I have to thank PS and KKA sir for have given me this awesome gang and hence, the blog of Lastbenchers.
My heartfelt thanks to Shreyas, Rohit, Ranga, Rakesh, Nitish,Kaushik,D. Karthik,Jothishwaran, Navneet, Srinath to have provided me a great time as part of the LastBenchers.
I also have to thank friends like Lakshmi, Jayasharadha and Shruthi, for having been such great sports on all the comments I have heaped on you people in this blog, and also for have been very important people in my life.
I also thank Subhashini ma'am, LS ma'am, UV ma'am, Sundari ma'am, Anandavalli ma'am, Chitra ma'am, Shivku sir, KPK sir, KVKK sir, Ramu sir and ofc our Chemistry lab assistant Jaya ma'am for have had some great influence on us all in the last two years.
As for the group of Lastbenchers, I really wish the legacy continues in the years to come, when we meet for the holidays atleast.
And I also wish all you guys all the best in your future endeavours.
Ever yours,
Your very own Chappli/Vignesh.
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
Chapter 9
Lukewarm, absolutely!! Physics and Chemistry were a disaster!! Mathematics went great as usual!! I had the possibility to top even India in mathematics, but physics and chemistry could prove to make the biggest change in my life! It was more or less equally great for the others too. Suresh had risen from the ashes. Like a phoenix! Pradeep had done great too! Jayakant claimed to be a great flop, considering what everyone had expected from him. The other guys had put up decent performances. The whole situation was kind of wierd. We knew it was all over, and we could not do anything about it anymore.
_____________________________________________________
A dream of so many years shattered in a moment, I was at a loss for words. I could not talk to anyone properly for a few days, I suddenly became an introvert, and I really wished I had not left room for discrepancy in that problem. But I could not do anything now. It was not within my reach anymore.
_____________________________________________________
The farewell was over, and the future ahead of us was rough. The board practicals, then the boards, and then the JEE. The board practicals went off smooth. Physics was a cakewalk. As simple as it gets, a few connections, a few hi-fi physical terms used while viva is being conducted, hoping for the Saravana Bhavan meals given to the invigilator to work well, and man, you come out with an easy 30. Then came Chemistry. Most feared of all the practicals, the practical came the day after the FIITJEE open test. I had studied well for the open test, and I did it quite well too, but that evening, I had convulsions when I realised I had the whole of chemistry practicals to study for, and a tough examiner to face in the practicals. Soundarya miss was unusually gracious that day. She had always been a great person, though she was a strict teacher. I had always dedicated my hating of chemistry to her, simply because after she stopped teaching me chemistry, I just could not take chemistry from another teacher. Now she, my favourite, was there during my practicals, and in her presence, the tension flew right out of the window, and then the practicals went cool. In fact, I gave the examiner a practical solution to a practical problem, something regarding NaCl, though I hadn't watched Dasavatharam then, and he had been impressed! The chemistry lab for a change gave me a heavenly feeling. Next was the CSc practicals, M.S.N.B to the rescue!! M.S.N.B and Ramu sir were there in full glory, making great fun of everyone in the lab, irrespective of the fact that this was our practicals!! It was some fun, but at one stage, as I began to flop, M.S.N.B helped me out, typed for me a small segment, and saved me. As for the project Pradeep and I flicked from the net, we somehow managed to answer the questions asked as we had read the project work in detail.
So, we had our practicals done and the boards were awaiting us. There was not much to do then, but to do question papers. A lot of them, but not for the boards, but for JEE. It was an awesome experience, writing two papers a day, one in the morning and one in the evening, and then going for a walk, a long two hour one. This was the routine of almost all the lastbenchers everyday, probably the walk was out of place in their schedule. A lot of fun we did have this way. But for on the exam days, all the chatting was only on the phone. Only Vidya I met twice or thrice, during my walks. So, it was a time I started enjoying life alone, started getting ready for a probably solitary college life.
The boards went off in a flash, the only emotions caused being the end of schooling. Then came in the D-Day. JEE on April 13th. Vidya, Rahul and I had the same centre. At Sankara, the same school which Vidya hated getting into for different reasons. The first paper went off pretty decently, and I thought I was on track to an awesome rank. But, after the whole thing was over, I checked a few solution papers to the questions and I felt...
Lukewarm, absolutely!! Physics and Chemistry were a disaster!! Mathematics went great as usual!! I had the possibility to top even India in mathematics, but physics and chemistry could prove to make the biggest change in my life! It was more or less equally great for the others too. Suresh had risen from the ashes. Like a phoenix! Pradeep had done great too! Jayakant claimed to be a great flop, considering what everyone had expected from him. The other guys had put up decent performances. The whole situation was kind of wierd. We knew it was all over, and we could not do anything about it anymore.
We decided to end the brooding then and there. The next day began with a meet at K.K.Anand sir's place, followed by all of us rushing to the Dhaba at Cenotaph road, and then Freez Zone. We spent one of our last parties as a gang of friends. It was a huge group, the whole of lastbenchers, with a few friends of Jayakant too. We had a lot of fun, and then rushed to catch up a movie.
Such visits with friends stay with you forever, and I really wished this one did too.
Then it was time for me to change gears. I had to start working for the Olympiad. I went to the camp in Mumbai, and I realized I was in with a great chance. I performed, worked, but there was one problem for which I thought I deserved atleast 5/7, but was given 2. That made the difference for me. I ended up seventh, one short of a place in the team, and that too by 2 marks. Had I got the 5, I was in the team!!
A dream of so many years shattered in a moment, I was at a loss for words. I could not talk to anyone properly for a few days, I suddenly became an introvert, and I really wished I had not left room for discrepancy in that problem. But I could not do anything now. It was not within my reach anymore.
But now, I had something new to cheer about... The IIT results were out. I got a 694. 694 wasn't my mark, it was my rank. I had made it. My ambition had been achieved. What happened after that wasn't of great significance. The Lastbenchers had to split.
