow initially, who once even resorted to begging mercy of a teacher of no importance in the first year who had threatened on the usual lines of “you are suspended, guardian call.,, blah blah..”, by touching his feet and till this day he rues the act, and as only he can, smiles at himself. then there was this unforgettable chemistry class test, when nobody knew anything, and frustoo guided us all with his ‘notes’, we copied at least 4 pages on his instructions, only to be informed by him at the end of it all that the inorganic process he had been writing about belonged to some other non-metalon a similar occasion he smartly applied the formula for a wire of infinite length to calculate the magnetic field of a wire of 2 m.he was the one who was under constant vigilance from the likes of ananyo and myself-and why not? For he provided excellent study material for extreme human emotions! I remember during one chemistry class when ananyo and I were banished to a bench on the far corner of the class, we observed frustoo’s activities all through the class, and the range was simply fabulous. it started with a sheepish grin, looking here and there to check whether anybody was watching, then poking at the back of the girl in front (roll 53 or 58 usually) and passing a CMS (chirkut message service) to her. having handed it to her, he looked with a wild anticipation on his face to the gal in question, and when he finally got the desired response, he gave a gleeful heavenly smile that could mean either of two things: 1>zero frustration or 2>ultimate sensual pleasure.
Frustoo was the unfortunate medium who was entrusted by roll 53 to pass on a card to roll 2 on Valentine’s Day in 1st year. imagine the scene, just in front of the first year APC hostel, he is called forth by roll 53 on v-day and is handed the hidden card in an almost replica of a smuggling scene of a bollywood potboiler. the other incident that I must mention in this regard is the utter shock and awe that frustoo experienced when he came to know (from roll 2 and ananyo, who else) that someone had expressed her fascination for the yellow color to roll 2 for all thingstill this day, he swears that he believes that we were not joking with him, and that there is a distinct possibility for that incident to have happened!

Frustoo in love was some sight to behold. He used to tell us beautiful tales of his trips with his soul mate in asansol and burnpur walking hand in hand during school picnics-of all those dreaded reprimands from his school teachers-that were dangerously pretty to tackle! his one day adventurous trips to asansol seemed really lovingly nice to me, here was a committed lover par excellence, and the best bit was the scenes when he had to ring up at her household, he used to walk to the college phone booth with a girl in tow-it might have been suranjana, or tanima, or satarupa or anybody else-for him who the girl was didn’t matter, as long as it was a girl! Now don’t misunderstand me folks, he was merely going to ring his deewani at her home and for that he needed a female voice to intro himself! also those surreptitious v-day gifts and letters that he got via dr.samanta’s (roll 58’s dad)address and the mystified and pristinely happy look on his face will remain fixed in my mind forever, for that ‘was’ frustoo in love. Yes folks’ was’ and not ‘is’. I do not really wish to bring back bitter memories, but what I do not wish even further is a dishonest incomplete opinion on the person who was dearest to me in college.However, about frustoo’s own love life I got only one thing to offer him, a reverential bow. What else do you give to a person, who after nearly 5 years of courtship, has to face separation and still only reluctantly tells us about it, suffers most of it himself, and goes on with life with his friends as if nothing has happened. Till this day, I regard him as one of the guys with the strongest of characters, but he is just too secretive about the life that he holds dear to himself. I admire this quality in him the most, for he is the least non-frustoo type while exhibiting this kind of behavior. I know this might come as a surprise to some, but I just wish that we all were a bit more aware of this aspect of the guy’s mind setup. Enough of serious talks, now let’s return to the normal flow of frustoo folklore!

