Shantanu’s IRS : Can we 4get it

Hello everyone,
Yes, it has finally arrived. I couldn’t help but break it into two parts. It was that long. Towards the end, it felt more like an ode than a remembrance of times spent together. But then that’s how all things in life finally shape up – exactly as you hadn’t predicted. Due to tremendous pressure from all quarters of the population to write in clear, understandable English, I have desisted from using “dictionaryesque” words.

A wise man once remarked, “Great people discuss ideas, good people discuss events, and the worst discuss people”. As I set out, I find myself at the wrong end of this observation. But then it’s for friends, it’s for humanity and for the records.

Sitting at the top of the heap (not standing tall, mind you) is Roll No. 1.
LOSER.

I have lots to speak on Roll No. 2, the pseudo mahatma. I’ve decided to take him apart later.

So finally I begin, with Roll No. 3. Reshma is a charming lady. One of my first “friends”. I remember running away with her monkey cap at Bhivpuri. Gurl!! I really felt as if I was running away with your gold bangles, the way you ran after me for that cap. She is the sole reason Fair and Lovely posts a record profit, every year (Of course we have been observing you Reshma!). Another very quirky thing about this gal is her preference of the words ending with “ly”. At times you feel these are the only words she knows. Have a look at this typical convo and her contribution:

Prasad: The economic situation of the country demands that we tighten our fiscal policies and reduce the outflow of funds beyond the critical sections of the economy.

Reshma (pointedly looking at Prasad, as if she understood every syllable of it): ACTUALLY!!!

Ridwan (startled, realizing the implications): No, I don’t agree with you Prasad. I won’t stop eating just because the world is facing a famine. No ways!

Reshma (this time with a tinge of solidarity and patting Ridwan, which leaves him down right self – righteous): SERIOUSLY!!!

Well you can guess what the rest of the discussion is all about. I’ve made my point. A person generous to a fault, she suffers fools gladly. I happy for you Reshma.

The next guy in town is all about fun. He is all about machismo, filmy style. It’s sheer accident that this guy is in VJTI. That he is, I am so glad. There is never a dull moment when he is around. I will be most surprised if I hear he has earned enemies. Try imagining those picnics without him. A patient listener, and a diplomatic guy, he is probably among the few who laugh at my jokes (Damn it! Uday if I ever heard that you were faking it, you’re dead!!). What he doesn’t realize is that it encourages me. His mom is an excellent cook. The taste of her shimla mirch ki subzi still lingers on my taste buds. For all you are worth, Uday, my doors are always open for you.

“Dad, I need a raise.”
“Why?”
“I pay for two people. Myself and Bhargav”

My poor dad relented, and so I spent my last two and a half years. But then as an afterthought I think I got more than my fair share. Now look at this view, six months later (a typically gujju perspective of things):

“Dad, I earned a double MCA, on a single fee receipt!”
(elatedly) “How?”
“Mine and Shantanu’s.”

Methinks it wasn’t that bad an investment after all.

This is something I got to tell. This man has a really annoying habit of creating programs which he himself can’t figure out. Now that in itself isn’t a problem. It does become one when I have to debug it. Come to think of it, I have seen a thirty line “C” code for Fibonacci. He is my all time candidate for the “world’s worst indented code” contest. The word spaghetti must have been an observation on his style. (He expresses deep love and affection for the construct goto, btw). He is the one man administrative department of VJTI, not speaking of the pillar of strength he has been for the MCA Lab, while Joshi slept. I fear there is a lot more to come in the future so I won’t thank him for anything.

The next person in the firing line is the diminutive Rajesh Khanna Gooda. Khanna’s ability with the vocal sound “kh” is world renowned (it really doesn’t help that his name itself contains a “kh”). So is his famous statement, (apparently on being asked, “We are in the canteen, where are you?) “mai tunnel me hei”. He once tried to save Prasad from being beaten up by Sachin, Jeetu, Sidharth and the likes. He never tried that again. This guy has a superb sense of right and wrong. All in all, this guy is a great friend who lives life like it should be lived, happily.

Akshay is my tea – time friend. A person of strong convictions he will always side with truth and justice. At times he takes it too far, but that purely my personal opinion. His hilarious remarks were up for display until recently on Prasad’s hostel door. Not removing your shoes before entering his room can get you into big trouble. Once he asked me to start a “fight”, a regional debate, with of course none other than LOSER, but being a true Maharastrian, how long could he keep quiet? I was left in a piquant situation and promptly backed off. That’s when I realized he wouldn’t hear anything uncharitable about his land, even if it is was in jest. Watch out for him. He is going places.