I went on to do my ECE Dual degree at IIT-Madras, and so did Pradeep. Rahul, and Rajesh did their Chemical in IIT-M, while Sairam did his ED Dual degree course in IIT-M. Jayakant did his EEE in IIT-Rajasthan, and that too because it gave him a few years at IIT-Kanpur. Sandhya and Nishant went abroad. Sandhya went to UPenn to do her BS in BioEngineering, while Nishant went to NTU,Singapore to do his BTech in CSc. Karthik, Krishna, Rajesh, Priya among others went to BITS, Pilani. Karthik forgot Sandhya for good, when she dumped him for some American guy from UPenn. And so he got hooked to a Tamil girl from BITS, Pilani. Still, Krishna, Rajesh, and the others, kept him in control till they finished their Pilani course. Now, he is in Princeton, with his girl in MIT, and so the two are still very much in touch, and very much in love too. And so did my long time friend Vidya, though I guess I didn't miss her as much thanks to the cell phone. Narayan did his EEE in Amritha, while Sailesh did scrape through the CMI entrance.
And finally, Suresh did his Mechanical in IIT-Roorkee. I did miss my best friend, but still as they say, through distances, you conquer hitches in friendship. Suresh got himself hooked to this Telugu female, Rasya Venkatarajulu, in Roorkee. His relationship is in full high in Stanford now too.
As for me, it still hurts. Still alone, still waiting to tell. But I'm just 22, and I got a couple of years left. So I can wait. As they say, when you desire something very badly, the whole universe works in a way such that you obtain what you desire. So I am sure the universe will work for me some day too.
As of now,here I am in Pampa hostel, IIT-M, and blogging about my long lost school life, when I ought to be studying for a quiz in Chemistry II, in my 9th semester tomorrow. And I guess, life will go on, just as my thalaivar's kuselan is going on. Full houses to 2 years!!!
_____________________________________________________
A dream of so many years shattered in a moment, I was at a loss for words. I could not talk to anyone properly for a few days, I suddenly became an introvert, and I really wished I had not left room for discrepancy in that problem. But I could not do anything now. It was not within my reach anymore.
_____________________________________________________
The farewell was over, and the future ahead of us was rough. The board practicals, then the boards, and then the JEE. The board practicals went off smooth. Physics was a cakewalk. As simple as it gets, a few connections, a few hi-fi physical terms used while viva is being conducted, hoping for the Saravana Bhavan meals given to the invigilator to work well, and man, you come out with an easy 30. Then came Chemistry. Most feared of all the practicals, the practical came the day after the FIITJEE open test. I had studied well for the open test, and I did it quite well too, but that evening, I had convulsions when I realised I had the whole of chemistry practicals to study for, and a tough examiner to face in the practicals. Soundarya miss was unusually gracious that day. She had always been a great person, though she was a strict teacher. I had always dedicated my hating of chemistry to her, simply because after she stopped teaching me chemistry, I just could not take chemistry from another teacher. Now she, my favourite, was there during my practicals, and in her presence, the tension flew right out of the window, and then the practicals went cool. In fact, I gave the examiner a practical solution to a practical problem, something regarding NaCl, though I hadn't watched Dasavatharam then, and he had been impressed! The chemistry lab for a change gave me a heavenly feeling. Next was the CSc practicals, M.S.N.B to the rescue!! M.S.N.B and Ramu sir were there in full glory, making great fun of everyone in the lab, irrespective of the fact that this was our practicals!! It was some fun, but at one stage, as I began to flop, M.S.N.B helped me out, typed for me a small segment, and saved me. As for the project Pradeep and I flicked from the net, we somehow managed to answer the questions asked as we had read the project work in detail.
So, we had our practicals done and the boards were awaiting us. There was not much to do then, but to do question papers. A lot of them, but not for the boards, but for JEE. It was an awesome experience, writing two papers a day, one in the morning and one in the evening, and then going for a walk, a long two hour one. This was the routine of almost all the lastbenchers everyday, probably the walk was out of place in their schedule. A lot of fun we did have this way. But for on the exam days, all the chatting was only on the phone. Only Vidya I met twice or thrice, during my walks. So, it was a time I started enjoying life alone, started getting ready for a probably solitary college life.
The boards went off in a flash, the only emotions caused being the end of schooling. Then came in the D-Day. JEE on April 13th. Vidya, Rahul and I had the same centre. At Sankara, the same school which Vidya hated getting into for different reasons. The first paper went off pretty decently, and I thought I was on track to an awesome rank. But, after the whole thing was over, I checked a few solution papers to the questions and I felt...
Lukewarm, absolutely!! Physics and Chemistry were a disaster!! Mathematics went great as usual!! I had the possibility to top even India in mathematics, but physics and chemistry could prove to make the biggest change in my life! It was more or less equally great for the others too. Suresh had risen from the ashes. Like a phoenix! Pradeep had done great too! Jayakant claimed to be a great flop, considering what everyone had expected from him. The other guys had put up decent performances. The whole situation was kind of wierd. We knew it was all over, and we could not do anything about it anymore.
We decided to end the brooding then and there. The next day began with a meet at K.K.Anand sir's place, followed by all of us rushing to the Dhaba at Cenotaph road, and then Freez Zone. We spent one of our last parties as a gang of friends. It was a huge group, the whole of lastbenchers, with a few friends of Jayakant too. We had a lot of fun, and then rushed to catch up a movie.
Such visits with friends stay with you forever, and I really wished this one did too.
Then it was time for me to change gears. I had to start working for the Olympiad. I went to the camp in Mumbai, and I realized I was in with a great chance. I performed, worked, but there was one problem for which I thought I deserved atleast 5/7, but was given 2. That made the difference for me. I ended up seventh, one short of a place in the team, and that too by 2 marks. Had I got the 5, I was in the team!!
A dream of so many years shattered in a moment, I was at a loss for words. I could not talk to anyone properly for a few days, I suddenly became an introvert, and I really wished I had not left room for discrepancy in that problem. But I could not do anything now. It was not within my reach anymore.
But now, I had something new to cheer about... The IIT results were out. I got a 694. 694 wasn't my mark, it was my rank. I had made it. My ambition had been achieved. What happened after that wasn't of great significance. The Lastbenchers had to split.
