chapter 8

The first day of my college. Mom and dad came along with me to drop me off at the hostel. The initial procedures took a lot of time. I had myself photographed and paid the fees. And then had to fight messy un-queued people to get my room allocated.

My roommate was allocated two rooms and he choose to choose the other room. I was petty much left alone the first day. My mother made friends with my neighbors, and told me to be friends with them. At that point of time, I wasn’t interested in friends, I just wanted to see how the college life worked. And I was scared to death about ragging. The same day night, a stupid prof and the registar come to tell us to shout – "Help! Help!" if any of the seniors try to rag us. The seniors were petty much cool. We were asked to introduce ourselves, a little bit of singing, dancing and that was petty much about it. Well, it didn’t even qualify as ragging, compared to what I heard from my other friends in NIT’s and IIT’s.

The first day of classes. As usual, I woke up after the whole floor was up and running around. And since my room was opposite to the washrooms, I couldn’t stay on the bed. By the time I was up and ready it was 7:30 and most of the rooms, were locked away and the people have already left for the lecture theaters, pit stopping at the canteen. By the way, some of us were allocated rooms in the ground floors of the girls hostel, which was petty much in the end of the campus, while the LT’s were on the other end. While, I was embarrassed for a few days, for living in the girls hostel, but I later started thinking I would have the opportunity to look at hots chicks.

I with, a few of my classmates from the Gowtham college, who also happened to end up in the same college, started off from the hostel. The path was all messed, infact there wasn’t any, we found ourselves the shortest way out of the mud. The canteen was already buzzing with ‘new’ students. I hardly could differentiate who’s the senior and who’s my batchmate. We each grabbed a plate of ‘poha’ and milk, found a cosy place to finish them off. And marched to the LT, pondering about why the campus had all twisted pathways. By the time we reached the LT, the LT was almost full, guess we were the last to enter. The first benches were as usual, occupied by people or by some notebooks on the desk. I walked up to the last benches, which were sparsely occupied. Well, I was the only one late to the lecture, people still came in after the professor was on the dias.

Before the class started, I looked around – The place resembled a houseful movie theater. The lecture started and the professor was quite intimidating. And there were one more lecture and then there was a break. People mingled and introduced themselves to each other. I was too sleepy to go out and make new friends. Said Hi to some familiar faces and frowned at the ones i didn’t know.

The first week wasn’t so hectic nor was troublesome. There were only lectures and no labs. Then soon started the labs from the second week. Assignments poured in. The computers systems and softwares were new to me, though I wasn’t completely alienated. There were a few, who were using the keyboard and mouse for the first time, and didn’t know what an OS does. I petty much knew what OS stood for and a little more than an average student in our class, but like, I was invincible.

The electronics labs were a nightware to almost everyone in my group – Group 3. Oh! ya the whole batch of around 240 people were divided into 4 groups. As usual, we had our own scheduled timings for all the labs. We had 2 computer science courses, one electronics, one mathematics, one humanities and something which was supposed to act a bridge from our junior college stuff to the engineering college stuff. I particularly didn’t like any of the courses. But, enjoied the introduction to ICT stuff very much, we atleast had the ‘limited’ freedom of doing things our way.

From the computer science stream we were taught ‘C’. I had learnt it long back after my 8th standard, but it was was mystic enought to freak me out. Other was called ‘Computer Systems Organization’. The Prof. taught was how programs in assembly language are written and used, without teaching us the underlying architecture of the computer. Okay, we were just shown some boxes and arrow, which made no sense to me.

The electronics course was awesome, it was full of all basic concepts which again were bewildering. Some labs were easy, some were tough and a few we never could complete them on our own. Somehow, I and my partner completed our labs, either doing it ourself or by copying it from our neighbours, who in turn copied the results from someone else.

The humanities was good to hear, hard to practice/imagine stuff. It was like the hard-core realities of life. It was anthropology. We were taught by one of the best anthropologists in India and I for the first time heard him swear -’Fuck’. My eyes popped out and I said to myself – WTF. Our batch was particularly afraid of him, because he failed 180 students in a batch of 270 of our seniors. We did his assignments and listened to his lectures with pin drop silence.

