Chal 90 maar

3 idiots, has caught the fancy of the nation like no other recent film has. Having read Five point someone, the book on which I thought the story was supposedly based before Vidhu Vinod Chopra shut us all up, I wasn't really excited about the movie release and gave it a skip the first weekend, while it kept on garnering excellent reviews from all quarters.

So on New Years Day, I queued up half an hour to book a show for the movie. Queuing for movie tickets brought back fond memories of my hometown where buying tickets was always a more fulfilling experience than the movie itself. At times, we were so thrilled at the mere fact that we had managed to get a ticket, we just went back home. Oh, I so miss those awesome cat-fighting and swearing between ladies trying to sell tickets in black. Those were the days when cinema meant wholesome entertainment, much of which came free of cost.

Two third-row tickets for the 9 pm show cost me Rs.500. I cursed the multiplexes yet again.

I will not review the movie here. I thought it was an alright film that just got mighty mighty lucky.
Instead, I'll share a few memories of those early days of engineering and pass on a few advices of my own on what not to do in engineering and topping that list is Never Ever try to electrocute a senior, particularly when he is peeing.

A couple of days after the Millennium New Year, the first semesters started. Throughout my school life, I never needed any forged Daddy-signatures in my report cards. In fact they were the source of those small joys that parents willingly accept as reward for all their sacrifices. Soon after the first semester results, I realised that this source of their joy had dried up for ever. I did try quite hard though in the beginning to continue with the good run, but peer pressure got the better of me...the peer pressure to live up to the high standards set by friends from a state called Uttar Pradesh. And no those standards had nothing to do with engineering but yes a lot to do with being an engineer.

Uttar Pradesh is a state where a child usually starts cackling right from inside his mother's womb, lest he not be given enough time to complete all that he has to say during the lifetime outside. By the time he reaches engineering, he has already spoken the volume which a non-UPite would probably take four or five lifetimes to reach and fate placed me bang in the middle of some of the greatest proponents that our college was to ever produce in this Art of Talking. They honoured me by converting my humble room (which by the way already had three other occupants) into their august Parliament where they assembled every evening to discuss on the graver aspects of life.
The uninitiated, that I was, I made meek attempts to shift the venue of these daily gatherings by scribbling quotations such as :

'If you have an hour to spare, don't spend it with someone who hasn't '.
Someone expounded on this thought and beneath it wrote in bold:
'INSTEAD SPEND IT WITH ME'

I was defeated and I entered the Great Grand world of Bakar.

Our discussions initially were concentrated on mostly identifying and allocating the seniors to their correct incestuous relationship categories, depending on their attitude with us during the ragging sessions. Gradually, as we realised that Gujarat was a dry state only till we reached Shankarbhai's egg stall, the discussions grew much in content and animation.

From what I hear, ragging has more or less been completely eradicated from our college these days, which is kind of sad. When I say this, I obviously do not refer to anything of the nature in which iron rods are shovelled up narrow human orifices, but of the kind we endured, which was certainly irritating as not many of us liked to get a girl's signature on the inked impression of our posteriors, nor were many eager to graph their erection-time curve on the back of condom packets and carry them as identity cards, but majorly they were exercises of ego massaging which if not taken to heart, were really quite harmless. The embarrassment of running in a crowded train shouting "Bhago Bhago train me aag laga gaya" or being made to sit in the
corner of the room with a bucket on your head to hide your 'shameless' face as reprehension for a bad joke or a wrongly credited fart or the great 90 degree pranaam are some instances that you can recollect and have a hearty laugh even years later.
Not to mention the joy one gets on kicking the arse of those same seniors once the ragging period gets over. It is so out of the world ! Not so much though, when in the subsequent years you are at the receiving end.

But God forbid if you were to fall prey to the 'Intellectuals', or the group that majorly comprised of people who had read or heard of Catcher in the Rye, Fountainhead or Catch 22. They would never have any straight questions for you and naturally there were no straight answers either. It was only through trial and error that one learnt to handle these individuals. On the stairs of a busy shopping complex, I once bumped upon one of these specimens who after the usual boring game of Guess-my-state-in-three-questions-or-you-are-fu**ed, came up with a weird and audacious demand.

"Allright fuc**r, come here and touch my balls", he said.
Caught a little by surprise, I wondered whether the guy was making a pass at me but if so why would he do so in such an inappropriate place and manner. I always thought that homosexuals were a little more discrete with their advances.

So I enquired " Sir, do you really wish that I should place my hands on your testicles?"

"How dare you question back your seniors, C'mon touch my balls" he repeated with morevehemence in his voice this time.

I thought for a moment and said what the heck. Arguing would only land me in trouble. Moreover, I have many a time retrieved cricket balls from shit holes before. These were at least was a couple of inches away from one.
So I slowly nudged my hand forward to have my first homosexual experience. What followed momentarily changed the equation of the ragger and the ragged

"What the f*** , What the f***, What the f*** !!!!" he shrieked as he recoiled a good five metres in a single leap at my advance.

"I meant the eyeballs, you pervert, the eyeballs" , I could hear him shouting as he ran miles away from me.

Batao, How was I supposed to know that ?????

These are of course the goody goody accounts and at times things were not so pleasant, but surely everyone would accept the fact that things were never so bad so as to contemplate running back home.

Re-categorising the seniors in newer and more complicated incestuous relationships usually took care of the frustrations. And if the situation ever seemed to be getting out of hand, one could always fall back upon his 'knowledge' of palmistry. Bloody worked every time !!!

In that great Parliament of ours, we once had a heated debate on this topic of ragging and most of us firmly pledged that we would all refrain from this ridiculous show of ego.
Thankfully the pledges were not on stamp paper.

Learning to curb the ego is not a bad lesson for a man to learn so early in life. Prepares him well for marriage.