Jeetu is my exam – time buddy. Collaboration, cooperation are the words I use to describe our friendship. We have given an altogether new definition to Distributed Computing. Stinking rich, this guy can break more than a few bones. I have heard that almost 100, 000 kids are exchanged every year at hospitals alone. This I think might be true for Jeetu. More of his traits are Punjabi than ghati. His principal principle in life is to “act first think later”. There are no grey areas for him. Either you are with him or you are with Shantanu. There were occasions when I found this bull of a man run for my blood and I was thinking more of how grand my funeral will be. All my fault of course. DO NOT be on the wrong side of his convictions. If you are, then at least stay more than an arm’s length. Period. It will be wrong if I left it over here. Jeetu is more a child than a bull. Extremely protective of everyone, he leaves no stone unturned to get things the way HE wanted it. It is amazing the way he does things for people. One more thing, he is harmless. God has taken away from him the ability to hurt anyone. I am jealous.

Suresh being the “guard’s bogie” (Kayyum’s definition not mine), will be discussed as and when Roll No. 2 comes up.

Parvez being the “passenger bogie” will be discussed along with his engine.

I admit, I’ve never heard of more hilarious film names, since that first day of college. I admit I had never seen such a tall girl before. But then not every girl is Komal. Her English has a pure gujju accent and if ever you are down, I recommend you her seminars. All in all she is a live wire. She is to the gals what Jeetu is to the guys.

I am probably the only person Natasha has ever written an assignment for. Half of the class was in splits when they came to know I was her partner in DBMS pracs. Boy! To my death I can’t forget, the first day of those pracs. We began at 1.58 p.m. and ended at 5.04 p.m. I started typing a query, then another query, then another one, and another … At3.36 p.m. Parvez realizes he has got a new joke to share with me. I refuse. At 4.48 p.m. Akshay summons me for tea. And what was going on in my mind? “Natasha, can I breathe?” But I didn’t give up and I can proudly say, it was she who got up and said, “This is enough for today.” For the next few days, I had to hear Bhargav’s taunt, “Agar tu uske saath itne seriously pracs kar sakta hai to mere saath kyun nahi?” This is in sum what Natasha is, a workaholic.

The funniest thing on earth is hearing Prasad talk. I have laughed my guts out at whatever he has had to say. Of course not on his face. Kayyum finds it boring and promptly dozes off. The scariest thing is to have him at your heels. It’s the closest you can come with death. Once I did, and unfortunately the chase ended in his room. But I’ve always maintained, “Ek, ek karke aao, sabko dekh loonga…”

The P gang consists of smart guys. They have optimized their work schedules to last through VJTI. I suggest them to write a book on how to pass VJTI with minimum effort.

I shall leave the P gang discussion mid way, and proceed individually. Not doing so will cause great injustice to each of those samples.

I firmly believe that Raj is the sanest of all of them; at times. His face is a random mixture of Gufi Paintal, the Shakuni of Mahabharat*, and Asrani. That is what I felt when I first met him. His motto in life is simple, “Expect nothing and you shall not be disappointed”. If you are ever to deal with him I suggest taking the motto to heart. One of his favourite pastimes is T – shirting. His latest release is of him standing with an overfed rat both pointing their fingers towards the pataal lok (nether land for you secularists). This guy has a really high IQ. His management skills smack of professionalism. Keep it up buddy.

Talking of the rat, well his real name is Ridwan. He hasn’t yet written my testimonial, so you can guess I am going be harsh on him. He once asked me, “Why is it pronounced pronunciation and not pronounciation?” I hope he has gotten his answer. And so have you, Shiv. There are many places he would like to visit, Persia, Bangladesh and Canada being some of them. An ardent reformist, Ridwan is pained at regressive practices in his community, for example, the limit of four wives. He is fighting hard, to get it removed i.e.

Having seen the legal profession from close quarters, I think Rahul Patil’s write and copy protection tactics will not stand the anti – monopolistic laws. I know what he did last summer. So does the whole class. Of course just like all of you I too have been instructed not to spread it.

