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 guynow 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 seasthis 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 eyenow 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 legat 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 herehe 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-metalon 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 thingstill 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 lessonswatching 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!!!