Frustoo’s apparel calls for special mention; I will mention 2 of his renowned attires. One was the famous pair of jeans with very meaningful scratch marks all the way down, well, to put it mildly- his thighs. He got tired of telling people that it was a design and not the scratch marks of somebody’s nails. The other more famous piece of clothing was a black t shirt with a very arousing one liner of “lungi funda” written across his chest and a very provocative picture of a man’s lungi clad lower body. Apart from numerous taunts and jokes from us, frustoo seemed to be on the lookout for someone who will truly appreciate the worth of this shirt. the day arrived on the very last day of our college days, when a middle aged man got up on the train and just couldn’t take his eyes of frustoo.we were suspecting something else, until he opened his mouth to say to our utter disbelief,”sala,lungi funda,lokta lungi pore ache,sala,byapok na?”The last question bit was posed to me as I was sitting next to this new co-passenger. you could imagine my glee to actually be invited to explain the inner meaning of frustoo’s lungi t shirt to someone finally, I went about, explaining the heat bit, the minute details of the picture, till the man was unbelievably impressed and almost tempted to grab the picture on frustoo’s chest, all the while muttering things like,”amio lungi pori, ekdum hatur opor obdi gutie,nahole bhalo hawa pass korena”..the long pending mission was finally accomplished as the look on frustoo’s face said it all-he would rather wear nothing than wear that t shirt at that very moment.

Frustoo’s brother is a tcs-er to the core, who gave him, much to our total disgust, all the appropriate books during each semester and what not! Frustoo’s selection in tcs probably provided me with THE happiest moment of frustoo’s life that I have seen, as he followed his announcement of his selection with at least 3 rounds of the floral circle in our college lawns, I must mention that what the rest of us did that night wasn’t too sane as well

We all love p**u-s.but Frustoo’s fascination with p**u-s is legendary to say the least. at one time one of the constant topics of debate amongst some of our friends was whether frustoo and myself will be fighting to take home a p**u cd.but the extreme nature of frustoo’s p**u obsession can be gauged from his returning by the night train at 7:30 one day in first year itself, after some of us tempted him with longing stories of the sensual delights that were there in APC hostel waiting to be tested by him. imagine the shock in frustoo’s mother’s mind when she was unreliably informed by her son that he was staying back for extra graphics lessonswatching p**u for frustoo in those initial years was a torture I guess, his pc’s position at home was horribly public in view(it still is I am told) and thus he had to resort to watching classic p**us at hostels and ananyo’s mess and then remembering them hard and trying to recollect them at home to do what bani is yet to do! Long tedious process, but for frustoo, the adidas tagline has to be changed a bit-“impossible is nothing in p**u”.he once confided to us his idea of the perfect romp-when one will be able to actually treat his partner like a, well, a wild stallion. Ahem, all the best to mrs.frustoo!

Frustoo’s attitude to girls in general is another facet of his character to delve deeper into. people who know frustoo,just try a simple exercise-close your eyes, and try to recollect any one scene when frustoo is talking to any girl in person-talking to her directly, not while in a group-the answer is apparent-there was him, with one of his eyes squinted(i.e. concentrating intensely) and his manner uncharacteristically mild and controlled, for that was what I call, his other split personality, the ‘gentleman’ frustoo.this frustoo is averse to using any slang language, is prone to talk slowly and comprehensively, determined not to dangle but rather sway slowly from side to side while speaking,cos that movement signifies the synchronous nature of the loving thoughts passing by in his mind. the first time that I really saw this frustoo was when I suddenly discovered the ‘astrologer’ frustoo one day in train in 1st year, when in the pretext of reading the fate lines of satarupa, he resorted to liberal amount of brushes and nudges and what not-and once she got down happily at her station having listened to the trashy predictions from him regarding her successful love life and her wonderfully pleasant personality, frustoo let out a yell of glee,”yahoo!!Yessss… I touched her hand!” till this day he will abuse me liberally whenever I talk about this-but as I mentioned in the beginning itself-this blog is about the truth and only the truth-nothing else. He has recently taken to chatting on the yahoo messenger with any hot gal on queue, and one can easily picture him sitting at his desk typing the lines lovingly, while the picture portrayed above is played to perfection! I wish I had such a reserved nature in my manners while meeting members of the opposite gender, lucky frustoo.this attitude seemed to have worked the best on, to bhadra’s utter disgust, tanima, the tiny ece phenomenon.well, if frustoo is to be believed, this is still indeed a rumour, cos going to shayambazar quite frequently, and having cozy rooftop snacks at star theatre, and long hours of phone conversations may just turn out to be rumors with no truth in them at all-who knows. but one moment I would really like to mention out here was when we were all watching the recording of our annual fest of exotica 2007-there we were trying to find a glimpse of ourselves in the recording, and there was frustoo shouting restlessly to fast forward the cd-till he snatched the control from me and did the needful to pause at the very moment of the magnificent scene of tanima walking down the ramp-well, to people who watched that bit, it wasn’t really ramp stuff that scene, and we couldn’t suppress the sniggers on seeing that, but there was frustoo with the lines,” are tobu toh chesta koreche,se hashir hok ar jai hok..”.Hmm…I made a mental note…