I dozed off in most of lectures, barely ‘listened’ to the ones, in which I was awake. Then came the mid-semester exams. I didn’t fare too bad, but neither did top the class. I was happy.

chapter 7

The results weren’t petty impressive, but Anirudh was happy with them. He ranked somewhere in 1800’s in EAMCET and somewhere in 5700’s at the national level in AIEEE. Which according to him were relatively ‘good’ ranks in comparison to the ranks of most of the friends from his circles. The old classmates in Bombay were no where near his rank in AIEEE, but had the advantage of passing their high school from a state where competition for a national level entrance examination was less than from that of the place where Anirudh passed his junior college from.

Anirudh was a bit worried about the college where he would get into and the branch he would need to opt. He planned to pursue Mechanical Engineering and then specialize in robotics and then work or DRDO or ISRO. Some people, acquaintances and family friends  were kind of depressing. While, most of them felt there’s no meaning to life unless you graduate from IIT or unless you are a software engineering in USA. Any other person other than his mother or father, if tried to talk Anirudh into Software or dropping an year to prepare for IIT, he attacked them back with his look – enough you loser, this is my life and I will live it my way, even if I have to grow down the drain. If ever I would have to, I will rise from it, myself.

But, then again his standing in the state during the AIEEE counseling for seat allocations was too low to get him a seat in any of the branches of any REC. But, Praatik got into IIIT, Hyderabad and Anirudh was happy for him. Anirudh got a call from DA-IICT, and he was happy to have it. At the day of counseling at DA-IICT, there was a Aptitude test, which later turned out to be a formality. Anirudh’s dad was very much impressed by the campus and the faculty, and as any other concerned parent there, he felt this is the best for my son to be. Anirudh, felt he still had a few options open, though he had a gut feeling that he would land up at DA-IICT, very soon.

The month of August had come, and the joining date for DA-IICT was close and as the counseling for the state engineering colleges wasn’t even close by. He took up the admission at DA-IICT and landed up in Gandhinagar on the tenth day of eight month in the fourth year of the twenty first century.

And then the life started for Anirudh.  New place, new college, new friends, new roommate and it was a NEW LIFE.

chapter 6

The board examinations of 11th were more fun than Anirudh expected. He was told that there would be hot chicks in most of the centers. And there always was a war between the different colleges. They threw eggs, rotten tomatoes and anything rotten they could buy, at each other. Anirudh had his examinations in Maris Stella College, the girls college of the city. He was elated, when his batchmates were giving him the jealous look. Well everybody forgot the fact that, as they had been assigned a different center, the girls of that college too would be alloted a different center. They realized that later on the first day. They were dropped off at the center one hour before the examination began. Most of them brought along ‘bags’ of books to study even before the examination. Anirudh kept to his two pens and a pencil.

To his delight, he spent most of the time looking at girls passing by the gate and on the streets, while others tried to cram up as much stuff as they could. The examinations were over in a couple of days and he had two weeks of vacation and had to report back in college for “IIT” coaching. “yeaaahhhh, it would be fun time” thought Anirudh.

It was the summer. Anirudh was happy to be in a quite deserted college, where there only some 200 odd people. While most of them kept themselves to the studying thingie, Anirudh and his friends and vela time. They sat under the trees and stared at the branches and leaves, till one of them was whacked by the passing by warden. The warden’s worked in shifts. When sun got high in the sky and when the heat build up, they move to the comfort of classrooms and fans. Well then again, he dozed off with the support of his hands on this cheeks, till the warden again whacked him on the head. Most of the times Anirudh would give a stern look and get back to his posture. And when the chief warden was not around he would pick up an argument with the warden over the authenticity of his posture, helping him to concentrate better.

While Anirudh was busy with his arguments, sleeping and staring; Praatik studied. Though he too had good time, he studied too, too keep up pace with the others.

