THE FIRST PAGE
I am not a preface guy so trust me when I say this will
be short.
What is this book??
Entertainment!! This is a story about a group of
adolescent friends and their antics in the summer term
of their institute. It has love stories, hate stories,
betrayals, and redemption. You will like some
characters. You will hate some. But at the end of the
day all of them will do only one thing, entertain you.
What this book is not??
Run of the mill and preachy. If you expect this book to
make you learn any virtues, run back to book store and
get a Panchatantra.
In the coming lines I will be thanking my parents for
their immense support and solidarity in this project. I
will also thank my friends whose company and sharp
minds helped me gather ideas to write this book. And
finally you for giving me the opportunity to entertain
you. So in case you are not the read-the-author-thankhis-parents-and-friends type you might want to skip
straight to the story.
-- Nikit Phadke
1
uly started off with a clouded day and brought a
much needed relief to the people of Kanpur. The
sun had been particularly harsh this year. The
otherwise lush green garden outside Geeta’s
house had become a portrait of an artist who
seemed to have run out of all colors but yellow
and orange. It was a portrait Geeta had spent the
last five days looking at through her bedroom window
while lying on her bed. A young girl in her teens, Geeta
had gotten hit with sunstroke the previous weekend
when she had gone out with her father to buy a new
cellphone. She had been on sick leave from her school
since that time. The timing of her sunstroke had been
particularly bad. For the past four months, she had been
pestering her father to get her a cellphone, the new hip
symbol in her school. She had seen one best friend after
another buy the beloved device and show it off in
school. After endless efforts when her father had finally
bought her a cellphone, she had gotten sick and was
extremely disappointed. She was yearning to show off
her new toy which had been purchased from a shop in
jareeb Chauki, the hub for buying and selling mobile
phones in Kanpur. So high was her excitement that she
had bugged her parents to let her go to school even
when her body was a full 4 Fahrenheit hotter than the
base temperature of 98.6. However her mom had made
sure that she remained tucked away in her room
comfortably. Today her insistence had finally paid off
and her dad gave her the green light to go to school.
J
“Tabeeyat kaafi theek hai ab iski. I think she can now go
to school” She had heard her dad tell her mom.
As soon as Geeta had heard her Dad say those words
from inside her room, the first thing she had done was
to put her cellphone in her backpack. She then finished
her morning chores at super speed. Her excitement to
go to school had perplexed her mom since the day
Geeta had gotten her cellphone but she had been unable
to put two and two together. Geeta had never been the
one to be this excited to go to school. Her mom didn’t
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mind it today though as things went pretty smoothly and
she was able to get to zee TV half an hour earlier. Geeta
picked her backpack in which she had carefully snuck in
the cellphone and ran towards her bus stop. All she
could think about was the second period when she
would sit in the back with Shaili, her best friend and
show her new toy. She didn’t have to wait too long.
Within the next hour she was chatting freely with Shaili
as they sat on the last bench of the class.
“Hey Shaili, yeh dekh mere dad ne mere liye cellphone
liya” geeta slowly took out her cellphone, making sure
that the substitute teacher didn’t see it and showed it to
Shaili whose eyes widened instantly.
“Wow yaar geeta, bahut hi mast hai yeh to. You will let
me use it na?” Shaili asked when she was done admiring
the cellphone thoroughly and made a puppy face.
“Ofcourse shaili kaisi baatein karti hai. But listen na
there is more. Yeh jo cellphone tha na I think yeh kisi
Aneesha naam ki ladki ka tha. Her messages somehow
didn’t get deleted from the cellphone. It was really
interesting to read her messages. She seems to have a
boyfriend named Prachit. Uski ek best friend hai Neha.
Then there is Rohit, who looks to be Prachit’s best friend
and Neha’s boyfriend. There are a few more people like
Yuvraaj Singh, Rahul etc who don’t seem to be that
interesting. Lekin overall messages bahut hi cool hai.
We can practically map the major events in Aneesha and
Prachit’s love story. Wait dikhati hoon”
She instantly opened the SMS application of the phone
and a stream of messages appeared on the cellphone.
Geeta opened some “interesting” messages (Which she
had shortlisted during the time she had been sick) and
then got busy reading them with Shaili.
3
Prachit
Hey hi it felt rly nice mtin u guys in the IITK
library today. Have a safe Lucknow trip
Neha
Where are you? d train is about to leave. Call
me or message me as soon as you get here
Prachit
Wht!! They Kissed!! When? Where? Details
please!!
Neha
His mint was Awesome  and so were his
lips
Geeta and Shaili just couldnt help their giggles. The
messages had caught their imagination. Watching a real
life bollywood situation unfold in the cellphone was
pretty exhilarating. Suddenly Shaili had an idea.
“Oye. Let’s read the messages sequentially and make a
nice story out of it. It would be just like making a picture
by connecting dots. It would be fun. Waise bhi aaj
hamare bahut free period hai”
The idea struck a chord with Geeta instantly. Shortly
thereafter Geeta and Shaili started going through each
and every message and chalking out a storyline. As soon
as they began, the romantic in Shaili became active.
She tilted her neck to a side, looked up towards the roof
and with a slight smirk said
4
“I wonder how this all began”
5
The Beginning
nd
May 2003. That was the day it all began.
After evading a fakka for two years, that was
the day when Haddi was going to get his first.
Inspite of all his efforts to accommodate his
goof ups; here he was, walking towards an
inevitable doom that awaited him. He wanted
the time to stop, even reverse but all he could
do was watch the pillars of the concrete pathway pass
by one after the other as he walked under it with his
head down. It was perhaps the hottest day of the year
so far. But none of it mattered for Haddi who walked
silently towards the FacB under the concrete walkway.
Even if the pathway providing the much needed shade
was absent, it wouldn’t have mattered to him. No
amount of physical pain would have reduced the
intensity of thoughts inside him. Inspite of Haddi’s
ignorance, the utility of the concrete pathway was
undeniable. It provided a safe path for the students to
move around within the academic area without exposing
themselves to the wrath of sun god. The one under
which Haddi happened to be walking was part of the
network that connected the Lecture hall complex to
FacB. Faculty Building or FacB as it used to be known
was easily the tallest building of the campus and hosted
most of the deparmental offices. It also hosted a
number of classrooms, conference rooms and
professor’s individual offices. Haddi’s stream of
thoughts was broken for a second as he moved his eyes
from the concrete floor towards the FacB.
2
“Still a long way to go” He thought.
Even though the FacB looked really close, Haddi Knew
he still had to walk a long way in order to get there. His
thoughts overwhelmed him again. As he Watched the
pillars pass by his desire to turn back time was
intensifying. He did not want a fakka. He knew he had
replayed the entire exam in his brain a thousand times
6
but he couldn’t help but think of some obscure thing he
had written in his paper that might help him convince
the professor to increase the marks. He was trying to
find a ray of hope in darkness when some cheerful
voices broke his thoughts. Two of his friends who had
been walking behind him had suddenly decided to
become vocal. Moreover on a topic that Haddi was least
interested in hearing about.
"Abe ikka aa jaye meri saat chheh lag jaegi”
This was Mayur better known as Mariyal, a character
from Allahabad, a hardcore baniya, philanderer and and
right now a person who was doing a great job making
Haddi feel miserable.
"Abe yaar paper bahut cool aaya tha, tu to waise bhi
ikke pe hi chal raha tha.Chahe jitna tel machaya ho ikka
to tera lag hi jaega. Bas mera bhi ikka lag jaye yaar cool
cool satti lag jaegi. Saala mittal satti ke neeche walo ko
project nahi deta hai yaar"
Added Madhu, a guy from Bikaner and a very able
cribber. He had the capacity to crib in just about any
situation which made him a particularly annoying
addition to anything. The only thing counteracting his
obnoxious cribbing was his capacity to hack computers.
He was an absolute gem when it came to hacking and
had consequently gained the nickname “Axle” which was
basically the name of the world’s topmost hacker in the
movie Swordfish. Regardless, he was probably the last
person Haddi wanted to listen talking at this time.
"Abe Axle, isne midterm jaisi grading kari to main 100%
Bikke pe aa jaunga" Mariyal expressed his fear.
"Abe nahi be kahe tension le rahe ho bahut cool prof hai
Mariyal"
7
"Haan be woh to hai. Yeh prof grading to bahut acchi
karta hai. Is course main fakka laane wala bahut hi
chirkut hoga"
"Abe haane be.....jab Y0 batch ka deepak dikka la sakta
hai to......"
Their voices died down abruptly. They had been given a
nasty stare by Haddi who apparently was not happy with
the kind of insensitivity Mariyal and Axle were showing
to his situation.
“Are tum log Kaahe Pareshan kar raha hai isko”
Commented Jagdeesh or Jaggu as he was popularly
known. Jaggu was from Bihar and his only parameter of
concern in life was his "sareer". He was obsessed with
body building. He had an extremely relaxed demeanor.
Hearing him talk, No one would be able to say that both
Haddi and Jaggu were standing on a verge of fakka.
Jaggu was cool and relaxed as anything. The only
difference from his normal behavior was that he wasnt
laughing as much. It had nothing to do with their
attitudes though. Jaggu had been conditioned by four
semesters of getting Fakkas. It was a routine for him.
But he clearly seemed to remember the feeling of being
on the verge of an Fakka for the first time and hence
seemed to empathize with Haddi. Haddi’s stare and
Jaggu’s insistence worked, Axle and Mariyal reduced
their boisterious talks to mumbles which allowed Haddi
to get engulfed in his thoughts again. His mind mocked
him with the thought that his dimwit classmates like
Axle and Mariyal were talking about ikka and bikka and
here he was cojoling his mind into thinking he was
goona get a Dikka. Tired of his trainwreck thoughts,
Haddi called out to Jaggu in order to divert his mind.
Jaggu had been walking quietly with him right from Hall2 and was busy chewing his nails.
"Jaldi chalo thoda Jaggu"
8
"Tum already bahut tez chal raha hai Haddi”
Replied jaggu as he watched Haddi ignore him and pick
up his pace. Jaggu increased the size of his steps so as
to catch up with Haddi. They soon reached the
pavement that lead to the Undergraduate office and
could see a group of students standing outside staring at
a notice board. This was the board where the list of
Fakkas was displayed. A relatively huge notice board
which was mostly empty and ignored most the year
used to become extremely important during end of
semester. This was the place where doom confronted
the best of India in black and white. The notice board
was especially crowded during the time after the exams.
However a majority of guys who came to see the board
did not go there in order to see if they had failed the
course. Most of them were people who knew they have
cleared all their courses but were there to see who has
got fakka and how many of them. It provided good
gossip material for a few days and provided a chance for
the devious to mock people who had failed. A very
disgusting practice but hey, such is life.
For three semesters Haddi, Axle, Mariyal, Untees, kaka,
Chashmish and vodka used to be a part of the very
same group of guys. They used to hang out for hours in
front of the notice board; sitting on the stairs, smoking
cigarettes and mocking any poor soul who was
unfortunate enough to drop by at that time. But
somehow the idea of being on the other side of the table
just wasn’t appealing to Haddi.
“God I am sorry for what I used to do. Please forgive
me. It was all Mariyal’s idea”
Prayed Haddi as he glanced towards the notice board
and recalled his deeds. Then suddenly out of nowhere
came a weak smile on his face. He realized that he had
run to god and was apologizing for his mistakes just to
9
pass the course. There was no way he would have
apologized for mocking people if he were not in this
situation.
“Damn I am an hippocrite”
Uttered Haddi under his breath, shook his head and kept
walking. This was when he realized that the office of
Prof. V.S. Mao was on the 6th floor of FacB and they
were heading towards the stairs.
"Abe lift se chalna hai .yahan kahan jaa rahe hai
apan.udhar jaana hai humein"
Haddi shouted and signaled the others towards another
walkway parallel to the one on which they were walking
to which Jaggu responded.
"Are seedhiyon se chalega to sareer accha hoga"
Jaggu’s suggestion to go by the stairs However was
completely ignored by Haddi and the others who
continued on their bearing towards the lift. Although he
had ignored Jaggu’s comments, Haddi was still surprised
by it. It wouldn’t have normally as He knew Jaggu was
obsessed about his body but the situation was far from
normal.
“How could he be so calm about getting a Fakka?”
Fakka, a word that represented the greatest fear in the
mind of any IITian was invented by Prachit. Prachit, one
hell of a card player who had got his nick name Untees
from the card game he was great at, 29. Two semesters
ago he had gone to see the doom-board after a 10 hour
session of 29. When asked about his grade by the gang
after he had returned
"Abe fakka lag gaya be" was his reply
After having a good laugh about the word, they had
devised a whole new lingo for grades in the next few
10
minutes. After a highly intellectual discussion, the
following lingo was settled on
Grade
Name
A
Ikka
B
Bikka
C
Cikka
D
Dikka
F
Fakka
After inventing the lingo, the stupendous seven made
sure it reached each and every corner of the IITK
student community. They put up notices in each and
every Hall and tortured the juniors to make sure it
became an integral part of the immortal IITK lingo which
it successfully did.
"Abe vodka ka do fakka lag gaya hai na is baar"
This question from Jaggu brought an abrupt end to
Haddi’s extraneous thoughts and dragged him to sour
reality.
“Nahi… ek hi hai…So far” Replied Haddi with a sigh.
Haddi’s wing had performed exceptionally this semester.
They had probably broken the record for the most F’s in
a wing ever. There was an average of two fakka in every
room. Satish alias Vodka seemed to be doing quiet ok so
far. Considering his previous track just one fakka this
semester was truly exceptional. Having said that, his
11
fakka in MTH101 however had made him the first guy in
the history of IIT Kanpur to fail three consecutive times
in a single course
“Abe course pasand aa gaya hai be. Socha ek baar aur
kar loon”
Was what he vodka had replied when Kaka had asked
him about him what had happened. Vodka didn’t mind
fakkas. They were just another reason for him to drink
vodka, his favorite alcoholic drink and the reason for his
infamous nickname. His drinking habit wasn’t the only
thing vodka was famous for. He was also famous for the
amount of time he talked on cellphone. The
conversations were a must considering his distance
relationship. Vodka probably made up 40-50% of his
cellphone company’s revenue stream considering the
amount of time he talked on it.
It wasn’t as if Vodka didn’t have competition. Haddi’s
roommate “Bhola” had tried equally hard this semester
and had ended up with three fakkas. If Haddi didn’t
disappoint, his room was probably gonna top the
number of Fakkas.
The group had now reached the lift lobby which was
particularly crowded because of the morning rush of
people trying to get to their offices. A lot of people were
queued up for the lifts while the rest were flowing
towards the stairs in front of it. Haddi saw a number of
familiar faces standing in front of the lift doors, but
couldnt put a name on them. All of them were from a
different hall and definitely not a celebrity. They were
not regular visitors to the sports field. After scratching
his heaf for a while Haddi recognized one of the guys
from last years Antaragni, IITK's cultural festival and put
everything together. These guys had been in the
ECO202 class which he “attended”. The guy whom Haddi
identified was Shailesh Shrivastava (or sissy). They had
participated together in rithambara, the fashion contest
in antaragni. Rithambara was one of the most
12
prestigious events of IITK. People on Rithambara’s
roster were the better looking lot of IITK and garnered a
lot of attention. Shailesh had been a participant in it
with Untees and Haddi.
"Kya be sissy kahan jaa rahe ho??"
" Are Haddi bas jara copy dekhne aaye hai" sissy replied
in his made up accent trying to sound sophisticated. His
approach worked pretty well on people who didn’t know
him but for someone who had known him for quiet
sometime it created two conflicting images in Haddi’s
head. Sophisticated sissy was not.
"Kis cheez ki??" Haddi asked.
"Are ECO202....VS Mao ki." sissy responded.
“Are main bhi usi ki dekhne jaa raha hoon" Haddi added
"Tum is course main ho kyaa?? Tumhe class main kabhi
dekha nahi".
What a great time to hear those words. As if Haddi’s
confidence needed some more poison. Frustrated with
the allegation (Which as a matter of fact was true) Haddi
replied with all the rudeness he could muster
"Saale roj class aata tha, sabse aage baithta tha. Tum
saale 5-min late aake peeche baithte hoge. Isiliye nahi
dekha hoga kabhi"
Jaggu looked at Haddi and raised an eyebrow as he
heard this. Haddi gave a slant look at him and slyly
shrugged his shoulders as if to say
“Ofcourse I am lying!”
13
Everyone else in his group who didn’t see the shrug too
knew he was lying. The class was at 8 o clock in the
morning. There was no way Haddi could have attended
more than 3 - 4 lectures. But nobody would dare open
their mouth. Haddi was ballistic today and no one
wanted to be in the firing lane by contradicting him.
Unfortunately that’s where Sissy had put himself. All
sissy could manage after that was
"Ohh. Ho sakta hai. Chalo cya”
And boarded the lift alongwith the rest of his group.
Meanwhile Haddi and the others boarded the second lift
alongwith a few other guys.
The lift was full of an assortment of people. There were
some professors, some office workers, security guards
and students. Jaggu and Haddi were probably the
dirtiest of the lot. The reflection in the lifts door made
this evident even to them. All the professors were well
dressed. Some of them were even in suites. The security
guards were in their uniforms. The office workers were
dressed up in shirts and formal pants. And here Haddi
was, wearing shorts, a tshirt which probably wasnt
washed for a month, hair spread out in every possible
direction and slippers on his feet. Jaggu was no better.
He too was in a similiar attire.While Haddi had brushed
his teeth Jaggu hadnt even bothered to do that.
"Are kal hi to manjan kiye the"
Were his words when his roommate Chashmish had
asked him about it. The lift was moving pathetically
slow.It kept stopping at each and every floor. Finally
after about 10 long minutes, lift reached the 6th floor of
the bulding. All of them stepped out and started looking
for room no 656, VS Mao's office. Mariyal saw a large
group of students standing in the lobby on the right side
14
which was a pretty good indication that the office was on
that side.
“Wahan dikh raha hai office” Mariyal pointed in the
direction and started walking that way.
The four of them made their way towards the office and
joined a group of some 20 odd students who were
waiting outside Prof. Mao’s room. One of them was
kaka, another gem of their group. A great singer and an
extremely well balanced person, kaka was a romantic at
heart. His favorite movie was DDLJ and as days
progressed his ideas about love seemed to get mushier.
After a short meet and greet Kaka told them that the
professor was only allowing three students at a time
inside the room. Two guys named Ravi and sudeesh
were already in with some other guy. Haddi and Jaggu
made themselves comfortable, sat on the floor and
leaned against the wall just opposite to the office door.
A short, dark guy named Asit Das Gupta or Franky
joined them after a minute. As Haddi waited outside the
door waiting for the three students in the room to come
out, he only had one question in his mind:
“How did I get here?“
And he was instantly off on a flash back.
Haddi had taken up the course in a rush of blood after
receiving the grade sheet of the previous semester. He
had got two Dikkas and His SPI (Semester performance
index) was at an all time low of 5.6. He had sulked for a
whole week with vipul sharma nick Gdrive, Haddi’s
wingmate thereafter. Gdrive too had gotten a SPI of 5.6
and his normally red cheeks had been reduced to a deep
shade of yellow. After considerable deliberation, both of
them had decided to let the past be and get their first
Dussa in the next semester with the most difficult
course choice possible. Both had to take five courses
this semester. While all the five courses for GDrive were
already fixed, Haddi had the option of choosing the HSS
15
(Humanities and social sciences) course. He had to
submit a preference sheet to select one from the six
available options. While filling the preference sheet,
Haddi had asked around 5-6 seniors about the relative
difficulty of the courses. All of them had unanimously
agreed to ECO202 to be the most difficult. Since Haddi
was hell bent on bringing a ten pointer with the most
difficult course choice possible, he put it down as his one
and only preference. Obviously, he got the course as no
one else was stupid enough to put it down as a choice.
The classes began on the first of Jan. Haddi attended the
first class as an example of the sincerity he was going to
display throughout the semester. He had woken up on
time, gone and sat on the first row in the class and had
a four colored pen to take down his notes with on a copy
that he bought just the day before. The first words
which the professor had uttered in the class was that
he was gonna change the class timings to 8:00 am MWF
from 10:00am MWF. Haddi could still remember the
sinking feeling in his heart on hearing the very words.
But hey he was gonna get a ten pointer this sem.
Nothing could have hampered his spirits. He was gonna
attend each and every class this sem irrespective of it’s
timings. There is no person in the world who is as
optimistic a person as the one who’s got a 5.6 the last
sem and is aiming for a ten pointer in the next. Haddi
reached the Wednesday’s class at 8:00 Am sharp.
Although he had to take a nite-out in order to do that it
was an achievement nonetheless. It was a step in the
right direction and was nothing short of monumental. It
represented that Haddi was actually serious about his
goal. First week was going just about perfect. All Haddi
needed to do was to attend the Friday’s class and he
would have wrapped up week-1 successfully. He decided
to do attend the Friday’s class no matter what it took.
Haddi did manage to attend the class on Friday.
Unfortunately it was a Friday four weeks after the one
he had targeted. Things had fallen apart.
16
“I already know everything he is teaching. Don’t worry. I
am getting a Dussa this sem”
Was what Haddi had explained when asked by GDrive
why he wasn’t attending the classes.
Haddi was half asleep throughout the Friday’s class. He
was sitting on the last bench with no idea of what was
going on. He had regretted his decision to come to the
class the moment he had entered it. The only reason he
wasn’t running out was because the A/C in the class had
made him extremely comfortable. He did however
register a few words spoken in the class. They were:
Midterm.............wednesday..........tough...........long.
After the class Haddi had asked someone If the
professor had mentioned anything about any midterm
and the person had replied in a stressed out tone that
they were gonna have a midterm the next wednesday
and it was gonna be tough because a lot of persons
were not attending any classes.
“Damn those class bunkers”
Haddi had added.
“I don’t wanna fail this course again” That person had
added in a weak tone before melting away in oblivion.
This was when Haddi remembered his promise of
getting a Dussa in the semester. The professor was just
gonna grade on the basis of exams, so incase he solved
all the questions correctly he could still score an Ikka in
the course. This thought made him feel a bit better.
“It’s still possible. I can do this”
Haddi spent the next ten minutes planning his entire
schedule from satuday through Tuesday. After he was
done, Haddi was once again confident of getting a
dussa.
17
“Exam main marks hi to laana hai. I just need to mug up
for the next few days and vomit it in the exam. As
simple as that” remarked Haddi when Gdrive asked for
an update as Haddi met him in the corridor on his way
back. He spent most of the afternoon catching up on the
sleep he had lost in order to attend the class. In the
evening while he was sitting in the hostel quad
daydreaming, all Haddi could think about was how
things would be when he got a dussa. He could
practically feel the exhilaration through his imagination.
He would be respected all over, people will call him a
dassu. This is when he had suddenly heard somebody
shout
"Abe Haddi yahan baitha hai.tujhe kabse dhoondh raha
hoon" this was Axle.
"Kyon be Axle. Mujhe kyon dhoondh rahe ho?"
"Abe jaldi se apne kamre jao aur thode kapde wagairah
le lo. Hum log Goa chal rahe hai "
"Hehe...nice one"
"Abe seriously be, Goa main robotics workshop hai .5
ladko ne jaana hai. 3 IT BHU ke hai. IITK se ek ladka
aur chahiye. Chalo saale bahut maja aayega."
"Mujhe robotics ka R bhi nahi aata hai"
"Abe train main seekh jaoge chalo abhi"
"paisa wagairah kitna lagega"
"Kuchh nahi lagega. Sab paid hai.upar se stipend bhi
milega".
The temptation was just too much. An all paid vacation
in Goa. What else could one ask for! Haddi somehow
resisted the temptation and went back to his room. He
18
seemed very serious about his goal of spending the
entire weekend studying and getting a cool cool ikka.
Even the temptation of an all expense paid trip to Goa
didn’t seem to break his resolve.
An hour later however Haddi was sitting in a Toyota
qualis with 4 other people listening to Babuji zara
dheere chalo and sipping on a bottle of kingfisher while
shouting
“Goa!!! Yuhoo!!! Here we come!!!”
He had caved in. He was now heading towards goa with
Axle. He wasn’t being a complete jackass though. He
had packed his ECO202 notebook and class notes with
him.
“I just have to study. Doesn’t matter whether I do it in
Kanpur or Goa” He had thought.
4 days, 8 bottles of feni, 4 bottles of whiskey and 15
bottles of beer later Haddi was back at IITK at 6am on
Wednesday morning. He had lost his ECO202 notes in
some bar in goa, his head was throbbing and he had his
midterms at 8:00AM. In other words he gave the
1st midterm with zero preparation and a blood-alcohol
level ten times higher than normal. "Disaster", yes that’s
the word Prof Mao had used to describe his performance
while giving him his answer sheet. He had got 3/30 in
the midterm while the class average was close to 21.
“I wonder; if I can get 3 marks with absolutely zero prep
in such a course, I definitely am a dussa material. Just
gotta be a little more focused the next sem. I will do
this. I will get a Dussa the next sem” Haddi remembered
explaining GDrive who had blasted Haddi for his
performance.
The next few weeks however removed the word Dussa
from Haddi’s dictionary as his entire focus shifted
towards saving a fakka. His second midterm had again
19
been a disaster. He got a 2/30. It had all came down to
the endsem as always. Additionally he got to know from
someone that the professor was gonna fail people with a
net total of 39 and below. So accordingly Haddi had to
score a total of 34 to pass the course. Haddi mugged up
all he could for the endterm. On the day of the exam
Haddi convinced Karnav mishra, a maggu by heart to sit
with him and let him copy some of his answers. As he
walked towards L-7, IITk’s largest lecture halls, Haddi
was pretty cool. He knew that by doing some questions
himself and by copying a few from Karnav he will pass
this course. However as he reached L-7 Haddi realized
that there was a predetermined seating arrangement for
the exam. It was a bad omen for the things to come.
And what a bad omen it was. People sitting on either
side of him were in a similiar situation as Haddi and
knew nothing of Economics. Haddi was on his own.
Haddi mustered all the confidence he could manage and
calmed himself down.
“It’s just 34 marks. I can do this”
As soon as the question paper touched Haddi’s hand,
that calmness vaporized. At that very moment Haddi
knew he would be standing in front of the professor’s
office within the next few days dreading about getting a
Fakka. The question paper was 16 pages long. The
questions were so long that by the time Haddi finished
reading it he had already forgotten how it started.
Moreover the questions were so outlandish that Haddi
wasn’t getting any wind of any of them. Haddi shifted in
his chair uncomfortably and looked around at his
neighbours to see if there was any scope of copying
there and found them staring at him as if asking
“Do you know anything?”
Throughout the paper Haddi was looking here and there
so as to get atleast a mild hint about the answers. He
got up to drink water 5 times just to see what people
were doing in their copies. He wondered what all those
20
people were scribbling so ferociously while he was just
sitting looking here and there. To make things worse,
Haddi’s seat got changed in the middle of the exam as
the professor thought he was cheating. The stupid
Sanket (or Bakra) sitting besides him was talking some
crap to himself during the exam which made no sense at
all to Haddi. But to Professor Mao who was watching
over them, it must have appeared that they were
cheating. Within seconds Professor Mao had sprinted
across to Haddi’s seat and grabbed his arm. Before
Haddi could retaliate the professor had pulled him up
and transferred him over to the first row. Haddi
somehow wrote a few lines on his answersheet and
submitted it at the end of the exam. For the next four
days Haddi spent his time drinking beer with Vodka and
giving a hard time to bakra. He made bakra’s life
miserable and drove him to the brink of tears atleast
four-five times. In addition to taking out his frustration,
Haddi had made sure he had saved a number of people
in future from Bakra’s stupidity as he made Bakra swore
not to talk in exams ever again.
Apart from giving a hard time to Bakra, Haddi spent his
time recalculating his possible total. There was no way
he was reaching 39. The maximum he was gonna get
was around 30. Even if the professor decided to be a bit
lenient which he wouldn’t be with Haddi, thanks to
bakra, he wouldn’t drop his bar so low. So Haddi had
kinda accepted that he was gonna get a Fakka. But
Acceptance was not enough. He had to wait four days to
get it. Getting a fakka is better than waiting for it. But
finally Haddi’s wait was gonna get over. Within a few
minutes he was gonna get a Fakka. The first in his
academic career. The school topper from Indore was
gonna touch the abyss. Haddi wondered what all the
reporters who had wrote articles on him after he had got
selected in IITK without any coaching would say if they
got the wind of his current state.
Suddenly the door opened and Haddi was snatched back
by the present. He saw Three guys come out it, two of
21
whom Haddi knew pretty well, Ravi and Sudeesh. Ravi's
face looked as if he was gonna choke concealing the 64
teeth smile which was just about to burst out of his face.
Clearly he had scored pretty well and must know he was
gonna get an Ikka. But he dare not blurt it because he
knew if he blabbered anything related to any ikka he will
get his ass kicked by the people standing outside.
Sudeesh also looked very happy with his performance.
The third guy however seemed very depressed; he
seemed as if he was almost going to cry. Haddi felt like
asking how much his score was so that he can
guesstimate the fakka threshold but decided against it.
He didn’t feel like bothering the guy more than he
already was. The guy seemed to have enough problems
of his own. After a few more batches of three that went
it, it was clear that most of the people had performed
well. Kaka also came out happy which implied he too
was not gonna get an F. Finally came Haddi’s turn.
Without further much ado he went inside the door
followed by Franky and Alok mittal. The room was a
typical professor’s office with a few file cabinets, a desk,
and a comfortable leather chair for the professor and
three not so comfortable wooden chairs for the
visitors.On the leather chair sat Professo Mao, a skinny
fellow in his late fifties. He was one of the few guys
Haddi had seen in his life who werent bald even so late
in age. His head was covered with hair as white as
cotton. He was wearing a formal shirt and had classy
spectacles on his eyes. He signaled Franky to close the
door behind them and asked everyone to take a seat.
The three of them sat down with Haddi in the middle,
Franky on his left and Alok on his right.
"Ok ...so let’s start with you" said Prof Mao looking
towards Franky.
"whats your roll no"
"why whone jhero jhero phiphty free"
22
This was Franky telling his roll number to the professor
in his natural voice.This was the way he talked and
Haddi was pretty sure the professor hadnt got it.
Nobody could have, not in the first iteration. Franky
kinda ate half the words before they came out of his
mouth.
"What’s that??"
"Shar it’sh Y10053" The voice much clearer this time.
"Ok ....let’s see where your copy is......here you
go.......and here’s the question paper alongwith model
answers"
with that the professor handed over the copy to Franky.
Since Haddi had nothing to do, He decided to peep in
Franky’s answersheet. He was reading the cover of a
copy which had a lot of red colored ink scribbled over it.
On top were probably marks from individual questions.