One of the most dreaded features of his character are the occasions when he resorts to using ‘code’ language to talk about raunchy things to us in front of gals-this is because it is the single most hopeless attempt to hide the real meaning as in trying to speak in what he thinks is an apparently ‘encrypted’ language, he ends up speaking out the original raunchy words themselves to the utter disgust(and who knows glee too??) of the gals around.frustoo’s one liners are some of the funniest I have ever heard, he is bound to use some line in such a frustoo like funny way with a typical frustoo-ish expression and pronunciation, that you are bound to be on the floor rolling with laughter by the time he finishes.

Regarding academics I simply feel astonishment at some of this guy’s abilities, his application to anything theoretical, is utterly incomparable in my view. Unfortunately his grades never really reflected his level of preparation, but the likes of us who were close to him know the extent of his preparedness during exams. This guy has a near photographic memory with abilities to memorize nearly 500 lines of incomprehensible (to me for sure) code for certain papers. His final year project under the “supervision” of MKP sir was something that only he could pull off, he memorized some quantity of code that made me seriously wonder whether he actually was some kind of hard disk in disguise, however all that went to the gutters as he was found in the penultimate days to move sheepishly away trying hardest to avoid MKP’s gaze or risk reprimand for the unfinished mountain of tasks ahead, I really don’t wish to prolong his project agony any further by taunting him a any more in this regard.

Frustoo for me isn’t only the one with the traits that I have written out here. he really is the one who sits in an unnaturally unfrustoo like way in train, and looks out of the window to think of something that makes him smile to himself in an angel like way-I don’t want to investigate what goes on in his mind in that very moment as I usually do on other occasions-for that is ‘his’ own moment. He understands people’s emotions in a way that I earlier thought was non existent in people. And mate, do you know the dearest piece of words that you have ever spoken to me? I once asked of him his opinion about myself; he simply put in a one liner-‘wish I could think by placing myself in the shoes of others’…jeez! How true! Till this day, I try to apply that whenever possible. And now that I place myself in your shoes to try and suppose how you might be reacting after reading this post-what do I find-someone smiling to himself, with a squinted eye, and……oh no!! Not again!!!

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roll 20:Dibyendu

Hmm,we are now entering dangerous territory, let me tell you, I didn’t; start this blog to write orkut like testimonials to sing false songs of praise for all of my college mates, I just write what I feel and what I have felt about them all through this 4 years, and if that does incline towards being a little unpleasant towards the person being addressed, so be it.cos I’m one of those who believe stabbing at the back is even worse than telling a harsh truth at your face-I guess that’s what has been the tone in the previous posts, and this was a timely reminder for what I’m about to write about dibyendu.

There are some characters that you meet-who can be best described by one word-‘fishy’. From the very first day, dibyendu seemed that to me. Whether that be, his approach in the reading room, or his acts during lab-s, or during the exam hall, there was this overwhelming feeling of always having some suspicion about what he actually had in mind. And it is really sad for me, but the same has been reflected in the minds of others who have interacted with him at length. I don’t want to take names in this regard but his attitude towards certain individuals in lab-s was utterly disgusting to say the least-it is one thing to be irritating in a bhutu sort of way, quite another to not do anything at all and still be overtly arrogant to whoever is involved in the same assignment.

Cricket match season-the story was all too familiar to all of us-here was a guy who looked every inch a good batsman, but unfortunately too self concerned most of the timesthis fellow is really athletic and I remember him playing some of the most delicate shots among all of the folks in college.