I went on to do my ECE Dual degree at IIT-Madras, and so did Pradeep. Rahul, and Rajesh did their Chemical in IIT-M, while Sairam did his ED Dual degree course in IIT-M. Jayakant did his EEE in IIT-Rajasthan, and that too because it gave him a few years at IIT-Kanpur. Sandhya and Nishant went abroad. Sandhya went to UPenn to do her BS in BioEngineering, while Nishant went to NTU,Singapore to do his BTech in CSc. Karthik, Krishna, Rajesh, Priya among others went to BITS, Pilani. Karthik forgot Sandhya for good, when she dumped him for some American guy from UPenn. And so he got hooked to a Tamil girl from BITS, Pilani. Still, Krishna, Rajesh, and the others, kept him in control till they finished their Pilani course. Now, he is in Princeton, with his girl in MIT, and so the two are still very much in touch, and very much in love too. And so did my long time friend Vidya, though I guess I didn't miss her as much thanks to the cell phone. Narayan did his EEE in Amritha, while Sailesh did scrape through the CMI entrance.
And finally, Suresh did his Mechanical in IIT-Roorkee. I did miss my best friend, but still as they say, through distances, you conquer hitches in friendship. Suresh got himself hooked to this Telugu female, Rasya Venkatarajulu, in Roorkee. His relationship is in full high in Stanford now too.
As for me, it still hurts. Still alone, still waiting to tell. But I'm just 22, and I got a couple of years left. So I can wait. As they say, when you desire something very badly, the whole universe works in a way such that you obtain what you desire. So I am sure the universe will work for me some day too.
As of now,here I am in Pampa hostel, IIT-M, and blogging about my long lost school life, when I ought to be studying for a quiz in Chemistry II, in my 9th semester tomorrow. And I guess, life will go on, just as my thalaivar's kuselan is going on. Full houses to 2 years!!!
Monday, 7 July 2008
Chapter 8
"Vishnu, I have a request to make. Can we be friends again? Can we bury the enimity which rose thanks to that spelling of irreparable? Can we bring about that unity, which helped the school in many ways, in our personal relationship too? Can we become friends again? Please?", said I.
"Yes, definitely, we can be friends again", said Vishnu.
"Treat, Vishnu!!", shouted Saraswathy from the crowd.
Following this, both of us, amidst the thunderous clapping and cheering, came down the stage, hand in hand, with the hosts singing "Yeh Dosti", as we got down stage. The friendship sworn was just mouthsake, but I had won!! I had made Vishnu admit friendship to me, someone who wouldn't have even done it in his wildest dreams!!
It was our farewell. All of us had come dressed in our best clothes. The ladies were in gorgeous sarees, and the guys in stuff of their choice. If Suresh, Sairam and Nishant were in formals, people like Pradeep, and myself were in sherwanis. It was a great deal of fun. First we had a few snacks like samosas, and bhel puris. This was followed by the programmes arranged. First the school pupil leader Adi was called to talk. He managed a decent show. Then, to my own surprise, I was called. I went on stage, and spoke from my heart, about what the school and in particular, its maths department meant to me. I spoke about how much the school had done for me and how it was impossible for me to repay what it had done for me. I spoke about my feelings being like the teardrop of a newly married bride, sad to leave her parents, the school here and happy to join in a new life with her husband, here the college. I could see from the reactions of the audience, that for a change I had struck a chord with the audience. I got off stage amidst cheers, and then as a class we presented a card and a book gift to our principal.
Following this were a few dance and musical performances following which we came to the most awaited segment of the evening. The mock awards. The mock awards were no Academy Award ceremonies, but to school guys, they mattered equally much, or probably much more. It was quite a feeling to have been there, done it. To get a mock award, and have your time to bask in the glory of the school stage was one feeling in itself. I was nominated for two awards. None of the other lastbenchers were. Sairam got one for bunking maximum, and stuff like that. One award I was nominated for was that of the best all rounder in school, but rightly Soumya, the assistant cultural secretary won it. But the other award I was nominated for, with Vishnu, and won, was by far, easily, the biggest cheered award of the evening. That was because, the whole award had come into existence to honour one thing, the greatest rivalry PS had ever seen. It was an obvious answer, even before the nominees had been read out. Vishnu and I went, hand in hand, on stage, amidst so many cheers, to recieve the award, thanking all our mates, for have put up with our nonsense of a rivalry for the last two years. Then I took the microphone for a personal request.
"Vishnu, I have a request to make. Can we be friends again? Can we bury the enimity which rose thanks to that spelling of irreparable? Can we bring about that unity, which helped the school in many ways, in our personal relationship too? Can we become friends again? Please?", said I.
"Yes, definitely, we can be friends again", said Vishnu.
"Treat, Vishnu!!", shouted Saraswathy from the crowd.
Following this, both of us, amidst the thunderous clapping and cheering, came down the stage, hand in hand, with the hosts singing "Yeh Dosti", as we got down stage. The friendship sworn was just mouthsake, but I had won!! I had made Vishnu admit friendship to me, someone who wouldn't have even done it in his wildest dreams!!
With this, the function was over, and we went about presenting gifts to teachers, and taking pictures with one another. The better days of life were soon fading out like the sun at dusk. It was very difficult to think of this as one of my last chances to roam about freely in school, with a freedom, only a student posseses!! The farewell was over, and so was the schooling part of my 8 year old career in PS!!
"Yes, definitely, we can be friends again", said Vishnu.
"Treat, Vishnu!!", shouted Saraswathy from the crowd.
Following this, both of us, amidst the thunderous clapping and cheering, came down the stage, hand in hand, with the hosts singing "Yeh Dosti", as we got down stage. The friendship sworn was just mouthsake, but I had won!! I had made Vishnu admit friendship to me, someone who wouldn't have even done it in his wildest dreams!!
It was our farewell. All of us had come dressed in our best clothes. The ladies were in gorgeous sarees, and the guys in stuff of their choice. If Suresh, Sairam and Nishant were in formals, people like Pradeep, and myself were in sherwanis. It was a great deal of fun. First we had a few snacks like samosas, and bhel puris. This was followed by the programmes arranged. First the school pupil leader Adi was called to talk. He managed a decent show. Then, to my own surprise, I was called. I went on stage, and spoke from my heart, about what the school and in particular, its maths department meant to me. I spoke about how much the school had done for me and how it was impossible for me to repay what it had done for me. I spoke about my feelings being like the teardrop of a newly married bride, sad to leave her parents, the school here and happy to join in a new life with her husband, here the college. I could see from the reactions of the audience, that for a change I had struck a chord with the audience. I got off stage amidst cheers, and then as a class we presented a card and a book gift to our principal.