Below that was the total for the endsem. Written futher
below were marks from the two midterms and in the
very bottom was a number encircled in red which was
the grand total. It was at this moment Haddi realised
Franky's face go all wierd. It was very difficult to guess
what he was trying to express. He didn’t look angry, he
looked partly sad and he definitely wasn’t happy. It was
after a few moments that Haddi realised that he was
about to cry. Curious, Haddi looked around for a reason
and saw it written within the red circle on his copy, the
number 39. By this time the professor too had gotten
curious enough to enquire
"What is it my child"
Franky did seem to utter something but neither Haddi
nor Professor Mao heard anything
"Just calm down son, tell me whats wrong?"
"Shar whill i pash the coursh"
23
Said Franky very slowly as he moved his answersheet
towards Professor Mao.
Professor Mao took his anwersheet and gave a quick
glance towards the red circle.
"Oh no no no!! You need not worry dear. With a case as
close as yours I dont think i will fail you.You can rest
assured about that. Now just check your answersheet
see if there are any correction or totalling errors"
Franky's face blossomed instantly. He took the
anwersheet back from Professor Mao, gave it a cursory
glance and gave it back. He had got what he wanted.
The professor now turned his attention towards Haddi.
"Ok.....so whats your roll number"
"Y10231 sir"
The professor hunted for his answersheet in the stack.
After sometime he pulled out one, gave it a quick glance
and handed it over to Haddi.The first thing Haddi looked
for was the red circle on the cover. Written inside the
circle was a number. And the number was 33.
So it had finally happened. Haddi had been
doomed.However inspite of feeling frustrated and
disappointed Haddi’s mind behaved in a way that makes
every IITian an IITian. He was filled up with a lot of
optimism and he thought
“So what if I have gotten a Fakka, lot of successful
people have failed at some point in their life. I will work
hard. I will not give up.”
Haddi felt all his anxiety, nervousness floating away and
he started feeling better as if a huge load was off of him.
Rather than thinking that He had got 33 marks Haddi
started thinking that he was just 6 short of the
threshold.
24
“What if there was totalling error or some answer had
not been checked correctly? I might still paas the
course”
Haddi thought and decided to ask for the model
answers.
“Sir can I have the question paper and the model
answers??"
After Prof Rao handed him the model answers, Haddi
decided to check each and every page, each and every
line of his answersheet. He started cross checking his
answers with the model ones very slowly. There was no
scope of any increment in question 1 and 2.
Disappointed, Haddi turned the page. Question 3 was no
better, ha had messed up the whole concept. He was
lucky to get 3 marks in that. He thought he deserved
zero for the kind of stupidity he had done. Page after
page Haddi kept turning, but there just wasnt any
correction error or anything close to that. Finally after
coming to page ten he realised that there were no more
pages to go. Heck even the pagecount of his
answersheet was smaller than the question paper.
“May be I do deserve a Fakka”
Haddi thought but decided to give it one more try. He
opened up the front page and started going through the
answers once again. But it was of no use. Haddi just
culdn’t see any place where he could have requested for
an increment of marks. Haddi didn’t know how long he
was pondering over his answerbook. It may have been 5
min, 10 min or an hour Haddi just didn’t know. He just
didn’t wanna get up from his chair. He was deep into his
thoughts when he heard a creaking noise; it was from
Prof Mao's chair. When Haddi looked up he saw Prof Mao
staring at him unblinkedly. Apparently he was getting
very restless and rightly so, Haddi was taking a lot of
time going through his answer sheet. But he didn’t care,
he wanted to be sure about his answers. Haddi was
25
about to dive back into his answersheet when Prof Mao
said:
"I dont think there is any use going through that. At the
Max i can give you a D"
The next 10 seconds saw Haddi thanking the professor,
returning his copy and moving out of the door. He saw
Jaggu, Axle and Mariyal on his way out and gave them a
good 64 teeth smile. Now that’s a privelage somebody
getting an Ikka can’t have. While a person who has just
moved to a dikka from a Fakka can come out smiling out
of the professor’s room, someone getting an Ikka can’t.
It was when Haddi was walking back towards the lift
that he realised what had happened.
"I have passed the course!!! There is no compulsion to
stay during the summer. I am Through. Wuhooo!!!”
26
The Fakka
Axle and Mariyal rushed back to hall-2. They were pretty
happy with the way things had gone for them today at
Prof Mao’s office. Their score was pretty good and they
were going to end up getting the grades they were
expecting. It was almost 12 o’clock but Axle and Mariyal
knew most of the people would still be sleeping. As soon
as they entered the hall they saw Haddi and vodka
talking to each other.
"Kya be Haddi wapas aa gaya. Kya hua??"
"Are bhokali ho gayi. Dikka aa gaya"
"Sahi. Chalo isi khushi main IITK gate chalte hai"
Translation:
"Let’s go and get Vodka".
By this time Axle and Mariyal had also joined them. The
prospect of going to the gate was appreciated by all and
a trip was planned instantly. They were just about to
leave when it struck to Mariyal that vodka had to go and
meet a professor about revoking one of his Fakkas. He
decided to remind him.
"Abe Vodka, Saale tumhe professor se baat karne jaana
hai shayad. tera fakka revoke kar dega woh keh raha
tha tu."
"Jaana hai nahi jaana tha Mariyal. Usne subah subah
email kar ke bola ki grade revocation ki koi possibility
nahi hai. It’s done. Ab mere do fakke confirm hai. So all
that remains now is to go get drunk. Gaadi le ke aaya
main"
Vodka quickened towards his bike while waving his key
left and right. The parking lot was in front of the wing. It
27
housed bicycles and the occasional bikes like that of
Vodka. As always there were a lot of Bicycles standing
haphazardly around Vodka’s bike which needed to be
cleared before vodka could take out the Bike. Vodka
knew this would be the case and starting working on it
as soon as he got in the parking lot. He tried for a bit
but when he realized that the situation was too complex
to be resolved amicably; he decided to take the tried
and tested route.
“Bang”
“Bang”
He kicked cycles on either side of the bike which then
fell like dominos clearing the way for his bike. As he
took his bike out, a very sleepy guy appeared in the
wing corridor and called out to Haddi.
"Kya be Haddi kidhar jaa rahe ho"
This was Chashmish, a really "shareef" banda from
Allahabad. He was a phenomenal sleeper. He had once
slept for 18 hours straight and that too without the
influence of alcohol. Apparently he had woken up early
today.
"Are Chashmish paas ho gaye launde. Jaa rahe hai gate.
Chalna hai?"
"Subah subah...Saale tum log pagal ho gaye ho kyaa.
But ab tum log jaa hi rahe ho to mana kaise kar sakte
hai. Do minute ruko manjan kar ke aate hai. Waise raat
ko bhi jaoge kyaa??"
"Haan haan raat ko bhi chale chalenge"
"Haddi saale maarenge mar jaoge. Chalo jaldi"
28
Vodka had apparently been successful in taking out the
bike and was now standing on the alleyway with a
yamaha settled beneath him. It was time to leave.
“Chasmish, tu Axle aur Mariyal ke saath aa jaana”
Haddi shouted and ran towards the bike to sit on the
back. He settled on the back while Vodka pushed the
bike to a high speed. They reached IIT gate in no time
and parked the bike outside the beer shop. Being 12:30
in the afternoon the shopkeeper was just relaxing in a
chair outside the shop.Wondering if the shop was open
Vodka asked him
"Kyon bhaiya dukaan chalu hai kyaa"
"Haan haan chalu hai"
"Do kingfisher strong, do thunderbolt aur ek vodka"
They took the drinks and came back to the hostel. On
reaching close to the hostel they could make out Jaggu
and Franky standing outside. On reaching closer Haddi
asked him what his score was in ECO202.
"Are saala Fakka lag gaya! 29 total hai hamara"
"fakka bol diya kyaa woh??" asked Vodka
"Haan be sab copy dekh ke chala gaya tha tab hum usse
baat karne gaya.Humne poocha ki sir 29 total pe kyaa
milega. To woh bola ki I can’t give you a D, I will give
the last D to a guy named Rohit who came just before
you. He looked to be a very sincere student to me. Saala
usne jaise hi yeh bola humne socha Haddi aur saala
sincere. Hum to almost has diye the. Badi mushkil se
control kiya"
After hearing these words, Vodka gave out a hysterical
laughter. He was joined by Jaggu and Franky. Jaggu
then saw the backpacks with bottles in them and
29
grasped that Vodka and Haddi were going for a drink.
His laughter died down abruptly and he said in a very
serious tone
“Alcohol sareer ke liye accha nahi hai. Yeh sareer ko
dehydrate karta hai”
“Saale Jaggu, pata hai sareer ke liye sabse kharaab
cheez kyaa hai??” asked Vodka
“Kya hai??”
“Fakka” Replied Vodka and started walking towards his
room. He was in no mood to argue the health influences
of alcohol with Jaggu. He just wanted to get the alcohol
level in his body up.
By 2 in the afternoon, vodka, Axle, Mariyal, Haddi and
Chashmish had gulped all the alcohol they had and were
well drunk. Vodka cursed around for a while on his
professors and by three o clock all of them were in deep
sleep.
Haddi was dreaming about winning a gold medal in
InterIIT sports meet when it was interrupted by some
voices around him.
"Ae Haddi utho be, bahut so liye"
"Saala kaisi kumbhakaran ki neend soya hai. Pee ke
soya hai lagta hai"
"Are utho bhaiya. UG office chalna hai. Fakke ki list
dekhne jaana hai. Kaka saale tumhe bole the yeh nahi
uthega"
"Are ruko uthate hai abhi Untees. Are utho Haddi kahe
gaali dilwa rahe ho"
30
"ayre aybbhi soonee do beee" Haddi said in a sleepy
voice.He didn’t wanna get up.He wanted to finish his
dream.
Then suddenly he felt a leg hit his body and with that his
sleep started vanishing. With a considerable amount of
effort he opened his eyes to see two guys standing
besides his bed. The taller one was Untees who had
devoted most of his mental resources towards Cards,
AOE and bakwaas.The shorter one was Kaka.
"Kya hai be" Haddi said yawning.
"Saale tum to paas ho liye. lekin hamari life main abhi
bhi tension hai. MOS ke fakko ki list aa gayi hai .chalo
dekhne"
MOS was mechanics of solids. One the most dangerous
courses offered in IITk. It was taken by a professor who
almost always failed students with low attendance and
lousy performance. Which automatically meant Untees
was at risk.
“Kaka tum ise uthao. Main doosron ko utha ke aata
hoon.” Untees said to kaka and went to other rooms to
wake up the rest of the gang.
“Haddi saale uth jao. Hum log bhi ek baar dekh aate hai
notice board. Kyaa pata kisi sarfire professor ne hamara
fakka laga diya ho”
"Abe nahi be… Hum log ab safe hai. Ab kauno fakka nahi
lagne waala hum logo ka” Haddi yawned and then
continued
”Do min zara fresh ho leta hoon”
With that he got up, freshened and after five minutes
the seven of them were walking towards UG office.
Although the sun was about to set and the street lamps
31
were coming on, it was still sweltering hot. The sun had
beamed quiet a lot of photons on IITK today.
"Abe koi sutta rakha hai kyaa" asked Mariyal to the
group
"Navy cut hai mere paas" replied Untees
"Do zara"
Untees gave the cigarette to Mariyal who lit it up. To
save money and smoke only one cigarette was lit which
was passed around in turns between everyone in the
group except kaka.
"Kaka loge be" asked Chashmish and gestured him to
take a drag.
"Nahi be main passive smoking main hi theek hoon"
Kaka did not smoke or drink.But he was there in almost
all of the daaaru parties that were organized.
As soon as all of them ventured close to the lecture hall
complex they saw sissy coming from the other direction
with two of his friends.
"Aur sissy kyaa chal raha hai" asked Haddi
sissy didn’t reply but instead kept staring at the group
with the others as if looking at seven ghosts and kept on
walking.
“What the hell was that about” enquired Untees
Haddi shrugged his shoulders and took another drag. He
had already attributed sissy’s misbehavior to his
weirdness and was busy with his cigarette. They were
now walking through the same walkway in which Haddi
had walked in the morning. However at this time he was
very relieved. Soon they were on the pathway that led
to the UG office. There were around 7-8 guys standing
32
and staring at the notice board. By the time they got to
the notice board some of they had left so the
stupendous seven had the board all to themselves.
Vodka was extremely chilled out. He knew he had
already gotten two Fakkas. Kaka, Chashmish, Haddi,
Axle and Mariyal were all pretty much through. It was
only the question of Untees who was at risk in atleast
one of the courses. Vodka went and sat down on the
stairs. He lit up a cigarette and started smoking. He was
not at all interested in peering at the notice board. He
was just here to accompany the rest of his buddies.
Everyone else was on the notice board looking for
Untees’s name. MOS had been a disaster for him. He
was pretty sure that he was gonna get a fakka. He had a
total of 25/100. The fakka list was arranged according to
year. First up was the 98 Batch. They saw some 8- 10
roll numbers there.Then there was the 99 batch. Again
some 20 odd students had gotten a Fakka. They then
moved to the Y0 batch. Here a guy named sandeep
gupta had scored 4 fakkas.
"Now that’s incredible" Haddi said out loud
Then came the Y1 batch. It was a long list. They could
see some 100 names in the list.
"Are bhaiya bahut lambi list hai be, mera naam to zaroor
hoga" said Untees in a concerned voice.
"Are aisa koi zaroori nahi. Thodi thand rakho tum” kaka
attempted to console him.
They started going over the list with each of them
scanning a different portion. ShortIy thereafter
Chashmish suddenly started shouting
“Iski aisi ki taisi. Mera fakka lag gaya!!!” Everyone
stopped what they were doing and started looking at
him. Chashmish looked back with a sad expression on
his face and his hands on his head.
“Kya”
33
“Kaise”
“Kisme”
“Batao be”
“Kuchh bolo”
But Chashmish wouldn’t answer. He went and sat on the
stairs with Vodka who just looked at Chashmish with a
blank face for sometime, smirked and then offered him
the cigarette he was smoking. Chashmish took it
instantly and took a long drag. Unable to gain any
insights from Chashmish everyone went back to the
notice board and started scrutinizing it with double the
speed. If Chashmish had failed, many others were also
at risk.
They were looking for Untees’s roll number: Y10823.
Haddi was the first to reach the relevant portion of the
list and started scanning it. His eyes stopped at a
familiar number: Y10823.
F list
Roll Number
Course
Y10746
Mechanics of Solids
Y10567
Principles of chemistry
Y10555
Principles of chemistry
Y10510
Principles of chemistry
Y10965
Principles of chemistry
Y10823
Principles of chemistry
34
So Untees had indeed gotten a Fakka. Haddi looked
towards Kaka to tell him that he had got Untees’s name
but instead he saw kaka staring at a different portion.
Curious, Haddi looked towards the notice board to see
what kaka was reading and instantly grasped the reason
for his blank looks.
F List
Roll Number
Course
Y10726
Mechanics of Solids
Y10557
Principles of chemistry
Y10535
Principles of chemistry
Y10520
Principles of chemistry
Y10382
Principles of chemistry
Y10831
Principles of chemistry
Y10921
Principles of chemistry
The roll number Y10382 was Kaka’s!!
This development was totally unexpected. Haddi just
didn’t know how to react. He now turned towards Untees
just to find him looking towards him while his finger
placed on a certain point on the notice board. Haddi’s
mind was just too overcome to understand what he was
trying to show. After a moment or two when he got a
grasp of things, Haddi moved over to see what Untees
was pointing at. And what he saw there was something
he hadn’t expected in a million years
35
F List
Roll Number
Course
Y10231
Principles of Chemistry
Y10568
Principles of chemistry
Y10550
Principles of chemistry
Y10512
Principles of chemistry
After a few moments of shock and shouting whence Axle
and Mariyal also realized that they had also been the
victims of principles of chemistry, all five of them looked
at each other with a blank face in a moment of silence.
They then turned around to see Vodka staring at them
with a smirk and Chashmish spewing smoke from his
mouth. Then out of nowhere all of them started
laughing hysterically. When the laughter died down,
vodka looked at Haddi with a smile, put one hand on his
shoulder and said
“Welcome to the club”.
36
The promise
"Untees, make it ten Kingfisher and three thunderbolt,
Axle is going to have 2 bottles and not three"
Haddi looked towards Untees and rolled his eyes as he
passed on Axle’s message. Axle was being his annoying
self yet again. After “forgetting” to bring his wallet
(Which was like a crime in IIT terms) he was being a
pain in deciding what he wanted to drink. After switching
from beer to whisky to vodka he was back to 3 bottles of
beer and had apparently changed that too. The beer
shop was particularly crowded today. A huge proportion
of the people whose name was on the doom board were
there. Those who were not present had already came
and bought their fill. The seven of them had walked
there straight after they were done at the doom board.
It had been an extremely shocking development. Prof
Roy had never given so many Fakkas in his career. A
substantial percentage of the class seemed to have
failed the course. Even decent scorers like Axle and
Mariyal who were in the range of a cool cool Dikka had
failed the course. A number of theories were circulated
while walking from the academic area to the IIT gate
about why Prof Roy had given so many fakkas. The
theories varied from domestic disturbance at Prof Roy’s
house (Coutesy: kaka) to mind control experiments by
the military (Courtesy: Haddi). The discussion was
mostly inconclusive and eventually people had decided
to let it go. It was almost impossible to guess the
accurate reason for the sudden spike in fakkas.
As soon all of them had reached IIT Gate, two girls
travelling in the opposite direction had passed them.
Both of them had given a nasty stare to Mariyal who
was trying really hard not to look at them. Mariyal had
only one problem in his life. He was unable to stay away
from girls. Good, bad, ugly he always needed a/few
girl/girls in his life. Looking at his habit’s, Untees had
37
once given him an extremely hard time by popularizing
in the entire hostel that Mariyal had a STD and wanted
to spread it as much as possible.
Unfortunately it was Untees again who had observed the
whole incident. As soon as the girls had passed by,
Mariyal had relaxed a bit just to find out Untees smirking
at him. Mariyal got stunned for a second but after he
realized that Untees had probably guessed what was
going on already, he had recovered and said with a wink
“That was first semester”
After reaching the beer shop, the next 15 min were
spent cursing Axle for his indecisivnes. As soon as he
asked Haddi to switch the number of Beer bottles from
three to two, Mariyal and Chashmish started swearing
and made sure Axle did not speak anymore. There
efforts had resulted in the whole process being a lot
more efficient and all of them were almost done. It was
now just a matter of collecting the bottles from the shop
and going back.
"Are bhaiya zara jaldi kariye"
Everyone heard Untees's impatient voice as he stood in
front of the shop waiting for the shopkeeper to hand him
13 bottles of beer. Apparently the shopkeeper was being
very slow in taking out the beer bottles from the fridge
which was making Untees extremely unhappy. The
shopkeeper’s pace picked up big time after hearing
Untees shout.
“Mariyal zara yahan aao”
Untees called out in his usual calm baritone with his
arms outstretched and a bottle of beer in each hand. He
was signaling Mariyal to help him with the beer bottles.
Thirteen beer bottles meant some unfortunate guy was
going to get some pretty good back workout. Mariyal
took the bottles and put them in his backpack. Similiar
treatment was given to ten other bottles. All the bottles
38
were kept in the backpack which was promptly handed
over to Axle who instantly started cribbing
“Saala main kyon pakdu isko”
“Axle. Ek to tum paise nahi laye. Upar se 15 min tumne
daaru decide karne main lagaya. Ab zara sa bag uthane
main nautanki kar rahe ho. Agar daaru chahiye to bag
uthao nahi to ek bottle nahi milne doonga main tumhe”
Replied Untees. He had had enough. He was not
interested in hearing Axle crib anymore. Axle protested
a bit more but as soon he realized that alcohol was
being jeopardized he shut his mouth and started
moving. With that, 7 people and 12 bottles of beer
started making their way towards Hall-2. One of the
bottles had an extremely short life expectancy as Vodka
had kept the 13th bottle with himself. Before anyone
could ask him the reason, Vodka had already opened the
bottle, taken a big gulp and offered the bottle to
Chashmish. By the time everyone reached IIT gate both
of them had emptied the bottle.Intermittent quibbles of
Axle were audible in the background the whole while.
“Saala yeh bora humein kyon thama diye ho be sab.
Chashmish naujawan lo ise zara laado to thodi der,
sehat banegi tumhari”.
It was the “attempt to escape from work whenever
possible” principle that Axle was trying to apply like
every IITian.
“Are Axle le ke chalo thodi der, pahuch hi gaye hai” I
Chashmish replied in a very innocent tone. Apparently
he too was applying the same principle.
“Ae kaka tumhari tond nikal rahi hai be. Humein kisi
bahut samajhdaar insaan ne bataya hai ki bora dhone se
tond kam hoti hai. Lo ise pakdo aur tond kam karo”
attempt two by Axle.
39
“Nahi main theek hoon. Meri tond pasand hai mujhe”
Replied kaka.Axle had failed again.
“Abe vodka tumhare haath khali acche nahi lagte”.
Attempt three by Axle at vodka.
“Chupchaap chalo be”
Replied vodka succinctly. Axle was being beaten down
from everywhere.
“Abe tum log saale sadak pe daaru mat piyo be” said
Axle in an irritable tone to vodka and Chashmish. Clearly
he was frustrated from his three failed attempts to
handover the beer bag.
“Maare do kantaap. Chup chaap chalo jyada tir-tir mat
karo” vodka replied.
All of them had now reached IIT gate. IIT gate was a
bustling market with all kinds of shops. There were
hawkers, chemists, general stores, STD-PCO’s, repair
shops, mechanics, restaurents, china town ( the chicken
kali mirch place) and in between all these was the
entrance to the campus ( And that is why the name “IIT
gate”). The campus was huge, roughly rectangular (
assumed) with a railway line running adjacent to the
side facing the road.So the first thing anyone
encountered when they took the road towards IIT
campus was the railways crossing. The hostels were
located at the far end of the campus, and presented a
long walk from the gate. Since everyone had already
walked from the Academic area to the gate, nobody was
in any mood to walk back. There was also the eagerness
to get drunk and curse the professors that was
interfering. Consequently cycle rickshaws were the order
of the situation. All of them approached a group of
richshaw-walas standing outside the IIT gate. One eager
rickshaw-wala came right next to Haddi and asked
“Kahan jayenge sahab”
40
“Bhaiya ghar jaana hai!! indore chaloge kya?” cheeked
Haddi. Haddi was a resident of Indore. Although his tone
was serious, the humour in his question was caught
instantly by kaka and Chashmish who started smiling.
But since his tone sounded very sincere, the rickshawwala actually started thinking if he knew of such a place.
Finally after a lot of thought he replied.
“Nahi sahab humein campus main hi rickshaw chalane ki
permission hai”.
Untees gave a smirk listening to this reply, while Axle
burst into laughter.
“Agar bahar chalane ki permission hoti to chalte kyaa??”
asked Haddi trying to pick on the guy.
“Haan sahab bilkul chalte” the rickshaw-wala answered.
“Kitne paise lagte hai wahan jaane ke??” Haddi
continued.
“Yeh jagah to shayad jareeb chauki ke paas aati hai
nahi?” enquired the rickshaw-wala.
“Haan usi ke thoda aage hai” replied Haddi. He too was
having trouble controlling his laughter now.
“15 rupyaa lagega sahab” said the rickshaw-wala.
“Saala agli baar se train ki bajaye rickshaw se hi
jayenge be Indore. Jabardasti 250 rupaye dete hai har
baar.rickshaw se jayenge to bahut paisa bach jayega.”
Haddi added and started laughing.
The rickshaw-wala was speechless. He couldn’t
understand what was going on. He started scratching his
head and managed a meek smile to join the seven
strong group who was laughing intently. This is when
Untees interjected and came to the point.
“Are bhaiya Hall-2 jaana hai. 3 log hai”
41
“Bhaiya teen log kaise le jayenge guard pareshan
karega” cried the rickshaw-wala. For some obscure
reason the IIT Kanpur SIS guards had a problem with
Richshaw-walas carrying three people. But as is the case
with every situation in life, there was a workaround.
“Are aap chalao.Abhi main aur Untees baith jaate hai,
Axle ko aap chauki ke baad bitha lena” Haddi instructed
the rickshaw-wala, then turned towards Axle and said
“Axle, chalna chalu karo”
By the time Axle could retaliate, Haddi and Untees had
already sat on the rickshaw.
“Abe kyaa majak hai yaar” Axle said irritably.
“Majak nahi hai hakeeqat hai. Ab jaldi se bag de do nahi
to woh bhi carry kar ke laana padega”
Axle instantly filled up with a lot of energy on hearing
those words and enthusiastically handed over the bag to
Haddi.
The checkpost was located some 100 meters from the
railway crossing. Every motored vehicle that passed in
had to get a pass made so that unauthorized vehicles
couldn’t get in the campus. There was also an occasional
checking of Rickshaw-wala’s identity cards. Not all
rickshaw-walas were allowed to operate inside the
campus. The ones who were allowed to operate were
provided an identity card. At was at this security point
where the policy of two persons per rickshaw was
strictly enforced. However as soon as you crossed the
checkpoint, nobody cared. This is exactly what Haddi’s
workaround was. They were going to cross the
checkpoint with two people and then pick up Axle
thereafter. The Rickshaw-wala started paddling and
within a short while the cycle rickshaw was crossing the
words “Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur” which
were etched in golden metal on a white wall towards the
42
left of the road. The rickshaw crossed the check post
shortly where a guy with a big mustache scanned the
rickshaw-wala with his eyes and decided to let him go.
The rickshaw came to a halt some 50 meters ahead of
the checkpoint and started waiting for Axle.
“Ghar pe kyaa bataoge?” asked Untees to Haddi who
was looking intently at the sky. It took him a while to
break his stream of thought. After he gained control,
Haddi took a deep breath and replied.
“Abhi tak kuchh socha nahi. Tu??”
“Wahi pichle saal waala. keh doonga ki DS part 2 hone
wala hai is baar” cheeked Untees.
DS or the Introduction to data structures course was a
professional course offered at IITK during summer. It’s
aim was to reinforce computer science skills of students.
It was quiet easily the one course most parents whose
children were at IITK knew about. DS was the common
reason most of the children who got a Fakka and had to
stay in the campus during summer stated to their
parents. It was a safe and secure reason. And moreover
it supplied a genuine reason to ask for money (Which
was incidently required to register for the makeup
course, mess bills and beer)
Haddi gave a smile after he heard this. He had instantly
recalled Untees’s coversation with his parents from last
year in a situation similiar to this. Untees had failed in a
course and was planning to take a makeup course. He
remembered sitting in hall-2 quad discussing with kaka
and Untees discussing what reason Untees should state
to his parents.
“Abe suno, mujhe lagta hai ek baar ghar ho aao aur
bata do gharwalo ko ki galti se fail ho gaye ho” Kaka had
suggested after a lot of thought
43
“So basically sach bol doon??”
Untees tried to confirm if what he had heard was
correct. Kaka nodded in response. Untees and Haddi
looked at each other with a blank face and then within a
few seconds shook there head in disagreement.
“Aise kaise sach bol de be. Abhi to nahi hi batana chahta
main gharwalo ko. Main soch raha hoon kuchh aisa
bataun ki gharwale convince bhi ho jaye aur mujhe
course lene ke liye paise bhi mil jaye. Kya be Haddi
kuchh dimaag lagao be! Yeh harishchandra to saala
chirkut hai” Untees replied discounting kaka’s suggestion
who instantly threw up his hands in protest.
Haddi sat silently for a while and then replied after what
looked like an intense brain storming process
”Dekho aisa keh do ki Inter IIT ke liye ek Bhokal
(ultimate) camp lagne wala hai. Des ke kuchh jaanemaane coach aane wale hai basketball sikhane. Saath
main fitness camp bhi lagne wala hai.Keh dena ki thodi
initial fees bhi hai jo ki august ke around reimburse ho
jaegi. Ho gaya kaam”
Inter IIT implied the Inter IIT sports meet that used to
happen once a year in December and was taken pretty
seriously by all the IIt’s. Organizing special training
camps to train prospective team members was a norm
in IIT Kanpur.
Untees considered Haddi’s suggestion for a while and
then said
“Hmm. Yeh kaha jaa sakta hai. Phod diye ladke”
This is when one of the two common phones of the hall
had rung and daulatram-ji, the phone attendant picked
it up. After listening to the caller, he held out the
receiver to Untees and said
“Prachit kapoor!!! phone hai aapka. Ghar se”.
44
Kaka and Haddi overheard the entire conversation as
they were sitting pretty close to Untees who crossed his
legs, held the receiver and started talking.
“Hello…..”
“Haan mammi”
“Main accha hoon”
“Khana wagairah to theek hi chal raha hai.aap to jaanti
hi hai ki hamari mess kaisi hai”
“Achha mammi suno. Main is baar summer main shayad
yahin rahoon”
“Are mana karne se pahle suniye to. Woh aisa hai ki is
baar yahan ek sports camp lag raha hai. India ke best
basketball coach aane wale hai train karne.to main soch
raha tha ki usi main register kar loon.december main
inter IIT sports meet ki acchi preparation ho jaegi”
“Yahin koi do mahine ka hai.15 july tak khatam ho
jaega”
“Kyaa? 25 June ko bangalore jaana hai?? Kisliye??”
“Sameer bhaiya ki abhi to engagement hui hai, itni jaldi
shaadi kyon kar rahe hai woh??”
“Lekin mammi main us time shayad hi chal paun”
“Nahi basketball ke liye bhaiya ki shaadi thodi
chhodoonga main”
“Abe ab kyaa karoon” Untees hissed to kaka and Haddi
who shrugged their shoulders. Apparently Untees was in
a tight spot now and unless someone came up with
something he would have had to tell the truth. It was
time for some drastic improvisation.
“Lekin mujhe Ek datastructures ka course bhi karna hai
mammi”
45
“Are ek datastructures ka course hai. Yahan ke
computer science ke log le rahe hai is baar. Hamare
department main waise bhi job scene kaafi poor hai.
Mujhe most probably software job hi karni padegi. saari
software companies aajkal yeh wala course dekhti hai.
Sirf first year ke logo ke liye offer ho raha hai is baar.
Main soch raha hoon woh bhi kar loon. job ke liye accha
rahega. Nahi to baad main problem ho jaegi”
“Marvellous” Haddi uttered under his breath
“Nahi maammi bada hi important course hai. Ek bhi
class miss kari to woh log certificate nahi denge. Waise
bhi engagement to maine attend kar hi li hai. Main
sameer bhaiya se baat kar loonga”
“Accha theek hai phir. Is weeked ghar aaunga. Mujhe
kuchh paise bhi chahiye honge. Course main register
karne ke liye dena padenge”
“Papa ko hi kahiyega”
“Ok bye ….goodnite”
“That was close” Untees had commented to the duo with
a smile on his face after he hung up the phone.