More often than not, every time one entered the reading room, one was most likely to bump into him roaming around the place, searching around in the shelves with intense concentration, pricking his chin and a bit later sitting down with a really thick book and getting immersed into it for quite some time-I wondered at times what lot did he read, for it seemed impossible to me that one could make so much of reference studies! I will supply one piece of anecdote that I was personally witness to during the last sem.there we were, doing some last minute revision, when dibyendu points to some particular notes and asks ashu in his usual ‘earnest manner’,”ashu,jaldi se bol de na,kya ye topics sab important hain?”,I was pleasantly surprised to find such intensity in him even during the last few minutes of the exam and that too during the last semester when the rest of us were too keen to study as little as possible and get through with the exam as soon as possible.alas,the world is too cruel for our innocent fantasies! barely a second had passed that ashu had replied to him, that dibyendu had torn off those very pages and pocketed them with the ‘earnest’ relief all over him saying,”jak choth ta peye bhorsha lagche.”

His project activities or rather the lack of it were chronicled minutely by roll 58 as she lamented the fact that dibyendu and roll 31 got ‘E’-s while she being the GATE topper (that’s my addition) received an ‘A’ for all the troubles that she took during 7th semesterI remember one particular incident when he took one of my copies for notes recovery and then conveniently forgot to return it although we met several times then after. I was a bit irritated and had to ask it back and he returned it as if, it was my task to do it on his behalf. I was later told by others that I wasn’t the only one at the receiving end of such dibyendu acts.

At the end of it all, I wish I didn’t have to write such a thing about any of my classmates let alone dibyendu.however it is a distinct possibility,I hope it’s the truth, that I didn’t have the capacity to find out who the real nice dibyendu is. All the best mate, for whatever you do in life, may God bless you!

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roll 19:DHRUBOjyoti

I had a difficult time to recollect his original name while writing this as we have known him as ‘atta’ for as long as I can remember. He hails from bardhaman and he got into wipro during the campussing season making use of the fact that the lady interviewing him hailed from that self same place too. One look at atta will give you the irresistible urge to squeeze his cheeks. More if you happen to be of the opposite gender

Atta in the initial years used to be a real favorite among the ragging seniors-with his boyish ‘laltoo’ looks and the ever present smile on his face for good effect. he had an awesome collection of p*** pictures way back in first semester itself and I remember all of us enriching our collection with his generous help to us!atta was an awesome expert at playing cards, smoking and boozing till he was totally out of control. He was an expert at pulling people’s legs with the naughtiest of pranks, and in all these regards he was ably accompanied by avik, anay and Malay. They stayed together since the first day in APC hostel such that it was of no surprise when all of them made their way to VC hostel! Till this day, atta has an indelible VC stamp on himself, the usual near zero attendance and the masti of a totally different level. the level of atta’s participation in class can be gauged from the incident in which our erstwhile chemistry sir had come into the computer lab and finding atta before the gate asked him whether he is from the cse department which had to study chemistry that semester, and atta took a full minute to answer by asking around to various people whether we indeed had to study chemistry that semester, all this being in first year itselfthen there was that unforgettable comment of atta asking in graphics class, “sir, Milton sir-er name ki Milton?”

I got very useful input about atta’s exam hall performance from roll 21, and I am reliably informed that atta was the type who are gifted with the rare ability to come up with surprisingly perfect answers which prove to be manna from heaven for the others around him, roll 21 inclusiveatta was once romantically linked to roll 52-at least we believed so, for reasons that I can’t quite recollect as of now.atta is an awesome dancer when he is drunk and his steps assume legendary status during those moments

A short and sweet ode to a sweet little classmate of mine, you will always be synonymous with the ever present smile on your face

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roll 18:’bhadra’ Debashish

Really quiet, really intelligent and once upon a time hopelessly in love with tanima, a gal from ece department-that is a succinct definition of debashish, better known as “bhadra” after his surname and to avoid confusion with deba.to me bhadra will be this really observant student whose prematurely ending tanima episode will provide most masala in this write up on him.