Following this were a few dance and musical performances following which we came to the most awaited segment of the evening. The mock awards. The mock awards were no Academy Award ceremonies, but to school guys, they mattered equally much, or probably much more. It was quite a feeling to have been there, done it. To get a mock award, and have your time to bask in the glory of the school stage was one feeling in itself. I was nominated for two awards. None of the other lastbenchers were. Sairam got one for bunking maximum, and stuff like that. One award I was nominated for was that of the best all rounder in school, but rightly Soumya, the assistant cultural secretary won it. But the other award I was nominated for, with Vishnu, and won, was by far, easily, the biggest cheered award of the evening. That was because, the whole award had come into existence to honour one thing, the greatest rivalry PS had ever seen. It was an obvious answer, even before the nominees had been read out. Vishnu and I went, hand in hand, on stage, amidst so many cheers, to recieve the award, thanking all our mates, for have put up with our nonsense of a rivalry for the last two years. Then I took the microphone for a personal request.
"Vishnu, I have a request to make. Can we be friends again? Can we bury the enimity which rose thanks to that spelling of irreparable? Can we bring about that unity, which helped the school in many ways, in our personal relationship too? Can we become friends again? Please?", said I.
"Yes, definitely, we can be friends again", said Vishnu.
"Treat, Vishnu!!", shouted Saraswathy from the crowd.
Following this, both of us, amidst the thunderous clapping and cheering, came down the stage, hand in hand, with the hosts singing "Yeh Dosti", as we got down stage. The friendship sworn was just mouthsake, but I had won!! I had made Vishnu admit friendship to me, someone who wouldn't have even done it in his wildest dreams!!
With this, the function was over, and we went about presenting gifts to teachers, and taking pictures with one another. The better days of life were soon fading out like the sun at dusk. It was very difficult to think of this as one of my last chances to roam about freely in school, with a freedom, only a student posseses!! The farewell was over, and so was the schooling part of my 8 year old career in PS!!
Friday, 4 July 2008
Chapter 7
Life was running at a frantic pace. As quick as this blog!! Life was getting lonelier by the day, in one way good, but in another way very depressing. Those days, I got into depressed moods too often. Sailesh had lost all the friendship he held for Suresh and me. We were devastated for a while. But the strong guy he was, he took it in his stride and tried to cheer me up at every possible instant. After all when the leader of a gang gets depressed, you need the henchmen to cheer him up right?? Ahem!! Yeah, so that was how stuff were going.
I was starting to miss people already, and was scared about missing them after schooling got over. Looking back at the people I had missed badly at various stages of my life were, at first, Prashant and Varun Shenoy, when I had come from Bahrain. Then, it was my uncle's daughter Gayathri, who had been more than a sister to me, when she had gone to Bangalore to work. Then, a host of friends after class 10. Now, it was going to be even more difficult, to miss people I had lived my most productive years with. Souls I had loved, some I had hated, but still I had wanted to stay. One such session of thinking, and my mind started singing some feelings song in karaoke module 4. And I was back to study after a good laugh!! Some of us are really bad at percieving serious stuff, aren't we??
At around this period, one of the revision exams was of great significance. This particular day, was when the Physics and Chemistry olympiad first round results were to be announced. That day was to have a computer science revision, but almost half of class 12 was sent out, not allowed to write. And why? Because we didn't come in proper uniform. What the heck? I had worn a aproperly ironed white shirt and blue trousers. I had a properly fastened belt, in contrast to many people who wore their loose trousers without belts and were clinging on to it, fearing the moment it would cause them infame. Then I thoroughly inspected my body. And guess what? I was wearing black socks instead of blue!! Screw myself, I thought and walked out of the room, and another surprise!! A pleasant one at this!! Suresh and Karthik were there too! And for an identical reason. We planned to rush home first thing as the bells rung, so that we could go home to check the result first. This gave us an advantage in comparison to the others who were writing the revision. A rush home after the bells only saw the three of us disappointed. The only PS'ite who had made it to the next round of the Physics olympiad was Sairam. Something that highly distressed Suresh, Pradeep and me, considering we had sweated our lives out preparing for this. Chemistry olympiad saw an expected Rahul, with Pradeep and Raghav excelling from PS. For the record, Jayakant had excelled obviously too. For the record, the three of us did really well in the re-revision of the computer science test we had!!
It was time for the pre-boards and the preparations were on in quite some earnest. People were finally sitting with their notebooks. But the most memorable of the tests was the Physics one. The previous day, we had a full JEE mock test, and so the preparation for the exam was not even near sub-standard. We hadn't studied before the mock test either, as the day before the mock test we had taken our Chemistry exam, and done a decent job at it. But for Physics, we had gone with what you hardly call revision, forget preparation. A last-minute entrance, following some touch up outside the examination hall, followed by a quick all the best signalled to Vidya, was all I had time for before the examination. Came in the question paper, and Mr.Inconsistent in Physics had finished the paper within an hour and a half!! I left the hall with the feeling of a hero, only to be given a 56/70 at the end of it all!!!
The following week, our farewell party had been arranged. It was going to be an official goodbye from the school. I had loved my school, and the very thought was difficult! It was time to get gifts for the teachers. Once again, Vishnu and I joined hands in working stuff out together. It was just amazing that in spite of all the rivalry we maintained for each other, we could make things work together, and that too grandly if it was for the school. Vishnu did half the deciding and getting of gifts, while I did the remaining along with the accounts management. We had sent Vidya and a few more girls to get a handbag for our physics teacher and pens for our electrical gadgets sir and typewriting ma'am, while another girl Waheeda was asked to get something for our chemistry teacher. Vishnu and I got coolers for our PT sir, a perfume bottle for Subhash sir, watches for our two computer science teachers of the two years. They had been a great inspiration on us, and in spite of all the trouble we gave, they had backed us enough to get us through some really difficult parts. Raja sir, and M.S.Neelakanta Brahmachari sir, fondly called M.S.N.B simply rocked!! They joked in tandem, worked in tandem, screwed in tandem, name it, in tandem!! And that had worked dividends for the school in the previous years!!