“Is baar bhi last moment pe strategy to change nahi
karni padegi” said Haddi as he finished recalling last
year’s incident.
“Hehe…..nahi be Haddi is baar hopefully sab kuchh sahi
rahega”
Axle finally reached the rickshaw after what appeared to
be a terribly long time. He was panting and cursed the
two of them for making him walk. Untees was about to
shout on him when Haddi cut Axle off and asked him to
get on the rickshaw as soon as possible if he wanted to
drink beer. His ploy worked, Axle shut his mouth
instantly. This was when the other two cycle-rickshaws
carrying the rest of the group passed them. It was now
46
time to adjust Axle on a seat that was meant only for
Untees and Haddi and get going. After a lot of
permutations and arrangements (one of which involved
Axle driving the rickshaw) an optimal solution was
reached with Haddi on the left, Untees on the right and
Axle sitting (Barely) in the middle.
“Haan bhaiya ab chaliye aap, baith gaye sab” Untees
said.
The rickshaw-wala just stood there for a while. He was
trying to light up a bidi. He had already tried twice but
his maachis was getting extinguished due to the gust.
He was successful on his third attempt but by that time
Axle had became frustrated and screamed.
“Bhaiya zara jaldi pahuchayiye. 60 kilo ke aadmi ko 2
gram ki jagah mili hui hai, hum zyada der tak tik nahi
payenge”
The rickshaw-wala flustered and started paddling
instantly. The rickshaw started rolling and picked up a
decent pace in a short while. Haddi looked towards his
right and saw that Untees had lit up a cigarette while
Axle was still struggling to get some more of seat for
himself. As they moved further away from the gate the
environment became calmer and calmer. The road was
deserted. There was hardly any traffic on it. Apart from
a few flickering streetlights, the road lacked any sense
of movement. None of the 4 persons on the rickshaw
spoke anything. Everyone apparently had a lot on their
mind. The only prominent noise was that of a regular
“creak! creak!” from the rickshaw’s wheel as it passed
through a myriad of yellow and white street lamps.
Haddi looked towards his left, saw the gymkhana ground
and instantly started wondering about the grandeur of a
campus that was IIT Kanpur.
The Gymkhana ground was a huge field which was
mostly used by campus faculty and other staff
members. It extended from the main road right to the
47
end of the left boundry of the campus. As it was night all
Haddi could see was a distant white light glowing far
away in the field which appeared to be at the end of the
field and made it appear much smaller in size. But
having seen the ground during daytime, he knew the
light wasnt doing justice to the size of the ground. It
extended way past where the light was.
“creak! creak!”
On their right were a few houses in which some of the
worlds best professors were talking to their wives about
their day in the office. A majority of them would be
describing the state of IIT students in a sorry tone and
how they had to give fakkas to a tonne of students
inspite their best efforts to pass them. A few would be
telling their children to study more as someday they too
had to appear in the JEE and come out with flying
colors. In other words these houses were the professor’s
quarters.
The rickshaw now reached an intersection. On the left
was a small market and a water tank. The market was
primarily meant to service the faculty quarters. it had a
few grocery shops, a garage, a barber shop, a
paanwaala, hawkers and some very tall trees which
dwarfed even the gigantic water tank opposite the
market. Hidden somewhere behind the market was the
IITK police chauki.
”yeh kyon bani hui hai yahan” pondered Haddi as the
rickshaw moved forward. While he was ignorant of the
true purpose of the police chauki, any third year student
knew as a matter of fact that the Chauki was a key link
in completing the verification process on the path to
getting a passport.
While Haddi was grounded in existentialism, Axle was
engulfed in thoughts of Tanya. It were days like today
when he felt how important it was to feel secured. Tanya
was his security. Tanya was his better half. Tanya was
48
the daughter of one of Axle’s dad’s close friend.
Although both of them had come together in
circumstances which looked ancient and even anomalous
in terms of today’s norms, Axle knew she was the one
for him. Both of them had been great friends since
childhood. As soon as both of them hit their teens, the
search for their partners had begun like any other boy
and girl in their fraternity. Luckily for Axle, his family
narrowed down on Tanya. After a prompt ceremony that
followed, Axle was knotted down with Tanya. As Axle
grew up, got educated and became more aware he
realized what had really transpired with him. He had
been subjected to child marriage. For sometime after he
realized what he had been through, Axle had a hard
time accepting it. But as he eased into it and started
thinking about it objectively, he recognized that Tanya
was the best girl he could have ever got. This thought
became ever more concrete after he entered IITK and
saw guys like Mariyal date girl after girl just for fun.
While he had a different Aura on the outside, Axle knew
he was very traditional when it came to things like
relationships. He just couldn’t see himself in the shoes of
guys like Mariyal. Morever looking the ease with which
girls were letting go of relationships with Mariyal Axle
was very relieved to be with Tanya. Not only was she
very sweet, she complemented him in every regard.
Although Axle had never explicitly asked her about her
opinion about their marriage in the teens, he assumed
she was ok with that as she never said anything against
it. Even after getting a Fakka, the reason why Axle was
able to laugh and take things easy was because he had
someone who was always with him. Axle was just
starting to think about his last meeting with Tanya when
the song “khallas” from the movie “company” started
coming into prominence. It was coming from a
loudspeaker in the IITK community center.Located just
adjacent to the market, IITK community center was the
place for events like marriages, engagements, Religious
congregations, bridge competitions etc. It was mostly
utilized by professors and IITk staff (And sometimes by
49
students whenever free food was involved). As they
approached closer it became Apparent that there was a
marriage reception going on at the center.
“Are sahi!! shaadi chal rahi hai. Chalo be kuchh kha ke
aaye” exclaimed Axle as soon as he realized it was a
reception.
“Saale besharam insaan . Abhi pichle hafte hi tum ek
shaadi main khana khaate pakde gaye the na. Us din ki
beizzati itni jaldi bhool gaye kyaa” said Untees in a
mocking mode.
“Saale kamine ho tum log. us din ki yaad mat dilao.
Main akela to tha nahi.Tum log bhi bhar bhar ke khaye
the.saala jab main pakda gaya to bhag liye”
“Kyon galiya rahe ho be Axle. Tum bhi yahi karte. Aur
by the way tumhe kisne kaha tha ki stage pe jaa ke
dulha-dulhan se haath mila ke aao” said Haddi calmly.
“Are yaar ab shaadi main jaa ke Dulha dulhan se nahi
mile to accha nahi lagega na, Isiliye milne gaya tha.
Woh to unfortunately ladke ka baap pooch liya stage pe
ki kaun ho isiliye thodi fight ho gayi” explained Axle.
“Creak! Creak!”
All of them fell silent again. They had now passed the
community center and two well maintained gardens that
followed. They were now approaching a third garden
which was exceptionally well maintained and perhaps
the most beautiful of them all. With it’s well lit fountains,
lush green grass and couples roaming around in the
moonlight the garden looked even more beautiful.
“Abe yeh S.R.Jha hai kyaa?” exclaimed Axle as he
identified a guy in one of the couples.
“Haan wahi hai” said Untees.
50
“Who is he roaming around with? Have never seen her
before. She looks way older than him” said Axle with an
expression of surprise on his face. Both Haddi and
Untees shrugged their shoulders. None of them had any
idea who she was.
“Creak! Creak!”
They were almost past the beautiful garden by now.
Haddi gazed at the right hand side of the road and saw a
fleeting glimpse of barren land. As compared to the left
side which looked prim with well maintained gardens,
the right hand side of the road appeared almost ignored.
There was nothing but barren land with a few trees
standing here and there opposite the gardens on the left
hand side.
“It won’t be this way for long” thought Haddi as he
pacified the pity he felt towards the ignored piece of
land. He knew that the landscape of IITk had a habit of
changing really fast. It wouldn’t be long before some
development project brought the barren piece to life.
They were now on a soft left handed bend in the road.
On the left hand side was a building that housed the
Media Lab Asia while on the right were a bunch of
buildings hidden between lush green trees. The bunch of
buildings constituted what was the shopping center of
IITk.The buildings would probably have been hardly
visible from the main road had it not been for a
perpendicular pathway that connected the shopping
center to the main road. The shopping center or ShopC
as it was known in IITK slang housed a number of shops
that catered to students requirements. There were book
shops, photocopy centers, grocery stores, a bank, a
medical store, a post office and telecom center
alongwith the central restaurant or the CR which played
host to parties and dates. The only downside being that
it was a bit too harsh on the pocket.
51
As they approached further they saw a jeep coming out
of the SiS office from between the not-so-dense vines.
Located just adjacent to the ShopC, the SiS office played
host to the vehicles and meetings of SiS guards. SiS or
security and intelligence services was a security firm
that was incharge of the security in IITk campus. As
nothing inauspicious ever happened in the campus, the
security guards ended up giving hard time to rickshaw
drivers and triple seated students on bikes and scooters
most of the time.
“Creak! Creak!”
They were now crossing the intersection of probably two
of the longest roads on campus.
The road on the left extended right upto the IITk power
substation. The road also played host to a number of
high-profile quarters like the Director’s bungalow, The
IITk guest house and two schools. Meanwhile the road
on the right extended up to the IITk nursery and housed
the Auditorium. Straight ahead was hostel number 2 or
hall-2 as it was named. Right next to the intersection on
the left was the student activity center or the SAC. A
building which was constituted of the placement office,
music club, book club, a restaurant and a number of
empty rooms which were used for a variety of things like
dance practice (During antaragni or freshers nite)
,control center (during TechKriti) etc. The biggest room
was reserved for the Student senate meetings. Student
senate constituted elected members of the student body
and faculty representatives. Student senate debated
topics ranging from the Menu of prize distribution
ceremonies to Banning Haddi and Untees from the interiit team.
“Abe Haddi, kucch update mili tum logo ki case ki”
inquired Axle
“Nope” replied Haddi without taking his eyes off the
SAC.
52
“Exactly hua kyaa tha? I have just been following the
IITK.misc newsgroup. What actually happened?”
“So hua aisa tha ki last year December me, Untees and
vodka went to participate in the inter IIT sports meet in
Delhi. We reached Delhi with the entire team at around
6 in the morning. By 7 o’clock we reached IIT Delhi.
Saadhe saat baje tak we got fresh, had breakfast etc. Ab
kuchh karne ke liye to tha nahi. People were still settling
in. To saala Vodka bola ki chalo tum logo ko dilli ghuma
ke late hai. Vodka Delhi kaafi time raha hai to Ab humne
socha ki who better than vodka to show us around. To
bas hum teeno nikal liye. Badhiya Sarojini nagar, Ansal
plaza, PVR priya wagairah sab jagah ghoome phir raat
ko 11 baje waapas laute. Waapas aa ke dekha ki saari
faculty, sports secretary wagairah hamari khoj main lage
hue hai. Woh log saale IIT Delhi ki security team ko alert
bhi kar diye the. Woh log bhi humein khojne main lag
gaye the. Saala jaise hi hum log dikhe sab log saale
humein bahut hadkaye ki tum log saale useless ho
irresponsible ho wagairah wagairah. Faculty ki to hum
logo ne sun li. Phir saala jab who log chale gaye to
sports secretary chalu ho gaya. Maana ki fourth year ka
launda hai but saala bakwaas kiye pada tha. To hum log
usko galiya diye. Keh diye ki saale tum sports secretary
ho wahi raho. Baabuji na bano. To saala chek gaya.
Bolta hai ki dekh loonga tum logo ko wagairah wagairah.
Phir saala hum log apne apne sport main participate
kiye. Unfortunately hum log haar gaye. To sports
secretary jo hai phir se aa gaya. Kehta hai ki tum log
irresponsible the. Acche se practice nahi kari. Free main
delhi ghoomne aa gaye ho. Humein saala gussa aa gaya.
Saala us launde se jyaada to hum maidaan pe rahe hai.
Tum log to jaante hi ho. Humne bhi keh diya ki saale
tum sports secretary ho, IITK ke Director nahi ho. Aur
ab tumne keh hi diya hai ki hum log Delhi ghoomne
aaye hai to bas ab hum log wahin karenge. Us din se
hum teeno bas delhi ghoome. Saale secretary ne
waapas aa ke student senate main ghooma phira ke
Untees aur mujhe villain bata diya. Vodka pata nahi
53
kaise bach gaya. Hum logo ne bhi appeal kar di. Ab bas
usi ke upar debate hoti hai. Pata nahi kab resolve hogi
situation. yeh hai Kahani”
Axle digested the story for a second then with a smirk
on his face said
“Tum logo ko to saala nikaal hi dena chahiye. Saale
dono kisi kaam ke nahi ho”
The smirk didn’t stay there for long as Untees deseated
Axle that very instant. As a result Axle was stuck on the
small platform between the driver’s seat and passenger
seat.
“Ab tum wahin baitho” said Untees to a very irritated
Axle who was stuck in the true sense of the word.
“creak! creak!”
They now passed the IITk stadium. A huge ground which
hosted two volleyball courts, two basketball courts and
the Physical education office in addition to the cricket
field in the middle and the athletics area on the outer
rim. This was the place which Haddi visited every
evening. He was the best Athelete of IIT Kanpur in his
batch. No one even came close to him in sprints.
“Abe Charu gupta kitna magoge be. Exam wagairah ho
gayi hai daaru wagairah kyon nahi peete” shouted
Untees on a cyclist as he joined the main road from the
academic area gate. Located just opposite the entrance
to hall-1 (the biggest hostel of IITk), the entrance to the
academic area was marked by a guard shack and a big
gate which was always open.
“Padh likh ke hi job lagegi, fakka kha ke nahi” replied
Charu. He really should have chosen his words more
wisely for he received a deluge of gaalis in the next 2
min from all three persons on the rickshaw. A skinny
and bespectacled fellow charu was good at mugging up
equations, vomiting them in exams and bringing marks.
54
He was someone who fitted the definition of a “Maggu”
perfectly. He apparently suffered from a serious lack of
any kind of social intelligence.
“Mujhe tum fakkebajo se koi baat nahi karni hai” replied
Charu as he rode parellel to the rickshaw.
More gaalis from 2 persons on the rickshaw which was
followed by a loud shout from Axle
“Suno gupta, yahan se jao”
Apparently Axle had understood that there was no point
talking to the guy and it was best to diffuse the
situation.
The rickshaw slowed down as it approached the
destination, hall-2. This is when Charu rode ahead of
them, entered the hall and disappeared towards his
wing.
“creak! creak! screech!!”
The rickshaw stopped in front of the small Hall-2 gate
and joined two others which were already there. Haddi,
Untees and Axle were the last ones to arrive. Haddi
jumped off the rickshaw and looked towards hall-2, one
of the three major hostels of IITk. Although not the
biggest, it was a huge hostel. With two floors all around
and a number of lush green grounds on the
circumference, hall-2 was a pretty nice habitat. It was
divided into 7 sections, A to G. Furthermore every
section had three floors (after including the ground
floor) which were known as top, mid and bot. In other
words there were a total of 21 wings going from A-bot to
G-top. Each wing had around 15 rooms with each room
housing two persons. But a wing was much more than
that. It was where 30 friends lived as a family. It was
where they fought and befriended. It was as a wing
that people participated in intra-hall activities. A wing
had it’s own identity and personality. It was an integral
part of the identity of a student at IITK. All seven of
55
them were a part of B-bot, a wing located on the ground
floor of the rightmost section of the hostel. There was a
separate pathway that went around the gardens and led
straight to B-bot. The Pathway was lit by lamps and
provided a wonderful sight to anybody walking on it. But
this sight was pinching Haddi as he walked on the
pathway along with six others. He was thinking deeply
about the today’s events. It had been a roller coaster
ride. From getting a dikka in a course in which he was
sure to get a fakka he had went to getting a fakka in a
course where he had a sure shot dikka. Haddi’s stream
of thought was broken by a loud shout from Vodka
“Abe Haddi, maarenge mar jaoge! Chalo na jaldi, daaru
peeni hai”
Haddi’s legs had not kept up with his thoughts. While
everyone else had already reached the wing, he was still
quiet a distance from it. Haddi’s quickened his pace to
join the rest of the group in B-bot. The rest of the group
sans Chashmish who was having some additional
problems due to the shortcut he had took. After getting
into the hall, Chashmish had decided to diagonally cut
across the garden behind the C-wing instead of going
through the regular and longer pathway What he had
forgot to consider was that the garden was full of water.
The gardeners of the Hall had a feeling that if they were
not drowning the grass in water then it would become
yellow. So Every night they used to connect a pipe to
the tap in the center of the garden, lay it in the middle
of the garden and turned it on.Consequently the garden
had a full 2-3 inch layer of water which had turned areas
where any grass was absent into a mud pond.
Unfortunately Chashmish’s shortcut took him right
through the mud pond. As a result he had to attend to
the 3kg of mud and grass leaves attached to his slippers
and the place to do that was the royal B-bot bathroom.
There are a very few places in the world where the
Bathrooms are more lavish than the buildings where
they reside. IIT Kanpur’s hall-2 was one of such places.
With it’s crystal clear tiles, Infrared flushing systems and
56
other gizmos, the bathrooms provided for a good
visit. But gizmos was not what Chashmish was
interested in. He just wanted to put his slippers under a
tap and wash off all the mud which he successfully did in
the shower. He hurried out and saw that the rest of the
group was already on the second floor. Chashmish
hurried to his room, picked up more cigarettes and
started running towards the roof.
“Are Haddi jaldi chalo be, daaru ki bahut zaroorat hai”
said vodka as he passed Haddi and Untees on the stairs.
He had started climbing 3 steps at a time.
“Zaroorat to mujhe bhi hai be……khoon main alcohol ki
bahut deficiency ho gayi hai”
cheeked Haddi which was followed by a boisterious
laugh from vodka and Untees.
As all of them finished climbing the stairs they were
greeted by a gust of wind coming from the faculty
building. The rooftop provided an almost unobstructed
view of the academic area and the Nankari village.
Nankari village housed the support staff of IIT Kanpur
and was located half a mile behind hall-2. All of them
settled down, opened the bottles and with an instant
“cheers” started drinking. Kaka held his bottle of pepsi
and looked around here and there. The rooftop was an
extremely populated place today. Atleast three differant
groups were sitting there drinking all types of alcohol.
Kaka was pretty sure that almost all of them had their
name on the Doom board. He wondered if the professors
got a commission from the Beer shop for every fakka
they gave as they were the ones who gained a
tremendous business for every fakka that was granted.
Kaka suddenly got an urge to toast. He help up his pepsi
bottle high in the air and said
“To the tragedy of today” said kaka.
Six more bottles went up in the air and people started
coming up with one liners.
57
“To a well deserved F” said vodka
“Chm201 sucks” shouted Chashmish.
“Roy sucks” said Haddi, Mariyal, Untees and Axle almost
simultaneously.
After An elaborate drinking session in which they cursed
the mosquitos of IITK, professors, hall-2 mess, IIT, Life
(In decreasing order of intensity) left right and center,
all of them came down at around 2:30 in the night.
“Ae Chashmish kahan jaa raha hai be??” asked a very
drunk Haddi as he tried to stand properly in front of his
room.
“Are bathroom jaa rahe hai” replied Chashmish in a very
heavy voice while he meandered towards the wing
bathroom.
“Saale bathroom kal chale jaana, room jao abhi chadh
gayi hai tumhe” said Haddi as he stumbled a little bit.
“Haan dekho kaun keh raha hai!! Haddi saale jyada
bakaiti na karo. Kamre main ghus ke so jao chupchap”
kaka insisted.
“Ae kaka yeh machcharo ka kuch karo be” continued
Haddi. It seemed as if he was in full mood of doing what
was called “Nautanki”.He was well drunk and had
recieved a Fakka today. No one deserved to do a
nautanki more than him today.
“Ae charu gupta kaminey, bahar nikal saale”
Or maybe not. This was Untees shouting outside out
Charu’s room. Apparantly he had taken the stint with
Charu a bit too seriously. He was standing outside
Charu’s room shouting his throat out. He will continue
this for 10 more min after which he would be dragged
by kaka to his room. During this time kaka will succeed
58
in convincing Haddi to stop worrying about mosquitos
and make him sleep on his bed.
“Saala nautanki” kaka will say and proceed to take care
of Untees. After making sure that Untees was tucked in
his room, kaka will go and crash in his room. Being the
only non-drinker in the group, kaka had become used to
taking responsibility of everyone. The only problem with
that was he was the always the last one to sleep
It was a wonderful evening. The sun had just set in the
horizon but the sky was still displaying a whole range of
colors on some scattered clouds present there. A large
gathering of people was visible at what seemed like
some kind of a prize distribution ceremony. Flood lights
were focused all around the dais which was set up on
lush green grass of what looked like a huge ground.
Visible behind the dais was a scoreboard which read
XXXIX-Inter IIT sports meet-2003
Bombay
IIT Kanpur
160
IIT Bombay
20
IIT Delhi
10
IIT Madras
10
IIT Guwahati
10
IIT Kharagpur
10
Haddi was sitting in the front row holding IITk’s flag
listening cheerfully to a man in the 50’s.
“……..This year’s interiit sports meet has been
spectacular in many regards. We have seen Kanpur
59
register a record victory; we have seen Kanpur’s men’s
athletic team win all the athletic events which is
unprecedented in the long history of the Interiit sports
meet. But above it all we have seen one person break
the national record for men’s 100m, 200m, 400m and
long jump.We also saw this person contribute his heart
and soul to ensure his teams victory in volleyball. If
someone asked me what Interiit sports meet is all
about, I would have said it’s about interaction, making
new friends, healthy competition and a spirit of
sportsmanship, but not this time. InterIIT sports meet2003 was all about one person, Rohit Parnerkar!!
Looking at his record breaking performance in this
InterIIT, all the directors of IIT met yesterday and
decided to start a new award, ‘the presidents gold medal
for excellence in sports’. Quiet apparently the first
recipient of this award is none other than Rohit
Parnerkar!!!”
The whole place erupted with Noise. Everyone was
clapping all around. Haddi’s teammates from IITK had
brought a drum from somewhere which they were
beating with full force.
“Rohit if you could please come on stage”
“Ladies and gentlemen, the recipient of the first ever
president’s gold medal for excellence in sports, Rohit
Parnerkar!!”
“Rohit Parnerkar!!!!!”
“Room number 120”
“What the hell is wrong with this guy, why is he telling
everyone my room number right now” thought an elated
and confused Haddi as he approached the dais to
recieve his medal.
“Rohit Parnerkar!!!!”
“Room number 120”
“whats wrong with you uncle!! I swear if you call out my
60
room number one more time I will throw this flag on
you!!” Haddi was getting irritated now.
“Rohit Parnerkar!! Phone hai aapka!! Hold pe rakha hai.
Jaldi aayiye!!”
“Iski aawaz to ekdum daulatraam-ji jaisi hai” mused
Haddi.
This is when he was woken up by daulatraam-ji who was
now standing next to his cot ensuring that he had woken
up.
“Phone hai aapka!! Jaldi chaliye”
“Haan daulatraam-ji, aata hoon” said a surprised and
bewildered Haddi in a sleepy voice.
Haddi got up and sat on his cot for a while thinking
about the dream he had just had. He was exhilarated
and a wee bit disappointed. Winning the Inter IIT sports
championship was his dream. A dream which he had
fulfilled today, in a dream.
“Saala sapna aaye to aisa. Jai ho kingfisher bhagwan
ki”. He thought
He then put a worn out pair of slippers on his feet and
started walking towards the hostel phone. It was seven
O’clock in the morning. Haddi hadn’t woken up this early
for ages and from the look on his face it appeared as if
this was the first time he had watched a sunrise. He
soon reached the quad and could now see a phone off
the hook.
Still yawning, Haddi somehow dragged himself to the
phone and picked up the receiver.
“Hello” he said in a sleepy voice.
“Hi, is this Rohit??” Came a question from the other end.
It was a girl’s voice which Haddi was quiet surprised to
hear.
61
“Yeah. Who is it??”
“Hey hi, kaisa hai?? main Neha bol rahi hoon”.
“Neha….!! Which Neha? I mean, where are you talking
from?”
“Are main IIT kanpur aa rahi hoon aaj. Maine tumhe
email kiya tha na kal ki main German class join kar rahi
hoon. ”
Haddi was thoroughly confused now. He was having a
hard time remembering which Neha he was talking to.
Moreover he couldn’t recall any Neha emailing him to
say she was coming to study german in IITK. One thing
he knew for sure, all the Neha’s he knew were in
Indore.Based on that info he decided to play along.
“Tum Indore se Kanpur German class karne aa rahi ho?”
“Yeh Indore kahan se beech main aa gaya. Mein to
kabse hi Kanpur main hoon”
“Really ?? Tum Kanpur main ho?” asked Haddi still
confused.
“This is Rohit from B-120 right?”
“Yes. I am Rohit from B-120”
“And this is Hall-3??”
Suddenly a light bulb went on in Haddi’s head.
Apparently there was a Haddi in B-120 hall-3 also. The
girl had somehow ended up calling the wrong hostel.
Moreover since Daulatram-ji had probably assumed that
the caller knew what hostel they were calling into, he
had just focused on the Rohit and B-120 part. Hence the
confusion
“No, this is hall-2” Haddi responded
62
“Oops. I am so sorry. Sorry to wake you up so early”
Neha replied apologetically
“It’s ok. No worries. By the way before you hang up….
You have a great voice”
“Thanks…..bbye” Neha said softly and hung up.
“That was pleasant” Haddi said to himself.
Haddi took a deep breath and felt the cold morning air
go deep into his lungs.His face lit by the scattered
sunlight coming through the lush green trees at the
entrance of the hall. After giving a long yawn Haddi
started walking back to his room. As he was walking
across the corridor he saw some monkeys lunging up
and down the trees adjacent to the corridor. He sped up
his pace. He was really not interested in having an early
morning tryst with IITK’s most notorious animals. By the
time he reached his wing his sleep was almost gone and
he decided to take a detour to the bathroom. He entered
the bathroom, took some water from the sink tap and
threw it on the face. He then decided to wash his hands
and feet. Since it was kinda difficult (Not impossible) to
do that in the sink, he decided to move to the shower.
He moved towards first of the four showers, opened it’s
door and saw something really surprising. Instead of
finding an empty shower floor lined with green granite
tiles he found a much disheveled creature lying there. It
was Chashmish.
Chashmish was sitting in the corner of the shower room
with his back on the wall and legs outstretched. With
one hand he held a half-empty bottle of beer while the
other had a cigarette butt in it. With his neck slightly
tilted towards his left shoulder, Chashmish presented a
perfect example of why one shouldnt go to bathroom too
drunk. Apparently when he went in the bathroom last
night he never came out.
63
Haddi went out of the bathroom to find someone who
would help him put Chashmish on a bed. He found
“Champak” roaming in the wing. Both of them made
sure that Chashmish was sleeping comfortably in his
room a few minutes later. Haddi then took a quick
shower and raced to the mess in order to catch
breakfast. After which he came back to his room and
crashed. The gang woke up well past noon and
conglomerated around 3 in the canteen to get
something to eat. Now that it had become sure that they
will have to stay in the summer, all of them had to
register in the hall office. They spent the remainder of
the afternoon talking to people in the hall office making
sure they didn’t have to leave their current rooms. It
took some convincing but since it was a very large
group, the hall office finally agreed. It was yet another
sweltering hot day and by the time everything in the
hostel was in place, everyone was extremely tired. It
must have been around 5 o’clock when Vodka saw an
email from a senior who suggested that Roy may not
offer the course during the summer semester. As soon
as Vodka told this to the rest of the group, everyone got
super stressed. CHM201 was the pre-requisite of several
core courses across a number of different departments
which were going to be offered in the fall semester. If
the course didn’t get offered in the summer and they
didn’t pass it, it basically meant none of them would be
graduating on time. Within 10 min a 50 people strong
group was heading towards the DOSA office to convince
the authorities to offer the course during summer. Even
after an hour long discussion, the best the authorities
could say that they would talk to Prof Roy and inform
the students tomorrow. The entire group came back to
the hostel in despair. Stress had just increased 10 folds
within the past 3 hours. The seven of them decided to
have an early dinner grab a few bottles of beer and go
straight to the rooftop. The plan executed to perfection
by the minute. By 8 0’clock all of them were sitting
comfortably on the rooftop. After some initial worries
about the course, everyone decided to let go and enjoy
64
themselves. Shortly the session became devoted to
some pretty heavy kaka bashing.
“Tumhe saale bahut serious alcohol deficiency hai kaka.
Isiliye tumhara academic performance level pe nahi hai“
“Haan be, aur to aur tum us deficiency ko door karne ke
liye sutta bhi nahi maarte”
“saalon kyon maar rahe ho meri”
Laughter, laughter, laughter
Chashmish was laughing his heart out when his
attention went to the guy standing on top of the roof
ledge some 50 feet away.
“Aeee. Kyaa kar raha hai!!” Chashmish shouted looking
towards the guy, stood up and started running towards
him.
Everyone else was taken aback by Chashmish’s actions
and it took them a while to grasp what was going on.
Everyone first looked at Chashmish and then looked at
the guy whom Chashmish was running towards. After
realizing what was going on, everyone else started
following Chashmish and began shouting at the guy. The
laughter was gone, adrenaline had took over. As
everyone got closer they could see the guy’s face. Haddi
struggled to dentify him. He had seen him before but he
couldn’t recall from where. As Haddi approached further,
it struck him. He was the third guy from the first batch
which had come out from VS Mao’s room. Haddi vividly
recalled his tears as well.
“Are yeh to VS Mao ki class main tha. Isko Shaayad Eco
main Fakka Aaya hai!!”
Everyone’s shouts seemed to have no effect on the guy.
He kept standing on the ledge. The wind on the roof
made his shirt flutter and swayed him dangerously. But
he seemed oblivious of everything. His eyes were
65
closed. He just didn’t seem to wanna look the world in
the eye anymore. The entire group was rushing towards
him to prevent him from doing the unthinkable.
Chashmish was leading them all. His heart beated really
fast and he had his hand outstretched.
“Dhak Dhak”
Chashmish was now 40 feet from the guy
“Dhak Dhak”
30 feet
“Dhak Dhak”
20 feet. This is when it happened. The guy disappeared.
Chashmish had failed. The guy had jumped!!
Everyone’s heart stopped. They stopped dead in their
tracks. They couldn’t think. It had hardly been 2 seconds
and the horrific scene had already traumatized them.
Standing in front of them all was Chashmish who still
had his hand outstretched.
“Is this really happening? How did I miss him??”
Chashmish could feel a guilt building up inside him and
he knew it was going to be extremely difficult living his
life with that. Chashmish was 10 feet away from the
ledge but he couldn’t make himself walk and look at the
scene beyond roof’s edge. He could feel his eyes getting
wet. He removed his glasses and wiped the tears off his
eyes when he heard some commotion down below.