One day, during his usual naps, the warden decided to have his time with Anirudh and whacks him hard. Seeing the chief warden go away before he slept, he assumed he wouldn’t have been back; Anirudh sternly denies sleeping and shouts back at the warden for whacking him too hard. The warden smirks and goes away. Feeling the sense of victory, Anirudh gets back to his nap. A few moments later, he hears the chief warden calling ‘Anirudhhhhh…’ from the door. For a moment he thinks he was day dreaming, before he realizes the chief warden was actually there. The chief warden was already fuming. Anirudh goes – ‘ewwww..i am dead today’ and the chief warden takes him out of the class into the corridor. And the rest of them in the class giggle, whisper and lay bets. The chief warden, a five foot guy stands on the elevated platform and pushes Anirudh down into the hot sun. Putting a hand on Anirudh’s shoulder, he starts his lecture and how to be studious and obedient and concentrate on studies blah blah blah blah blah blah……and goes on for a about twenty minutes. It’s already 5 minutes into the lunch break time, the chief warden then decides to end the conversation with these words – “Chudu, Anirudh, warden ante evaru anukuntuna…? okka student study hour lo nidra potunte, bujjam tatti lepi chaduvukomane vade warden, babu.” (”See, Anirudh, a warden is a person, who wakes up a student sleeping in a study hour and tells him to study”. Without a pause, Anirudh shoots back looking up into the eyes of the chief warden – “Sir, mari warden nidra pothe bujjam tatti nidra lepe vade chief warden a Sir ??” (”Sir, is the chief warden the person who wakes up the warden sleeping in study hours??”)

The chief warden’s eyes go firm and then angry and they his hand moves from the shoulder to the head and grabs Anirudh’s hair, bending him down and then – “Dhaaaad……….Dhaaaaad……”. Anirudh gets up – “Ouchhh….!! that hurts”. Jumping off the platform the chief warden leaves, shouting back to let the students to go for lunch. All of them rush out of the class, while Anirudh stands there, massing his back. Praatik passing him gives Anirudh a smile and asks – “Was that you??”, embarrassingly Anirudh nods and they both go to the hostel, laughing all the way on Anirudh’s debacle.

The summer passed. There was another screening test. When the results were given out, the chief warden looked and Anirudh and said, you didn’t make it. He looked back and said, I wasn’t expecting to. And the chief went blank.

And after a few screening tests, Anirudh made it to the third section in the hierarchy. He moved to another campus, a kilometer away from the main campus. And then again the final year of residential junior college started. It was fun right from the first day. Classes began at 6 in the morning. There were the regular study hours and in addition there were one or another type of objective tests. Weekends he played volleyball and spent time on the terrace with his new found friends. Sometimes, he used to get away to the main campus to meet Praatik. But, they had their bi-weekly quota of movies in the new campus.

Months passed by. It was January, most the students around Anirudh were already tensed about AIEEE and EAMCET. Well, it made him nervous and he started dusting his books and finally sat down to write the practice tests and solved every objective question he could find. Revised all the old test papers, picked up random stuff to study and went on for three months. The examination dates got postponed due to the central and state government elections. While the EAMCET was over my May, AIEEE was postponed to May end. And it meant a month more in the college during the summer.  He slogged and dragged away time. And finally, he was done with the system. He went back to Bombay, learnt to drive, caught up with his old school mates and then came the results and the rains of Bombay.

chapter 5

First day in the hostel. People were excited, sad and afraid. But, Anirudh wasn’t like any of them. He was expressionless. Each room had 12 occupants and around 20 rooms in a wing had a set of common washrooms. There were quarrels among the parents as to whose kid is to occupy the bed under the fan. Well luckily, Anirudh got the last bed near the window and he was satisfied with it. Everyone had a big metal truck to put their things. His grandmother knowing that everyone would have one, she got an old one from the store room for Anirudh. She got it cleaned and painted blue for Anirudh. Which he was emotionally persuaded to take along with him.

The first morning, others in the room were long awake even before Anirudh woke up. They already got washed up and tucked and ready to rush to the classrooms and staring at him for getting up so late. While Anirudh was dragging along his bucket and his brush, to the washrooms. By the time he was back, the wing was almost empty. And those who were missing were rushing to the classrooms, thirty minutes before the class time. Anirudh rushed up to the classrooms. Well, he belonged to the elite ‘Central Syllabus’ kids and so he belonged to one of the elite two sections of almost his type. Well to his horror, all the first benches were occupied by atleast six on each of them, while the center ones had reservations too. He was happy to find the last benches left out and had one or two on each of them. He chose the row next to the window and thought that the last bencher’s were his only shot of getting some good friends.