Karthik and I got a private watch for our dear Shubha ma'am in the chemistry department, someone who proved very disastrous in my chemistry life, because after she taught me, nobody could actually make me like chemistry as much as she made me like it, and so the interest fizzed out, and of course, she was the reason Karthik did his last two years at school. It was she who recommended his name to even stay in the list of students in PS in class 11. Else, Karthik would have been outta school long back, for just his misbehaviour. And I also got my ex-Hindi teacher a watch because she made me top the district in Hindi, and also gave me so much of personal importance!!
So the only person left was our maths teacher, Rama ma'am. Not many people had actually liked her, because of her tyrannical solutions to problems. Whatever she intended to do in good light had also ended up making her look cruel, and this presented a very bad picture to the general student public. None of them wanted to gift her. But I did. For many reasons, one, she had been my godmother in PS and had helped to propel me to IMOTC, two, she liked me a lot and had done so many things for my convenience, three, she was one teacher who had made many of my minuses, pluses in PS, and four, because she was my maths teacher!! So, on my personal investment, I got her a good gold watch and satisfied the void I felt for her in my heart.
So the stage was set for a farewell, which was going to stay close to my heart for years to come!!!!
I was starting to miss people already, and was scared about missing them after schooling got over. Looking back at the people I had missed badly at various stages of my life were, at first, Prashant and Varun Shenoy, when I had come from Bahrain. Then, it was my uncle's daughter Gayathri, who had been more than a sister to me, when she had gone to Bangalore to work. Then, a host of friends after class 10. Now, it was going to be even more difficult, to miss people I had lived my most productive years with. Souls I had loved, some I had hated, but still I had wanted to stay. One such session of thinking, and my mind started singing some feelings song in karaoke module 4. And I was back to study after a good laugh!! Some of us are really bad at percieving serious stuff, aren't we??
At around this period, one of the revision exams was of great significance. This particular day, was when the Physics and Chemistry olympiad first round results were to be announced. That day was to have a computer science revision, but almost half of class 12 was sent out, not allowed to write. And why? Because we didn't come in proper uniform. What the heck? I had worn a aproperly ironed white shirt and blue trousers. I had a properly fastened belt, in contrast to many people who wore their loose trousers without belts and were clinging on to it, fearing the moment it would cause them infame. Then I thoroughly inspected my body. And guess what? I was wearing black socks instead of blue!! Screw myself, I thought and walked out of the room, and another surprise!! A pleasant one at this!! Suresh and Karthik were there too! And for an identical reason. We planned to rush home first thing as the bells rung, so that we could go home to check the result first. This gave us an advantage in comparison to the others who were writing the revision. A rush home after the bells only saw the three of us disappointed. The only PS'ite who had made it to the next round of the Physics olympiad was Sairam. Something that highly distressed Suresh, Pradeep and me, considering we had sweated our lives out preparing for this. Chemistry olympiad saw an expected Rahul, with Pradeep and Raghav excelling from PS. For the record, Jayakant had excelled obviously too. For the record, the three of us did really well in the re-revision of the computer science test we had!!
It was time for the pre-boards and the preparations were on in quite some earnest. People were finally sitting with their notebooks. But the most memorable of the tests was the Physics one. The previous day, we had a full JEE mock test, and so the preparation for the exam was not even near sub-standard. We hadn't studied before the mock test either, as the day before the mock test we had taken our Chemistry exam, and done a decent job at it. But for Physics, we had gone with what you hardly call revision, forget preparation. A last-minute entrance, following some touch up outside the examination hall, followed by a quick all the best signalled to Vidya, was all I had time for before the examination. Came in the question paper, and Mr.Inconsistent in Physics had finished the paper within an hour and a half!! I left the hall with the feeling of a hero, only to be given a 56/70 at the end of it all!!!
The following week, our farewell party had been arranged. It was going to be an official goodbye from the school. I had loved my school, and the very thought was difficult! It was time to get gifts for the teachers. Once again, Vishnu and I joined hands in working stuff out together. It was just amazing that in spite of all the rivalry we maintained for each other, we could make things work together, and that too grandly if it was for the school. Vishnu did half the deciding and getting of gifts, while I did the remaining along with the accounts management. We had sent Vidya and a few more girls to get a handbag for our physics teacher and pens for our electrical gadgets sir and typewriting ma'am, while another girl Waheeda was asked to get something for our chemistry teacher. Vishnu and I got coolers for our PT sir, a perfume bottle for Subhash sir, watches for our two computer science teachers of the two years. They had been a great inspiration on us, and in spite of all the trouble we gave, they had backed us enough to get us through some really difficult parts. Raja sir, and M.S.Neelakanta Brahmachari sir, fondly called M.S.N.B simply rocked!! They joked in tandem, worked in tandem, screwed in tandem, name it, in tandem!! And that had worked dividends for the school in the previous years!!
Karthik and I got a private watch for our dear Shubha ma'am in the chemistry department, someone who proved very disastrous in my chemistry life, because after she taught me, nobody could actually make me like chemistry as much as she made me like it, and so the interest fizzed out, and of course, she was the reason Karthik did his last two years at school. It was she who recommended his name to even stay in the list of students in PS in class 11. Else, Karthik would have been outta school long back, for just his misbehaviour. And I also got my ex-Hindi teacher a watch because she made me top the district in Hindi, and also gave me so much of personal importance!!
So the only person left was our maths teacher, Rama ma'am. Not many people had actually liked her, because of her tyrannical solutions to problems. Whatever she intended to do in good light had also ended up making her look cruel, and this presented a very bad picture to the general student public. None of them wanted to gift her. But I did. For many reasons, one, she had been my godmother in PS and had helped to propel me to IMOTC, two, she liked me a lot and had done so many things for my convenience, three, she was one teacher who had made many of my minuses, pluses in PS, and four, because she was my maths teacher!! So, on my personal investment, I got her a good gold watch and satisfied the void I felt for her in my heart.