Chashmish gathered some courage and went to the
edge of the roof. Three stories below he saw a body
covered with mud lying motionless on the ground.
Tears were flowing uncontrollably through Chashmish’s
eyes.
“How did I fail? Why wasn’t I faster!!?”
66
Then suddenly he thought he saw the guy’s hand move.
Chashmish wiped off the tears, put back his glasses and
looked intently towards the body as if asking it to move
again. It didn’t. Chashmish was about to reject it as an
aberration when the hand moved again. Chashmish was
elated. He gave a sigh of relief and shouted
“Bach gaya hai be saala!! Jaldi neeche chalo!!”
The guy was rushed to the IITK health center as soon as
possible. He was surrounded by the seven of them when
he was being put on the stretcher and taken inside. His
breathing was shallow and he seemed delirious. Kaka
and Chashmish were saying
“It’s gonna be ok! It’s gonna be alright” to the guy as
the attendants made arrangements inside the health
center. This is when the guy said with a bated breath
“All of you! Promise me something! You guys will attend
each and every class in this semester”
“Saala pagla gaya hai” Vodka whispered to Untees as
soon as he heard the guy say those words. It was a very
odd time to be asking something like this. All of them
initially ignored it but then when the guy started
repeating those lines in a shallow breath, the attendant
supervising the guy said in a concerned voice
“Aap log ek promise bhi nahi kar sakte kya?”
The seven of then looked at each other and then said
“We promise” in unison.
“Thanks” the guy said as he was rushed in the innerds of
the health center for surgery. A group of 15 odd people
waited for him outside. Apart from the seven of them
the group consisted of some seniors, a faculty member
and a SIS guard. Chashmish was still a little shook up
from the incident. Vodka, kaka and Mariyal were trying
their best to make him normal. Axle also appeared
67
stunned. Untees and Haddi were talking to a number of
people here and there trying to get more information on
the guy. They came back after a solid 15 minutes and
joined the group. Everyone paused and looked at them
expecting some information. Untees started talking
“So bande ka naam hai Gaurav. Kanpur ka launda hai.
He was AIR-81 in JEE. He has seen a lot of ups and
downs in his career. First sem main isne dussa maara
tha. Doosre sem bhi isne Dussa maara tha. Third sem
saale ne 9.6 maari thi. From fourth sem nobody knows
what happened but he has basically come down to
Vodka’s academic level. Somebody there was saying
that he started taking drugs from the fourth semester.
He seems to be attending counseling sessions with
psychiatrists. His condition was definitely less than
ideal.”
This is when one of the faculty members present there
starting gathering the students. It seemed like it was
time for a speech. The group encircled the professor as
he started talking.
“This is the second suicide attempt within the last week.
Fortunately this one did not succeed. I say this not as a
faculty but as a father. Please don’t ever think of doing
something like this. You guys are winners. Irrespective
of how many F’s you get here as soon as you step out
you ARE going to be
successful……..blah…….blah…….blah……….”
Everyone had heard the speech before but the fact of
the matter was that suicides were a part of life in IIT
Kanpur. Every year atleast two or three lives were lost
due to suicides. Some due to bad grades, some due to
botched up love affairs and some due to reasons
unknown.
All of them waited for a full hour before a doctor came
out and updated them with gaurav’s condition.
68
“He is out of danger. He just has some injuries on this
head and a broken leg. He is going to be fine. What I
don’t understand is how he didn’t get more hurt? He fell
from the roof right??”
“Yes that is correct but fortunately there was
construction going on behind the B-wing and the
workers had dug up the whole area and put in water in
it. It was practically a mud pond that the guy fell into.”
Replied Chashmish
“Good Good. Well you guys can give a treat to the
workers when they come back tomorrow. I have put
that guy to sleep. All of you can now go and take rest”
The crowd dispersed in a jiffy. The seven of them
started making their way back from the Health center to
the hostel. They were just crossing the intersection in
front of the girl’s hostel when Chashmish said
“I think we should keep the promise that we made”
This statement of Chashmish sparked off an intense
debate between two factions in the group. One faction
which considered the promise to be something they
gave to a delirious guy in order to make him feel better
was not so keen on taking it seriously. The other felt like
doing it just to keep their word. Chashmish led the
second faction and made some significant points which
eventually made the entire group to agree on keeping
up the promise. Although the first faction agreed
extremely reluctantly Chashmish did not care as long as
they did.
69
An Escape from CHM201
After a pretty eventful few days, summer semester
began for CHM 201 people. Efforts from the students
and the Dean of Academic Affairs had ensured that the
course got offered during the summer semester.
Everybody was really serious towards studies for the
first few classes. Afterall they had a promise to uphold.
Everyone was an ideal student for that duration; waking
up on early in the morning, having a bath, taking
breakfast and then going to class. The fact that the class
was at 7:30 in the morning seemed to have no effect on
them. It was hard to differentiate that these were the
same people who had trouble attending the 11:00
o’clock class just a few weeks ago. Haddi, Untees and
kaka bought new copies and multicolored ball pens so as
to take detailed notes (which was a big deal considering
that they had not bought any kind of stationary for the
last one year), Mariyal had bought a new alarm clock to
wake up every morning, Axle had halted his hacking
activities after 1:00 in the night, Chashmish was
sleeping for just 10 hours and vodka had significantly
reduced his talk-time on the cellphone. He was down to
like 2 recharges a week from 4. All in all people had
made significant changes in their life to align themselves
with the current scenario.
All of them quietly went to L7 every morning and
listened to Prof. Roy’s lecture on physical chemistry.
Haddi, Untees and kaka wrote three to four pages of
lecture notes every day in technicolor. And as a symbol
of his increasing passion towards studies kaka started
bringing a ruler in class from the second lecture
”Abe diagram banayenge acche se” was his reasoning
when asked about it.
“Abe Haddi hum bhi scale layenge agle hafte se” Untees
said to Haddi; clearly he was very impressed at Kaka’s
initiative.
70
“Haan be, aur saath main pencil bhi le aayenge. Saala
aur professional lagega. Aaj hi shaam ko chalte hai
shopC”. Exclaimed Haddi.
In the next class Haddi even asked a question to the
professor mid lecture. The professor was discussing
something about randomness in nature when Haddi
raised his hand as Mariyal and Vodka looked at him with
their mounts open in surprise. The professor asked him
to speak as soon as he was finished with his current
topic.
“Sir, do you think randomness is just a way of handling
variables we can’t quantify??”
“That’s an interesting point. Why do you say that?”
“Sir I think with enough information about the variables
and their values we can even predict the position and
momentum of an electron simultaneously with pin point
accuracy which I know is in direct contradiction with
Heisenberg’s uncertainity principle. It is a well known
principle, yes, but rather than actually analyzing and
quantifying the underlying causes of the descrepancy we
have come to accept it as a fact and have started basing
our theories and observations on it. It may be that the
variables that are involved are extremely difficult to
measure or even unknown. But we should not close the
window by assuming it to be a fact of life. Just a
thought”
Haddi finished talking and relaxed in his seat. He saw a
dumbfounded Mariyal who was still looking at him with
an open mouth. The professor too looked impressed. He
thought for a second then said
“Anyone else wants add anything to that?”
Nobody spoke.
“This is a very good point that our friend has made here.
I would like to impress upon all of you the crux of it.
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Always keep an open mind. Never take anything as
absolute. Always question. That’s how science
progresses. Now to answer the actual question, I don’t
know. It is definitely possible. But for the purpose of our
current discussion, we will assume a universe full of
randomness. Please feel free to prove me wrong by
doing a Doctorate.”
The entire class gave a good laugh on his last line and
the professor then went back to teaching. At the end of
the lecture Haddi, Untees and kaka had a detailed
discussion about the topic which was inconclusive yet
tantalizing. If this was the state of Haddi, Untees and
kaka, others were no different. Vodka was experiencing
an unexplained overflow of cash in his pocket, about
which he was very happy and expressed it by directing
that cash towards beer. Mariyal was ecstatic about
watching the sunrise everyday and had started
exercising in the morning with Jaggu. Chashmish was a
little confused though. He just didn’t know what to do
with the kind of time he had available with him
everyday.
”Bahut lamba hota hai be din. Mujhe to pata hi nahi tha.
Are Jaggu kucch batao be kyaa kiya jaye itne bade din
ka”
”Vyaayam karne chala karo tum mere saath. sareer
banega tumhara” replied Jaggu. Axle was busy reading
about the latest in computer security and trying new
hacking methods.
The first week was pretty uneventfully.All the guys were
really happy and surprised at their performance. Nobody
could believe that they had attended all the lectures,
made notes and that too in full senses. It sounded too
good to be true. The next week was gonna prove exactly
that, it really was too good to be true.
Monday went pretty smoothly. They attended the lecture
took notes on the kinetic theory of gases and Came out
72
of a jam packed L7 discussing their plans for the rest of
the day.
“Main Computer center jaa raha hoon. Koi chal raha
hai??” kaka asked.
”Haan chalo main chalta hoon” Mariyal replied.
”Main library jaa raha hoon. Bahut neend aa rahi hai”
said Haddi with a yawn.
”Bakwaas!! Newscientist ka naya issue aaya hai saala
wahi padhne jaa raha hai” cheeked Untees. Haddi was
an addict for newscientist magazine. He had read close
to 300 archived issues of the magazine in 7 days after
reading his first one in the IITK library.
“There’s just something about the magazine that
kickstarts my imagination in a good way” was what
Haddi’s explanation was when asked about his obsession
for the magazine. He had to read any new issues of the
magazine as soon as it came in. apparently this was
something people had started using to pull his leg.
”Haan to ab ekdum jaa ke to neend nahi hi aayegi na.
Thodi der kuch padh loonga to automatically neend aa
jaegi” Haddi promptly defended himself.
”Neend to mujhe bhi aa rahi hai. Chalo main bhi chalta
hoon” added Untees.
Chashmish was standing in deep thought. May be the
thought of sleeping in the cool air conditioned
atmosphere of library was being too overwhelming for
him to think anything. Haddi looked at him and said
”Are Chashmish itna mat socho, chale chalo. Bahut dino
se soye nahi ho dhang se.”
”Are haan yaar Haddi. Bahut samasyaein hai zindagi
main. Lagta hai so ke hi solution milega iska. Chalo jaldi
chalo.” replied Chashmish with a smile.
73
Axle and vodka were too hungry to go anywhere. They
decided to go back to the hostel.The seven of them
promptly split up into groups of 2 and 5 with Axle and
Vodka heading towards the hostel and the rest of them
moving towards the library. A few minutes later, Untees,
Chashmish and Haddi were saying bye to kaka and
Mariyal as they split up with them and headed towards
the computer center. Within the next half an hour,
everyone had settled into their intended co-ordinates
and a series of unfortunate events was about to begin.
The computer center was desolate at the hour. Hardly a
few human beings were present in the building. Half of
them were security guards while the other half was
made up by system administrators, mad research
assistants and some maintenance people. Since it was
still early morning as per student standards, none of
them were expected to be seen in the computer center.
Kaka and Mariyal constituted a small group of
exceptions to that expectation. They entered through
the glass door of computer center where a cold chill
greeted them. The temperature inside the computer
center was kepy pretty low to improve the operating
efficiency of the electronic equipments. They checked in
by flashing their identity card to the SIS guard present
at the door who decided to be particularly annoying by
making them sign in. Thereafter kaka and Mariyal
moved straight to windows NT lab locatd opposite the
supercomputer. They occupied adjacent seats in the lab
and flicked the mouse. The respective computers broke
out of hibernation and presented them with the logon
screen. A quick entry of username and password made
the screen disappear. After a double click on the internet
explorer which brought up an IE window, the following
adress was typed
http://sprint.bantu.com
The CC authorities were being extremely proactive in
preventing chatting and other extra-curricular activities
in the computer center since the last 3 months.
74
Consequently it had become almost impossible to use
yahoo messenger in the computer center. (Unless one
was with Axle who inevitably found a way to make it
work). But this was not enough to stop persistent
people. Some deligent person had found a website
where a lot of young people from Indian and abroad
conglomerated. The best part about the website being
that it had an in-browser chat client which allowed
people to chat within the browser without the need to
install anything on the computer. That website was
http://sprint.bantu.com
Initially designed to be a hub for the customers of sprint
network, the website now played host to a plethora of
people from all over India who couldn’t access yahoo
messenger. Chatters mostly consisted of student from
various institutes like the IIT’s, jaipur’s vanasthali and
colleges of the Delhi University. Plenty of girls used to
chat on it and so the hope of finding that special
someone brought a lot of IITians in the chat rooms of
sprint.bantu.com
Kaka logged on under the username: crazyeyes and
started hunting. After browsing through a few chatrooms
kaka finally found a few profiles that satisfied his
criteria. He shot off IM’s for like half an hour to the
“qualified” people just to realize that no one was
replying him. Frustrated, kaka asked Mariyal if how
things were going for him.
”Abe Mariyal tumhe koi bandi mili hai kyaa?”
“Are haan. Ek bandi mil gayi hai bhaiya. aur to aur
kanpur ki hi hai aur IIT campus main hi rehti hai. kyaa
hua tumhe koi nahi mili kyaa abhi tak??” replied Mariyal
with the last line in a half mocking tone.
“Are nahi yaar. badi der se koshish kar rahe hai” replied
kaka morosely
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“Tumhara to sorry ho gaya” added Mariyal. Clearly
fueling kaka’s frustration.
“Are milegi milegi, humein bhi milegi. Ruko tum.” Kaka
said with a renewed conviction and started searching
again. He shot off an IM to hip_preeti, some girl from
Delhi and then started browsing the website to look for
the next candidate. This was when he saw some magical
words show up in the
status bar of the chat window for hip_preeti
“hip_preeti is typing a message”
Within seconds came the message that was being typed.
hip_preeti: Hi there
Kaka quickly re-checked her profile. Her profile pic was
gorgeous. With her black eyes and auburn hair she
looked like an angel. Moreover she was from Delhi
which was pretty closeby in case their affair picked up
heat. Kaka checked for some obvious symbols to verify
if the profile was genuine and found them all to be in the
green. The photo looked realistic. It was taken outside
some restaurant. A quick google search placed the
restaurant in canaught place Delhi. No phone number
was present in the profile which was a pretty good sign
of a profile’s genuineness. Finally and most importantly
it was kaka who had IM’d her first and not vice versa.
The profile was indeed genuine. It was time for Kaka to
implement all the chatting expertise he had gained in
the past two years and win over some hearts. Kaka took
a deep breath and started typing.
crazyeyes: Hey a very good morning to you. Howz life?
hip_preeti: life’s good. asl?
crazyeyes: 23 M and from the land where beauty like
yours doesnt exist.
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hip_preeti:  thanks for the complement. btw I m frm
Delhi
crazyeyes: let me guess. are you a student at the DU?
hip_preeti: yeah I m, studying Arts at LSR. But how did
u know?
crazyeyes: well it was an educated guess.
hip_preeti: you sound really intelligent. Where are you
from?
crazyeyes: well i m originally from Haldwani but right
now I m in IIT Kanpur.
hip_preeti: you are from IIT!!
crazyeyes: as a matter of fact I m. and before I forget I
would also like to say that you are gorgeous
hip_preeti:  thanks.
Kaka was awestruck. This was THE perfect girl for him.
Gorgeous, intelligent that’s how he had dreamt his
Simran to be. And here she was right in front of him. At
that very moment kaka decided that he was gonna get
to know this girl really well, meet her and make her fall
in love with him irrespective of the effort it took.
While kaka was busy playing Raj in his life, Mariyal was
on fire. He had already convinced the girl to meet him.
He was not too happy with the venue though.
”Are kaka yaar is ladki ko kaise convince karoon ki
shopC wala CR ekdum ganda hai” exclaimed Mariyal.
”Abe lekin woh to kaafi accha hai” kaka replied sounding
a little confused.
”Are woh bahut mahenga hai isiliye ganda hai. Wahan
gaya to mere mahine bhar ke paiso ka sorry ho jaega”
explained Mariyal. Kaka shrugged his shoulders.
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Mariyal tried a little bit to nudge the girl to change the
venue but it didn’t help. He now had a date in CR at
8:00 pm today.
”Chalo kaka room chale, bahut bhook lag rahi hai” said
Mariyal with a satisfied look on his face. His work was
done. He looked very happy at his achievement.
”Are ruko saale. Tumhara kaam to ban gaya ab meri
zindagi bhi to kuchh acchi ho jaane do. By the way
tumhariwali ka naam kyaa hai?” Asked kaka
”Naam hai uska Reena. Kisi librarian ki ladki hai aur
campus main hi rehti hai” Mariyal replied proudly. ”Aur i
guess tumhari wali ka naam preeti hai” he added as he
stared at Kaka’s computer screen.
”Haan Preeti Garg naam hai. LSR delhi se arts ka koi
course kar rahi hai. yeh dekho iski photo” kaka opened a
window on the computer screen with Preeti’s profile on
it.
“Are bhaiya. kaka yeh to gasab maal hai be. Ise to tum
zaroor pataana” exclaimed Mariyal. He was clearly
impressed with the girl.
”Haan be koshish to yehi hai” replied kaka
“Abe Mariyal aisa karo tum chalo main thodi der abhi
yahin baithoonga”
“Accha theek hai kaka main chalta hoon. baad main
milte hai” said Mariyal. He left the computer center and
started making his way towards Hall-2. After 5 mins he
was passing outside the IITk library where a few
interesting developments were taking place.
“It was a pleasure meeting you Neha” said Haddi to a
girl with long wavy hair, big brown eyes and a dimpled
smile.
78
“Hey it was nice meeting you too Rohit” replied the girl
pushing back a vagabond group of hair on her face
behind her ear. ”Aneesha, chale??” she added to her tall
and gorgeous friend standing next to her.
“Yeah sure” Aneesha replied. She then moved her
attention to Untees and said
“Alright Prachit, so i guess I will see you around”
“Haan bilkul, hum log bhi German class join karne ki
soch hi rahe hai. To ab mulaqat hoti rahegi.” Untees
responded with a smile. The two girls reciprocated the
goodbyes with a smile and started going down the stairs
towards the second floor of the library while Untees and
Haddi watched them leave. After the two girls
disappeared, both of them came and sat in the
periodicals section located on the third floor of the
library.
“Haddi!! hum logo ki kismat itni buri bhi nahi hai yaar.”
“Sahi kehte ho be Untees, kahan hum log sone aaye the
aur kahan hum dono ko girlfriend mil gayi”
“Accha hua jo tumne who German magazine uthayi aur
use translate karne ke liye hum log german-english
dictionary dhoondhne gaye”
“Tumhari height saali kuchh to kaam aayi. Tumhari
height dekh kar hi shayad Aneesha ko laga ki tum hi ho
jo use who german ki kitaab nikaal ke de sakte ho. Mast
ho gaya ekdum. Untees ko mil gayi Aneesha aur Haddi
ko Neha”
“Mujhe to pata hi nahi tha ki German class main itni
mast bandiya aati hai nahi to main to pahle semester se
hi join kar leta”
“Yaar tummm log to phoddd diyeee bee” came a voice
from somewhere. Haddi and Untees looked around to
see the speaker. It was Franky. Apparently he had seen
79
the whole event and was quiet impressed with Haddi
and Untees.
”Hehe, yaar ab kyaa kare hum log hai hi talented”
cheeked Haddi and all three of them burst into laughter.
”Bahut bhook lag rahi hai be Haddi. Chalo Chashmish ko
uthate hai aur hall chalte hai”
”Haan be chalo”. Both of them got up and started
walking towards the archive section on the third floor of
the library. A relatively calm section of the library this
was where most of the students came in to sleep. In a
remote corner of this section Chashmish was sleeping
with two binded journals of electrochemical society
under his head.
”Uth be” shouted Untees as he kicked Chashmish to
wake him up.
”Hmmm. kya time hua ………be” asked Chashmish as he
got up eating a few words of the sentence with his
yawn.
“Khane ka time hua hai. Bahut bhook lagi hai. Jaldi hall
chalo” said Haddi to Chashmish and signaled him to
stand up.
After a lot of effort Chashmish got up, stretched his
arms and the three of them started heading down. After
getting out of the Library, Chashmish was briefed about
the events of the morning on their way back to hall-2.
Chashmish listened intently to Haddi’s vivid descrition
quietly. After Haddi was done describing, Chashmish
took a few seconds to digest the information. As soon as
he was done he said.
“Matlab tum yeh keh rahe ho ki jab main so raha tha,
tum dono german class jaane wali do ladkiyon se mile,
unse aache se jaan pehchaan kari aur unse email
address aur phone number exchange kiye!!!” exclaimed
a very surprised Chashmish.
80
“Haan” said Haddi with broad smile on his face.
“Are tum log to phod diye be” said Chashmish quiet
amused by the achievement of his friends.
The rest of the journey to the hostel went past with
Haddi and Untees filling up Chashmish with a complete
replay of their close encounter with the second kind.
It was a burning hot afternoon. All three of them were
quiet relieved to reach the hostel. The mess hall was
filled with people from atleast three different hostels as
only a few messes remained opened during the summer.
Fortunately for the Hall-2 people, it was the turn of their
mess to remain open.
Untees, Haddi and Chashmish went straight to the mess.
The menu was a pathetic aalu-fry, some kadhi, rice and
thick roti’s. The three of them picked up their plates
very unhappily, served themselves a little bit of
everything, came and sat on the table where Mariyal
was having his lunch.
After a brief exchange of events between them it was a
common consensus that the day was really auspicious
for flirting.
“Sahi hai be kaka bhi mast phod raha hai Preeti ke
saath” said Haddi.
“To tum shaam ko jaa rahe ho?” asked Untees to Mariyal
“Haaum” replied Mariyal with his mouth filled with food.
“Bhagwaan ne chhaha to hum log bhi tumhari position
pe bahut jald pahuchenge aur library mein ‘kuchh kuchh’
karenge” cheeked Haddi.
All four of them laughed for a few minutes after this
conversation, ate a little bit and then started proceeding
towards their respective rooms. They were quietly
81
walking through the corridor when Untees suddenly
started shouting.
“Tum ek number ke ghatia insaan ho be. Kyon chale
aaye ho yahan” This took Haddi completely by surprise.
Before Untees started shouting, Haddi was walking
normally with his eyes on the ground. He looked
towards Untees to see what was wrong with him. As
soon as he looked up the picture became quiet clear to
him. Charu gupta was crossing them in the corridor
coming in from the opposite side. Since their encounter
on the cycle rickshaw, Untees had made it a point to
make his life as miserable as possible at whatever
chance he got. After a heated exchange of words,
Untees and the rest proceeded to their wing. From
where they entered the wing, Untees’s room was the
first to come.
”Shaam ko milte hai Haddi” he said and entered his
room.
“Ok” replied Haddi as he continued walking with the
others. Shortly thereafter he was the only one left
walking towards his room.
“Ab saala kyaa kare” Haddi mused. He wasn’t sleepy at
all. His mind was full of good thoughts. He didn’t wanna
be alone. All he wanted to do was to hear some good
romantic songs and keep picturing Neha in his head. He
instantly thought of Champak. He had a very good
collection of video songs on his computer and was
always enthusiastic about watching them.
“Haan saala usi ke kamre pe chalte hai” thought Haddi.
Champak’s room was pretty close to Haddi’s. Haddi was
almost there. The door of Champak’s room was ajar and
Haddi could hear a faint tune of his favorite song playing
on the computer. Without bothering to knock, Haddi
banged into Champak’s room.
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The mess in Champak’s room gave an impression of a
guy who was really studious and into computers and
programming. However that was exactly what he was
not. A student of chemical engineering, he was into
computers just for chatting, watching movies ,smallville
and listening to songs. He was trying to learn age of
empire for the last 1 year with no success. He was a
devoted chatter and spent a lot of his time finding some
love online. Most of the time he used to chat to girls
from vanasthali and some other institutes of Delhi. He
always got a good start but messed up the matter after
some while. Haddi had tried a number of times to
explain him a few key things about online chatting but
to no avail. Two three days was the maximum time that
any girl talked to him.
Haddi entered the room. The computer was resting in
one corner of the room. There was no one in the chair in
front of it or in the room for that matter. He went
straight to the computer and increased the volume. The
song was almost over. Realizing that he hadn’t checked
his e-mail for a while, Haddi opened an IE window and
started typing his login info on the IITK squirrelmail
logon page. This is when he noticed a minimized IE page
in the windows taskbar. Curious, he maximized the
window and saw Sprint.bantu.com open on it.
Apparently Champak was pursuing his favorite hobby.
Inquisitive about how Champak was messing up the chat
this time, Haddi started going through the logs. His eyes
widening simultaneously.
This is when Champak came into the room. He was
shocked to see Haddi in the room and sitting in front of
the computer.
“Saale chappal chappal marenge, kya kar rahe ho. utho
saale wahan se” he said to Haddi going all fanatical and
waving his hands gesturing him to get up.
Unmoved, Haddi looked at Champak with a cheeky smile
which stopped Champak in his tracks.
83
“Kyaa be kyon has rahe ho” Champak asked
“Saale tu sudheraga nahi na” said Haddi
Champak looked at Haddi for a moment and then smiled
back like a child caught while doing a mischief.
“Hehe… are yaar bore ho raha tha. Socha yehi kar liya
jaye”
”Aage kyaa socha hai??” asked Haddi.
“Kuchh nahi yaar bas ek-do din aur timepaas karoonga.
Isse jyada kyaa ho sakta hai” replied Champak.
Haddi gave him a wicked smile. Apparently some big
plan had brew up in his mind.
“Bahut kuchh ho sakta hai. Tum bas jaisa main kahoon
waisa karte chalo. I will help you with this. Yahan tel
mat machana”
Meanwhile Axle was busy indulging in his addiction. He
was deep into trying a brand new hack method. He had
succeeded in sniffing the network traffic of the Girl’s
hostel and by doing so he now had the passwords of
around 30 email accounts. He was rejoicing his moment
of victory by reading the emails present in the various
hacked accounts. Apparently what he read was
extremely entertaining as he laughed uncontrollably for
quiet sometime as he read the emails. His laughter was
extremely loud and compelled Vodka to close the
window of his room as it was interfering the
conversation with his girlfriend. The conversation was
more of a fight as his girlfriend was not too happy about
him cutting his time on the cellphone. Whatever time he
spent talking to her these days was not too pleasant.
But Vodka was hell bent on not giving up and so far his
determination was paying out well. Vodka was facing
what they called the blues of distance relationship. His
girlfriend was a neighbor whom he had met during the
last winter vacation. After 10 days of a superfast love
84
story, it had become a distance relationship with Vodka
in Kanpur and the girl in Dehradoon. Shortly after
reaching Kanpur, Vodka had realized that the distance
relationship was going to be extremely costly as the girl
proved to be extremely possessive and wanted vodka to
call her in whatever free time he got. Vodka tried his
best to cut off the conversation but eventually ended up
talking for more than three hours. By the time he was
done Kaka had returned from the computer center. As
soon as he returned, kaka went straight to bed in a
euphoric state. Everything around him was going on
with clockwork precision. His dream of finding a girl was
finally coming true, he was attending all the classes and
taking notes that too with colored pens, what else did he
want.
Kaka fell asleep while thinking about all the happy things
around him. He would wake up after 4 hours and go
straight to the dinner table with his friends who were
particularly noisy today.
“Abe tum logo ko maloom hai karthik kumar ki gf Soha
jadeja use dodo bulati hai!!” Axle was found shouting in
the mess
“Nahi maloom lekin isme kyaa badi baat hai” Untees
replied
“Isme badi baat yeh hai ki woh apne Delhi wale bf ko bhi
wahi bulati hai” Axle replied and burst into his loud
laugh. He was joined by five other people sitting on the
table. The only one missing was Mariyal who was busy
attending his Date in CR.
“Are Axle, kyaa kya info nikal liye ho be tum” Chashmish
said. He seemed quiet amused by Axle’s achievement.
“Aur kitni ladkiyon ke do boyfriend hai be” kaka queried.
“Do waliyon ka to nahi pata lekin harshita Mishra ke
teen hai” he replied and started laughing again.
85
“Kaise has rahe ho be!! Tumhare hath to lagta hai
duniya ka sabse bada khajana lag gaya hai” mused
Haddi.
”Are yaar Haddi tumhe kyaa bataye. Meri poori dopaher
itni entertaining beeti hai ki main describe nahi kar
sakta. Mujhe aisi aisi info mili hai ki ab Avantika Singh
bhi mujhe notes dene se inkaar nahi karegi”
Avantika singh was a girl in chemical department and
used to guard her lecture notes better than the way US
government guards it’s nuclear arsenal.
”Aisa kyon be” asked kaka
“Aisa isliye ki agar usne aisa nahi kiya to main poore
department ko bata doonga ki woh porn stories ko
subscribe karti hai”
Laughter, Laughter, Laughter.
After a very entertaining dinner all the guys were quiet
happy. A few 100 meters away. A smiling Mariyal was
returning from his date in the CR. The date was exactly
as costly as he had predicted, but it had been well worth
it. The girl was really cute and Mariyal was quiet happy
with the happenings of the evening. Mariyal reached the
hostel and was greeted by Daulatramji.
“Mayur aap hi hai na??” he was asked by bespectacled
Daulatramji.
“Haan ji main hi hoon batayiye” Mariyal replied
“Aapka call hai campus se. Hold pe rakha hai” he said
pointing towards the phone.
Mariyal was quiet surprised. “Who could it be?” he
thought while walking towards the receiver.
“Hello. This is Mayur”
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“Hey Mayur, this is Reena”
5 minutes later when he got off the phone Mariyal was
in a Dilemma. He made it straight to Untees’s room
where Chashmish, Haddi and Untees were planning out
their strategies.
”Abe nahi yaar Untees, is approach main fight ho jaegi. I
mean Kitna ganda dialogue hai. Ise to main veto kar
raha hoon” Haddi was heard saying to Untees.
“Are aao launde….kaisi rahi date…kyaa kyaa kiya aur
kyaa kyaa karne wale ho” Haddi winked and called out
to Mariyal as soon as he entered the room.
“Yaar date bahut sahi rahi. Ladki badi acchi hai aur
campus main bhi hai. Lekin main ek bahut badi problem
main pad gaya hoon” Mariyal replied in a concerned
voice.
”Kyon kyaa hua?” Untees asked. Mariyal’s expressions
had ensured that he had complete attention of
everyone.
“Mujhe abhi hostel main aate hi Reena ka phone aaya
tha. Shuruwat main kuchh to baatein hui. Phir woh
mujhse kehti hai ki uske ghar pe subah 8 se le ke 10
baje tak koi nahi rehne wala hai. She was saying she
wanted my company. Mujhe samajh nahi aa raha main
kyaa karoon” Mariyal said
”Lekin kal subah tum kaise jaa paoge.kal to apni 2-2.5
ghate ki class hai.instructor ki dopaher ko hi to mail aayi
thi” said Chashmish as if mentioning something very
obvious to Mariyal.
