My Student Life - IV

Magar yeh to koi na jaane, ki meri manzil hai kahan...

By the time my graduation was over I had finally started taking my career very seriously, I knew I had to do something exceptionally well to lead my life the way I wanted. How I wished my dad to be a stinking-ly rich person, so that I can just be a spoilt rotten brat enjoying life with all the money that he made, or how i wished to have some distant relative who owned a diamond business somewhere in South Africa, and who named all his property to me in his will. :p

But both of these wishes were not even remotely close to reality... so I had no other choice but to make my own life the hard way. So I decided to do a masters in Computer Science, and took admission in Institute of Management, Research and Technology situated in lovely city of Nasik. Two years spent in Nasik, where I had to start from the scratch as far as my friend count was concerned, are till date the most memorable days of my student life. I enjoyed every bit of it... the fresh air of Nasik, the surrounding hills, drizzling rains, new new friends, hungama at college, the fights and loads of fun.

Going to Nasik, brought a lot of changes in my life. The first and most important one was the sense of freedom. Being away from home brought some home sickness initially but the joy of being on my own was tremendous, suddenly I was not answerable for my day to day activities to anybody but myself, I was not required to be back home in the evening within what is known as 'shareefon ke ghar aane ka samay'. How cool was that?!

In about 6 months of my being there, I met some like minded people, and we soon formed a group of 6 guys, and I really dont know how, but soon we were known as 'The Famous Six' in our institute. What made us famous was perhaps the attitude that we always wore on our sleeves. We dared, challenged and triumphed every thing that came our way.. be it studies, sports, cultural activities, intimidating others and what not.

Every moment spent in and around institute was lived king-size. There were very few moments in those two years when I felt down and out of place. I think there was something in that air of Nasik, which made every moment special celebration of life. The good thing about Nasik is that its a small sleepy town and very pretty. I mean on any given day if you pickup your motor bike, and start riding in any direction out of Nasik, within few minutes you'll be surrounded by beauty of Nature. I don't exactly remember how many times, we suddenly thought of going for an outing and soon found ourselves riding towards one of the nearby places like Trimbak, Someshwar, Vani, Pandavlene, Javhar or Kasara Ghat. Specially in the rainy season, the entire place becomes such a bliss.. it's green everywhere around, there are several waterfalls which just prop up during this season, and the feeling of drizzling rain against your face is simply awesome.

Among the many hilarious, daring, crazy, funny, stupid and enjoyable moments that i spent their, I can never forget this one act we indulged in, which is still one of the most daring, most serious yet extremely joyful and funny experience of my life. Want to know what this act was? then read on...

It was during our preparation leave before the final examinations, and just like every other student on earth, we too had plans to enjoy our preparatory vacations, when one of our Famous Six group told us the problems he and his girlfriend were facing at home, and the only option left with them was to get married secretively. We spent night planning and discussing all possible fallouts of them getting married. Since our Hero was still studying and without any financial stability it would have been a blunder to get married, specially when it was not ruled out that after their marriage they both might be thrown out of their families. But looking at the seriousness of the situation we decided to get our dear friend married. In an extremely secretively carried out mission, we planned everything, right from getting the girl out of her Pune house for two days, to arranging for a priest who'd perform the rituals and a lawyer to get the marriage registered.

On the night before D-day the girl was brought to Nasik, all the way from Pune. She told her parents she was going to Nasik for some project she was working on as a part of her studies. To bring some color to this secret wedding and to ensure that some rituals were followed, we bought a pack of MDH haldi powder, and played Holi with it. That was our way of performing haldi ceremony :o) Next morning with the first ray of light we were in a cab, driving towards temple town of Trimbakeshwara. We had prior appointment with a priest who performed the wedding ceremony. We all were puzzled when the priest asked 'who'll do the kanyadaan?', a few seconds later I sensed that everyone was looking at me and smiling. An answer to priest's question was found... It was fun to perform Kanyadaan of a girl just 1 year younger than me. I am sure, not many people get an opportunity to act as brides father in that age.. hahaha..

Our gift to the newly wed couple was a well decorated room in a hotel, for them to spend their first night. The next morning the couple separated to lead their individual lives as if nothing had happened, the girl was back in Pune and the guy was, well, with us trying to study for exams which were very near. Apart form six of us, and the priest, and the marriage registrar not a single soul on earth knew about this wedding.

Six month later, when our groom had passed the final exam and secured a decent job, the news was broken to their respective families. After some initial hiccups, fortunately the family members agreed, and today the lovely couple is leading a wonderful life.

With the end of my Masters education, I was all set to say bye to being a student and jump in big bad corporate world. Though very soon did I realize that you never stop being a student, never....

I wanted to show the world what I was capable of, and of course I wanted to earn money... My money. "The world is waiting for you" I told myself.