So the stage was set for a farewell, which was going to stay close to my heart for years to come!!!!
Thursday, 3 July 2008
Chapter 6
Sashi was this guy who had come to PS from PSBB after class 10, another well-known school in the city. It was a school known more for stuff like the extra-curriculars than the mainstream studies. The students from there were expected to be 'flirtatious' studs of the first order. Rajesh was a PSBB product till class 10, though he didn't look an inch that way. Another guy of PSBB till the 10th in PS, was Sairam.S, another topper there, but a PSBB guy in and out, a pervert of the first order, a guy who made great friends with all of us as soon as he came. Sashi held a reputation of a nerd, one of the first order when he came to PS. But after one year at PS, he had drastically changed. The change occured in the holidays between class 10 and 12, when his dad bought him a cell phone.His exploits began with Vidya, when he started messaging her full time. Initially, the messages were kind of mutual, but at some point of time, Sashi started making a mockery of himself. The messages were sent way too often to become a matter of public ridicule. Not only that, it was quite obvious that Sashi was flirting. He didn't stop with Vidya, his flirting went on to all the girls in school. No one was spared, Vidya, Priya, their friends Parvathy, Saraswathy, Sandhya and everyone else.The school was following all this when something even bigger happened. Sashi started Orkutting. And what was big about this?? He again flirted. Nothing new,right!! No buddy, there was something new!! He started flirting with Portugese girls!! And even worse, he started learning Portugal to please them!! It started getting funnier everyday, with him doing this, and the half yearly fast approaching. During the half yearly, Sashi was at his peak, trying to impress anyone and everyone, with what else, but his Portugal skills. Sadly, no one in Chennai was willing to listen to him speaking even Tamil.
In the meanwhile, our mock JEE tests were going in full flow, and this was one avenue of some great fun. There was this invigilator named Srinivasan, whom we had named 'Billa' Srinivasan, for he spoke just like the actor Ajith did, and there was also this female, who bossed over the students there. So we named her Billi, or the female Billa!! By this time, our school was almost over for the second term, and we were going to have our revision tests beginning. Therefore, having some time out in this way, was a boon for us all. Other than the 6 hours of examinations, we had some time to chat during lunch breaks. The feeling of having to leave school soon, was slowly sinking into us then. But then, we were enjoying our last few days as school students.
The preparations for these tests were simple. The recipe was this. Don't study hard for any revision, if it is not Physics, or Chemistry. Just give English and Computer Science a decent read. Don't touch mathematics. On the contrary, get your basics right when you prepare for the JEE. First get the theory touched up really. Solve as many problems as possible from the reference books. Keep yourself awake in the night till 3, by listening to the FM and messaging Priya and Vidya.
Either Vidya, or Priya, or at times both, used to be awake till 1 every night, and then there was Rahmania, a collage of A.R.Rahman songs on Aaha, 91.1 FM. So, staying up into the night became an integral part of my life. I became a pro at staying awake all night, no match for me. It was quite some fun staying awake alone, as I believe, spending a lot of time with yourself, does you a huge deal of good.
At around this time, our school stuff had to become serious too. We slowly had to shift gears, and the concentration had to be divided between school and JEE preparation climax. It seemed like a movie with the protagonist having goals, one which had to be achieved only after another was done, in a particular order.
The revisions were on in full flow, and I was beginning to perform much better now. This was probably because, I had deserted the overambitious techniques I had applied in the assignments to score high. I stuck to the basics, wrote with my eye in my paper, and went on with the exam. And, it was a success.
A nice way to start the full tests in the JEE mock test schedule, and the pre-board examinations. They were all scheduled to start very soon, within a week of the revisions or so. That would take me to another crucial part of my life...
In the meanwhile, our mock JEE tests were going in full flow, and this was one avenue of some great fun. There was this invigilator named Srinivasan, whom we had named 'Billa' Srinivasan, for he spoke just like the actor Ajith did, and there was also this female, who bossed over the students there. So we named her Billi, or the female Billa!! By this time, our school was almost over for the second term, and we were going to have our revision tests beginning. Therefore, having some time out in this way, was a boon for us all. Other than the 6 hours of examinations, we had some time to chat during lunch breaks. The feeling of having to leave school soon, was slowly sinking into us then. But then, we were enjoying our last few days as school students.
The preparations for these tests were simple. The recipe was this. Don't study hard for any revision, if it is not Physics, or Chemistry. Just give English and Computer Science a decent read. Don't touch mathematics. On the contrary, get your basics right when you prepare for the JEE. First get the theory touched up really. Solve as many problems as possible from the reference books. Keep yourself awake in the night till 3, by listening to the FM and messaging Priya and Vidya.
Either Vidya, or Priya, or at times both, used to be awake till 1 every night, and then there was Rahmania, a collage of A.R.Rahman songs on Aaha, 91.1 FM. So, staying up into the night became an integral part of my life. I became a pro at staying awake all night, no match for me. It was quite some fun staying awake alone, as I believe, spending a lot of time with yourself, does you a huge deal of good.
At around this time, our school stuff had to become serious too. We slowly had to shift gears, and the concentration had to be divided between school and JEE preparation climax. It seemed like a movie with the protagonist having goals, one which had to be achieved only after another was done, in a particular order.
The revisions were on in full flow, and I was beginning to perform much better now. This was probably because, I had deserted the overambitious techniques I had applied in the assignments to score high. I stuck to the basics, wrote with my eye in my paper, and went on with the exam. And, it was a success.
A nice way to start the full tests in the JEE mock test schedule, and the pre-board examinations. They were all scheduled to start very soon, within a week of the revisions or so. That would take me to another crucial part of my life...