Early second year days-we were just getting acquainted with this really irritating, tiny newly laterally admitted gal named tanima who used to travel by train with us, when suddenly one fine day we couldn’t help but observe the normally quiet bhadra talk endlessly about his favorite pc games and his other likings and his dada like presence in the shyambazar area to tanimanow we were all basically rubbing our hands in glee to have caught a newly found ‘murga’ to spend quality time for the next few weeks. Little did I know that I was personally going to have a significant role to play in the next few weeks to help bhadra out of the days of his sweet ‘misery’! Soon after, one day after some kind of useless praciticals, as I had just cornered bhadra to rag him about the tanima episode, he suddenly says, that I’m the exact person he was looking forward to speak to. what followed was a speech cum plea from him in which I realized that he had regarded me as some kind of messiah in these miserable timesand then during the break on that very day,bhadra showed a thick set of pages that he had written about a certain love story between two people: the girl being dangerously named as ‘tani’.now as is so common to me, I tried honestly to help him out as far as possible, but couldn’t help to suppress my glee at the treasure of information that I was gathering myself for future usethe next few days passed with bhadra making frantic calls to me to decide the next piece of action, and asking me to decipher the smallest of things that his beloved ‘tani’ had told him in what he thought was the most meaningful of expressionsthen came the d-day. In which a certain roll 21 was the centre of attraction

Metro station. As promised to roll 21, tanima had appeared at the designated spot in time for the appointment, but to her shock, it was bhadra waiting there for them, and as pre planned bhadra and roll 21 tried to put up a show of accidentally meeting out there. However knowing roll 21 and bhadra very well, I can very well guess how miserably they must have failed to put the act together. one thing followed another-the result being that tanima stomped out of the scene leaving behind a, well, crestfallen bhadra with roll 21.bhadra took promptly to smoking and a bit of booze too in some major way alright.we offered him useless consolations and duly termed him ‘devdas’ for very valid reasons indeedthe most unfortunate fallout was that tanima and bhadra have never rarely been on talking terms since thenhowever one good outcome was that he became a lot more outspoken since then.

As for bhadra the student, I have only superlatives stored for him; the wondrous socket programming that he ended up doing in his final year project was for everyone to see. He was always an above average student in class. and till this day he prefers to do things the silent way.bhadra is a huge fan of rupam of fossils fame, and since the day that fossils set foot in kalyani,you would almost always find bhadra to sing niceties about rupam and his vocal artistrybhadra in short is a wild character lying deep dormant inside the extreme calm of his cool exterior-waiting for some spark to act as catalyst-we all wished that it was tani,but then man proposes…till this day,bhadra is a little circumspect of roll 21 for his renewed closeness with tani in the last few months in college, and if the rumors are believed to be true, there is every reason for bhadra to be upset too

He was one of the 4 to be recruited in HCL, and like anupam he had given every reason for us to worry that what will he end up doing during his working days with the only female recruit in HCL from our class-and if bhadra’s comments of his wishes of having a few initial practicals on their way is anything to go by, then there is every reason to be afraid of

Bhadra used to reside in roll 33’s hostel and later on shifted to RBC along with the usual gang that he hangs out with consisting of Arnab,Chiru and Subhankar. They were almost always found together in the college and in hostels.
All in all yet again another instance of a specially gifted individual of the class, an excellent what might be termed ‘algorithmic’ mind and a nice buddy to have with you for four years of your life.personally,I will say this much :bhadra,I found out most about you during those days when you trusted me and spoke your heart out and for that I must say I was honored to be brought into confidence by you-and I found out that how special and sensitive person you actually are. for a change, here is a real justification of a nickname given to someone-bhadra really is ‘bhadra’

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roll 17:DEBAshish das

“Deba”-that is how he came to be known to us since probably the first week in college. Here was a tall, lanky guy in first year, who had a likeable smile stuck on his face from the very beginning. all we knew about him in the first semester were that here was a huge fan of bangle rock, folk and all that, and he was madly pursuing a certain roll 53.so mad was he, that roll 53 came to be known as “deba’s gal” in those initial days, as is so often the norm in college. however things came to a tragic end when deba decided that enough was enough and something had to be done to see the end result.well,that was a very good initiative indeed, but what wasn’t too good was his choice of mr.nitai as the person who was going to utter the golden words to roll 53 on his behalf. as always, in those days, I was unintentional witness of THE moment just before the washrooms on the third floor of MSB outside our first year classes: there was deba standing shyly a few feet away and roll 53 with her back to him, with her usual head slanted to one side and listening to nitai who was just muttering something like,” will you marry, I mean fall in love with me, I mean, deba?”-Kind of thing in his usual stammering unsure sort of way. I couldn’t bear to watch the finale though as it was too unbearable to suppress a snigger and had to rush away from there hurriedly. however I was informed of the end result by deba himself, a bit later, who stomped away saying to me that,”ekhon tor rasta faka kore diechi!”-leaving me well, whatever…