”Haan be Mariyal. We promised ki ek bhi class nahi miss
karenge summer main. Sincere banana hai hum logo
ko.” added Untees
“Every goal requires some sacrifices, some pain Mariyal.
may be this is yours.” Haddi blurted out some instant
87
philosophy. Mariyal seemed dejected. A war of priorities
seemed to be going inside him. After a while he sighed
“Haan yaar tum log sahi keh rahe ho. mujhe sudharna
hai. Main nahi jaunga. Infact maine use yehi bola phone
pe ki main nahi aa paunga. Lekin woh request kari hai ki
dekho ho sake to aa jaana, I will wait for you. Lekin koi
nahi may be kisi aur din” He paused for a bit then added
”Anyways tum log kyaa kar rahe ho??”
“Hum log hamari waliyo ko email type karne ki koshish
kar rahe hai” Untees replied as he moved towards his
computer and said
“Abe Haddi Zara do minute ruko, ek minute main mail
check kar leta hoon”.
Meanwhile Mariyal started describing his date to Haddi.
“Waise maja bahut aaya be. Thoda paisa thuk gaya lekin
koi baat nahi” Mariyal said enthusiastically.
“Haddi…..Yeh mail shayad hum dono ke liye hai” Untees
called out while keeping his eyes on the computer
screen.
Haddi moved towards the computer screen to read the
email on it.
To: prachit@iitk.ac.in
From: aneesha@yahoo.com
cc: rohit@iitk.ac.in
Sub: Hi here
Hi there Prachit and Rohit,
How r u guys doin? myself and Neha had a really good
time talking to you guys today. I hope the same is true
for you. The reason I am writing this mail is because we
badly need your help. Tomorrow is the last date for
completing the formalities of registering in the German
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class. Myself and Neha have to leave for lucknow by a
train which leaves at around 11:15, which means we will
have to leave campus by 10:00-10:15. We two being
new in the campus dont know a thing as to how to
proceed for registration. Can you guys please help us
out? If you can please meet us around 9:15 outside
library, we can finish everything and be on our way by
10.
Thanks
Aneesha and Neha
Untees and Haddi looked towards each other and sighed
in disappointment. They were now in the same boat as
Mariyal’s now. It was a golden chance. By meeting the
girls tomorrow the guys would have portrayed their
seriousness towards the girls in a very effective manner.
But a promise is a promise.
“Tommorow’s class better be worth it” Haddi said and
started walking back toward his room. He met Champak
on the way and went and sat in his room.
Meanwhile Axle was having troubles of his own. He had
returned from the dinner table very enthusiastically in
the hope of reading more emails. But as soon as he
reached his room and sat on his computer he found his
sniffing software display the message.
PACKET DATA LOST. SESSION TERMINATED.
On digging a little bit Axle realized a fatal mistake. All
the tricks and feints he had played in getting the GH
data to his computer had been logged by watchdog
programs put in place by the computer center
administrator. Axle was overwhelmed. In case he got
caught he would be suspended for 6 months.
“How the hell did I miss this!!”
A fellow hacker of his had recently got the same
punishment ironically he too had done the same
89
mistake. Sweat trickled down his face. He just couldn’t
let that log file get in the hands of the administrator.
After 10 min of procrastination Axle somehow got hold
of his senses.
“Soch Axle soch” he said to himself.
“I still have a lot of time. The CC administrator won’t
read the logs till late morning. I can do this”
A ray of hoped instantly shined his mind. It was risky
but he was in trouble anyways. Atleast this way he had
a chance to make amends. All he had to do was to hack
in the computer center servers and make a few changes
to the logs. It was a daunting task as he had to get it
done before 10 the next day.
”I can do this” Axle thought and started typing
fanatically on his computer.
While Axle was burning his head on the computer
screen, kaka was having a great time. He was sitting in
the mini computer center in the hall and chatting with
Preeti. Preeti was proving to be the girl of his dreams.
hip_Preeti: So you mean you dont have a girlfriend??
crazyeyes: Yeah. have been a bit focused towards
studies and stuff.
hip_Preeti: do you plan to continue keeping tht focus in
the near future??
crazyeyes: I think I might have found a reason not to
hip_Preeti: 
hip_Preeti: hey will you be online around 8:00am or so
tommorow?
crazyeyes: dunno. i think I have an extra class
tommorow.
hip_Preeti: ohhh. well I am going out of town
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tommorow. dunno when I will be coming online again.
Just wanted to have another chat with you before I left.
Kaka was pissed.
“why did the instructor have to keep an extra class
tommorow only” he thought. But what the heck, a
promise was a promise. He said no to her.Bid her
goodbye, did the usual goodnights and sweet dreams.
He then went and lied down in his room. He so wanted
to sleep and dream about Preeti.
Vodka’s sleep however was gone. He was having a
terrible fight with his girlfriend. She was way pissed with
the way vodka was behaving from the past few days.
Vodka was trying his level best to explain to her that he
wasn’t ignoring her and there was no other girl in his
life. He failed miserably with his efforts. His phone call
eventually ended when his girlfriend started crying and
hung up. And the worst thing about the situation was
that vodka didn’t have any balance in his phone to call
her up and console her. Frustrated from the events he
went over to Haddi’s room in order to talk to him. But
Haddi was not to be found in his room.
”Abe. Haddi kidhar hai??” vodka asked Haddi’s
roommate.
“Are woh Champak ke room main hoga dekho zara”
Haddi’s roommate replied pointing towards Champak’s
room.
Vodka headed towards Champak’s room. As he reached
closer to the room he could hear them talking.
“Champak tumne saale gadbad kar di.” Haddi was
saying to Champak.
“Are yaar mere dimaag se ekdum hi utar gaya ki tum
logo….” Champak was cut off midway by vodka who
came in the room and said
“Haddi mera kutta ban gaya”
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Haddi asked what had happened. After listening to
Vodka’s account of what had happened, Haddi said
”Tu yahan kyaa kar raha hai??”
“Kya matlab” vodka asked back.
”Right now you should be in a STD calling your girlfriend
consoling her and explaining your situation. Shouldn’t
you?” Haddi explained.
”Ahh but unfortunately it’s pretty late and I dont think
ab koi STD khule milenge tujhe. subah class ke baad
sabse pahla kaam yehi karna” Haddi added with a sigh.
“Hmmm” Vodka replied. His face reflecting the storm
within his mind and his inability to counter it.
“Lagta hai wahi karna padega” he added morosely.
Both Haddi and Vodka proceeded to sleep in their rooms
thereafter.
But sleep had decided to deceive everyone of them
today. Kaka was dreaming about Preeti alrite but with
eyes wide open. Untees was lying on his bed staring
towards the roof of his room trying to look for a way to
meet his girl tomorrow. Vodka was totally worked up, he
just couldnt stop thinking about his girlfriend. Mariyal
was getting weird dreams. His dreams were presenting
him with various permutations with which he could go
and meet Reena. Haddi was restless in his bed too.
”Arghh!!! Can this stop!!”. He thought with his head
under his pillow. Something was troubling him. It was as
if someone was shouting around him. He tossed and
turned in his bed. When he couldnt bear it anymore he
sat up and shouted
“Bhola chup reh mere baap” to his roommate. Bhola had
a habit of talking in his sleep and had decided to be
conspicuosly loud today.
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As a result of Haddi’s shout, Bhola got up, sat up for a
while, mumbled something in his sleep slang and then
slept again. The only good thing that emerged for Haddi
out of this was that Bhola was much more silent now.
The only people who were not complaining about sleep
were Chashmish and Axle. Chashmish wasn’t
complaining as he was asleep and snoring. Axle wasnt
complaining as sleep was the last thing he needed right
now. He was too busy erasing his digital footprints. After
a number of permutations he realized that logic bombs
were just not going to cut it. He might be successful in
erasing the logs but then his act of modifying the logs
would be logged and he would be back to square one.
What he needed was a worm and he didn’t have the
time or the expertise for it.
The morning came with a bit of mist and lot of clouds. It
was a gorgeous day considering the amount of heat
Kanpur was receiving in the summer. The cool breeze
blowing through the lurching trees made the morning
even more beautiful.Blowing unhindered from east to
the west the wind blew from one end of the campus to
the other as if challenging everyone to be sad in it’s
face. It didn’t find any challenger for a long time. But
then came hall-2 and it struck 7 people walking out of it.
The wind tried it’s best but it couldnt bring any sort of
happiness in the minds of 6 people with swollen eyes.
However it was successful in moving the 7th person who
just couldnt contain himself from appreciating it’s
beauty.
“Kyaa sundar din hai yaar. Aise din koi sundar ladki
saath hoti to baat ban jaati. Kyaa bolte ho tum log”
Chashmish mused.
”Maarenge mar jaoge Chashmish” Vodka snapped.
Rest of the group looked at Chashmish as if he had just
said something very offending. Chashmish grasped his
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mistake pretty fast, wiped the smile off his face and
hurried towards L-7.
”Haddi yaar mujhe aakhri copy abhi bhi edit karni hai
yaar log ki. I need a worm. Kaise ho paega be??” Axle
said in a stressed tone.
but Haddi was in a world of his own. His mind was too
busy cursing the prof for making him miss the chance at
his love life. Mariyal hardly spoke. Untees was walking
with his mouth shut and eyes on his worn out chappals.
“Kaka yeh tennis court ke saamne wala STD kab khulta
hai??” Vodka asked.
“Yaar khul to jaana chahiye tha abhi tak pata nahi kyon
nahi khula hai” kaka replied.
The atmosphere remained tense till their journey to L-7.
The biggest lecture hall of IITk, L-7 had a capacity to
hold upto 430 students at a time. L-7 was being used in
the summer semester for the first time in the history of
IITk. But never before had so many Fakkas been
granted to a batch.
A very big hall with seats arranged on an incline, L-7
almost looked like a continous array of seats except for
the aisles in between. A broad aisle running parallel to
the stage separated the hall in almost two equal parts.
The part in back was separated by two aisles
perpendicular to the broad aisle. The front part too was
divided by two aisles perpendicular to the broad aisle.
There were three entrances to the hall. One on either
end of the broad aisle and a big one adjacent to the
stage.
All of them entered the hall and proceeded straight to
the back section of the hall. Haddi, Vodka and kaka
chose to sit 5 rows back from the broad aisle. Rest of
them sat in the same row but separated by one of the
small aisles with Mariyal in the corner.
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The lecture began with Prof Roy arriving in the class
wearing a white shirt and a black pant. He began with a
new topic and started lecturing to the student body
while periodically moving towards the board to draw
some diagrams and write a few lines.
“So….this is what the quantum principles tell us. An
atom with electrons moving around a fixed nucleus at
fixed distances”
“What the heck… yeh sab kyaa hai yaar. Yeh to maine
dasvi kaksha main seekha tha yaar” kaka mumbled in
Haddi’s ear who had already started dozing off. His sleep
was interrupted by a slight commotion in the vicinity.
Haddi opened his eyes to see Prof Roy writing somethng
on the blackboard. He turned right to see Mariyal
moving down the aisle. Apparently Mariyal had had
enough and had decided to attend to more important
things. All he had to do now was to turn right, walk the
broad aisle, open the door and get out. Everything was
going good for Mariyal until he made the right turn. This
is when Prof Roy decided that he had written enough
and turned towards the class to explain more of basic
quantum atomic theory. But instead of a well settled
class taking notes, he saw an anomaly walking the
broad aisle heading towards the door. Generally
professors used to ignore such acts but this was summer
semester and they were hardly 10 min into lecture.
“Hey you!! Where are you going?” professor Roy said in
an agitated tone which sounded even more agitated
through the sound amplification system of L-7. All eyes
now turned towards Mariyal who was still walking
comfortably on the aisle as if having an evening stroll.
He was so engrossed with Reena’s thoughts that he
wasnt even aware that the professor was talking to him.
“Hey you!!” Professor Roy’s voice becoming lot more
stern now.
Mariyal still walking.
95
“Hey you!!” Professor Roy almost shouting now.
This is when Mariyal realised that something was wrong.
Evrybody sitting on the seats in the aisle was staring at
him. Mariyal kept on walking but turned left and saw
Prof Roy pointing a finger at him. Mariyal’s smile faded.
“You stop right there and get back to your seat!!” Prof
Roy still shouting.
What happened next couldn’t have been predicted by
Prof Roy in his wildest of dreams.
Mariyal started running towards the door.
Surprised by this act Prof Roy intensified his protests.
“Stop!! Stop you!!”
Mariyal still running
the entire class was in hysterical mode watching this.
Almost everyone was laughing.
“Stop!! Stop!!”
Mariyal’s agony finally ended when he reached the door
and got out. The door slammed shut behind him with a
huge bang.
Prof Roy stood on the stage looking at the door for a
moment and said
“I will make sure he doesn’t pass this course” and got
back to his lecture
It took a while for the class to settle down after the
incident. Within a few minutes Mr Roy was back to
explaining the class about nucleus and the revolving
electrons. But for 5 guys it was time for some drastic
measures. Haddi Untees, Vodka, kaka and Axle all
looked towards each other and instantly understood
what they needed to do. As soon as Prof Roy turned
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towards the blackboard, Haddi got up and started
walking towards the door. He was followed by Untees,
vodka, kaka and Axle while Chashmish sat there gaping.
After some deliberation he also got up and started
walking towards the door. Unlike Mariyal, the 6 of them
were pretty lucky. Dr Roy kept busy with the blackboard
the entire time. As soon as they got out of the door and
felt the cool morning breeze, a wave of happiness and
relief swept all of them, they were free.
The Romance
Freedom is a mixed bag. Not everything is green beyond
the doors of L-7. Things might go to an exact opposite
97
of what you expect. However this wouldn’t be the case
with Untees and Haddi, who were now sitting in the
library with two gorgeous girls Neha and Aneesha. A
bunch of forms lay in front of them on the table which
were being inked by Haddi and Untees.
“Tum log lucknow kaise jaa rahi ho” inquired Untees, his
eyes stuck on Aneesha sitting opposite to him on the
table
“Train se” Aneesha replied softly.
“And when are you coming back”
“2 days later”
“Are do din tumhare bina German class kaise chalegi”
cheeked Untees
“Tum log ho na”
“Are ab tumhare bina hamara man bhi kahan lagega”
Untees just couldnt contain himself. As soon as those
words came out of his mouth, color faded off Untees’s
face. He knew he had made a terrible mistake. A
balance of Humility and audacity always wins a girl, but
what Untees did here was sheer stupidity. The next
words of Aneesha were gonna define Untees’s future.
Untees looked for a while at Aneesha, his mind pleading
to god, his eyes narrowed in anticipation of a cruel reply
from Aneesha. What came was a sweet smile and a
question
“DOSA office kab khulta hai??”
Meanwhile Haddi was busy talking to Neha, and unlike
Untees was balancing Humility and audacity to
perfection.
98
“Naam??” Haddi called out like a government clerk
talking to a complainee. His eyes on the forms and his
hand writing intently.
“Neha Jain saheb” replied Neha with a laugh, apparently
playing along.
“Sushh!! Majak nahi. Pata??”
“215/8 Arya nagar Kanpur 208003″
“Phone number??”
“05122547567″
“Mobile number??”
“9833568354″
“Boyfriend ka naam?” Haddi slipping in a major query in
between some minor ones.
“Flirt kar rahe ho kyaa” replied Neha, quiet surprised
with sudden change in the questions.
“That depends”
“On what??”
“On your answer” said Haddi with a smile while looking
directly in Neha’s eyes. Confidence oozing out of him.
“Yuvraj singh” Came an instant reply from Neha.
“Are you sure it’s not Sachin Tendulkar or Rahul dravid?”
said Haddi with a little bit of sarcasm which Neha
reciprocated with a smile.
“Aajkal ki ladkiyan, TV dekh ke bahut bigad rahi hai”
added Haddi.
99
Neha opened her mouth as if to say something but
looked at Haddi, thought for a while and then decided
otherwise.
“Hey Neha, tujhe cellphone recharge karvana hai” came
a voice from Aneesha. Apparantly she and Untees had
taken a break from their talk.
“Ohh yeah. I had totally forgotten about it. Rohit, is
there any place closeby where we can do that??”
enquired Neha.
“Yeah we can go to the shopping center. Untees tum
logo ka form bharna ho gaya kya” said Haddi
“Nahi abhi tak to nahi” said Untees.
“To aisa karte hai main aur Neha ShopC jaa ke aate hai,
tab tak tum log form bhar lo” said Haddi and started
getting up from his chair. He didn’t want anybody to
give a second thought to his plan. He just wished Untees
had heard what he wanted to say between the lines.
Untees thought for a second and said
“Haan yeh sahi idea hai tum log ho aao”. Untees then
gave a quick smirk to Haddi as he passed towards the
corridor which had to be interpreted as “Well done”.
Both of them were now alone with their ladies and
happily flirting.
“Kaun hai wahan!!!! Ruk jao wahin pe!!!” Shouted a
shrill voiced lady on a bespectacled boy somewhere in
the campus.
Meanwhile Axle was breathing easy. He had successfully
eliminated the last traces of his electronic activities. It
had not been easy. He had to break through a number
of firewalls in order to get to his destination. The feat
was not only spectacular because of the technicality
involved but also due to the fact that it was
accomplished under great pressure. Axle had finally
100
reached the spot for which he had set out 2 years ago.
He had always dreamt of being a Hacker. After
numerous sleepless nights, online training sessions, 4
login cancellations and 5000rs in fine Axle had well and
truly achieved his goal in the past two days.
“I m good” He said to himself with a smile. His eyes
were getting heavier. It was time to sleep.
”Kitna hua bhaiya??” Vodka asked to the PCO manager
as soon as he got out of the phone chamber.
“124 rupaye” The PCO manager replied in a muffled
voice. His mouth was too full with Paan for any kind of
voice to come out with full intensity.
Vodka paid the money and started to scout his way out
from the PCO. A long queue of people had accumulated
within the 45 min he was inside the phone chamber.
Somewhere in the middle of the queue stood sissy who
looked at Vodka as if he had committed a crime and said
“Kyaa Vodka, itni der tak koi baat karta hai kyaa?
Tumhare peeche kitna rukne pad raha?”
“Marenge mar jaoge sissy. Maine nahi bola hai rukne ko.
Jitni baat kari hai uske paise diye. Ab raaste se hato aur
jaane do” Vodka boiled off on Sissy. Surprised with such
a reply sissy was too taken aback to say anything.
Numerous eyes staring at him from all the directions
didn’t help either. He stepped aside and watched Vodka
pass by out of the PCO.
crazyeyes:hey dont go away brb
hip_Preeti: ok come back soon.
Kaka locked the screen, got up and started walking
towards the bathroom. He had been chatting continuosly
for the last hour and badly needed a break. His chappals
made a lot of noise as he walked which echoed in the
large hall of the computer center. He passed by a SiS
security guard as he made his way towards the corridor
101
in which the bathrooms were located. As he moved
closer he could the chatter on the guard’s radio.
“Patrol guard to station. Theft reported in one of the
faculty quarters. Chor shayad area main hi. 2
eyewitness. Over!”
“Station to patrol guard. Eyewitness ke saath rahiye.
Aapko jeep bheji jaa rahi hai. Jeep ke aate hi eyewitness
ko bitha ke area ka daura kare. Agar woh kisi vyakti ko
pehchaane to use hiraasat main lein.over!!”
“Patrol guard to station. Jee sahab over”
“Station to patrol jeep. Turant jaye faculty quarter……….”
The voice faded away as Kaka reached the bathroom.
Kaka took a quick sip of water from the water cooler
which was extremely cold as always. Kaka always
wondered why the thermostat of the water cooler was
not recalibrated to a more moderate temperature. He
was sure nobody on the campus was capable of drinking
water this cold. He visited the adjoining bathroom
quickly and was back in front of the monitor talking to
his gal.
hip_Preeti: so what are you gonna do now?
crazyeyes: hmm dont know….. Will prbbly just go to
hall-2 and hang out with Haddi and Untees.
hip_Preeti: kkk…….aite then….I will c u after 2 days.
crazyeyes: k…waise tum jaa kahan rahi ho.
hip_Preeti: just going for a cousin’s marriage in
Gurgaon.
crazyeyes: aite have fun…….. aur dekhna wahan se koi
dulha le ke mat aana 
hip_Preeti:  will try not to. k take care bbye
102
crazyeyes: ok bbye.
Kaka logged off. Gave a big and loud yawn and started
making his way towards hall-2.
If Kaka was making a good progress towards his goal
Haddi had almost achieved it. Walking slowly towards
the ShopC he was having a heartfelt talk with Neha.
Neha was now conversing very comfortably with him
and was opening up quiet well.
“I am the youngest of three siblings. I have one brother
and one sister.we live in a joint family. All in all i think I
have around 15 cousins. One of my cousins is actually a
student of IITK. He lives in Hall-3 and coincidentaly his
name too is Rohit.”
Something struck Rohit as soon as he heard this
“Did you by any chance call him some while back ?” He
asked
“Yes I did”
“And did you by any chance talk to a guy with a great
voice and attitude by mistake before you actually dialed
the right Rohit?”
“Ummm… Yeah!! Was that you??”
“Hehe Yeah that was me. See, we were destined to
meet. But we are digressing, please continue”
“Yeah. So my family is what you would call a typical
nineteenth century “Khaandaan”. My family is extremely
traditional. Culture, respect, ideals are everything for
them.” She almost scoffed as she said the last line.
”It gets pretty annoying at times. Girls are still treated
secondary to boys. God knows how much I had to fight
in order to take this course. Damn! Main tumhe yeh sab
103
kyon bata rahi hoon. I have never said all these things
to anyone. I am sorry I got carried away” said Neha.
Haddi looked into her gorgeous eyes and said
“Don’t be. It just means that you are comfortable with
me. May be I am the someone whom you needed to
pour your heart out with.”
Haddi said those words with so much intensity that Neha
was dumbfounded for a moment. Both of them stood
there in the middle of the road facing each other looking
into each other’s eyes. Neha’s swaying hair made the
sight altogether more beautiful for Haddi.
Their love scene was broken by the noise of footsteps
approaching towards them. Haddi looked up towards his
right to see Mariyal running towards him from the
ShopC. As he came closer Haddi opened his mouth to
say something but Mariyal cut him off and said “Baad
main samjhaata hoon” as he passed the two. Confused,
both of them kept looking at him run away. Mariyal kept
running straight, crossed the bushes, climbed the
academic area wall and disappeared.
“Yeh kaun tha??” asked Neha
“This was Mariyal. One of my very good friends.” replied
Haddi still looking towards the wall trying to piece
together the puzzle.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked.
“May be he’s just practicing to beat me in athletics”
Haddi replied with a smile.
“Ohh so you are an athlete too??” said an amused Neha.
“Yupp, one of the very best” said Haddi boastfully.
They had almost reached the shopping center now.The
shopping center was relatively quiet. Not all shops had
104
opened and the ones which had opened were still
getting cleaned up. Haddi and Neha entered one of the
book stores and purchased a BSNL recharge card. They
roamed around for a bit in the ShopC as Haddi showed
her around. After they had roamed quiet a bit, Haddi
looked at his watch and said.
“Hey Neha I think we should hurry back now. Tum late
ho jaogi”
“Yeah. You are right. Where are we supposed to meet
Untees and Aneesha?”
“I think hum log seedhe DOSA office chalte hai. Most
probably those guys would have also realised that it’s
almost time and must have reached there by now”
“Ok……” she replied
With this they started walking back towards the
academic area at a brisk pace.
“So Rohit, what do you guys do in your free time?”
“Nothing we just play games, cards, watch movies and
play stupid pranks on each other”
“Cool…..waise shaitani main main bhi kam nahi
hoon………family ki champion hoon main is maamle
main”
“Really?? Hmmm……. ” He thought for a moment and
then said.
“Would you be interested in being part of one?”
“May be….. Zara describe karo”
Haddi spent the path from ShopC to library describing
the prank he had in his mind. By the time Haddi
described everthing to Neha, they were pretty close to
105
their destination and could see Untees and Aneesha
standing at a distance.
“WoW!!……that is a good one. I would definitely love to
be a part of this one. But woh bura to nahi maanega
na??” Said Neha as Haddi as finished describing. She
looked impressed.
“Nahi nahi. Don’t worry about that. Haan but be aware
of one thing. Kisi ko is baare main kaanokaan khabar
nahi honi chahiye”
“Done!!”
Things at DOSA office went quite fast. The two couples
were out of there in under half an hour. It was not
uneventful though. Untees almost threw a chair on
someone and Aneesha almost threw up on some guy.
But nonetheless all four of them were now walking back
towards the main road.
”Are saale ki himmat to dekho. Hum itni tameez se keh
rahe the ki bhaisahab line main khade reh ke kaam
kariye to saala hum pe hi chilla diya. Woh to accha hua
ki tum time pe chair par baith gaye warna humne to use
maar hi di thi” Said Untees.
“Haan kyonki maine uske saath ke chaar pahelwano ko
dekh liya tha. Tumne to full program bana hi liya tha
pitne ka”
“Ohh aisa tha kyaa. saale pahle kyon nahi bataye. Chalo
jadli nikalte hai yahan se. Pahle hi life main bahut
problem chal rahi hai. Aur nahi chahiye”
Untees signaled the ladies to pick up the pace. Aneesha
was doing much better now and obliged instantly. It was
Untees’s request afterall.
“So kya hua tumhe ulti kyon aa gayi”
106
“Are kaise gande log the is office main. I am not coming
here again.”
“Are hua kyaa”
“Jab tumhara jhagda chal raha tha, i just stepped back
from all the commotion. Wahan par ek clerk ki table thi.
Uspar ek chai ka cup aur usme ekdum laal liquid pada
hua tha. Mujhe to bahut curiosity hui. Aisi chai to maine
kabhi dekhi hi nahi thi. Mere mooh main paani aa gaya.
Then I realized ki woh clerk meri taraf dekh raha hai.
Woh paan chaba raha tha aur mujhe ghoor raha tha. I
got uncomfortable, main idhar udhar dekhne lagi. Woh
paan chabaata raha aur mujhe dekhta raha. Phir usne
woh mysterious chai wala cup uthaya aur apne mooh ki
taraf le jaane laga. During the whole time he kept
ghooring me and paan chabata raha” With this Aneesha
made a real nasty face as if she was gonna puke again.
“Are theek to ho??” Untees asked in a concerned tone
“Yeah i m good. Don’t worry”
“Phir??”
“Phir kyaa!! Usne mujhe ghoorte ghoorte, paan chabate
chabate apna cup mooh ke paas laaya aur usme saari
peek spit kari”
“Kyaa!!!!”
“Yeah!! Why else do u think I shouted? Woh banda
ekdum hi sarfira tha. I dont think I will be drinking chai
for teen chaar din”
Haddi and Neha were laughing like crazy by the time
Aneesha finished. Untees somehow managed not to
crawl on floor and said.
“Well ab samajh main aaya ki bathroom main ek banda
apni shirt kyon saaf kar raha tha”
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“Well yeah that. Yeah my shreak was too loud. Usne
woh cup apne upar gira liya uske baad”
And there it was, the academic area gate with three
cycle rickshaws standing in front of it.
As soon the four of them approached the gate, all three
rickshaws came in and started hounding them to take up
their service. Aneesha and Neha picked one and started
heading towards it when Untees interjected
“Are tum logo ko chhod dete hai hum gate tak”
For some reason the expressions on Haddi’s face saw a
dramatic change on hearing these words. It appeared
that some thought process had initiated in his mind.
“Yeah why dont you come with us. It will be a lot of
maja.” Aneesha just had to agree to what Untees says.
“Are hum log zaroor chalte, but we have a very
important assignment to submit at 1 and we don’t even
know whom we are going to copy it from as of now. I
don’t think we will be able to drop you guys to the gate”
said Haddi with a very sorry face.
“Kaun sa assignment, kaisa assignment”
“The assignment which Mr Roy told us to submit while u
were sleeping”
“Ohh. Well Ok then Aneesha. Tumhare aane ke baad
milte hai. I have your cellphone number anyways. Will
be in touch”
“Yeah sure, bye Prachit”
“Bye Rohit”
“Bye Neha”
Untees and Haddi stood there for some while looking at
the rickshaw as a very prominent
108
Creak!! Creak!! surrounded them.
“Untees tum ek number ke sarke hue insaan ho be”
“Kaahe be!!”
“Bina jeb ki nicker pehni hai tumne, mere paas paise hai
nahi aur ladkiyon ko chhodne chale hai gate par”
Creak !! Creak!!..... Fading away.
“Haan main yeh sab nahi soch paaya us time par”
Untees stood there for a moment, his eyes still looking
at the rickshaw, took a deep breath and said
“Abe Haddi”
“Haan bol” Haddi too looking at the rickshaw dissolving
in the horizon.
“I think I am falling in love”
“I know” Haddi replied.
“Even I am”
So love was in the air. The air which blew from the
rickshaw towards hall-2 and touched Untees and Haddi
on the way. As soon as the rickshaws disappeared, both
of them moved briskly towards the hall-2 gate. They
were greeted by a stare from charu gupta walking in the
corridor. As Haddi and Untees were relatively happy
right now, just some really nasty stares was all what
charu got.As soon as he went past the both of them
Untees said
”Well that was an inauspicious entry”
”Sahi main” Haddi replied.
They slowly made their way towards the hall-2 quad
passing in front of the ever ringing phone. On one of the
phones was Franky talking to someone. When Haddi
109
went past him he quickly pulled Franky’s nikker down.
Haddi was expecting it to be a little more tight but it
wasn’t. And with the kind of force Haddi had applied, the
nikker no longer remained on Franky’s hips but slipped
down to his knees instead.
“Are kya kharte ho shaale ma…….” was all Haddi heard
as he ran towards the mess While Untees came slowly
walking ahead.
“Abe Haddi yeh bheed kaisi hai be?” Untees said
pointing towards a notice board on the mess wall. Haddi
was busy laughing at Franky who was picking up his
nikker and wasnt really looking in the direction towards
which Untees was pointing. On Untees’s signal he looked
around to see atleast 20 people standing in front of the
notice board which generally wasnt occupied by
anybody.
The smile on Haddi’s face was replaced by an expression
of curiosity. Untees had caught up to him by that time.
Both of them started moving slowly towards the notice
board
”End sem ka paper laga hai kya notice board pe? Saala
itni junta tabhi aa sakti hai notice padhne” said Haddi
while walking towards the notice board
“Kaun sa notice board hai be yeh?” enquired Untees
“I think it’s the gymkhaana notice board. The only
notices there are regarding good for nothing events and
stupid gymkhaana meetings”
“Are yeh to wahi hai na jispe kabhi kabhi apna naam
aata hai??”