Wednesday, 2 July 2008
Chapter 5
God has an answer to every sincere prayer, and so did he have one for me to. No, do not let your imagination go awry, no ready made projects, nothing of that sort! Then how?? Disease!! You need to lose something to gain another, right? And here, the loss was digestion, and the gain was an extension in Computer project submission date. Yeah, I got jaundice. How?? God knows, out of the blue!! Could have been from Pradeep's neighbour, the aunty who planned to program stuff for us earlier.. But wait, jaundice is non-communicable! So that means I had taken something miraclously disastrous to cause sudden jaundice! I was delighted. The household thought I was crazy, considering I was celebrating having got jaundice. But people don't quite understand your problems, do they? I had immense satisfaction, one of having solved a really tough problem at math, or probably the satisfaction Raghav would have achieved, at proving to someone that he had facial hair too, or probably the satisfaction Rajesh would have achieved at not cried at someone's taunts.. To each one, his own satisfaction. Jaundice satisfied me, like not even Paneer before! It was quite some time before the jaundice wore off. It was more than a week. But was a lot of fun. My jaundice had been diagonised at an early stage, and so my medicine dosage had begun earlier than the average Jaundice patient. So my body was not as weak as the average jaundice patient either. I stayed at home, on pretext of serious jaundice, and spent sometime, if not full, to prepare for JEE. That was the period when I actually started putting in real hard work. And what about the computer project? Hmmm, not much of a worry. Why do you have to worry when you had a partner, even more sincere than your computer science teacher, who did all the dirty work to get the project done. Dirty work?? Yeah, dirty work!! When you have to visit a CompSci lab, full on both the air conditioning and the aroma of pan parag, everyday, and talk to a dirty-mouthed but nice teacher about your project which has not taken off, even past the submission date, you are doing some dirty work. On one of these days, Pradeep came home. He wanted our code ready by that evening. I was like, 'dude, have we even decided what we are going to do?'. He talked about some graphical calculator. I thought we could present our classmate Vishal Raghu's scientific CalC (in case you didn't know, this was the jargon for calculator in PS) as our computer project, as it did have graphs in it too. But he needed code. Then in a flash of brilliance, yours truly typed Calculator Graph Computer Science Project on Google, and guess what, we had hundreds and hundreds of projects, doing what we intended to do. Then our project was easily done. There was this Chemistry teacher in our school called Sundari miss who taught us the policy of 'beg,borrow,steal' when you didn't get your own stuff to school. True to her words, we first begged our CompSci teacher for time, and then we borrowed time, and finally we stole a project. Our innocence was lost! Not that we were innocent anyday!!
The submission of the project was done. Amidst all the confusion, Pradeep did submit our project, or rather Mr.Amit Joshi's project, at school the next morning. He had to deal it out with the CompSci sir one on one. I did not attend my CompSci practicals, thanks to jaundice. It was one hell of a bonus. That weekend we had our first All India Test Series test as part of our JEE preparation. The jaundiced preparation did not go in vain, as I did put up a decent performance, and thus strengthening my resolve to bunk more. Bunk more, study more, else EKS, became the order of the day!! Then followed our half yearly terminals, and this time all eyes were glued on Shashi Narasimhan, a nerd and a flirt of the first order, and the king of Mokka jokes. Why?? Lets find out..
P.S: EKS is PS jargon for Enna Koduma Saravanan, a famous dialogue from the movie Chandramukhi, where a leading actor Prabhu says this dialogue in despair to a very good friend of his Superstar Rajinikanth. Though the movie reached Mega Hit status, the dialogue became notorious, and caught the fancy of many school kids of the time, and hence became one of the most mokka dialogues of our times. Mokka was the PS jargon for jokes, with a tinge of sarcasm and irritablity in them.
P.P.S: P.S above is post script and not the name of the school.
The submission of the project was done. Amidst all the confusion, Pradeep did submit our project, or rather Mr.Amit Joshi's project, at school the next morning. He had to deal it out with the CompSci sir one on one. I did not attend my CompSci practicals, thanks to jaundice. It was one hell of a bonus. That weekend we had our first All India Test Series test as part of our JEE preparation. The jaundiced preparation did not go in vain, as I did put up a decent performance, and thus strengthening my resolve to bunk more. Bunk more, study more, else EKS, became the order of the day!! Then followed our half yearly terminals, and this time all eyes were glued on Shashi Narasimhan, a nerd and a flirt of the first order, and the king of Mokka jokes. Why?? Lets find out..
P.S: EKS is PS jargon for Enna Koduma Saravanan, a famous dialogue from the movie Chandramukhi, where a leading actor Prabhu says this dialogue in despair to a very good friend of his Superstar Rajinikanth. Though the movie reached Mega Hit status, the dialogue became notorious, and caught the fancy of many school kids of the time, and hence became one of the most mokka dialogues of our times. Mokka was the PS jargon for jokes, with a tinge of sarcasm and irritablity in them.
P.P.S: P.S above is post script and not the name of the school.
Thursday, 26 June 2008
Chapter 4
The second term had begun. It was time to gear up for the many intellectually gruelling tests coming up. K.K.Anand sir had started pushing us towards the final stride in the olympiad subjects. Life was moving at a frantic pace. We were losing time like money now. Every moment seemed precious. The day of submission of our computer science project was the day after our olympiads in physics and chemistry. So the project did take a huge setback in our eagerness to clear the olympiads. It was a planned, systematic approach of bunking classes and studying. Twice a week were holidays, or rather, were taken as holidays. If we already had a holiday that week, we bunked two other days, thus making it three holidays. In fact, one such week we had Navarathri. The school had given us four days of holiday that week. So we could bunk only once that week, so we bunked thrice the next week to compensate for the loss of bunk. In effect, we had to BUNK two days per week, excluding the obvious holidays which we had. It was quite an experience, a thought-provoking experience too, because you had to search for new reasons every time you bunked. Having a good name among teachers didn't hurt, as you were generally let off, because the teachers knew you wouldn't waste your time bunking. I was never caught for my bunk, NEVER! But Pradeep was, not once, but twice! Both times, when we had studied together. The first time he bunked, he told the principal that he had to go to Tirupati that night. Then came the obvious question, why did he have to bunk in the morning when the trip to Tirupati was only in the night. He then said, a few relatives had come from Dubai and he had to go to the airport to pick them up. The principal wanted to meet his mother the next day, and when she came, was asked why he was sent to the airport when he had school, and morever the people who were coming were adults and could manage to come home on their own. This pissed his mother off. The next time he was caught, she told the principal clearly that he bunked to study for the olympiad as he felt that was much more important to him than the classes at school. Even I was questioned once when I had gone to my grandfather's death ceremony in the outskirts of the city after having bunked school. My math teacher asked me why I had bunked, when I told her that I bunked because I didn't know how to cook. The sent peals of laughter across the class and the teacher promised to come home the next month to have food, specially prepared by me, which meant I had to learn cooking by then. Fortunately, or unfortunately, she never turned up.