The study hours began, and they slowly extended into late nights. Well, ten was late night for Anirudh and nine in the morning was too early. The concept of the study hour was alien to him and a handful of others. And then finally one week, the tests began. Every weekend there was a test on every little crap they were taught. A syllabus and a timetable was give out at the starting of the week. And then started the tough times.

Anirudh answered in his own way and laid out proofs and stuff in the way he understood, while the chief warden and others insisted it to be the way it was taught in the class. Because they preached that that way is the only way to stardom. Well, that was something in-digestable and so was the ways of Anirudh for the chief warden. And so was he whacked every time the test papers came in after corrections. Just because the ones who corrected refused to give credit for any other method other than those in the text book and the study materials. That was only 70% of the problem, other 30% was – Anirudh couldn’t stay awake after dinner and slept off in the chair during study hours, and there again was whacked again for sleeping during ’study time’. It went on for a couple of weeks and it became routine for him. The chief warden was hardly five foot tall. He got onto a big pipes or a platform and then used to hit the students with his bare hands. But, most of the time, he stuck to the cane and whacked anywhere below the waist.

Meanwhile, Anirudh made a friend-Praatik. He too used to sleep along , but rarely used to get whacked, because he was the intelligent one. Always found his way with the chief warden and somehow the chief warden too was found of Praatik. After a couple of months there was a screening test to compartmentalize the good muggers from the bad ones. Well, Anirudh remained in the better section. And there was again one more, this one was for getting into the coaching for IIT-JEE, Weird !! Anirudh clear this too, he scored the cut off and so was send to a section named – ‘IIT-B’. While, Praatik landed up in the first section with a very prestigious roll number too. The hierarchy was something like this – the best kids in the college were in ‘IIT-A’ the second best belonged to ‘IIT-B’ and then came ‘JC’ and then ‘J-1′, ‘J-2′ and so on. Anirudh has the feeling of pride of belonging to the elite, but he knew it himself, he was no good to appear for IIT. He was there, to feel the heat.

And there he felt no heat. There wasn’t anyone to push around, there was the same old chief warden, but his right to whack and hit were revoked. There was a huge guy who was the campus in-charge who was particularly not fond of Praatik and Anirudh. Tough Anirudh faced down, while he was around, Praatik used to lift his head high up. Praatik furious on loosing his books, was shouting at the roommates. The in-charge was passing by Praatik’s room, after getting drunk. And there went Praatik for a six, he was called out and was hit and slapped. That was just an excuse for the campus in-charge to take out his grudge.

Anirudh and Praatik always stuck together. There was this , whom Anirudh thought that was jealous of his friendship with Praatik and tried to pull away Praatik from him. Atleast, Anirudh felt the same way. He, was kind of allergic to a few guys who had all the branded stuff right from their head to toe. But, he didn’t care much.

chapter 4

The days just passed by. Anirudh finally got into the race to top the class and to create records. He read and re-read everything, memorized the complete lessons, the formulas and the proofs every single line of his class notes. They didn’t do any good, but neither did they do any harm. He slowly picked up the pace. The other things he did were to join the NCC, the weekends generally involved the NCC parades or some extra classes. In the summer, he spent most of the time in the cashewnut orchard of his grandpa. Anirudh lead a group of the fruit pickers to another part of the orchard while his grandpa has his group in the other end of the orchard. The orchard spanned nearly 20 acres, the house was situated by the main road. Working in the orchard was fun for Anirudh, he climbed the trees, picked up the fresh fruits and ate them on the trees and then running around for water, after turning his mouth sour. Though he grew up at his grandpa’s since his childhood, he still couldn’t distinguish the sweet ones from the sour ones.