“Haan haan wahi hai.Llekin yaar aaj…….” Haddi was cut
off midway by a loud noise from Champak standing in
front of the notice board
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“Are are woh rahe hamare hero” he shouted. Champak
was wearing a white t-shirt and a striped nikker and
looked like the prisoner of an Indian jail. He repeated
that line twice or thrice and clapped after every
repetition making sure everyone was now looking at
Untees and Haddi.
Surprise, Confusion, bewilderment, anger, the next few
seconds saw a variety of emotions flow through on
Untees and Haddi’s face to stabilize on an emotion called
shock when they finally made their way through the
crowd to see the notice board.
The locked notice board held all the notices in a decent
sized wooden box which had wooden chips falling from
it. The notice in question was printed on a blue colored
A4 sheet stuck with four rusting pins.
STUDENT GYMKHANA
IIT KANPUR
7th June,
This notice is with regards to a case logged against Mr
Rohit Parnerkar (Roll No – Y10231) and Mr Prachit
Kapoor (Roll No – Y10823) by the sports committee on
6th Jan of this year. After due deliberation to all the
evidence, the Gymkhana counsel has decided that Mr
Haddi and Mr Kapoor are guilty of extreme indiscipline at
the InterIIT sports meet-2002 held at IIT Delhi. Their
actions at the sports meet were extremely irresponsible
and unprofessional. In addition to adversely affecting
their respective teams, their behavior reflected badly on
IIT Kanpur’s image at the prestigious event. Mr Rohit
Parnerkar and Mr Prachit Kapoor are hereby banned
from all future IIT Kanpur sports events, both inter and
intra-collegiate. Additionally both of them are fined Rs
5000/- each to be submitted to the Dean of student
affairs office by the 14th July.
Director- IIT Kanpur
111
Amidst all the laughter around them, Haddi and Prachit
looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Are they Serious!!! All sports events!!!” Haddi said
“Are they serious!!! 5000 rupaye!!!” Exclaimed Prachit
187 seconds ago
“Access denied”
“Access denied”
“Aaj jo hai meri waat lag gayi” Axle said to himself. He
had exhuasted almost every possible trick in his hat but
just wasnt able to get through to the file he was
interested in. This was the last piece of evidence that he
needed to eliminate in order to be completely invisible.
He was exactly in the same situation which he was
afraid of. He had been successful in modifying the logs
but now his log modification had been logged. Axle
thought he had worked around the problem in morning
but he was mistaken.
“Yeh mujhse nahi ho payega. I need some help. I have
to call him”
Axle got up and started making huge strides towards the
hostel gate. On the way he passed a boisterious crowd
standing in front of the notice board. Just as he was
passing behind the crowd, he heard someone shout
“Are they serious!! 5000 Rs!!”
The voice seemed familiar to Axle and for a moment he
thought about stopping and enquiring what the fuss was
all about but he somehow contained himself. He had
more important stuff to take of at that moment.
Within a few moments he reached the STD. “Saala kyaa
speed se aaya main, aaj to main Haddi ko bhi hara deta”
Axle thought, apparently he was quiet impressed with
112
the time taken by himself to get from his room to the
STD. When he got closer to the STD, he saw Charu
gupta come out of the STD. Axle was giving him a stone
cold stare when charu passed by, mumbled
“Pata nahi kitni baat karega” under his breath and
moved on.
The STD was a small shack of brick with a window and a
big door. Right opposite the door inside was a counter
behind which a yound attendant sat. Adjacent to the
counter was a glass booth with a phone inside it for
people to talk privately. And right opposite the counter
and the booth was a waiting bench. There were two
phones in the STD, the other one being on the counter
for people to make local calls. As soon as Axle entered,
he was relieved to find that the STD was almost empty.
There was some guy talking in the booth inside which
Axle hardly cared about. He was just interested in
making a local call. He made straight for the phone on
the counter and started punching in the number
9845658…… when the attendant interjected,
“Bhaisahab mobile number call karenge kyaa?”
“Haan haan” Axle replied. His hand still busy punching
the numbers
“Us phone se nahi na lag payega mobile”
“Kyon?” Axle looked up.
“Are humein nahi na pata hai. Maalik bola so bataya”
“Bahut zaroori hai ek baar try kar rahe hai hum” said
Axle as he finished dialing and then waited for the ring
to go through with one hand on the headset and other
on the hip.
Axle was expecting the phone to ring, the line to connect
and then the heavy voice of a guy. Instead what he
heard was the sweet voice of a lady saying something in
113
english. Axle was a bit surprised and couldn’t process
the voice. He got control of his senses by the time the
voice went on it’s second repitition and listened
carefully.
“This facility is not available on your telephone”
Annoyed, he dropped the phone, sat on the waiting
bench and started gazing here and there. His eyes
moved quickly throughout the room and saw
paraphernalia of things
Clock
Brown window curtain
Cooler
Smiling attendant
Notebook
Photo of god hanuman
A cockroach on the floor
Notebook
Smiling attendant
”Haan haan aap sahi keh rahi the. Us phone se mobile
nahi lagta. Mujhe samajh aa gaya. Ab hasna band
karoge!!” said Axle annoyed with the smiling attendant.
“Are hum to kuchh keh hi nahi rahe hai. Aap to bhaiya
jabaran hi” replied the attendant. He was a little taken
aback by the allegation.
Axle frowned and started looking around again.
Clock
11:15
114
Bored face of attendant
Notebook
Call counter for the booth phone
Hanuman’s picture
Suddenly Axle felt something wrong with one of the
latest objects and retraced the trajectory of his eyes.
Hanuman’s picture (nothing wrong there)
Call counter for the booth phone (7347 seconds 351 rs)
“Are bhaiya yeh counter kharaab hai kya??”
“Nahi bhaiya. Ekdum perfecttt chalu hai. Ee to woh
andar wale bhaiya hai. Do tho ghante se andar baithe
baat kar rahe hai. Aapke pahle ek aur bhaiya baithe the
40 min. Phir uth ke chal diye.”
“Perfect” Axle said to himself. The words utterred by
charu gupta suddenly started making a lot of sense.
Those were for the guy sitting inside the glass booth.
Cursing beneath his breath Axle was getting extremely
impatient. He was shaking his legs uncontrollably and
looking here and there at a frantic pace. He continued
this for a while and finally got tired and relaxed a bit
when the meter got to 7757sec. He could hear muffled
voices from the guy inside the booth.
“No…………….i…..didn’t…..go…….……..that…girl………………….
she……………nothing……………………you everything”
“Are maan jao bhabhi jee” Axle uttered under his breath
with his hands outstretched and looking upwards. He
seriously was in a nick of time.
“Bhaiya bahut haste hai aap” Axle said out loud to the
young attendant who apparently had heard him utter
those words.
115
“Are bhaiya hum to kuchh kar hi nahi……” said the
attendant in a defensive mode
“Haan haan pata hai” said Axle. He was “this” close to
loosing his patience.
7956 sec
Muffled voice “Ohhhh babe…….i lub………….muahh”
“Ohh yes” Axle………apparently relieved.
The guy inside the booth hung up the phone, took a
deep breath, opened the door and looked straight
towards Axle.
“Vodka!!” exclaimed Axle…… ”2 ghante!!!”
“Don’t ask” vodka replied in a tired tone, paid money to
the attendant and left.
By the time vodka got out of the STD, Axle had already
got in the glass booth and dialed the number.
One ring
Two ring
“Hello? Sikandar? Axle bol raha hoon. Need your help”
956 seconds earlier:
Chashmish had just woken up from an amazing sleep.
He got out of his room and walked slowly towards the
bathroom. His slow saunter conveyed no sense of
urgency whatsoever. With every step he took at
appeared as if some of his body parts were reluctant to
move forward but had to do it just because they were
interconnected. He was giving a loud yawn when he
passed in front of Champak’s room and decided to
encroach it. Inside the room Champak had just logged
out of sprint.bantu.com and had a very satisfied
expression on his face.
116
“Kyaa be Champakve. Bahut khush ho. Kya baat hai??”
Chashmish asked in a mocking tone
“Time aane pe sab pata pad jaega be” Champak replied,
still smiling.
“Accha!! Khair woh sab chhodo be. Yeh batao weekend
pe kyaa kar rahe ho??”
“Yaar main to ghar jaa raha hoon 2 din ke liye, sunday
raat ko waapas aaunga. Actually main bas nikal hi raha
tha”
“Aise?????!!!” Chashmish exclaimed.
“Kyon be? Kyaa problem hai??”
“Saale Champakve apne aap ko dekhe ho? Neeche
Tihaad jail waala pajaama pehne ho, upar daadaji waali
bushirt, ghar jaa rahe ho ki kalyanpur ke station par
ande bechne??” Chashmish cheeked and started
laughing uncontrollably.
His remarks irked Champak big time and Chashmish was
instantly thrown out of the room. Champak then locked
his room and slowly made his way towards the mess. On
his way he passed the gymkhana notice board where he
saw two familiar names: “Prachit kapoor and Rohit
Parnerkar”. Intrigued he continued to read the entire
notice whence he realized both of them had been
banned from the interIIT sports team. By the time he
finished reading, Champak had a wicked smile on his
face.
“Saale dono ke dono naam roshan kar liye hai apna” he
said to himself. He then saw GDrive passing by and
grabbed his tshirt.
“Saale kyaa kar raha hai” GDrive shouted as he tried to
free himself.
117
“Are yeh padho! Dekho do naujawano ne woh kaam kar
dikhaya hai jo aaj tak koi na kar paaya. Kisi student ka
naam dekhe ho is notice board pe!!” Champak
exclaimed trying to make GDrive read the notice board
who stopped struggling. GDrive peeked towards the
notice board, read the notice board and was amused
instantly. Within a few seconds both of them had
collected an army of people around them and were
making them read the notorious notice. Meanwhile
Champak saw Haddi and Untees come from around the
corridoor and made enough ruckus to ensure both of
them came and read the notice board with a bewildered
expression on their face. When they were finished
reading, the lines
“Are they Serious!!! All sports events!!!”
and
“Are they serious!!! 5000 rupaye!!!”
alongwith the expressions on Haddi and Untees’s face
made Champak’s day. With this he was off to his home
for the weekend.
The weekend passed in a jiffy for everyone, well almost.
kaka was a bit irrascible the whole weekend which was
pretty obvious as he was not being able to talk to his
girl. Vodka’s hand was back to his ear with a cellphone
in between the two. Chashmish slept to the point of
fossilization. Mariyal did not move an inch from his
room which was pretty abnormal for him considering his
venturesome nature. Untees tried to drag him out of his
room a number of times but to no avail. For some
reason he just did not want to leave his room. This had
been a topic of major perplexity as he didn’t leave the
room even under the context of free alcohol which is as
high the stakes can go. Haddi spent another alcohol
filled weekend with Axle who was extremely happy. He
had been rescued by his savior, Sikandar.
118
“Saale ne kya hack kiya systems ko, it was flawless. He
is quiet simply the best hacker in IITK” Axle stated to
Haddi.
“Saala coming from you that statement means a lot. So
basically you just called him and he did this for you??”
“Yupp. As simple as that”
“Saala who is Sikandar?? Iske bare main bahut sun raha
hoon main aajkal. Every newsgroup I go I see a number
of threads to decipher his identity”
“Pata nahi. Maine kaafi trace karne ki koshish kari but
he is good. Usne apna address bahut acche se cloak kar
ke rakha hua hai. I can’t find out what room he is
located in. But yes I have to agree. His rise has been
nothing less that phenomenal. All he did was post his
phone on the newsgroup and asked people to call him if
they had any problems. Saala shuruwat main to mujhe
bahut bakwaas laga yeh sab. I mean it’s all too dramatic
when you look at it. A guy who gives out his phone
number and solves people’s problems! It just doesn’t
sound real. But hey if you keep that skepticism aside,
you will realize that guy is something else. If you have
been following the newsgroup you will realize that he
doesn’t have a 100% success rate. Sometimes he just
tells people on the phone that he can’t do it. But for
people who he does help, he goes all the way.”
“Hmm. Well to sikandar” Haddi raised a toast to him.
Axle did the same and did a bottoms up and officially
ended their weekend.
Monday began with the same routine with everyone
waking up, going to the class and then getting involved
in their extracurricular activities. As soon as CHM201
class got over, Haddi went straight to Champak’s room.
Champak had came back in the morning and was
engulfed in his favorite activity.
119
“Tu saale bahut kamina hai Haddi” said a truly
flabbergasted Champak after he listened to a suggestion
from Haddi.
“Kyaa bakwaas hai. Chalu tune kiya. Platform tune
banaya. Main to bas ek acchi ending dena chahta hoon”
Haddi tried to justify himself.
“But yaar Haddi is plan mein ek problem hai. ise acche
se execute karne ke liye you will need a real person on
the other side”
“Woh already ho gaya hai” said Haddi with a wink
“Hehe………Tu saale bahut kamina hai Haddi”
Haddi helped Champak with his chatting initiatives for
quiet sometime. When they were done it was almost
lunch time. Champak decided to quickly check his email
before heading for lunch. He quickly opened the IITK
squirrelmail page and put in the credentials. As soon the
page opened, he saw a mail from the Dean of Student
Affairs
From: dosa@iitk.ac.in
To: all@iitk.ac.in
Sub: Theft in Faculty Quarters
Dear all,
There was a theft in one of the faculty quarters some
while back. SiS authorities are investigating the matter
and have assured us of catching the perpetrator. Please
cooperate with the authorities in the coming days to
reign in this growing nuisance.
Thanks
Dean of Student Affairs
120
“Huh… Haddi, lagta hai kisi faculty ke quarter main chori
ho gayi.”
“Aisa kyaa? Kyaa chori hua? Midterm ke paper?”
“Hehe nahi be. Kuchh khaas detail nahi diye hai, but
lagta hai is cheez ka bada issue banega”
“Hmm possible hai. Chalo abhi kuchh khaa ke aate hai”
With this, Haddi and Champak went in the mess and
joined Untees, Axle and Chashmish who were indulged
in some very intense debate.
“Tere liye itna difficult kyon hai yeh maanana ki i might
actually believe in it??”
“Because this is insane. Agar hum bahut bluntly bole to
what happened was a child marriage. I dont know ki
tum yahan aane ke baad bhi aisa kaise bol sakte ho ki
woh sahi tha.”
“Sahi galat ki yahan baat hi nahi hai. baat yeh ki main
us shaadi main believe karta hoon ki nahi”
“Abe Untees, hum ek baat bataye, UP ke jis area se Axle
aaya hai wahan yeh sab normal hai” Chashmish adding
a comment in between.
“Abe normal hoga but it’s not right. Agar ise itna bhi
samajh nahi aaya to iske itne padhne ka kyaa matlab
nikla. Kal ko apne bachcho ke saath bhi ye yahi karega.
aur haan … ofcourse…. how did I forget this…. what
about the girl? Tum to ok ho … lekin us ladki ka kyaa?
Kyaa woh ok hai? Jahan tak tumne bataya hai she is
also pretty well educated by now. What happens if she
doesn’t believe in all this?”
“Abe Untees tumhe jab equation ke variables hi pata
nahi hai to tum use solve kaise kar paoge. It’s a very
well knit and traditional structure where I come from.
Yeh sab cheezein sab bahut seriously lete hai. Agar ek
121
baar shaadi ho gayi to ho gayi. Kab hui hai kaise hui hai
nobody cares. Jahan tak mere baccho ka sawaal hai,
yes, i wouldn’t let this repeat in their generation kyonki
dynamics badal jayenge. Lekin as far as i am concerned
I was born and brought up with a certain belief system.
I don’t care about your opinion as to whether or not it’s
right or wrong. I just care ki main usme kitna believe
karta hoon. This is my way of showing respect to the
traditions that have been going on for centuries. It’s my
way of saying thanks to my family. Kal ko mujhe unse
yeh nahi sunana hai ki humne tujhe itna padhaya,
likhaya and you couldn’t even respect a bond that was
formed right in the beginning. I dont want to hear that.
Shaadi is a very serious matter at my place.it’s
something that brings entire factions together. I will
respect it under whatever circumstances. “
“So basically agar tumhe koi bahut acchi ladki mil gayi
to bhi you won’t give up this” Untees paused for a bit as
if searching for a meek word to define whatever he
thought was going on and then said “shaadi and all” with
a lot of stress on shaadi
“No I won’t. For me it’s done. I m not revisiting this”
“What about the girl? What if she finds someone?”
“She is equally devoted to this as I am. She will die but
won’t go against her family. Family pride is everything
for us.”
“Family pride se zindagi nahi kategi Axle. I hope you or
the girl realizes this before it’s too late”
“Bahut ho gaya. I dont owe you any explanations. It’s
my way of life. Tum hote kaun ho ise question karne
wale.” Axle shouted and stormed out of the mess. Vodka
had just joined the table when this happened.
“Kya hua ise” he enquired
122
“Kuchho nahi be. Axle ki jo hai bachpan main shaadi ho
gayi hai. Child marriage, agar hum by definition jaye to.
Untees use samjhane ki koshish kar raha tha ki woh sab
bakwaas hai.”
“Abe hum yeh nahi keh rahe hai ki woh sab bakwaas
hai. Mera point sirf itna tha ki woh realize kare ki
whatever he did was a part of an extremely outdated
tradition and if he feels it’s not working out for him then
he should think about getting out of it” Untees still
boiling.
“Nahi aayega woh uske bahar aur consider bhi nahi
karega” Vodka spoke matter of factly.
“It’s a matter of family pride, He won’t even consider it”
“Haan be Untees.mujhe bhi yahi lagta hai. Use rehne do
shaanti se. yeh wala topic unnecessarily mat lao, it’s not
worth it” Chashmish said calmly. Almost everyone on
the table seconded him. Untees didn’t agree but he had
no other choice. He decided to let it go.
May was almost over now and heat was hitting IITK like
a crazy ocean wave on rocks. Everyone did all they
could to make their life as cold as possible. Along that
lines Haddi spent a lot of time in Champak’s room (The
only room in the wing with a cooler), kaka in the
computer center (with its uber cool A/C) ogling and
typing away at sprint.bantu.com and everyone else in
the library which also happened to be very comfortable.
Mariyal had finally gotten out of his room and ventured
out into the wild wild west of books. If the library was
cold, the environment on one of its table was colder.
Untees and Axle hadn’t called truce after their heated
discussion in the mess and didn’t talk to each other. Fed
up with the cold stares and sarcastic comments
exchanged between the two, Mariyal and Chashmish
decided to move to the racks. Mariyal picked up a bound
journal of electrochemistry placed it under his head and
lied down on the nice and cold floor of library while
123
Chashmish made himself comfortable with the journal of
electrochemical society.
“Bhaiya bahut paka rahe hai yeh log” said Mariyal. His
eyes closed and hands on the stomach
“Haan be sahi bol rahe ho” replied Chashmish as if very
annoyed with Untees and Axle’s actions. Suddenly
something occurred to him and he said to Mariyal
“Tum yaar mere do sawaalo ka jawab do. Number ek
tumhe jo Chm201 main phir se fakka lagne wala hai
uska kuchh socha hai? Aur number do… pichhle kuchh
dino se tumne apne aap ko kamre main kaahe kaid kar
ke rakha tha?”
On listening to those questions Mariyal gave a slight
smirk and remained relaxed. Apparently he was not
worried about the Fakka at all.
“Abe fakke ka to kauno tension hi nahi hai. Woh to
maine mast tareeke se solve kar liya”
“Abe kaise be” Chashmish sat up. He was very curious
now.
“Saala us din badi tension hui mujhko jab saala Axle
mujhe bataya ki Roy bola ki woh mujhe fakka de dega.
Phir saala meri Vodka se baat hui. Usne mujhe ek bahut
hi mast idea diya. Uska idea mujhe bahut sahi laga.
Main seedha prof ke paas gaya. Pahle to woh saala
mujhe bahut galiyaya. Phir usne mujhse poocha ki tum
kyon bhaage? To maine usse bola ki sir I was having
loose motions the whole night but i Didn’t want to miss
the lecture so I came anyways but after 10 mins i just
couldnt control it anymore so I had to go. When you
were calling out to me the situation was extremely
critical so i had to run. I hope you understand. Aur yeh
sab maine itne sincerely bola ki woh saala mast maan
gaya. Gadar ho gaya ekdum. Vodka ko is idea ke liye
main daaru pilane waala hoon.”
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“Hehe bahut sahi be. Aur doosre questions ka answer
kyaa hai?”
“Doosra matter thoda sa complicated hai. So hua aisa ki
chm201 se nikal kar hum gaye seedha Reena ke ghar.
Uske ghar pe to koi tha nahi. So main aur reena jo hai
mast pyaar karne main lage hue the” Mariyal added a
wink to the narration after he said the word pyaar and
continued. “Bahut maja aa raha tha.Baaki kisi cheez ka
hosh hi nahi raha, isliye hum uski maa ki jeep ki aawaz
hi nahi sun paaye. The next thing i know, reena was
panicing and asking me to run out of the back garden.
As soon as I stepped in the garden, Reena started
shouting Chor!!! Chor!!! in order to save her soul.”
Mariyal uttered under his breath ”Kamini saali” and
continued ”But anyways. Main badi mushkil se uske
backyard ki wall kood faand kar nikla. Phir main jo
bhaaga hoon ki poocho hi mat. Faculty quarters se main
aaya ShopC, wahan raste main Haddi and Neha dikhe.
But i was just interested in running. Wahan se academic
area ki diwaar koodi. Wahan se bhaagta hua seedha
hall-2 aaya. Saala itni speed se bhaaga hoon ki Haddi ko
bhi hara deta saala race main!! Accha hi hua ki main tez
bhaaga, mujhe baad main kaka bataaya ki unhone mere
liye jeep wagairah bheji thi”
“Saala kaka ko kaise maloom?”
“Are woh CC main tha jab yeh sab hua. Usne ek guard
ka radio transmission suna”
“Are saala to jo email aai thi DOSA ki………” Chashmish
suddenly realized and blurted out.
“Haan I was the chor in that” replied Mariyal in a
boastful tone.
“Saala bahut tension ho gayi yaar yeh to”
“It was worth it” Mariyal winked.
125
“So ab to tum us ladki se nahi hi miloge matlab.
Breakup ho gaya tum logo ka to??” Chashmish said as if
saying something very obvious.
“What? Kyon?? Nahi!! Bilkul nahi!! Mein milne wala hoon
use quiet regularly”
“Main samjha nahi” Chashmish full confused now.
“Are saale maine itni effort daali. Itna bada incident ho
gaya. Us bandi ne mujhe almost marwa diya. Usne mere
saamne mujhe Chor bola. Ab use thode hi na
chhodoonga. Ab to mast aish karoonga uske saath” A
wicked smile came up on Mariyal’s face as he said those
words after which he closed his eyes and went back to
sleep again.
Meanwhile kaka was typing away on his computer. He
couldn’t believe he was actually doing this. He was very
averse to all this when he first came in. The whole idea
of online romance just didn’t appeal to him. But that was
first year. Now he was an example of a guy smitten all
over by preeti. She talked as if she was his best friend.
“Soulmate, yes that’s what this girl is” kaka thought
with a smile on his face as he added yet another line to
the IM.
Crazyeyes: 
hip_preeti: Hey I need to step out for around 45 min.
will you be there when i come back
Crazyeyes: Absolutely!!
hip_preeti: ok then i will c u in a while
User hip_preeti has signed out
Kaka sighed. He was very happy. But now there was a
sudden emptiness in his life
126
“What to do for the next 45 mins”.
After contemplating for a while it struck him. The answer
was AOE!!! AOE, or age of empires was a LAN game
intensely popular in IIT Kanpur. Be it any time of the
day, one could find atleast a 100 people playing this
game. Kaka was an expert in this game and loved it to
death. He instantly went to a hidden folder in one of the
users account and had logged into the game and
browsing for teams in a matter of minutes. Suddenly he
got an eerie feeling as if somebody was standing behind
him. He turned around and saw a 6 feet tall extremely
dark figure staring down at him. This was sumeet
kumar, President of the student council. Student council
was a body made up of from a subset of students which
governed things like festivals, mess menus etc. One of
the tasks assigned to the council members was to make
sure people were not misusing CC Resources and it
seemed like kaka was in the net.
“Read this” Sumeet said in a heavy voice. Still towering
over kaka and handing him a piece of paper.
CC POLICIES
The centre provides facilities to support and enhance the
educational mission of the institute; for enriching the
educational experience of the students, faculty and the
staff and supporting their research and academic
activities; and for providing automation support to the
institute. This facility is needed for ………………….
Blah
Blah
Blah
Blah
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Blocking Resources:
1. Playing games on the machines in the computer
centre
2. Locking the screen of machines in the computer
centre
3. Sending junk mail to all the users
4. Sending chain letters
Minimum punishment is suspension of computer
access facilities for two weeks. Additionally
financial fine may also be imposed.
Kaka’s heart sank. Although he knew what was coming
even before reading the dreaded paper, seeing it in
black and white was not easy. All that he got from
reading the paper was
“Blah….. blah…….blah…… I am screwed”
“This can’t be happening” He thought. “I have to talk out
of it” and then started speaking
“Yeah, ok, read it” replied kaka and handed back the
paper. His tone rebellious
“You know it’s illegal to play games in the CC”
“Not in this case. There is hardly anyone around. I am
not blocking anybody from doing their work. And it’s not
as if I am watching Porn. I am just taking a break”
“Rules are rules. I am going to need your I- Card”
demanded sumeet
“Are itni bakaiti kahe kar rahe ho bhai. Tumne bhi to
kiya hoga yeh sab. Kyaa bakwaas hai”
“Tum I-Card Lao” Sumeet insisted
Kaka sighed. This can’t be happening. There is no way I
can afford loosing my login right now. But he knew he
had to do it. He took out his I-Card and handed it over
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to Sumeet. Agitated, he then turned to his computer
and went back to his AOE.
“Yeh kyaa kar rahe ho. mana kiya na“
“I gave you the I-card right. Ab jao na” replied kaka and
turned back towards his computer.
Sumeet clinched his teeth but he couldn’t do anything.
He stormed away uttering something about getting
kaka’s login cancelled in the next few min.
“Haan haan kar le” kaka said to himself, but despite all
the facade kaka knew his login was gone. He would have
to figure out an alternative to keep talking to his gal as
internet access was limited to people with login.
However he decided that this was probably a
consideration for a later point of time — an assertion
that would be proven wrong in the next 10 min when
kaka returns after a trip to the bathroom
“Access denied”
Sumeet was clearly not pleased with the way kaka had
treated him and had kept his word. Kaka’s login had
been disabled. Within the next 5 min kaka would run to
the closest STD in the shopping center and dial a
number.
“Tring tring”
“Tring tring”
“Yupp” Came a voice from the other side
“Hello? Sikandar? Need your help”
Haddi and Champak in the meantime were strolling in
the wing. Both of them had been sitting in front of the
computer for quiet a while and had decided to take a
break
129
“Accha I have to go meet Neha. Main abhi chalta hoon.
You keep up the good work.” Said Haddi and started
walking towards the hostel gate. He and Neha had
planned to meet there. Haddi put his hand in the jeans
pocket and checked to see if the piece of paper he had
been working on so diligently for the last few days was
still there or not. After confirming its presence, he took
his hand out of the pocket, unwrapped a chewing gum
and instantly put it in his mouth. The way to the library
seemed obnoxiously long to him today. He just wanted
to get to the library and see his girl. After a few mins
(which felt like eons) Haddi finally reached the library.
After quick I-Card verification he was making his way up
to the third floor of the library. After reaching up to the
third floor he realized that the library was more crowded
than everyday. Extremely crowded considering it was
the summer semester. Then he realized it was a school
tour day or something. Kids from all over Kanpur had
been brought over to see IIT Kanpur so that they can
get motivated, study hard and get into IIT. Haddi looked
here and there, turning his neck at frantic pace when he
finally found his girl sitting in the middle of all the hulla
gulla staring at him with her gorgeous eyes and a
perfect smile. Haddi felt a very positive energy flow
inside him and he returned the smile. He checked the
paper in his jeans and felt it
“Still there” he thought. Haddi grabbed a newscientist
magazine and sat besides her
“Hi. Kaisi ho?”
“I am great. Library is too crowded right? Kyaa ho raha
hai?”
“Are it’s some school day. Schools from all over kanpur
have come here for a tour”
“Ohh ok…. What is there in your pocket? Why are you
checking your pocket again and again?”
130
Haddi’s face reddened. Awkwardly he started.
“Well… i have….. I have been you know… writing
something for you for sometime and wanted to give it to
you but mujhe dar hai ki tumhe woh shayad pasand nahi
aayegi.”
Neha Stared at Haddi for sometime as if considering
what he had said then smiled and said.
“Dikhao. I want to read”
Haddi took out a crumpled piece of paper out of his
pocket and handed it over to Neha.
Neha Unfolded it and started reading.
“I dont know why i like you
May be it’s your cute eyes
which are deep vials of surprise
may be it’s your hair
which are a breath of fresh air
I dont know why I like you
may be it’s the way you complement me
you seem to be the only one capable of challenging me
may be it’s your intelligence
a result of due deligence
I don’t know why I like you
May be it’s your company
makes the vaccuum in my life fall down with gravity
may be it’s your voice
It makes me rejoice
I don’t know why I like you
may be it’s your smile
which is worth going countless miles
May be it’s the way you carry yourself
the aura around you makes me forget myself
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I dont know why I like you
May be it’s the mystery surrounding you
It’s a riddle I always process in my mental Queue
May be it’s the way you cloak your nice side
always keeping your best part inside
I dont know why I like you
May be it’s the way you hold my hand
Makes me oblivious to sky and land
May be it’s the way you kiss
sends me on an eternal bliss
I don’t know why I like you
I just know that I do
there is no may be about last line
It’s definitely!!”
Neha Started off with a smile which kept getting wider
and wider the more she read. After she had finished
reading her cheeks were a dark shade of red. She
looked at Haddi and said.
“Par maine tumhara haath to abhi tak kabhi pakda hi
nahi hai”
“Right on target” thought Haddi and said
“I know, but maine imagine kiya hai ki main jab
pakdoonga to mujhe aisa hi lagega. Don’t believe me?
Let’s try” Said Haddi moved his hand as if to ask Neha’s.
Neha thought for a second and then obliged.
Haddi closed his eyes for a second and said.
“I was wrong”
“Kyon”
“It is nowhere close to what I have written”
Neha’s color changed
132
“Why”
“Because it feels infinitely better!”
Neha blushed. She then looked at Haddi, came close to
him and hushed in his ear.
