July-August 2007

It was just a week into college and I was like suffocated . We were cut off from the outside world. Near to our hostel was Narayan Ashram on one side and the townsite of Govindpur on the other. I was curious to see Allahabad, yeah i was . So came the day . Jumped the walls of hostel to the outside world. A relief as soon as i landed into the interior of the Ashram.

Now was the time to see Katra, the shopping hub (LOL) of Allahabad. With all the calculations in mind to return during lunch, i caught this funny allahabadi auto, the so called 'VIKRAM'. Believe me ! this auto consisted of a body placed on a thundering motor. At one moment it will give you the feeling exactly like when you sit on a plane , a supersonic place! The noise ! Half the noise pollution in this world is accounted by allahabadi Vikrams. With such a ride, i reached Katra. Now what! All chaos. Scorching sun above ! 11 am in the morning, Allahabad is nearly 36+ degrees during July.All i could see was three roads ! Each one leading to nowhere near my purpose , the purpose of scavenging Katra. University Road it was which became my destination. After walking half a kilometer i was into the book hub of allahabad. Thousands of Books , Hundreds of Shops. H.K Dass -I bought it ! A couple of notebooks for the semester too. I used to write on my 12th standard notes earlier. Now i had the personal notebook for college ! Twas 12 am and i had to leave , i asked one of the vikrams passing by to stop.

Autowala:'Kaha jana hai bhaiyya ' (in typical Allahabadi tone)

I:(Damn! I forgot the place's name)'Baiyya college jaana hai,tagore hostel jaante hain?'

Autowalla: 'AAiye baitheye.(pointing inside the auto) Are bhai thoda jagah do,aap aage aa jao(to some man)'

Such is the auto of allahabad. Everytime a new passenger sweeps in, the old ones are reshuffled.

I:'thik hai bhai'

Vikram: gad gad gad gad gad gad gad dhad dhad dhad (till i reached near the streets of tagore).

In the auto, i met with a second year senior-Harshit Patel, Mechanical. Needless to mention, he was one nice senior i met first in college.

He: 'Motilal se ho?'

Me:'Yes sir'

He:'First Year?'

Me:'Yes sir'

He:'bahar kaise aa gaye ?allow ho gaya ?'

Me(with a grin):'No sir'

After a bit of intro and infos.

He:'koi problem ho toh mera number le lo , ragging wagging ho toh mera naam le kar bol dena ,nahi hoga'

Me: 'sure sir. Thanx sir'

and then i took his number .

We reached near Narayan Ashram. He left with all those 'dassna'(so we call now ) and i was left alone.

And then i had two options : To wait for the line of the first years and then somehow hop in to reach hostels or to follow the track back:jump the walls.

I chose the first one and the bunk was better than the N D Pandey's Chemistry Class.O believe me ! That guy can himself hardly listen what he talks. Near to zero decibels .

That was Friday and the for the next couple of days , i was joined by many partners.Civil Lines, McD. And yeah! half a month and i already started to hate mess food.

Day 1, July 23, 2007

Counseling, and i am in Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad (MNNIT). Electronics and Communication Engineering it was! Thousands of new faces and a fear of ragging amidst the joy of the new life . All is well!

Room Number 100 with four awesome room mates. Abhinav Tripathi , Ashish Sethi and Diwakar Yadav. Fun began from day 1. The WWE fight , who doesn't know it! We were masters at it with all the moves. Needless to mention ragging started from day1.

We were protected by thousands of guards .

Abe be**n C**d, sir niche kar , Bh**di k shouted one of the seniors

For the first time after so many years such were the words , i grinned.

'Kya be bha**e, hansta hai saale . RC laga dunga . Aur ye baal kaun kaatega , tera baap!'

We reached to our respective classes and then to hostel. Note that we were still forced to walk in lines between abuses and protected by Guards. So this was our route- Hostel to college to hostel and that's it .

Needless to mention , there is this hilarious guy, Pentium zero in Tagore Hostel , the 'co-founder' of Gupta Canteen. That guy , sometimes i feel , is from CID . He asks same question over and over to test your consistency .

And the first day gave the very first friend of this college - Vaibhav Bansal(Rotlu, as was his name back then!) .

We(me and vaibhav bansal) shared this common routine. Every saturday and tuesday(after freshers) we would visit Hanuman Mandir and Narayan Ashram . Yes , before freshers the only place to hang out was terrace of Tagore !

Day -53(yeah! minus 53 it is) May 30,2007

All the hard-work (notice!) and the prayers(again mark!) paid-off . With an All India Rank of XXX3 in AIEEE ,i was all set to enter the world of the 'holy hell' otherwise known as college.
Happy! i bet i was . A week earlier class 12th results were out and i got a good percentage . So May 2007 was turning out to be the month of joy for me.
Some moments in life are worth remembering and some you can't forget. So here is the picture. It was 11:45 pm , May the 29th, 2010. I was busy deciphering(!?yes i actully was) the radio circuit .( Pardon me Marconi) and then it rang. It was my friend. 'Tujhe nau hazaar pandrah aaya'.
I: 'sach bol?'
He: 'abe sach mein'
I:'tune kitna foda?'
He: 'X'(I don't exactly remember, sorry panks!)
I: 'congrats yaar . Ab kal treat hogi badi waali.'
He: 'haan be . Koi idea kaun saa college milega?'
I:'Abe mainebhi pehli baar hi lihkha hai AIEEE'
After some more talks we finally hang up.
And then i spread the news among my relatives at 12:30 am . After celebrations , all but me went to sleep . I could'nt sleep that night . All i was thinking was 'college me ab nahi padhna, bahot ho gaya . Ab masti'. The next morning , i went to cyber cafe to verify my rank personally.
Name : Deepak Pandey
AIR:3XXX.


O Yes! I shouted only to notice that people were staring at me !