Soon, he passed the ninth standard and the summer classes began for the tenth. Summer, was again fun, they played kabbadi after the classes, cycled down the streets of the town, saw movies and chit chatted in the back benches while the teachers kept up with their regular stuff about maths, physics, chemistry and biology. Soon, the school began. One day in the biology class, the guys were having tough time in the reproductive system class. The teacher somehow drew the diagrams of the male and female reproductive organs. While the guys didn’t even dare to look at the teacher and were looking into their biology text-books, even those who didn’t own one, opened some other books and pretended looking into the textbook. And then of the guys, gathers some courage, raises his hand and says – “Madam…!!”. The teachers stops the reading and looks at him. This guys stands up and points at the blackboard and asks – “What are those??”. The guys and the three girls(well, there were just three of them….) look up and to their surprise and shock, the standing idiot was pointing at the scrotum. And all the class slowly turn their attention from this idiot to the teacher. She was already fuming red. And then she bursts out – “You idiot, don’t you know what are they? Don’t have have balls? That thing holds your balls together. Do you want me to show them to you?”.

The air of doubt around this idiot, clears out and he sits down, scratching his head. The class again looked down into their books and teacher started reading out the lesson aloud. The bell rang in a couple of minutes and the second the teacher crossed the door all the guys burst out into laughter rolling on the ground and hitting the desks. It all looked like a room full of mad people, while this idiot sat at his bench looking at everyone laughing all him.

The day after the class, while returning home, Anirudh felt something strange in his stomach. He went home and dozed off. When his granny woke him up for dinner, he was high with fever. Somehow he managed to eat a little and then again sat down the in the verandah. He again had that strange feeling and then he felt nausea and suddenly he puked out, everything he ate since morning. For a week, he couldn’t even drink water. Anything he ingested, came out in a couple of minutes. He last around twenty kilos in a week. And finally he was diagnosed with jaundice. Later, it was further diagnosed that his bile duct was blocked out by fat and the liver juices couldn’t reach his stomach. He was down with jaundice for almost three months.

He got back to school, only to find out that he has a loads of syllabus to cover up and the board examinations are just a few months away. He had diet restrictions, he couldn’t go and play, he had lost too much weight in the three months. Anirudh could barely cycle from the school to the house nearby, which his grandpa rented, so that Anirudh could stay close to school. He had his first pre-board examinations in January and to his surprise he topped the class. He pushed down the topper who stood at that position since the year he joined that school. He felt like the return of a hero. He was just recovering from jaundice and he topped the class too. Everybody in the school knew about Anirudh. Last time, he pulled such a stunt was back in Ambani in the half-yearly examinations of his eight class, when he scored 2/100 in the Sanskrit paper. That time even his juniors came upto him and asked – “Bhayya, how did you manage to get 2 marks?” and giggled away before he could explain his debacle. But, this time it was different, everyone looked upto him. And more over the teachers were proud of him.

Finally, he passed his tenth boards. Ad got admitted into the best of the residential junior colleges in the state. It was located nearby a small village near to Vijayawada.

chapter 3

Anirudh switched school. This time it was a thousand miles away from the previous one he attended. It was an ICSE school in the town nearby his grandparent’s place. His grandfather had been living in the same village for the past forty years and owned a cashnewnut orchard, spread over twenty acres. He has a house adjacent to the farm. Anirudh was kind of ‘deported’ away from the city to this granny’s place to study, so that he could do something better with his life. Though it was same place he always grew up during the summer breaks, the idea of staying there for another two years pinched him in the mind.

His grandfather arranged for the local school to have Anirudh picked up and drop him at school. Again, Anirudh hated the idea of traveling in a school bus. He thought he was big enough for public transport. But, his grandfather didn’t feel the same way. The first day at school was quite strange for him. His Telugu was not so fluent and had to use broken pieces of Hindi and English in between, to express himself. All the students gathered around, as they heard the rumors of some chap from ‘Bombay’ getting admitted in their class. But, Anirudh wasn’t the expected ‘Bombay’ cool dude. Before the class could feel the presence of the new guy, Anirudh adjusted himself to the class and the environment. He got adjusted to the customs around and the ways of the people. He had his first unit tests quite and he didn’t perform much to the expectations. The teachers expected more, his classmates were looking upto him, the toppers were afraid of getting toppled down, and the juniors looked at him for inspiration. And he let them down, scored as usual 60’s. And that was it, the whole pressure of the world came down upon him. By the time the half yearly examinations approached, Anirudh was into THE SYSTEM and working his ass out, to run that extra yard.

