Purani Jeans aur Guitar...
Did I mention in my last article about my school, that apart from being boys-only school, it was also a science-only school. We did not have any art/commerce subjects taught in our school. So in std XII we had to choose between PCM (physics, chemistry, maths) and CBZ (chemistry, biology, zoology)... out of which I had very conveniently chosen PCM simply because I hated biology for it's a very theoretical and less logical subject as compared to physics or maths, and it required a lot of rattafication, of which I was not very fond.
This was a time when I was completely lost and had nothing planned in my head about my career, so I just started following others. Since almost all of my friends were preparing for IIT-JEE, I too followed them and started preparing for engineering. But as I can tell you today in those two years of preparing for engineering, I just wasted my time and did not take care of my studies, and as a result I failed to secure admission to IIT or any other good engineering college. Those years were too depressing, but I don't have anyone else but me to blame for it. Though I also feel that this failure served as a much needed wake-up call for me, and I started collecting pieces of strength from ground.
While preparing for engineering, as a backup I had joined B.Sc. at V.S.S.D. College, primarily because this college was not too strict about the attendance which also suited my engineering entrance exam preparation plan. After I gave-up trying for engineering, I continued with B.Sc. and started attending VSSD college, and very soon I had tens of reasons why I did not want to attend classes at my college regularly. The atmosphere of my college was heavily political. I mean, the guys their.... all they had to discuss was about the student politics, and forthcoming student body elections. Knowing the level of student politics we had in Kanpur University, was enough reason for me to stay away from college. So I started accompanying my friends who were in other colleges like Christchurch and PPN college. These visits to other colleges were purely for fun, and of course for the pretty girls in those colleges.
This was the time that along with B.Sc. I parallelly took admission to NIIT, a computer education institute. I thought it was wise to have some computer knowledge as it would perhaps help me in whatever I do with my career in future. Joining NIIT was a welcome change from my past three dark years academically. I started enjoying studying computer science, and Foxbase became the first software package I learnt programming in and started to communicate with my computer. Though I was supposed to be in NIIT just for 2 hours everyday, 3 days a week, very soon, I started spending a large amount of day there. Everyday I could be found in the computer lab or the so called study room at institute, and the reason was my love for programming..... hell no, I liked programming alright, but the real reason was every two hours the batch would change and so would the pretty girls in each batch. Very soon I knew all pretty girls in almost every batch.
In my own batch there were 3 girls worth mentioning.... two glamourous and one very simple. Among the glamourous, the first was sweet looking Shruti, and the sexy Ruby. The third simple girl was Anu, I'll talk about her a little later. I became friends with the Shruti & Ruby soon, however I never really could think of them as real good friends ever, and I am sure that this feeling was mutual. However I was surprised to know that some other guys thought that I had something going on with Ruby, and a few of them kind of threatened me to stay away from her.
As I was spending most of my time in computer institute I became friends with many people, and a guy named Ashish came up with an idea of starting a club for computer science students like us. Some of us like minded people came together and gave shape to this idea. We named our club Cyber Club. Soon we started signing people studying in various batches in NIIT as members, giving presentations and telling them about our small idea which would turn into something big one day. Thanks to cyber club I became friends with so many guys and oh-So-many girls, that I almost forgot about the 7 year drought I had suffered in school days. The various events that we organized like Quizzes, competitions, dance parties, fete etc. helped me see, interact and "try" to understand girls. Cyber club also gave me some long lasting friends like Vipul, Swati, Nitin and Anu. Yes, Anu the same simple girl in my batch I talked about earlier. Anu, though in same batch as mine, became my friend only after I met Swati, both of them being very close friends. Now Swati is some one whom I can keep writing about. She happens to be my first Girlfriend, and my friend for ever. In fact she is such a sweetheart that calling her just a girlfriend or best friend would be an understatement. Now our group in NIIT... Vipul, Swati, Anu & me did all the craziest things possible, played pranks on people and had a wonderfully wonderful time together. That was a great time.
I remember how this one guy, Siddhant (name changed to protect his identity), was interested in Anu, and his round face became as long as a horse every time Anu called him Siddhant Bhiya... hahaha.. One fine day me and Vipul caught hold of this chap and after a little effort he confessed to us that he had a liking for Anu, and he was so very disappointed with Anu calling him bhaiya. Our dirty minds worked overtime, and we promised him that we'll make Anu not call him bhaiya anymore, but for that he'll have to throw a party and I took upon the responsibility of making sure Anu was there at his party. Within hours the guy was all set to give us a party at the Little Chef restaurant. Me and Vipul conveyed our plan to Anu and Swati, and they were as sporting as always. We all had a great time at this guys expense, and at the end of it he got what we promised him when Anu publicly and very sweetly declared "what bhaiya? Siddhant is a nice friend". With this one statement the poor chap was more than delighted and so were we. I know it was very mean of us to do that to an unsuspecting Siddhant, but all this seemed fun.
There was also this another cute girl whom both me and Vipul noticed and both of us were kind of, you know, eyeing her. She was Anchal. Our combined and strategic efforts to woo her finally paid, and she very soon became friends with us, though both of us had no clue if she had any kind of feelings for any one of us. After a little confusion she made her choice clear and it was Vipul. Now this revelation was indeed a KLPD*, but Vipul was a great friend, and I gave Qurbani smilingly (*now if you dont already know what KLPD is, believe me, you don't wanna know it too).
The B.Sc. was coming to an end along with my course at NIIT, and with all the fun I was having with my lovely friends, I knew it was time to move on to serious things in life.. like..... a career.
Next: Concluding part .. My post graduation
