Summer of 2010

I have been thinking for the past few days about the best way to sum up the different, although individually stimulating, experiences of the past two-and-a-half months. I am a lazy person by nature and was quite satisfied with a wry attempt at bringing a few of the hallmark pictures that sum up the summer in to one large canvass, which presents itself as the picture above. But today is the last day of the holidays, and the irresistible mind wants something more, a last Kudos to all my friends and experiences that brought these days alive ....... and so I am entering my second piece of article in my blog, which until now had been troubled only once in the span of an entire year.

This summer has seen me juggling between two lives –a second year IIT grad at IIMC trying to make the most out of a lack-lustre customary second year intern and a 19 year old boy staying at home and running a tutorial class with his friends. We would certainly get in to the details of both the lives, but have patience dudes, a little later! For now I am going to speak about 2 things that were equally appreciated by the 2 lives he lived – Novels and F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

This summer gave me an opportunity to get back with one of my best school-friends...... Books albeit Story books or novels. Here, I want to take a moment to thank Piyush and Soham, there introductions later, for providing me with the all the stuff that I read. I went through a few masaala hundred rupee ‘college-life-love-disillusion’ novels, a few on entrepreneurship and enterprising speeches (‘Freakonomics’ being the notable one),a few not so notable ‘other ones’, and ‘The Hungry Tide’. Undoubtedly it was this Amitava Ghosh’s representation of life in ’the tidal country’ that left an indelible mark on me. The beauty of this picturesque novel lies not only in the scenic settings of Sunderbans and in the slow and steady growth of its primary characters, it is the slice of everyday life that it paints, the love and interaction between two human beings of different social strata who even do not share a common language (no disaster like ‘Kites’ here .. ) and the delicate presentation of Piya’s relationship with Kanai and Fokir......... this to me is the true niche that this wonderful piece of literature carves in our hearts. The author’s comparison of Kanai’s love for Piya as only the evident ripples on the river and the deep untold compassionate and primitive feelings between Piya and Fokir, as the mysterious undercurrent of water that though not evident to the naked eye still exists with all its glory, seals an outright victory with the reader. (Although the concept is somewhat reminiscent of Thomas Hardy’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ – “My love for Heathcliff is like the rocks underneath the Earth and my love for Edgar is like the foliage above”) .....I have started loving character novels next in line is ‘The Kite Runner’ .....

Next on to ‘F.R.I.E.N.D.S.’- the mother of all T.V. Series, a sitcom gem, about which I do not need to say anything more. It’s the best, this fact’s universally accepted, and now that it has ended I really miss it all the more.......

Now back to the two lives we originally began with and let me describe first things first – the IIMC life. After studying for two years at IIT Kharagpur, there were only two things that caught my imagination at India’s oldest IIM-that hostel’s here are co-ed and the fact that it is an institute that gives its grads an average starting salary of rupees 15 lakhs per annum(Yup! I know that it’s huge ....).But other than that Kgp wins easily. In terms of infrastructure(sports and gymnasium facilities) , daily life, all-round development, eateries(strangely they are too less at IIMC and too many at Kgp),medical facilities(they can’t even beat our tainted B.C.Roy Hospital) ,lan(ours is at least 10 times bigger) ,friends(you do not make friends at a place where they say you mug for an average of 16hours a day), bunking classes and lots more, Kgp leaves IIM far behind...... frankly(as admitted by many IIT-IIM seniors) you do not have the spring in your steps and the joy in your heart anywhere else in this world, that you had in Kgp .... Kgp really does ROCK man!