Meanwhile, all through the trips in the school bus, one of the girls in the bus, had a crush on him. She was so stupid. She asked Anirudh, what does he understand by  – 143? Anirudh pondered for a little while and replied – “Ya, I got it, it’s 11 multiplied by 13, a product of two primes”. She stared at him for a while and then gave a naughty smile and whispered – “You fool, 143 stands for I love you and I love you!!”. Anirudh looked around, pinched himself and then again looked around. He was absolutely clueless. And the God’s answered his prayers, the bus got to his house, and got down and ran pushing opening the gate dropped the bag and the basket and then ran into the orchards. He was scared to hell.

The next day, she asked. She asked something different. She asked – “OK?”. Anirudh again looked at her puzzled – “What OK? No, it’s not ok with me”. She again gave her naughty smile and whispered – “You silly ass, grow up, OK stands for One Kiss and I want you to gimme one.” Well this time he was shot for a direct six, he had no where to run or to hide, gave his confused look and turned away from her. But she still kept tickling him. He just sat for the whole 30 minute ride to the school.  The same day on the ride back home, Anirudh said something to that girl – “1443, go home and figure it out!!”. He wanted to kid her, but she was too smart for his sick jokes. Her eyes glowed and she blushed and Anirudh looked like a lost puppy. She figured it out – “1443″ stood for “I tooo love you”.

He thought for the whole day in the school to play that stupid joke and it just took a few seconds for his plan to backfire on him. Well, he lost to her again. He stopped thinking about the next thing to do and started thinking about an excuse to skip the school bus and to get himself a bus pass. Nothing, could convince his grandfather. He had to stick to the bus for the rest of the year, until he was rescued by the extra classes back at school, at the end of year. And they were his saviour. He had his life back, away from the giggling, tickling and the fear of getting kissed back.

He was afraid of getting kissed, by the girl, because a few days after the 143 stunt, he looses a bet with her and had to offer a lip service to her. From that day, he started dieting on lots of onions and anything that would give his mouth foul smell for the bus ride. But, he lost out again, on a fine day she whispers to Anirudh again – “i like the smell of you..!!”. The next moment he knew, he had a strange feeling in his stomach and he almost puked, but controlled himself. He puked out the next moment he got down the bus. He was down with fever and nausea for a week, which later turned out to be food poisoning. But, he still believed it was ‘the’ whisper that brought him down.

chapter 2

All the geeky things apart, Anirudh had a secret spot of love in his heart for the girl who sat two desks behind him. He was all afraid of her, but still always tried to get along with her. The attempts of which once got him almost slapped by the same girl, on whom he had a crush on. All he did was to call her by some nickname he devised, thinking it was cute and cool of him. But, still that never worked and always backfired on him.

Apart from getting thrown out of the class and have crush on ‘the girl’, Anirudh had quite a lot interesting hobbies. Rather, interesting ways of spending his time. On his way to school and back from school, he had a petty big gang of friends, who were always upto something or the other.  For a few months during his first year at Ambani’s they used to fantasize about ghosts and demons that lived on the peak, seen from the highway on their way to school. And then came the age of ‘WWF’ trump cards, each had his own collection of them. Most of the time was spent playing them and quite a bit time was time was also spent on fighting over them. Slowly, the ‘WWF’ cards faded out, with the arrival of ‘Center Fresh’ cricket cards. But, they too weren’t around in the bus for long.

Well, while ‘gang’ was beaten by boredom, one of them found a way to amuse themselves. Throwing orange peels at passing by cars or people. Slowly all of them started bringing oranges to school. The mothers thought, the children were getting health conscious,  these fools were throwing them at the cars and pedestrians. The first incident, Anirudh happened to throw a peel at a truck driver, which hit him hard on his ear. Well, that was not it – while Anirudh stood at the window teasing the driver. The driver who happened to be a Sardar, drew out his dagger. That was something, that doesn’t happen everyday. Every kid on the bus was scared to shit and dunked under their seats. None of them even dared to get up and see where the truck actually was. And as soon as they got down the bus, they just ran to their homes.