“And I haven’t kissed you yet”
Haddi’s heart was beating very fast now. He replied with
a soft smile
“Let’s try”
Neha looked into his eyes and signaled towards all the
crowd as if to ask “How? Where?”
Haddi smiled, held her hand and started hunting for a
private place. The task seemed easy but proved to be
extremely elusive. Every aisle, every corner was filled
with people. Disappointed, Haddi glanced at Neha and
felt her patience veering away.
“Come on!! Think!!”
And then it struck him. it was a very risky idea but hey
it was worth it. Both of them made their way back to the
third floor and starting moving towards the bathroom.
Neha made a disapproving noise as soon as she realized
it was the bathroom that they were heading towards.
“No we are not kissing in the bathroom. Bas mere saath
chalo”
Directly opposite the bathroom was a lift. A very old
style elevator with sliding iron doors. The lift was used
to carry books up and down the library and was
restricted for official use. Additionally its condition did
not look too strong. As soon as they reached to the lift,
Haddi opened the sliding doors and asked Neha to get
in. Neha hesitated for a bit, and then complied. Both of
them got in the lift and then Haddi closed the sliding
133
door. This is when a group of kids passed through the
corridor. Although the lift had no lights in it, the ambient
light from the corridor was high enough for the kids to
realize what was going on. Haddi’s initial plan did not
involve actually starting the lift but seemed like he
would have to do it to get his kiss. Haddi pressed the
button for the ground floor and the lift started moving
with a lot of noise. As soon as the lift reached between
the floors, Haddi pressed the stop button. He now had
all the privacy possible. He instantly grabbed Neha and
kissed her with a lot of passion. (5:11pm)
Meanwhile on the ground floor, two library attendants
pulled a big rack of books and pressed the button to call
the lift which didn’t show any signs of moving
Attendant 1: “lagta hai lift kharaab ho gayi hai”
(5:14pm)
Attendant 2: “Yeah lagta ho aisa hi hai. Chalo paani pee
ke aate hai. Ho sakta hai phir chalu ho jaye” (5:14pm)
.
.
Attendent 1: “Chalu hui??” (5:22pm)
Attendant 2: “Nahi” (5:22pm)
Attendant 1: “Theek hai kal dekhte hai (5:22pm)
(5:24pm) The lift starts moving. It stops at the second
floor. Two extremely elated people get out and start
making their way out of the library.
Second week of June was about to get over. It was
midterm time. Everyone was busy prepping for mid
terms pretty seriously. But somehow Untees just didn’t
feel like studying. He didn’t like chemistry much. Inspite
of everyone’s insistence that he study, Untees decided
to talk a walk and go to ShopC for a smoke. After
134
reaching the paanwaala’s shop in ShopC, Untees asked
for a gold flake, lit it up and started smoking. He would
have taken 2-3 puffs when an extremely gorgeous girl
walked in and asked for a packet of navy cut. It was a
pretty uncommon sight and additionally Untees had a
thing for spoiled girls so he just couldn’t take his eyes
off of her. Within a short while Untees had used his
magic and become friends with the girl.
“It’s great to meet you Prachit.” said the girl as she let
out a puff of smoke from her mouth.
“My pleasure Ankita. I will see you around. Bye”
“Bye”
Goodbye wasn’t the only thing Ankita gave untees. He
also had her phone number and a time to meet with her.
“Saale Untees phir Aneesha ka kyaa?” asked kaka when
Untees recounted the story to him
Untees shrugged his shoulders and said
“Uska kyaa? I will meet her too”
“So basically you will two time?”
“Yeah!!” Untees replied matter of factly and added
”Shaadi ke pahle sab allowed hai”
Kaka just shook his head. He was a very traditional guy
in this sense, a one woman guy. He was the Raj from
DDLJ. Untees’s ideology was beyond him.
“Khair meri chhodo. Apni batao. Maine suna tumhara
login cancel ho gaya.”
“Are haan yaar. Saala AOE khelte pakda gaya.”
“To phir ab login ka kya hai? Baat kaise karoge Preeti
se?”
135
“Sikandar solved my problem in 5 mins. I gave him a
call and within ten min I was using an alternative login.
Sikandar rocks!!!”
“By god who is this guy? Pichhle kuchh dino se jise
dekho har koi usi ki baat kar raha hai. hai kaun aakhir
yeh?”
“Pata nahi Untees. But so far he has gotten a lot of
people out of a thick spot”
“Hmm. ab kyaa plan hai?”
“Kuchh plan nahi hai saale, magna hai. Chalo tum bhi
nahi to phir se fakka khaa jayenge hum log”. Untees
resisted but eventually kaka was able to convince him to
join Mariyal, Chashmish, Vodka, Axle and Haddi in
studying chm201 at the library. Midterms were on the
head. The summer term involved two midterms and an
end term exam. This time the first mid term was in the
second week of June and the second one on the last day
of June.
“Saala mobile phone bahut ho gaye hai aajkal logo ke
paas” commented kaka when a guy talking on a
cellphone passed him and Untees while going towards
the library.
“Hmm. Sahi keh rahe ho kaka. Waise cell phone se yaad
aaya, tumhe pata hai ki Kanpur main cellphone kahan
bech sakte hai. Aneesha ko apna cell bechna hai”
“I think jareeb chauki main bahut dukaane hai. Wahan
bol do jaane ko”
“Ok. I will email her today”
With this both of them entered the library and went
straight to the third floor to join the others. As soon as
both of them reached the third floor and started settling
with the other, Mariyal and Chashmish insisted that
untess and Axle call a truce. It was very difficult
136
studying as is and their cold war was not making things
any easier. Axle and Untees reluctantly agreed to call of
their animosity starting off a very productive magga
session.
If at all watching a guy jump from a roof had made any
difference to these guys was in terms of their study
pattern. They studied longer and with a slightly higher
focus. Studies might have picked up, but as far as
extracurricular activities were concerned, they were a
notch above everything else. The library lift was out of
order for longer times, Axle’s hacking abilities continued
to improve, sprint.bantu.com had a diligent customer in
the CC, the phone companies made a lot of money out
of Vodka, Mariyal kept climbing the walls, Chashmish’s
sleep remained constant at 13 hours per day and Untees
somehow managed to continue two timing the girls
successfully. The next four weeks went by in a jiffy for
everyone. By the end of the second midterm everyone
was in pretty good shape with respect to academics
which automatically meant that the extracurricular
activities were going to ramp up significantly.
Meanwhile back in Kanpur City, two girls sitting on the
last bench of a class room in their school were having an
hell of a time. It was now their sixth period and the girls
had almost finished going through all the SMS.
Prachit
I like you a lot Aneesha
Neha
What?? He likes you!! This is so cool. Ab to bol
diya na usne. U also agree no. y u playing hard
to get?
137
Neha
U r so mean! Kyon pareshan kar rahi hai use.
Just say it no
Rohit
Mujhe lagta hai ki mere dost ko tumse pyaar
ho gaya. Kyaa tumko bhi aisa lagta hai?
Prachit
Yuhoo!! Muaah!!
Neha
Yay. You guys are now officially together. I m
so happy for you guys
Geeta and Shaili together went
“Awwwww”
“I wonder what happened next” mused Geeta.
138
THE NEXT
Kaka was really excited today. Today he was going to
talk to Preeti for the first time. And now that he was
standing in front of the phone in the quad he wondered
why he hadn’t asked Preeti to talk on phone before.
“I wanted her to be comfortable” he consoled himself.
Preeti was supposed to call at 10:30am. He checked his
watch and saw the time. 10:25am.
“Saala kisi cheez ka intezaar ho to time kitna dheere
jaata hai” He thought.
This is when he saw Haddi running in the corridor
towards him. Haddi slowed down a bit when he was
passing kaka and said
“Neha se milne jaa raha hoon”
Kaka nodded and watched Haddi run past him. Haddi
hurried out of the hostel and turned towards the road
which led to the STD. Kaka took a deep breath and
checked the time in his watch.It was 10:27am. Kaka
could feel the heart beating loudly against his chest. He
was a bit nervous and excited at the same time. The last
time he felt like that was when he was waiting for his
JEE rank.
10:28 AM, kaka was now recalling the sequence of
events that had brought him here. He was sitting in the
CC with Haddi and chatting with preeti. Haddi had been
quiet impressed with the way kaka was talking with
Preeti. However when he asked
“To kaka ab tak tumne 5-6 baar phone pe baat to kar hi
lee hogi”
and got a negative reply from kaka, Haddi was quiet
stunned.
139
“Are you suggesting kaka ki tumne ab tak is ladki se ek
bhi baar baat nahi kari hai??? Why?? How do you know
ki the person on the other end is genuine??”
Kaka remembered getting extremely disturbed by
Haddi’s question. Since he had been chatting with Preeti
that very second, he asked her to call him as soon as
possible. To his relief and Haddi’s embarrassment, Preeti
had agreed to talk to him the very next day at 10:30am.
Haddi however still insisted kaka to take all this with a
pinch of salt.
“Upto the point she actually talks to you, don’t take all
this very seriously”.
And here he was waiting for her call. The next 2 minutes
were going to either prove him to be a bond or a
phenomenal fool who had been wasting his time over
some random person. He gave a sigh of relief when at
10:29, a full minute earlier than the prescribed time, the
phone rang and asked for Kaka. Kaka took the receiver
from daulatram-ji and started talking
“Hi. This is preeti”
“Hey Preeti, you are a full one minute early”
“Haha, I couldn’t wait anymore. “
“It’s so nice to finally hear your voice. You have no idea
how confused I was yesterday when Haddi questioned
your existence. I couldn’t counter him. If you hadn’t
called today, I don’t know what I would have done.”
“Don’t worry about it. I hope now your friends would
stop making fun of you. You can now go and tell them.
Preeti actually exists. I must say one thing though. You
should have taken this initiative a bit earlier, I so
wanted to talk to you. But you know, I am a girl. Didn’t
wanna initiate it myself. Would have appeared
desperate”
140
“Tum ladkiyan bahut sochti ho”
“Haha. That’s true. Ok anyways now that we are talking,
I wanna invite you to Delhi for my Birthday. I am
throwing a party at McD, Canaught place – at 11:00 am
on the 14th of July. It’s my birthday. I know you have
your exam on the 16th but I am sure you can make it
here and be back to Kanpur in time for everything. All of
my friends will be there. If you don’t mind I want you to
meet all of them. I want them to meet my Boyfriend”
Kaka thought for a second then said
“I will be there. You can count on it. Before this moment
passes away I wanna tell you something.”
“What?”
“I love you”
“I love you too. Alrite I need to run. Have a class. I will
see you on chat. Bbye”
“Bbye Preeti”
Kaka was on cloud nine. He was now officially
committed. Kaka was heading back to his room with a
big smile on his face when saw Untees coming from the
other side. As soon as he came closer kaka shouted
“She loves me!!”
“Sahi main?? Call kiya kya usne? Mast yaar Kaka.”
Kaka nodded a yes to all the questions. He was very
happy.
“Tum kahan jaa rahe ho be??”
“Yaar meri badi fight ho gayi hai. Do ladkiyon ko
sambhalna bada mushkil ho raha hai be. Saala abhi
main jaa raha hoon Aneesha se milne. Phir dopaher ko
141
jaana hai doosri wali ke yahan. Who Akeli hai dopaher
ko” Untees winked and then continued.
”Phir uske baad mujhe Aneesha ko waapas milna hai.
Aaj ka din to mera full laundiyabaaji main hi jaane waala
hai”
“Tum saale” kaka said as Untees bid him goodbye and
got out of the hostel. While he was getting out, he saw
Haddi and Neha coming in from towards the STD.
Untees said hi to both of them. Then out of excitement
he added
“Kaka ko call aa gaya Preeti ka. So it seems he is not
insane afterall”
“Really!! That’s cool” Haddi replied. All three of them
walked towards the library where they met Aneesha and
spent some “quality” time together in their own ways
which for Haddi and Neha meant kissing in the elevator.
Axle seemed to be having his own kind of fun by
learning advanced worm encryption skills. Vodka was as
usual busy on the telephone. Mariyal was “busy” with
Reena while Chashmish kept sleeping as usual. The 13th
of July came in a jiffy and kaka received a Hero’s
farewell from Kanpur station. All six of them came to
drop him at the station and wished him good luck. He
was now less than 24 hours away from his Simran.
142
THE INCIDENT
Nizamuddin Station is what you can call a typical Indian
railway station. Bustling with hawkers, coolies,
policemen, railway engineers etc. It is a superposition of
an India that was and the India that is. Here is where
you can find a platform sweeper taking a break from his
work and answering a cellphone call, here is where you
will find a 70 years traditional granny sitting on the
same bench as a hip Indian girl in her teens listening to
her ipod. Here is where you will find kaka with a small
backpack, getting down from the train like a bollywood
hero in slow motion. Kaka got down, reshuffled his
backpack on his shoulder and gave a sigh of
accomplishment. He had made it to Delhi. Now all he
had to do was to get to Canaught place by 11 am. Kaka
checked his watch
“9:47am”
“Plenty of time” he thought and started making his way
out of the station. Between a plethora of jaded faces,
kaka’s glimmering face stood out. He had never been
happier in his entire life and it showed. Happiness was
oozing out of him. As soon as he reached outside he
took a bus for Canaught place. He got inside and settled
in a seat next to the window. He was joined shortly by a
young boy who came and sat next to him. The boy had
headphones on but the music was loud enough for kaka
to hear the slight din of
“Tujhe dekha to yeh jaana sanam” and get mushy. He
tilted his neck and put his head on the window while still
looking outside. After a while when the song got over
and he realized what he was doing, all he could muster
was a smile and a thought
“God. I am in love”
143
For the next hour of the journet kaka will remain
smitten. Mushy songs will keep playing on the
headphones adding fuel to the fire of love inside kaka.
Atleast 5-6 people saw kaka’s actions and gave
hysterical laughs but kaka was oblivious to it all. All he
could think about was preeti, His one and only love.
He got down at canaught place bus stop around
10:40am. The McDonald’s where Preeti had called him
to meet was a short walk from there. Kaka checked his
watch
“10:41am”
“Good. I will have time to freshen up a bit. I want this
meeting to be picture perfect” he thought and picked up
his pace.
He entered the McDonalds and headed straight for the
bathroom. After a quick grooming session he was out
and about picking up the best table the place could
offer. He settled on one and quickly checked his
backpack. The four mangoes in there were still intact
and ripe. He had ordered them especially from
Maharashtra.
“She loves hapus mangoes. This is like ‘THE’ thing she
likes to eat the most. It would make a great gift” was
what kaka had answered when Untees had asked him
why he was packing Mangoes for his trip.
Kaka let out a deep breath and checked his watch.
“10:56am. Any min now!!”
He could feel his heart pumping louder and faster inside
his chest yet again. The Last time he was this excited
was just before talking to preeti and while waiting for IIT
JEE result before that.
“Saala JEE ka result to mast aaya tha. Yeh bhi mast hi
rahega. Buck up dude” He told himself and started
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looking around here and there. A quick analysis of McD’s
revealed to him that all the tables were occupied by
couples. There wasn’t any single person sitting on any
table.
“That will change shortly” he consoled himself and
checked his watch
“11:10Am”
“Jaldi aao Preeti”
Kaka waited for 5 more mins after which he couldn’t
contain himself. He got up and made a beeline for the
STD across the road. After waiting in the queue for
around 2 mins he went inside the dingy cubicle and
started dialing Preeti’s number
“0 9 8 3 3 5 6 8 3 5 4″
He finished dialing and waited for a few moments before
the phone started ringing. Someone picked it up on the
other side after 3 rings
“Hello Preeti”
Commotion!
“Hello!! Hello!!”
More commotion. Exactly the kind you hear when the
person on the other end is trying to put you on speaker.
“Hello!! Preeti!! Can you hear me?? Main canaught place
ke McD aa gaya hoon. Tum kahan ho??
Commotion was now a lot less. The noise also reduced
significantly. Kaka felt as if he could hear the faint
laughter. Then suddenly came a voice from the other
side
“Ka be!!”
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Kaka was taken aback. Instead of Preeti’s soft and sweet
voice what he heard was a deep voice of some guy.
“Lagta hai wrong number lag gaya” he thought and said
“Ummm… preeti…… hai…… kya?” half expecting the
other person to say wrong number and hang up on him
“Haan hai na. Lo baat karo” came a reply and kaka was
full confused.
“Lagta hai preeti ka bhai hai” kaka thought. The next
voice he heard was the familiar sweet voice of Preeti
“Hey kaka. I am so sorry. It was not my idea. I am so
sorry”
“Are nahi Preeti sorry ki koi baat nahi. Main to bas yeh
pooch raha tha ki kitni……….” this is when kaka paused
and processed the last sentence of Preeti.”It was not my
idea?? What does that mean”. He was still deciphering
those cryptic words when the deep voiced guy was back
on the line again.
“Ka be chirkut. Kaisi lag rahi hai dilli”
Kaka was dumbfounded. He couldn’t process what was
going on.
“Batao na be. Chup kyon ho gaye IITK ke sher”
Kaka still blank
“Kya hua? McD pasand nahi aaya kyaa??”
Then it struck him. He knew this voice. He had known it
for the past 2 years and heard it everyday.
“Haddi!!! tu????”
This is when kaka heard a laugh-riot erupt on the other
end of the line and kaka knew what had happened. He
had been super played. After the laugh riot died down
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kaka ended up giving all kinds of gaalis he knew to
Haddi on the phone. Haddi somehow made sure Neha
(Playing the role of preeti) did not hear those. After kaka
had exhausted his repetoire, he calmed down and
managed a meek smile
“Hehe”
“Sorry yaar kaka. Main soch raha tha ki tujhe dilli na
bheje but when I heard ki tu aaj tak dilli nahi gaya hai to
I decided to let it go”
“Hehe. Saale Haddi…. tu bahut kamina hai”
“Sorry yaar kaka. Here….. “Preeti” se baat karo” and
Haddi handed over the phone to Neha
“I am so sorry kaka. I hope you don’t take it the wrong
way. It was all in good spirit.”
“It’s ok Neha. Haddi is right. now I can actually see
some delhi”
“Ok kaka. Try and have fun there. See you when you
are back”
“Ok bye Neha” and he cut the phone. Kaka paid the
money, got out of the STD, Stood outside for a while,
Shook is head, Smiled, said
“Good one” and moved on. Delhi was waiting for him.
The atmosphere in Haddi’s room was riotous. More
people kept pouring in as soon as they heard what had
transpired. Everyone would first laugh, then tell Haddi
“Tu bahut kamina hai”
And then start laughing again. By 12:00 pm everyone in
the hostel seemed to be aware of the act. This is when
Neha and Aneesha decided it was time for them to go
get an assignment done.
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”Accha Rohit main abhi chalti hoon. Aneesha and I will
see you at 4 in the CC canteen?”
“Ok Neha” Replied Haddi. He and Untees then Dropped
off both of them to the library.
After coming back, the entire gang had lunch together
(Sans Kaka who was in Delhi). Lunch was particularly
fast. Especially for Haddi, who used to take atleast 3035 min to finish his lunch, finished his lunch in 15 min
flat. While everyone else was oblivious of this, Mariyal
was not. He was also not oblivious of the fact that Haddi
was in some deep thought. As soon as they got out of
the mess, Mariyal went upto Haddi and asked
“Kyon be? Kyaa gadbad hai??”
Haddi opened his mouth as if to contradict Mariyal but
then ate his words. He and Mariyal then took a walk and
then Haddi started explaining
“Mariyal, I think I have fallen in love. Mujhe Neha bahut
pasand hai. I wanna spend the rest of my life with her”
Mariyal laughed for 5 min after this and then calmed
down when he realized Haddi was being serious
“Are saale sarke hue ho kya? Acche se aish kaat rahe
ho, mast lift rok ke make out kar rahe ho. Yeh sab rest
of my life wali thought kahan se aa gayi tumhare
dimaag main?”
“Yaar. I know what you mean. Mujhe yeh bhi pata hai ki
this might appear as an overtly infatuated act by a
young guy who probably doesnt even know what he is
talking about. But it’s not like that. Maine aaj tak bahut
ladkiyon ke saath timepass kiya hai but never once i felt
like stopping. All i could think when i was with those
girls was how i will get rid of her. Not with Neha, when I
am with her i feel oblivious to everything. I am not
thinking about getting rid of her but doing more and
more things with her. So although it may appear that i
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am rushing, i am not. I strongly believe in this and i
think we can grow together.”
“Pata nahi saale. This just seems a bit pre-mature”
Mariyal expressed his difference of opinion
“Pre-mature! Accha to ek baat batao. Tum reena se
kyon milte rahe even after she said you were a thief and
almost got you caught by SIS and got you suspended?”
”I don’t know shaayad isliye ki main bach gaya and I
didn’t have anyone else to focus on. Plus she is sexy”
Mariyal defended himself
“Anyone else to focus on!! What about the 4 girls that
have been emailing you to meet them at CR for the
past 3 weeks? You have been with this girl for the past 2
months dude, dont tell me it was the lack of someone
else, it was the presence of her”
“Yeah I dont know I just don’t feel the need for someone
else. She is all I need” replied Mariyal.
“Exactly. Mujhe bhi yehi lagta hai. I don’t feel the need
for someone else. Neha is all I need. Dekh Mariyal I
have been in situation like your’s. I mean not the being
shouted a chor by the girlfriend part but the part where
you just go along meeting people and letting them go
because you think there will be something better along
the way but the key to know where to stop. And I think I
am going to stop on Neha“
Haddi said that and took out a ring from his pocket.
“I am going to tell her what i feel and am going to give
her this ring as a token of my commitment. It’s her
birthday today. What better day to do this than today”
Mariyal was dumbfounded. He didn’t know what to say.
His mind was more focused on the stopping at the right
person part rather than the ring nuke Haddi had just
dropped.
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“Do i really like Reena? Why haven’t I moved on? I
generally dont last this long with anybody. Damn I think
I like her. Should I tell her?? Yes I should tell her.” was
what Mariyal thought within that split second. As for
Haddi’s argument, all he could muster was a short
“Good luck”
After which both of them came back to the hostel and
decided to take a short nap in Champak’s room. By the
time Haddi woke up it was already 3:30 pm. Haddi
freshened up, put on the best clothes he had and started
walking towards the CC canteen with Untees. He was a
bit nervous but at the same time very confident. His
conviction was a result of profound thought which made
him very positive about what he was going to do. Untees
was also doing quiet a good job of keeping him pumped
up for his meeting. The venue of the meet was CC
canteen. A small canteen located right next to the
computer center, it was one of the hip places of IITK
and was visited by quiet a big crowd everyday. Neha
had decided to call a small group of friends there to
celebrate her Bday in style. That small group consisted
of Aneesha, Untees, Haddi and a few more of her female
friends from the class. As soon as Haddi and Untees
reached the CC canteen, they saw a gathering of some
10 odd people sitting in a circle around a table just
outside the canteen. Haddi was expecting him and
Untees to be the only guys there, however he was
surprised to see 2 guys already a part of the
circle. Haddi had played the whole scenario in his mind
like a thousand times since Neha had told her that she
was going to have a party in the CC canteen. He had
decided to wait till the moment Neha cut her cake and
after that he was going to take over the stage and
announce in front of everyone that he was madly in love
with Neha and put a ring on her. His imagination had
been so vivid that he could hear the ”Awww’s” from all
of Neha’s female friends after he had finished his thing.
He hadn’t anticipated two guys involved in the scene
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anywhere. Spooked, Haddi fumbled for a second and
then just decided to let it go
“Saale bhai honge kisi ke”
Both of them sat on the empty chairs around the table.
Untees started making acquaintances with everyone.
Haddi however was just focused on Neha. He looked all
across the table but couldn’t see her anywhere.
Apparently She had gone inside the canteen to get
something. Within a few she came back with a glass of
water in her hands. As soon as Haddi looked at her his
conviction became even stronger and he started feeling
ever more confident about her. Neha came and sat on a
chair next to one of the guys after saying a weak hello
to Haddi and Untees. Haddi felt jealous for a second but
calmed himself down
“Chill. Bhai hai woh” he consoled himself.
Neha was avoiding looking at Haddi. She was talking to
everyone else but him. She also appeared to be a little
bit stressed out from the looks of it. Haddi however
couldn’t stop staring at her. From the time she had
came back and sat on the table, All Haddi looked at was
her and all he thought about was his future with her. He
checked the ring in his pocket and took it out in his left
hand. Untees saw him do that and wished him luck in
his mind. This is when the guy sitting next to Neha
Spoke
“Hey Neha, Mehmaano se milaogi nahi?”
The color on Neha’s face disappeared. She nodded her
head lightly, pointed her hands towards Haddi and said
“This is Rohit, One of my very good friends and a
student of IITK”
The guy stood up and put forth his hand to shake
Haddi’s. Haddi Reciprocated and held out his hand.
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“Hi My name is Yuvraaj. Yuvraaj Singh. I am Neha’s
fiance”
Haddi’s face drained. He dropped in his chair like a stone
in water while the guy continued around the table
making acquaintances. Haddi’s eyes became red and
two pearly teardrops appeared at their corners. He then
stared with those eyes towards Neha for the next 40
min.
“Why? Why? Why?” The eyes shouted. For a split second
during that interval Haddi felt like telling Yuvraaj how
Neha had played with him. He wanted to shout. But then
a voice in his mind calmed him down.
“You loved her right. If at all your love was true and you
have an iota of respect for it, let it go. Drink this ocean
of sadness. Don’t drown her in it”
Untees also had gotten the hint as to not speak anything
in this regard. He however spent the entire time ripping
apart whatever yuvraaj said. By the time the party got
over, Haddi was completely drained. He couldn’t think
anymore. All he wanted to do was to just go to the
hostel and disappear.
“Untees. I want to be alone for a while” said Haddi As
soon as the crowd dispersed and Untees tried to console
him. Untees got the point and decided to let him go. As
Haddi was dissolving in the horizon, Untees’s eye went
on a shiny object that seemed to call out to him from
within all the dust that was embracing it. Haddi knelt
down and cleaned the dust when he realized what it
was. It was the ring Haddi was going to give to Neha.
Untees picked it up and kept it in his pocket. He then
decided to go to the computer center with Aneesha.
Untees was extremely distraught with what had
happened. He held off his questions upto the point both
him and Aneesha were in the computer center and had
logged into the computers
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“Aneesha what was all that? Did you know this?”
Aneesha hesitated and then replied
“Yes I did. But I couldn’t tell. Neha had made me
promise not to tell any of this to you or Haddi. She said
woh handle kar legi yeh”
“Did you see how she handled it? She broke his heart
damn it. Do you know what this is?” Untees held out the
ring and continued “He was going to propose her. This
ring was in his hands when all this happened”. Although
Untees was typing away at the computer his mind was
not at all on it, he was very disturbed about what had
happened. In his anger, he was oblivious to the fact that
he had logged in and out of his yahoo account for the
4th time now. He logged in for the fifth time, then
turned towards Aneesha and asked
“Why did she do this?”
Aneesha Sighed then said
“Neha is from a joint family. They are very conservative.
They wouldn’t even let Neha wear a jeans. She can
hardly do anything she likes. Did you know she loves
dancing? But she can’t do it because as per her parents
it’s a taboo. You know woh sirf 18 ki thi jab she got
engaged? And it’s not a shaadi, it’s a business deal.
Yuvraaj’s family and Neha’s family together makes a lot
of business sense. That’s all there is to them. she joined
the course in IITK just to get away from all this. She had
to take permission from Yuvraaj to do this. When she
joined and met Rohit that’s when she actually started
living. She felt alive with him. That’s why she didn’t tell
him. You can call this selfish but imagine yourself in a
situation where the entire life looks like a compromise to
you and you can’t do anything about it. In that situation
if you meet someone who makes you oblivious to
everything else, wouldn’t you take that opportunity even
if you knew it might be unpleasant in the end? Main
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justify nahi kar rahi hoon jo Neha ne kiya but I want you
to get the whole picture. She is also hurt. She is living
like a soul less body. Don’t think she is happy!! She did
think about telling Haddi about all this, but she just
couldn’t muster enough strength to do that.”
Untees heard all this quietly. Anger was still seething in
him but at some level everything Aneesha said made
some sense.
“God i need a cigarette” he thought.
“I will be right back” he said to Aneesha and started
walking towards the ShopC to get a cigarette from the
paanwaala. He was just turning across the photocopy
center in ShopC when he saw Mariyal and Axle coming
out of it.
“Abe Mariyal sutta rakhe ho??”
“Nahi be Untees saala mujhe bhi bahut zaroorat hai. Aao
paanwaale se lete hai”
“Suttebaaj saale dono ke dono” Said Axle as he started
following the two.
Both of them hurried towards the paanwala. They
crossed the medicine shop and turned left to land in the
paanwaala’s shop when a familiar face became visible to
both Mariyal and Untees
“Hey Reena!!” Said Mariyal
“Hey Ankita!!” Said Untees, Simultaneously. The girl in
question who had been quietly sipping on a navy cut at
the paanwaala’s shop looked in surprise at the trio.
Untees and Mariyal looked at each other with utter
shock. They had been played. Reena and Ankita were
the same girl. The girl had been two timing Haddi and
Mariyal with extreme elegance.
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”So basically what you said in the email yesterday was
just a part of the game right” Shouted Untees on the
girl.
“No Untees, I really like you. Sorry Mariyal” she said
while giving a quick glance to Mariyal.
”Tum kitni kamini ho!! Just an hour ago you said you
loved me. Saala main bhi Haddi ki baaton main aake
kyaa kyaa soch gaya. I was actually becoming serious
about you!!” replied a furious Mariyal
The girl ignored his remarks and continued talking to
Untees who was loosing it now
”Mariyal is my past. Whatever I had with him was just
physical. I want you to be my future.”
“Future!! You are a disgrace!!! Whatever we had was
just physical. Consider me a part of your past from this
very second kamini. God knows why I was with you.”
Untees said this with as much rudeness as possible and
then turned around to go back to the CC when he saw
two teary eyes staring at him. It was Aneesha.
Apparently she had followed Untees to the ShopC
Untees froze. He mumbled something like
“Aneesha…….. Tu….Tumm?”
“Haan main. Thank you so much for leaving your email
account open for me” she then glanced towards the girl
smoking the navy cut and continued
“Thank you so much for emailing him. Agar main woh
email nahi padhti I would have never have gotten
furious, never followed Untees here and never would
have heard him say these words.” She then directed all
her anger towards Untees and said
“You are no different than Neha Untees. In fact tum
usse do kadam aur gire hue ho. You are ……….” She
155
couldn’t continue anymore. The tears were
overwhelming her now. She managed one final shout
and said to Untees
“Don’t you dare!! Don’t u dare contact me. We are
DONE!!” and stormed off from ShopC. A few people had
accumulated by now behind Mariyal, Untees and Axle
(who were still looking at Aneesha walking away) and
seen everything unfold. A guy with spectacles broke
away from the spaectators and moved towards the navy
cut girl
“Manika!! Chalo yahan se!!!!”