Now that was really really a long way back, man how time flies by! Now deba is a contended soon to be hubby of a beauty from the ece department named suchandra. I have rarely seen a more hurriedly made couple. sometime in the second year, we suddenly were filled with rumors of deba having been proposed by suchandra or vice versa followed by a crest fallen mr.nayyar coming to us in a dejected mood(for obvious reasons again) and then satarupa running into our department one day shouting,”suchandra eshe geche,eshe geche” as if announcing the arrival of the bride-to-besince then they haven’t quite looked back and why would they, just wish them all the very best in life, and a lot more secret trips to kanchrapara shops to buy God knows whatso that’s deba’s story of his love life in short, but what of the other facets of his character, let’s delve a bit further.

I noticed a certain left-leaning attitude in deba way back in first year itself, and the whispered conversations that he and soumik had with me regarding the simplistic matter of CR elections-were funny to me to say the least. But that is exactly where folks like me fall short of the far-sightedness of the likes of deba.deba is an administrator par excellence. he has proved it time and again through his cool and calm man management during the fresher organization along with ankit as also during the exotica 2006,during which he was strained beyond imagination along with roll 33.also how deba actually handled all the nitty gritty in our department to interact with the faculty to schedule and reschedule classes, class tests and gather notes and what not was all done in real behind the scenes way-it was almost second nature to each of us to assume that deba will be doing all of that and much more, and honestly speaking, I was really ashamed most of the times to be also being called a “CR” alongside debajust single look at deba’s hostel room and his neatly stacked notes and books was always sure to give you a pang of jealousy at not being able to as organized as him

Post suchandra, deba’s semester grades took an upswing for good. needless to say, though he must have worked hard himself, here is a perfect instance of the niceties of falling in love for youthe tall lanky boy of first year has become a well behaved man with a protruding belly to the goodhe looks every inch a responsible hubby these days, and all I can say to sum deba up, is to quote the very words that deba had himself scribbled before his room in the APC hostel in first year:”poth geche benke!”