That was the last of the peel’ing’ fun they had.

Evenings, was much more fun. Anirudh raced in the evenings, and he was the champion in cycle racing. Not because, he cycled hard, but he had the best cycle in he market – a green Hero Ranger Swing with 18 Gears & shock absorbers. He raced with his friends on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, which wasn’t open yet.

On holidays and weekends, he used to cycle to nearby villages, cycle around rough patches of land and used to return home by noon. It was going happily. He sometimes played cricket, which he wasn’t good at. Most of the time he hung out at the club, playing pool with his seniors or hide and seek with the children.

He did some mean things, he never realize, but he broke the sewing machine of the club caretaker’s wife, when he jumped on it from the terrace. The watchman’s wife was a tailor, who had the machine to earn  and supplement the income of the house. Sometime later, he killed a squirrel by hitting it with a stone, instead of hitting a mango on the tree. Some other time, an old man fell down and got bruised badly, only because, Anirudh trying to speed past the old man, pulled an unsuccessful stunt of screeching to halt, beside the old man. Who just got clumsy and tripped down. And all these time, he just ran away, as fast as he could.

These were accidents but, when he realized the mistake, he was too afraid to face the reality and just skipped the truth, escaping from it.

Academics, life, future, career – all these never seemed to bother Anirudh, he had his own life.

But, then things changed. His parents had different plans for him.

chapter 1

As usual was the day, the buses coming along and the students rushing into their classes. Above looked Anirudh, towards the pristine blue sky. It has just rained and the clouds just cleared away. Everything looked brighter than usual. He just smiled at the sky and walked into the same old place. He loved the school, he loved his friends and all those who he hated belonged to the exclusive south-west wing of the school. The south-west wing was the nightmare of almost every student, expect those who frequented there trying to impress upon the block with their ‘intelligence’.

Well, the south-west wing had the Administrative offices, the secretaries, the Staff room and the Principals Office. Most of the students tried much to avoid the place, except for the students of VIII-B. They were special. They were more frequent than the ‘intelligents’. They were so called the ‘hopeless’ class in the school. And that was the only thing Anirudh was proud of – the guy from VIII-B. Slowly his classmates arrived and the class was starting to have the feel.

There were occasional sounds of ‘dhud’ which came of the back of an unlucky guy, who was mercilessly hit by others. The reason, there were some kind of tacit agreement between a couple of the students that when one gets up he has to say ‘Opts’ to at least one the members of his fraternity and when one sits they have to say ‘Bats’. Forgetting to do so resulted in the ‘dhud’s. A few students even had a backlog of the ‘dhud’s which were kept pending for future use. Anirudh tired that for a week, trying to look cool before the girls. But, unfortunately rolled out his tears when he was hit by five others at the same moment. And that was his last time, he decided not cool is better that a guy with tears.

The class teacher arrived and everyone settled down with the ‘partners’. The class teacher finally had found a way to keep the boys quiet during the classes. Each guy had to sit with a girl and the rows of boys where sandwiched between rows of girls.  Guys, had no other option but to stare at the teacher or stare at some girl in the class. Anirudh, was different he somehow manipulated the weekly rotation mechanism and settled down with a guy. And there started his woes. As usual, the teacher came in read out from the text book for a couple of minutes and then asked a question. The first question of the class is always for Anirudh, and no matter what the answer, he was made to stand outside the class or far away near the wall in the end, obviously with a text book with him.

The classes went on. The class Anirudh awaited the most was the computer science class. In late 90’s he was the proud owner of the best computer in the market- a Pentium II , 200MHz Processor, 32MB RAM and 2GB HDD.  And he had an appetite for computers.  Though he could not be cool, he could write a piece of code faster and better than most of others. Well, the examination answer sheets never did reflect that.

the characters

Anirudh – the kid next door, loves school/college but hates being pushed into the system

Praatik – the intelligent one

Asmita – the bad girl

Srupen – the ’short’ tempered one

Kiran – the tomboy(he’s a she)

Sonia – The wannabe Prime Minister

Saket – the gay & happy

these are just a few of the characters…….

You & Me

This is the story about my life and all the people I met all through my life.