The girl looked at the man in surprise and said
“Dad! Aap yahan!!”
The trio turned around to see a familiar face dragging
away the Navy cut girl from the paanwaala. The familiar
face was that of Prof Roy and he was staring at the
three of them as if saying
“I will make sure you do not pass the course”
The trio returned straight to the hostel afterwards.
Untees was extremely despondent but Mariyal was a bit
better and atleast managing a bit of a smile. Axle
decided to leave them alone and went straight to
hangout with Chashmish, Vodka and Champak. There an
exchange of the day’s incidents took place and everyone
concluded that it probably wasn’t the best day for
anything remotely romantic.
“Pata hai aaj hum logo ko kyaa karna chahiye??” said
Axle
“Kyaa?” Chashmish asked
“Aaj jo hai community center main shaadi hai. Chalte hai
wahan aur mast khaana kha ke aate hai. Kyaa bolte
ho?” Axle replied. Since it was already dinner time and
156
the food menu in the mess was really pathetic he hardly
faced any objection. Shortly thereafter all 4 of them had
wore their best clothes and walked towards the
community center. After a tiring 15 min walk, they
reached the community center where a loud
“Aaj mere yaar ki shaadi hai” greeted them.
They made a graceful entry inside and saw a banner
hanging overhead which said
“Sanket weds Tanya”
All of them moved straight to the dining area and
hogged an awful lot of food. While they were eating
around, Chashmish heard somebody say
“….. Bhag kar shaadi kar rahi hai ladki…….. Sanket ko
maanana padega!! He didn’t give up….. Inspite of
knowing that the situation was a bit complex he kept
wooing her… and see finally sab sahi ho gaya”
“Haan Bhaisahab sahi keh rahe hai aap….. Aajkal ke
maa baap ko samajhna chahiye ki zamaana thoda badal
gaya hai……. Ladka ladki aajkal vivaah tod dete hai….
baal vivaah kahan se tik payega….!!”
Their voice was drowned by
“Dil to paagal gai… dil deewana hai”
This is when Axle decided it was time to do his thing.
“Chalo be stage pe kaun chal raha hai mere saath” He
asked
“Chalo hum chalte hai” replied a super brave
Chashmish.
The stage was a full 100 feet away from the dining area
and with all the people in the way it took a full 10 min
for the two of them to get to the stage. There was a
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queue of 4-5 people in order to wish the bride and the
groom. Axle and Chashmish went and stood behind
them. In order to pass time they started oggling here
and there passing comments on people.
“Saale Chashmish… who mote uncle ko dekh rahe ho…
tum saale bade ho ke waise hi lagoge” cheeked Axle as
he slyly pointed towards a rotund guy
“Accha…. Aur tum jo hai us aunty jaise lagoge”
Chashmish responded by pointing towards a lady
standing next to the rotund guy.
This back and forth continued for the next 5 min after
which their turn to go on the stage came. Both of them
went up in style. Axle said hello to the Groom and then
moved on to the bride. As soon as he saw her face, his
color vanished. The girl was Tanya, his Tanya. Axle
blanked out. His smile disappeared. He couldn’t think
what to do.
“Should I shout? Should I let everyone know that this is
the girl I love and she is going away from me? Should I
hit the groom?? What should I do?”
While Axle stood there dumbfounded, the girl kept
looking at him with her big black eyes pleading not to do
anything. Some time later the people around them
asked them to pose for a picture and made all of them
stand in a formation. Axle stood next to Tanya as she
whispered
“I love this guy very much. Family pride se Zindagi nahi
chalti. Please understand. You are my childhood friend”
She pleaded.
The people around the stage were oblivious of the
situation and very busy photographing. After a quick
snap both of them got down from the stage and got out.
Chashmish was still unaware of what had transpired and
was busy fooling around.
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“Us uncle ko tum pasand aa gaye ho be Axle”
But Axle wouldn’t reply. He was still in a state of shock.
Chashmish grasped that something was very wrong. He
grabbed Vodka and champak and left the community
center along with Axle. As soon as they went outside
Axle went Hysterical and detailed the situation to
everyone. Everyone unanimously agreed that it wasn’t
safe to be in that area as Axle was extremely volatile
and decided to head back to the hostel. It took a lot of
convincing from vodka, Chashmish and Champak to get
him to calm down when they made their way back from
the community center. However inspite of all their
efforts Axle was in a zombie state on reaching the
hostel. When inside, they started looking for Haddi,
Untees and Mariyal but couldn’t find them anywhere.This
is when Vodka realized they had missed a very obvious
place, the roof.
The roof was a mini bar today. Haddi, Untees and
Mariyal had already drank 8 bottles of beer and had 10
more lined up. Chashmish recounted Axle’s story and
instantly Axle was handed over 2 bottles. They cursed,
they broke bottles, and they cried and in the end passed
out on the rooftop.
The wind had no inkling of the storms that had passed
by today. It kept meandering on the roof where two
eyes stayed open a little longer than the others. They
stared at the sky for a while when the stars became too
hazy due to tears which came in between.
“What a day!!”
Sighed Haddi, closed his eyes and went to sleep.
159
THE MOTIVATOR
The tale of the dreaded events of yesterday echoed
throughout IITK within a single night. Some laughed,
some were shocked but none of them understood the
full repurcutions of the events as well as the six of them.
To add to the complexity of the problem all of them had
the CHM201 end term tomorrow. With Prof. Roy now
explicitly against them all of them had to be extremely
careful in giving the paper with as much preparation as
possible. Unfortunately Chashmish was probably the
only guy in the group who had the awareness to actually
think that far ahead. With kaka absent from the picture,
Chashmish had expected a little bit more support from
Vodka. But as soon as he went and started talking to
him about exams and stuff, vodka asked
“Why do you u think I have the motivation right now to
study chemistry right now? Why do you think I have the
strength to convince others to do the same?”
“Saale Vodka. Tum apne aap ko Haddi aur Untees ki
situation se compare kar rahe ho?? Saala hua kya hai
tumhe?”
“Chashmish, just because main kal aawaz nahi kar raha
tha it doesn’t mean I am perfectly fine. I broke up with
my girlfriend yesterday night!!! She was being a bitch.
Now you get it!! Just leave me alone”
Chashmish was shocked. Vodka had been extremely
discreet yesterday in order to be supportive to his
friends but his patience seemed extremely broken
today. Chashmish decided it was in his best interest to
leave him alone. None of the others were awake and he
was hungry so he decided to go and have breakfast in
the mess. He took some scrambelled eggs, made some
sandwichs and sat down on a table.
“How is everyone?”
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Chashmish looked up to see who had asked him the
question and saw Charu gupta sitting on the same table
eating breakfast. Normally Chashmish wouldn’t have
replied him but he seriously felt like talking to
somebody.
“They are bad. Lagta nahi kal koi pass ho payega.
Seems tough. Everyone is very despondent. And the
thing I am worried about is that all of them are gonna
get their degree extended. I am sure none of them are
capable of it but I don’t want anyone of them to jump
off the roof. They are all too precious to me”
Charu heard everything very patiently then said
“Everything will be fine” and went away.
“Ghanta Everything will be fine!!” Chashmish rejected
Charu’s pep talk, finished his breakfast and went back to
his wing. He felt like taking a shower and instantly
headed towards the bathroom where the first shower
seemed occupied. Chashmish was crossing the first
shower when he realized the shower door was open. He
peeped in and saw Haddi lying there with water flowing
on his legs. Chashmish sprung into action. He called out
to Champak who was roaming in the wing. Both of them
dried up Haddi and put him on a bed in his room. Bhola
was instructed not to leave him out of his sight. Bhola
agreed and took responsibility of him. As soon as both
of them got out of Haddi’s room they saw Untees
wavering in the wing.
“Aee Chashmish. Yeh le paisa. Jaa ke beer le ke aa”
Untees caught hold of Chashmish and inserted a 500
rupee note in his pocket. He then collapsed and puked in
the corridor. Chashmish and Champak took him to the
bathroom, made him gargle and then made him sleep in
his room. Untees’s roommate too was instructed not to
let him out of his sight. In order to prevent any further
catastrophe, Champak and Chashmish went into Axle’s
room to make sure he was ok. They found Mariyal
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sleeping in his room and Axle typing away at fervent
pace on his computer. Chashmish asked Axle how
Mariyal was
“Woh theek hai. Don’t worry about him”
“Tum kyaa kar rahe ho Axle?”
“I am hacking Tanya’s yahoo account. I need to know
how this all began.”
“Axle humein nahi lagta tumhe yeh sab karna chahiye”
“Chashmish! Get out! I am fine!!”
Chashmish felt offended but Champak dragged him out
of them and asked him to be a bit sensible. Chashmish
got the point and decided to let it go. He suddenly
remembered about the chm201 exam tomorrow and
decided to go and study something.
“Atleast main kuchh padh loonga to yeh log mujhse copy
kar ke kuchh to marks le hi aayenge” Chashmish
thought. When he couldn’t find his notes and books he
recalled that he may have left them in vodka’s room. He
started approaching towards vodka’s room when he saw
a bonfire in front of vodka’s room and vodka throwing a
bunch of stuff in it. Chashmish ran towards the bonfire
and found it to be burning books and notebooks. Vodka
had burnt all books and notebooks in his room. That
included the notes and CHM201 books Chashmish had
forgotten in his room. Chashmish was disappointed. His
heart was burning but he couldn’t say why. Whether it
was the disheartening condition of friends or whether it
was the impending fakka he couldn’t tell. But he knew
with each passing second that if he didn’t do something
everyone would have their degrees extended.
“Think saale think” Chashmish pressed himself and then
got a gem of a idea. He picked up Bhola’s cycle and
headed straight towards the girl’s hostel. He reached
there in 5 minutes flat. Entered the hostel and started
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asking around for Avantika singh. One kind girl told him
her room number. Chashmish went and knocked on her
door, Avantika opened the door and asked
“Yes???”
She knew Chashmish but was not on the best of terms
with him.
“Avantika, tumne pichle sem CHM201 ka course kiya tha
na?? Mujhe tumhare lecture notes chahiye. I know you
archive every note that you ever take. So I know you
have those notes. I need them”
“I don’t have them. Aur agar honge bhi to main tumhe
nahi doongi. Kyon doon aakhir main tumhe?”
“Tum mujhe woh notes isliye dogi kyonki agar tumne
mujhe woh notes nahi diye to main sabko bata doonga
ki you subscribe to porn stories”
Chashmish almost hushed the last two words. Avantika’s
eyes widened as soon as she heard those words. She
thought for a bit them went in her room and then came
back with a thick copy.
“I will need this back and I need you to promise that you
won’t tell anyone”
“Deal”
Said Chashmish and headed straight to the library where
he sat mugging up the entire copy.
As soon as afternoon came in the gang in the hostel
woke up. They arranged for the daaru, settled on the
rooftop and started drinking, by the time it became
evening all of them were super drunk. It was at this
time that a guy with bandaged arm and head walked
onto the roof. He went up to the guys and asked
“Yeh tum log kyaa kar rahe ho”
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Everyone ignored him for a few, when he repeated his
question, Haddi looked up and said
“Tum to wahi ho na jo is roof se neeche koode the??
Yahan kyaa kar rahe ho?? Phir se koodne aaye ho kyaa?
Dhakka de tumhe??”
The guy ignored Haddi’s question and continued
“I thought you guys promised not to miss any classes
this semester and here you are about to miss
tomorrow’s exam. Is this how you respect a promise??”
“Abe suno bhaashan mat do. Yeh lo daaru peeyo.”
Untees extended a bottle of beer to the guy.
“Guys. You need to get up. You need to pass tomorrow’s
exam else your degree is going to get extended”
“Tum ho kaun yaar. Kyon bole jaa rahe ho.”
“I am sikandar” The guy said
“Sikandar!! Tum!!” Axle scoffed “Sikandar is not a loser”
“If I tell you that I had used a 512 bit encryption on the
worm that I used to break the CC security would you
then believe me”
Axle fell silent
“Guys he is telling the truth, he is Sikandar”
Sikandar then continued
“I have helped a lot of you guys. I have never asked
anything in return. The only thing I do ask is for all of
you to get in your senses and study for tomorrow”
“Don’t worry dude, we are not losers like you. We won’t
jump off the roof in case we get a fakka”
Sikandar stood silently for a second, then said
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“Is that what you guys think?? Do you think I jumped off
because I got a fakka??”
“Yes” everyone responding in unison
“Guys!! I have cancer. I couldn’t take the pain anymore.
That’s why I jumped. Grades have nothing to do with it.
Please treasure the life you have. You can fail, you can
get your degrees extended but you can also prevent
that. It is your responsibility to do that. I have said
enough. You guys can now decide what to do” and he
walked away.
Everyone on the roof was dumbfounded. Here was a guy
who was standing in front of them even after jumping
from a roof and having cancer and here they were
cribbing and crying about some girls who didn’t care.
They looked at each other and gave a slight nod. Haddi
was the first one to speak.
“Guys!! We need to get up.”
Everyone complied. They somehow rolled down to the
first floor and took a hot shower. Champak requested
hot coffees for all of them from the canteen. All of them
drank it and started coming back to their senses. This is
when kaka came rolling in with a backpack on his back
and saw 5 guys wrapped in sheets drinking hot coffee in
the corridor.
“What did I miss??” he said while looking down at all of
them.
Champak filled Kaka in on the events of the last 2 days.
Kaka was shocked. He consoled all of them. After he
was done he looked here and there and asked
“Where is Chashmish??”
Chashmish was in the library studying at a fervent pace.
He had finished mugging up 60% of Avantika’s notes
and was still chugging along. Avantika’s notes were
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quiet impressive. She had categorized important topics
separately which had made things real easy for
Chashmish. Chashmish studied for 30 more min after
which he became tired and hungry. As it was dinner
time also, Chashmish decided to run to the hall and grab
some dinner. He also decided to check on his drunkard
friends while he was at it. Chashmish went to the hostel
and went straight to the wing. Unfortunately no one was
there. Confused, Chashmish went on the roof to check if
everyone was there drinking. No success. He then went
to the mess and saw his gang sitting there hogging on
food. After a quick meet and greet. Chashmish went and
grabbed food and sat down on the table besides kaka.
Everyone was busy eating.
“Kyon be kaka?? How did all of them come into their
senses? Was that you??”
“Nahi be. It was sikandar”
Kaka recounted the event from the rooftop exactly the
way he had heard it from Champak. By the time he was
finished, Chashmish was full impressed by sikandar.
“Us bande main saala kuchh to baat hai. He might have
just saved all of their degrees from getting extended.
But one thing I am not sure, who went and called
sikandar??”
“It was me” came a voice from someone sitting on
Chashmish’s other side. Chashmish turned to see who it
was and what he saw surprised him. It was Charu.
“You???? Really?? But I thought you didn’t like any of
us” Chashmish asked.
“I still don’t. But I don’t want anymore people jumping
off of the roof in this IIT. It spoils the name of the IIT
aur agar IIT ka naam kharaab ho jaeyga to meri acchi
placement nahi hogi” “typical Charu. His benevolence
too has an ulterior selfishness” Chashmish thought.
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Charu smiled a bit when he figured what Chashmish was
thinking and continued.
“I may not like you guys, but that doesn’t mean I won’t
help you guys when I can. All I did was a phone call.
And yes please don’t tell Untees and Haddi that I was
the one behind this. I kinda like the cold war with them”
Chashmish agreed. This was the least he could do for
someone who had helped initiate the cascade that had
gotte his friends out of trouble.
All of them finished their dinner and got out of the mess.
Everyone seemed to be in their senses now. Most of
them were still having trouble walking in a straight line
but were in a condition where they could study which ia
all that Chashmish cared about at that time. He wanted
all of them to just mug up the chemisty and vomit it
tomorrow in the exam. Axle caught up to Chashmish as
he started making his way towards his wing and said
“Hey Chashmish, I am sorry for shouting at you in the
morning.”
Chashmish smiled and said
“Saale I will accept your sorry only if you study properly
tonight. Now let’s go”
All of them headed towards the library. They had a lot of
stuff to cover in one night. Exam was at 8 o’clock
tomorrow morning. It was pretty apparent that they
wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight and will have to
give the exam on an all nighter. Chashmish took the role
of a lecturer as soon as they started studying as he was
the one who was by far the most ahead. He made
everyone read all the important sections of the notes. By
4:00 am everyone had finished looked at the entire
course atleast once which was by far their best condition
before an exam. They began their second iteration at
4:30 and finished it by 7:00 am. All of them were very
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hungry by that time and decided to go to the mess to
have a quick breakfast. After a quick snack they were
heading towards L-7 in order to give their exam. They
went and settled in the last row of L-7 with Chashmish
in the middle and everyone else spread uniformly
around him. At 7:55 the teaching assistants of prof. Roy
came in and distributed blank answer sheets to
everyone. At 8:00 prof. Roy entered the lecture hall and
gave thick question papers to the Teaching assistants to
be distributed. By the time question paper got to
Chashmish, he had already realized that the paper was
extremely tough based on the dejected expression on
the faces of people in front of him. The same
expressions came on his face as soon as he saw the
question paper. It was 26 pages long!! Prof. Roy had
apparently put in all his efforts to make sure none of
them passed the course. Chashmish regained his calm
after a few minutes of panic and started reading the
question paper. Although it was lengthy and confusing
the core questions were not that hard. It was just a
matter of quickly interpreting them. He started solving
the questions and within a matter of minutes he knew
he can make it which automatically meant his friends
could also make it. Although there was a gap of one seet
in between, Chashmish started whispering question
numbers, a brief approach to solving the problems and
the final answers to the people sitting next to him. The
people sitting next to him did the same which ensured
that everyone in the group knew how to solve the
problems and what the expected answers were. All of
them had studied at least that much to ensure they
could get the answer somehow. Three hours went in a
jiffy. Although none of them could finish the papers in
full, they didn’t care. They had solved enough questions
to make sure that they were in the green. All of them
got out and gave a grand treat to Chashmish in the
canteen. All of them were sure they had passed. All they
needed to do now was to wait for the results. They
didn’t have to wait long, at around 1pm they received an
email from Prof Roy asking them to come and pick up
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their copied from his TA’s room at 11am tomorrow.
When tomorrow came and all of them picked up their
copies, they were not a wee bit surprised to see that the
professor had done relentless checking. Partial marking
was non-existant. He had either given full marks or no
marks at all.
“Saala kyaa grading kiya hai be yeh” Axle was found
cribbing.
“By god. Saala waat lag li hai” Chashmish added.
Untees, Haddi and kaka were busy convincing the TA to
let out the class average. The TA initially resisted but
then let slip that all of them were just below class
average which basically meant all of them were on a
Cikka and dikka border. Untees gave a sigh of relied
when he heard that. He just wanted a dikka and wanted
to get over with this course. Everyone else mirrored his
feelings. The TA also let it know that the professor was
going to grade in the afternoon and will be submitting
the F list by 4 o’clock so everyone who felt they were at
risk should go and check it out on the notice board by
4:30pm. All of them had initially ignored this part of his
announcement but revisited it when Mariyal expressed
his concern while they were having lunch
“Hum logo ko fakke ki list dekhne jaana padega”
“Kahe be Mariyal. Saala cool cool cikka, dikka aayega
apna. Fakke par to ab hum kahin se kahin tak nahi hai”
Untees replied matter of factly.
“Untees don’t you remember the day he saw us in the
ShopC. I could see hatred raining out of his eyes.
Additionally I m not sure he made such a difficult
question paper and did ridiculous grading not to fail
everyone. Mere khayaal se hum log mast chal ke sote
hai abhi. We’ll get up and just go see it. Kuchh bigad
nahi jaega hum logo ka. This way we’ll be sure that we
are through.”
169
Mariyal’s argument found a lot of support. After a short
nap the gang was found waking towards the academic
area towards the doom board.
THE FAKKA
170
Haddi found himself in the same situation as he was two
months ago. He was walking beneath the same concrete
pathway watching the same pillars pass through.
However there was a major difference in play here. The
difference was that of the mindset. Haddi was much
more positive as compared to the last time when he was
almost depondent. Also Unlike the last time when he
had a bunch of people who were not in the same
situation, he was surrounded by people who were in the
same situation as him. Axle however was being equally
annoying as before
“Saala cikka lag raha hai be mera to. Koi tension hi nahi
hai. Mast satti lag jaegi iske baad. Haan ek star lag
jaega grade sheet par but who cares. Kyon be Vodka
kyaa kehte ho”
“Maarenge mar jaoge Axle. Tir-tir band karo. Saala
fakke ki list dekhne jaa rahe hai aur isko saali cikke ki
padi hai bloody chirkut”
Axle ignored vodka’s comments and continued talking.
However since others had a similar attitude as Vodka’s,
he ended up getting kicked by a lot of people which
eventually made him shut up. They were pretty close to
reaching the Notice board when they saw Bhola coming
from the other side with his sister and Father. They had
come to visit the campus and Bhola was showing them
around. As Bhola came closer he said hi to all of them
and started making introductions
“Dad, Yeh hai Rohit. My roommate” he said pointing
towards Haddi. Haddi reciprocated with a quick Namaste
to the uncle and then went on to say hello to his sister
whose eyes were already widened.
“Hi my name is Rohit. And you are??”
“Hi, I am Geeta.” She kept looking at Haddi and then
whispered
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“Bhaiya, if you don’t mind can I ask you a question?”
“Yeah yeah sure Geeta”
“Do you know any Neha from Kanpur??”
Haddi was surprised to hear that question. If it had been
somebody else his first instinct would have been to snap
but this was an innocent little girl. He decided to handle
it a bit gently
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Are woh na bhaiya I think maine Aneesha ka cellphone
khareeda tha. You know Aneesha??” Haddi nodded as
Geeta continued
“Haan to her messages were not deleted, I read the
messages and figured you and Neha were together. I
can’t believe I am actually meeting you in person. Shailli
would be so thrilled.” Geeta almost exuberant now
“How is Neha now?”
Haddi thought for a second and then said
“Hopefully happy” and then moved on. Geeta kept
looking at him as Haddi passed by. She wasn’t sure
what he meant but decided to let it go and say hello to
the rest of the group.
“If Rohit is here, prachit has to be nearby”
She didn’t have to search for long. The next person to
come and say hello to her was Prachit.
“Hello Geeta, I am Prachit”
“Hello Prachit Bhaiya. It’s very nice to meet you. Bhaiya
can I ask you a question?”
Untees nodded
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“Bhaiya how is Aneesha?” she whispered.
“Hopefully with someone better” Untees replied and
started walking towards the notice board to join Haddi.
Geeta was perplexed, she was expecting a bollywoody
ending to the story she had been constructing but Haddi
and Untees’s replies had got her scratching her head.
She thought for a second then shook her head and said
“Grown ups!! So complicated!!” and moved on to meet
the rest of the group.
The people from the Gang trickled to the notice board as
soon the meet and greet with Bhola’s family was over.
Vodka was sitting at his usual place on the stairs
smoking a gold flake with Haddi and Untees. The list of
fakkas hadn’t come out yet. Chashmish was leaning
against the notice board yawning. He hadn’t slept
properly for the last two days and was very exhausted.
He closed his eyes for a second and had just started to
relax when he heard
“Bhaisahab!! Hatiye zara! Notice board kholna hai”
Chashmish opened his eyes to see an old man holding a
piece of rolled paper under his shoulder and a key in his
hand signaling him to move. Chashmish moved over.
The old man put the roll of paper on the ground and
opened the locked notice board. He then removed the
piece of paper stuck there and put in the new paper. The
updated fakka list had arrived. The old man closed the
notice board and locked it. Everyone else was too tired
to get up so Chashmish was asked to call out the names
of everyone who had failed as he was the one standing
the closest.
“Are kyaa tum log” Chashmish cribbed as he started
going through the list. Inspite of being the summer
semester, the list was pretty big. The first row that
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Chashmish looked had the course listed as “Principles of
chemisty”.
“That’s an inauspicious beginning” Chashmish said to
himself as he scrolled down the list.
“Abe Chashmish jaldi kar na be” Vodka shouted.
“Haan haan kar rahe hai saale. Jyaada phantom na
bano” replied Chashmish as he continued reading. The
first familiar roll number he saw was his own.
“Arggh…… mujhe fakka aa gaya” he shouted
“Saale bakwaas na karo. Agar tumhe fakka aa gaya hai
to hum sab to paas nahi hi honge. Sahi se padho saale
Chashmish” Axle said to him
“Saala Axle mujhe maja nahi aa raha hai yeh sab bolne
main. Aur haan tum sahi keh rahe ho. Tum bhi paas
nahi ho”
Axle was shocked. He got up to see the notice board
himself and sat down again with equal speed as soon he
saw his name on the notice board.
One after the other Chashmish told the names of
everyone in the gang. Unlike Axle though everyone else
took it very calmly. All of them then started walking
back slowly towards the hostel.
“Saala agli baar se main kisi exam ke pahle night out
nahi maroonga. Neend bhi kharaab hui aur fakka bhi aa
gaya. Saala kyaa sense hai. Fakka to aana hi hai, saala
kam se kam dhang se neend to ho jaegi” said Untess
“Hihi” vodka replied with a laugh. He was still sucking on
his gold flake.
“Kismat hi footi hai saali. Lekin koi nahi chalo isi bahane
IIT Kanpur main 6 mahine aur bitaane ko mil jayenge”
added Kaka.
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While six of them were being extremely cheeky and
handling it pretty nicely, Axle seemed super stressed.
He hadn’t said a word while coming back. His behavior
didn’t go un-noticed by kaka who asked him
“Axle saale theek ho??” as soon they entered the hostel.
“Haan kaka theek hai. Chinta mat karo“
“Abe kyaa bolte ho sab log, mast daaru ho jaye” Haddi
called out to everyone.
“Haddi saala kabhi kabhi mast baat bolta hai.
Absolutely, let’s go” replied vodka enthusiastically.
Shortly thereafter, all of them followed the usual
routine. Got some nice daaru from the Beer Shop and
went and settled on the rooftop. It was only 7:00pm.
The sun was setting on the horizon and the west sky
was a gradient of pink and orange. The breeze was
strong as usual. The beer bottles got empty very
quickly. Suprisingly no one was talking about fakka but
mundane fun stuff like they used to do before. Kaka was
holding his bottle of pepsi and defending himself from
being bombarded.
“Kaka saale lekin kuchh bhi keh lo. Saala is pyaar
mohabbatke chakkar main sabse ganda tera kata. I
mean saala tu to dilli chala gaya be”
Laughter, Laughter, laughter
“Saale Haddi, bahut aish kari hai maine dilli main. Kuchh
nahi kata hai mera”
All of them were sitting and laughing when Chashmish
noticed that Axle was missing from the scene. He was
heading towards the ledge at exactly the same place
where Sikandar had jumped from. Chashmish’s head
spun, he didn’t want to see a repeat of that day. He got
up, shouted
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“Axle!!!!” and started running towards him. Everyone
else stopped laughing and looked towards Chashmish.
They saw him running towards Axle at full speed.
Axle turned around to see what the hoopla was all about
and saw Chashmish running at him with full speed. Axle
tried to duck but Chashmish caught him and both of
them fell on the rooftop floor.
“Chashmish saale. Gadhe ho kyaa?? Kaahe kood rahe ho
mere upar??”
“Saale Axle. Ek to tumhari jaan bachayi. Upar se tum
mujhe hi galiya rahe ho”
“Chirkut kahin ke……. Main koi koodne nahi jaa raha
tha.”
With this he got up and faced everyone who were still
trying to understand what was going on
“Everyone….. For the love of god….. For the last time…. I
AM NOT GOING TO JUMP….. Please let me drink beer in
peace” said Axle showing off the bottle of beer in his
hand.
“Axle ek baat bataye” replied Vodka
“Haan bako”
“Tumhari jo beer ki bottle hai na”
“Haan to kyaa??”
“Who khaali ho gayi hai. Chashmish ne saari gira di”
vodka added and started laughing. He was joined by the
others. Axle looked at the others and then looked at his
bottle. It was indeed empty. Disappointed he then
turned towards Chashmish and started cursing him.
Their laughter was broken by a loud
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“Everyone…. Suno be” from Champak who had stepped
on the rooftop.
Everyone slowed done whatever they were doing and
asked Champak why he was shouting.
“Mere paas ek bahut acchi khabar hai”
“Bako. Kyaa hamari degree extend hone se bach gayi?”
Said vodka in a sarcastic tone half expecting to hear a
no.
“Haan Vodka. Haan….. Tum sabki degrees extend hone
se bach gayi hai.”
Everyone was stunned. Axle came running to Champak
and said.
“Saale Champak aisa majak mujhe bilkul pasand nahi
hai. Hum sabka fakka lag gaya hai. Hum log sab dekh ke
aye hai”
“Saale tum log 5 baje dekhe the. Main abhi dekh ke aa
raha hoon”
“How is this possible?” Axle asked looking for an answer
for someone.
“Are hum batate hai” Champak replied.
“Roy gave a fakka to nearly 45% of the class in order to
fail you guys I think. The list that you saw was the
grades that Roy gave. It was not the grades that the
dean of academic affairs approved”
“Grades are approved?” Haddi asked in a surprised tone
“Yes Haddi. Grades have to be approved by the DOAA.
And in this case DOAA asked him to reconsider as the
number of fakkas was too high and the scores of student
weren’t too bad. DOAA called Prof. Roy and said that
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you are letting your personal problem cloud your
judgement. You need to reconsider”
“Ek minute, EK minute. What personal problems?”
Mariyal asked
“Are you guys don’t know?? Prof. Roy’s wife Ran away
with S.R. Jha. “
“What??”
“Haan she was having an affair with him. As you know
S.R. Jha just graduated. The day he left the campus,
Prof. Roy’s wife ran away with him”
Haddi suddenly remembered his cycle rickshaw ride with
Axle and Untees when he had seen S.R.Jha roaming
around with a girl much order than him. Apparently she
was Prof. Roy’s wife.
“God this is twisted” Haddi thought as he heard
Champak continue
“But anyways that’s secondary. So basically DOAA asked
him to submit a revised list. And in that list” Champak
paused and pointed both of his hands outwards
“All of you are absent. Which basically means, all of you
have passed” He almost shouted the last word. He was
joined by the stupendous seven who came together in a
group hug. After 10 minutes of boisterous shouts Haddi
said to vodka.
“So it seems like this is it”
Vodka blew a smoke ring out of his mouth and said.
“Well. You never know. We still have two more years to
go”.
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Well done Sikandar!! Not sure what he did? Catch the
big picture in the Epilogue at
http://www.summeratiitk.com/sikandar
@nikitph