Parag Patil has this mustached smile. More moustache less smile. I would refer refer him as a henchman of that rat. For, anything that he does has to have a connection with Ridwan. And more often than not it’s the same line, “Kyunki Ridwan ne bola.”

Kristopher is the guy you will find at the other end of a worn out Engage. Kris have some mercy on it. Buy a new one; even if it means buying the same model. Zipping and compressing his conversations essentially would mean removing all the “dudes” out. In one word – geek.

* for those of you who firmly believe in secularism and would not like any religious book /scripture to be associated with an official event such as an “I Remember Series”, think of A. K. Hangal.

Sachin Pathare is a funny guy. A stud with a funny voice, a funnier laughing style and the second funniest way of looking serious I have never seen. I mean, you should have seen this guy during Pulse, generate tonnes of sweat, running from the committee room to the outside shouting some instructions to someone, run back and back again to do the same. It was like that jailor in Sholay, “Aadhe udhar jao, aadhe idhar jao, aur baaki baahar khade raho main instructions le ke aata huin.” Another really funny thing I observed about this guy is the way he did his pracs in the fourth and the fifth sem – at right angles to the computer screen. Now, how in the good Lord’s world could he see anything from that angle is anyone’s guess.

I really want to bash up the guy who gave the sobriquet of “logical” to Mr. Nikhil Pate. Either I have missed the joke or there is someone really dumb out there. Pate is anything but logical. But being Pate is by no means a small feat. I mean, first to eke out ten paths. Then to find out the most logically appealing incorrect path and which offers the least resistance too, and be successful in this whole exercise eight out of ten times is truly a commendable feat. This took me an hour. And I am in no doubt it is going to take only a minute for him to misunderstand it. That is in summary Nikhil Pate; a person who thinks a lot and almost always, unnecessarily. Now to conclude, here is the basic premise on which Nikhil takes major decisions of his life –
“
1. Everything that I do or say can and will be used against me, in the various forums of Orkut.

2. “Kuch log achcha nahi kar rahein hain.”

3. “Main uske bare mein achcha sochta tha.”

4. If I will tell my roommates where I am going, they will follow me.”

Just in case you were searching for the “first” funniest serious looking person, I have ever met, your search ends here. Miss Shweta Sanghvi whom I personally refer to as Miss Understanding has this Condeleezean air to her personality. You better be as serious about work or else be damned. You may or may not actually keep it up in you output, but that’s not important. The important thing is to be serious. I distinctly remember being shrugged off the computer screen when pointing out a mistake in the Pulse brochure. The mistake (and other numerous ones) still stood its ground after it got published and printed. All because I smiled while I pointed out that mistake (and so did not meet the globally accepted standards of seriousness). Ok enough.

Of course she has got a really beautiful smile. She is one of the genuinely good looking femme fatales of our class. Only a few that I know in this world can match her in her mustard yellow salwar kameez.

Records are meant to be broken. The thinnest waistline is 16 ½ inches. I seriously think Niti ought to have her waist internationally certified. Who knows we might have a record holder in our midst. “Siyarin”, is a no nonsense girl who loathes standing straight for more than a few seconds. An achiever to the core, she is headed for big places.

Anurag has the most recognizable voice in the whole class. You just can’t miss the All India Radio accent. As a proactive member of the class, he has made many detractors, mostly I believe, due to a factor of jealousy rather than incompetence. He might have failed, but it in no ways is a proof of his inability. On the hindsight, keeping things hanging in abeyance till the last moment and trying to mollycoddle everyone are abilities of a politician not a leader.

Sidharth and I have had a lot of misunderstandings over the years so I would refrain from speaking anything about him.

Shivkumar Krishnamoorthy is a long name. But then it is of a person whose lowe for English has had me running after him with a sickle. Extremely knowledgeable, he is what I can call the Naarad of this class. Trust him to get the message through. This guy is an extremely methodical, intelligent and agreeable.

Shiv has never betrayed two guys in the class – Suresh and Mithilesh. To talk of Mithilesh is to invite some of the nastiest comments you’ve ever heard. He just loves to talk in pronouns. “Main tere saath nahi karna chahta.”, “Tu uska kya dekh raha hai?” are somehow classified as double meaning by him. I see only one meaning, the wrong one. The icing on the cake is when Shiv meets Mithilesh. Here is an excerpt of a potboiler they nurture up:

Shiv: “Aaj shaam ko rukna haan…hum canteen mein saath mein karenge…”
Mithilesh: “(broodingly)…Lagta hai mujhe aaj raat bhar baithna hoga…”

They are referring to assignments you dumbheads.