And now to my intern, the reason I was at IIMC in the first place itself. What made my two months at IIM stand-out was not the work that I did but 9 students of different years, different streams and different institutions who were united by the common burden of sharing the same hapless intern. And what these unassuming, light-hearted people did was to throw away any measures of learning that there ever was, castigate the intern out of sight and immerse themselves in ‘full-to’ masti and fun...... Yes! I am talking about Ankit (the Halu from Bit, the owner of Goldman Sach’s throne and Shalini’s $#$% ), Palash (the Nautanki from IITG and an IIMA topper in years to come), KV (Rohit ulff Kendriya Vidyalaya Launda with all his hand-waving mavericks),UT (for an entertaining brief period, a great man at heart),Piyush(Yes! finally I am introducing you to this budding entrepreneur..... and his love for odd numbers with 1 laptop,3 mobiles (all lost , sobs), 5 girl-friends,7 e-mail id’s and his famous or infamous ‘Scotty Doesn’t know’ and a special quality-a great friend ),Sankhu (the competitor to Halu hall-of-fame, and the real mamma’s good boy,frankly, I really appreciate your way of life man J ),Biswas (a little introvert and friendly at times with a definite time lag after which he decides to speak to the world...., but how much more fun can you expect out of on an IIT IR-1) and the 2 ‘chudails’ Nidhi( the laughing wonder) and Jyothsna(the alleged owner of 3 illegitimate casinos in Nepal) from NIT-Dgp.

Special moments : The 2 unforgettable trips, Sunrise at Henry’s Island, Drunk Ankit and KV’s wishes, Night long bluff sessions (mostly enjoyed by the bluff-addict, your humble narrator of the long insipid events),the ‘Ringa-Ringa’ night, Piyush scared in Ghost House, the night we discussed about our future plans with Ankit proclaiming he wants to be a M.B.B.S. (meiya bibi bachhe samet), Ankit-Bhanu love rumours, KV’s crush on Bidisha, coffee at Nescafe, fight with PGPX Mess ...... and you know I could continue this forever. Writing all this stuff reminds me all the more about you wonderful guys..... Miss you guys and do stay in touch. As I move on to other stuff, I might change the flow of my discussions, but my heart still longs to have one more night of bluff together.

With this I am almost done with the IIMC fun-loving, wayward, garrulous guy and settle for the much more serious, education loving proud owner of SAS tutorials. SAS is the abbreviation of 3 humble souls Sudipto, Abhik and Soham. It just happened that we were 3 friends who stumbled upon the same idea one opportune evening at Big Bazaar (no serious attempts were made but it’s a pleasure to say we bear an uncanny resemblance to 3 idiots). Let’s not discuss who’s who in this story but my dear readers must have guessed by now that the author, the ingenious soul that he is, must be Rancho of the story: P

However I am also going to give you an insight in to my fellow friends who made SAS and 8 straight weekends a success. To describe Abhik I have 2 things ‘ a 1.05 lacs costing , not a Nano but a bike, yes my good old friends has bucks! And the only thing to match the notes that earnestly reside in his purse is the list of girls who wait haplessly for Abhik’s call. If you are a girl in Durgapur-Dhanbad-Kolkata belt and do not happen to be in the long list of contacts that Abhik has, then you are in danger. Because that will result in you not getting in touch with eligible bachelors like me and Soham ... ya throw rotten tomatoes if you like, but it’s a digital world, you are only going to smear your computer screens with it. As of Soham, (yes! The Soham who lends me his books) is one of my 2 best friends back home, along with Doc. Haque. Soham has a panache and passion for music, tries to woo girls, has recently started writing real good notes in FB (you would do much better reading his short stories than reading my painfully long discussion about my summer of 2010, unless you are 1 of the few people for whom its intended), and a wild dream of singing Baul gaan when stakes go wrong with him.A great friend and buddy,at present he is in love with a Billi, and I hear the affair is going to last 2 more years ... ya, I know he has finally taken resort to ‘CAT’s to bring joy in his life. My sympathies with him :P

With this I bring an end to the ever-long description of two-and-a-half months of fun and I know it has taken you a further time to read this than the real time action of the events. As I end my article, I am sure, my blog won’t be disturbed in a long time to come , when it does ..... We would all have moved in our lives, the summer of 2010 left long behind us and me, your narrator, enjoying his life at the coolest of places ,’Kgp’, with wingies about whom I care more than the world –Ankit, Shobhit, Panku, Siddi and Ameet . Kgp’s calling and I must really go and answer its clarion call........