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SATARUPA-ECE

D gal in oz land

At the counter on the admissions day itself, I was eyeing the gals for obvious reasons, after all variety is always needed to add some spice to the four years ahead in the engineering yearshere was some gal whose name I didn’t quite register but remembered the Roy barman bit for sure. And along with a few other notable ones (), I made a mental note to make friends with this specimen for sure. Now it seems just so many ages ago, and let me assure you folks, not for any ordinary reason has this specimen found her way up as the first non-departmental folk to my list.
She initially got admitted in our department itself, and later on during the initial weeks itself got deflected to ece (till this day, she privately ruins the decision for proper ‘studious reasons’.)sata(that is how she is known more often to us)is also called handoo,the reason being that over the years she has given us multiple reasons to wonder about her belonging to the class of what we call ‘gals’. Let me explain why.
We are in the middle of a particularly raunchy conversation, and then suddenly we find sata interrupting at the end asking the most pertinent questions about the most sensitive portion of the conversation thereby indicating that she was intensely hanging onto every word that we were talking about. What makes us even more inclined to call her handoo instead of beautiful is the fact that she once privately confessed that she doesn’t find herself comfortable enough to engage in girly talks with her classmates
I remember during the very first days in college, sata was sitting mutely in her chair, totally out of place, she seemed to have been uprooted as some statuette from some museum and being placed in her seat in the cse class of kgec.the seniors came, ragged her and went away, she sat there almost motionless, and muttering a word or two. I can very vividly remember the very first conversation between the two of us, I was standing at the station, waiting for the return train, and there she was, our soon to be beloved handoo, standing in her usual got lost dreamy sort of way. our eyes met, and I simply couldn’t suppress a sheepish grin as I typically do I guess, and she too smiled back, and then said to my utter shock,” why are you always blushing?” I was like,”whoa! Whats that about?” and we have been nice back slapping pals since then, she was always the one whom we were most well, free about discussing matters we normally confined in our guy circles
In the beginning, she was unfortunately pursued by one of my old schoolmates who happend to be a snr to us.and those days were the worst of my interactions with her, as he asked me to enquire from sata about her likings and dislikings, and there was that awful incident in which I got myself sandwiched between himself and sata on one of the journeys back from college, and sata informing him via myself that she was engaged to a particular fiancée. And leaving me to console a grief stricken him in the process. well that wasn’t the end though, there was pal*** da too, and till this day, she will give you a heavenly smile every time his name crops up, and the yahoo chat that ananyo,roll 21 and myself had with her will be testimony to her romantic flings with others apart from mr.dev,her devoted fiancéeI remember another incident in this regard,myself,my better half and sata were sitting at a place named anandapuri at barrackpore during the 3rd year, and there was sata,particularly lost in a romantic conversation with a guy over her cell. he was lovingly named(by her only) ‘baby’, they talked about having cozy bike rides and what not-leaving the two of us in utter shocked admiration for sata-and I wondered for the first time in my life-may be, just may be, she was a ‘she’ after all
Sata’s obsession with anything remotely hunkish is legendary. She was once secretly nicknamed UNIX, for ahem, improper reasons to say the least. The incident when ananyo roll 32 and others of our group pulled off a prank, by creating a mythical ‘broad shouldered rahul’ in 2nd year has reached near hall of fame status by now. In short, she was being lured to meet this hunk from jis (created by ananyo and co.) at the end of the day, and she came to college dressed in her best clothes and fully decked up and what not. and the look on her face when after half an hour of waiting at the ghoshpara station, she was informed by the encircling group of all of us that she was indeed worthy of being a mtv bakhra,was simply unforgettable, and man, did we miss a handy cam that day. mind you, she was seriously cross with us for the next few days and kept on sulking for an unusually long stretch of one and a half daysthat brings us to the most important facet of her character-she is the most sporting buddy you can hope to have, she will always take nearly everything in her stride, and move along as if nothing had happened.
She was almost always found to pick up an indirect war of words with tani, or rather tanima the other dp gal of our batch, and needless to say, we were awestruck spectators of those wonderful momentssata was really touchy about a certain orange dress that she wore during exams, and never changed it during exams, except when we were forced to admit that it was positively stinking worse than the best quality of hydrogen sulfide. Her voice on phone is a real enigma, as it shrilly pierces your eardrums and she makes her point. Her ouster from orkut, was an incident for which I hold myself partially responsible, a guy named santu was well, kinda temporarily virtually linked to her on my reference and what followed was the usual handooish conversation between the two, with the only unfortunate interruption from the sightings of each of the scraps of the two by Mr. Fiancée dev
Handoo’s brother is a real enigma, and we were filled with deepest of respect towards the hero in the making, for the simple reason being the frequent reports from sata about her bro playing suspicious cd-s at home, playing suspicious wrestling matches with himself and getting secret calls from cooing female classmates, all as early as in eighth standardsatarupa never falls short of enthusiasm and standing up to causes, I still remember on that fateful uniform related strike day, when 5 of us entered the princi’s room, she was the only one who kept on debating with the princi along with myself, the other 3 merely standing as spectators.
At the end of the day, she is one simple girl, in love with Dev and a brilliant friend to you. she loves the day of ashtami, for very “private” reasons, the detailed descriptions of which from herself left anupam, a certified toughened up raunchy professional himself, blushing profusely, and actually asking sata whether she actually meant and had done what she had just saidsata’s presence in the train compartment made sure that we were always on our toes to whisper anything that was remotely meaningful in our guy sort of way or risk getting heard by her
The most endearing image of handoo in my mind will be the day when she was the only one with me in train and she was giving, in an unusually dreamy sort of way, about the way she enjoyed the small incidents that she had with dev in her school-that made the decision amply clear to me-she still is a school girl at heart.
God bless you re…you are special in your unique handoo sort of way, and as for your very first question to me as to why do I alwaz blush, here is the answer, for the first time in my life, I found someone who is as much if not more, shameless as I’mjust kidding!

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