Mithilesh is a person who is apparently, late. You can almost feel in him the sense of having lost out. But surely and swiftly he is clawing back. A person with a clearer understanding of things I have never met. A person with such a crystal clear vision of the future I will never see. Even as I write this, a juggernaut is rolling.

Listening to all these conversations and quietly counting the number of victims of these thugs is Suresh. Suresh is quite an altitudinous guy, and hence has a bird’s eye view of things. He is a personal secretary to Mithilesh. A kind of application interface to the backend. Together they make a formidable combination. Their work output is an exponential function of their input. And they do this while listening to all the breaking news delivered by LOSER.

It was on the first day in class that I, a headhunter by hobby, saw this genius of a man called Kayyum, half asleep of course. Negation is hardwired into his brains. If you say something, trust him to find out situations where it can’t be true. The moment you admit to that, there will be a counter point, from the same man. It stops only when you choke him. If you notice very carefully, you will realize that he is a trendsetter. A rumour monger to the core, he does his job so professionally that you can never pin it on him. Who the hell decided that Mithilesh was married? Or that Ganesh has rejected each and every company that has come. By this time you already know that Suresh is baying for his blood for calling him err…. I think I need not give a clue on Niti’s pet name earlier in this article.

I dare to write this because I know he doesn’t have the patience to read more than a few lines and it will probably take him another year or so to reach here.

Parvez is the spokesman for Kayyum. Period. Have you seen the movie Ace Ventura – Pet Detective? There is this guy who translates everything that Jim Carrey says to the tribals, and how. This is exactly what Parvez does. Together they make the Jai – Veeru jodi. Of course, Basanti is yet to arrive.

Have you ever thought what happens when interrupts interrupt interrupts? If yes then you know what I am talking about. The operating system MITULICS (in no relation to MULTICS) is still in the making from that sad day in the first semester. No one can ever forget the “co – designers” can they? The way they bungled up a fifteen page document containing an average of fifteen words per page smacks of sheer incompetence. Mitul loves a coterie around him. He revels in that. Sadly he is quite successful in this practice of his. “Sadly” because none of this is going to help him in his professional life. Well I am no judge. Mitul isn’t one of my best friends. I am losing no sleep on that. (I can almost imagine a certain Miss X, jumping in her chair saying, “See I told you, he is jealous of him.”)

Gaurang Sampat is the second last guy on this list. He has this “no one can beat me” attitude. But this extends only to his speaking prowess. To give him credit, he has sobered down a bit. He has become sincere and hardworking. At times his former self does come up, but only at times. I wish him luck for his future.

As I end this IRS, a tinge of sadness reaches out to me. I came to VJTI in sad circumstances, and with a decided goal of passing out and getting a job; nothing more, nothing less. As usual, I’ve succeeded. I am sorry you could not see a more proactive, a more positive Shantanu.

It is sad that things have to come to an end; even good things. I have met some of the most intelligent blokes. I’ve also seen weak sides of human nature. That you can prove yourself better only by pulling others down is by every means a laughable theory. I have missed many a name in this effort. Adwait, Sidhesh, Ameet, Darshana, Vishal, Nilesh, Sandesh, Shailendra, Vijay are all humorous people, a very important precursor to being good.

It is not only this class that I have interacted with. Sushmita, Shyam, Nisha, and Vishesh come to my mind. Harshad, is at times extremely acidic and other times extremely warm. I’ve had to deal with him because of his computer which I’ve made my own. But yes he is an agreeable fella with more than an average level of IQ. His friend Sheetal on the other hand, has resisted all attempts of mine to be friends. Guys do I look so bad? Shut up, Ridwan, I don’t, okay?

The last guy I am talking about is a severe case of “foot in the mouth” disease. A collective opinion of the class would result in only one assessment of his personality, “HE HAS LOST IT”. Almost each and everyone he meets, has asked within himself, “Why can’t he just be normal?” You can trust him to bungle up a perfectly smooth ride. In these years he has messed it up so badly that now people choose to simply ignore whatever he does. His story is a perfect “How Not To Do It” example. To balance things a bit, Shantanu shows signs of intelligence, at times. The rest of him is enigma.