Then it was again time for the serious stuff that olympiads were. I was working my butt off with physics. Learning all the physics which I didn't know, from Pradeep, who was known to be king in physics, I badly wanted to clear the olympiad. Chemistry was never a possibility as far as I was concerned, and I just gave it a try, a wild try. I attempted all questions, in spite of negative marking being there in the objective paper. It was a funny experience indeed.
As far as physics went, it was a real learning experience and in the mock test which Anand sir kept, I topped! After a string of failures, this was some sort of a success. Suresh and I used to discuss a lot regarding olympiad stuff, and it looked like we could easily make it in physics given the preparation we had put into it.
Finally the examination arrived, and went. I had surprisingly done better than most of my friends, including Pradeep and Suresh, and that was some sort of a real confidence booster for me. Chemistry was more of a joke, and so I rushed through the paper, before rushing to a hospital where my mom had been admitted for a hernia operation. I had to study for the chemistry practical examination for half yearly from there. But there was another mountain to surmount, I hadn't even started my computer science project. I remembered this only after I reached the hospital. I didn't know what I was going to do. But God had an answer to this too...
Then it was again time for the serious stuff that olympiads were. I was working my butt off with physics. Learning all the physics which I didn't know, from Pradeep, who was known to be king in physics, I badly wanted to clear the olympiad. Chemistry was never a possibility as far as I was concerned, and I just gave it a try, a wild try. I attempted all questions, in spite of negative marking being there in the objective paper. It was a funny experience indeed.
As far as physics went, it was a real learning experience and in the mock test which Anand sir kept, I topped! After a string of failures, this was some sort of a success. Suresh and I used to discuss a lot regarding olympiad stuff, and it looked like we could easily make it in physics given the preparation we had put into it.
Finally the examination arrived, and went. I had surprisingly done better than most of my friends, including Pradeep and Suresh, and that was some sort of a real confidence booster for me. Chemistry was more of a joke, and so I rushed through the paper, before rushing to a hospital where my mom had been admitted for a hernia operation. I had to study for the chemistry practical examination for half yearly from there. But there was another mountain to surmount, I hadn't even started my computer science project. I remembered this only after I reached the hospital. I didn't know what I was going to do. But God had an answer to this too...
Chapter 3
Those were the best days of my life!! The quarterly examinations coincided with the World Twenty20 Competetion. I was rooting with all spirit for India. Morever, I was to go to Malaysia for a small trip of 5 days and hence, the exams were getting less importance from my side. But still, I managed to scrape through them with an above average performance. But then, the twenty20 tournament was reaching its ending stages. That was when I started getting particularly close to Vidya. We used to discuss matches ball by ball through messages and it was an experience in itself. That was when she apologised to me for have not voted for me at the beginning of the year. I had almost forgotten it, but when I heard this, I felt really bad about having made a big deal of the vote earlier. This drew me much closer to her and made me feel extremely comfortable in her company.
At this juncture, our IIT classes were also on in full flow. We were having a great fun. Other than the time we were exposed to some awesome physics, chemistry and mathematics, the remaining time used to be spent in some fun gossip. There was also some real fun had during this time.
Once while having a break, three of us, a guy called Anirudh Narasimhan from our class, along with Karthik, was narrating to me a story for which he wanted me to be hero. I was unsportive at first and then decided to listen to the story. They brought in the name of Priya Raman to be cast as heroine and slowly shifted to that of Priya Rajan, which was actually the name of our ex-chief minister. There was a guy walkin in front of me, who I didn't know was a party labourer of the ex-CM's party. He came to us and started blasting us for have used the party leader's name in bad light and he told us that he would have killed us if we weren't kids. He picked on Anirudh, and a scared Karthik ran for his life. Then, I spoke to the party guy to get Anirudh out of trouble. Then, we discussed this in class and had a hearty laugh.
At this point of time, I started realising that my chemistry was absolutely pathetic and that JEE was going to be all trouble unless I did something serious about my chemistry. Life was getting more about studies and I was slowly getting used to all this. It was at about this time that Sailesh Shivakumar, a really dear friend of mine was losing track. Till my class 10, Narayan, Sailesh, a guy called Vasanth, and I were dearest of friends. Vasanth had moved to Halebid, as his dad had been transferred there. Sometime around the 10th holidays, Sailesh had lost his dad. He had changed schools, but was still an avid student of Mathematics and Computer Science. But sometime around this period, I started recieving some sort of a negative report about him. He was losing concentration, something that was extremely vital for him at this juncture of his life. He had fallen into bad company, and there seemed nothing which could get him out of the company he had made. Suresh and I tried a lot of speaking to him, but there was nothing we could do about Sailesh.
At around this time, there was a physics project we had to do at school. Initially Vishnu's team had taken me in, but when the submissions had to be done, he kicked me out of the team. I realised then that it was just a trap to get me into trouble, perfectly engineered and executed by Vishnu. Now, when I was in trouble, Suresh told me to get him two creative articles and those were enough to get me into his team for the project. I did two articles on Robotics olympiads, and the chemistry behind robotics within a day, and Suresh had me into his team list for the project. That just shot the amount of respect I had for Suresh, and then he became one among my best friends of all time.
My interest of music grew multifold in this period. I used to listen to a lot of music, be it Carnatic, Hindustani, filmy, everything in this period. I had developed into a huge fan of A.R.Rahman in this period and even started collecting a lot of trivia about him in this period. The interest grew more so thanks to Rajesh, who was a really good singer, and used to every now and then hum a different song. I started listening mainly to a lot of filmy stuff only due to him, and the interest generated by his humming. In this juncture, I have to mention, Karthik was a huge fan of Himesh Reshammiya's nasal twang, and this made him a constant object of ridicule amongst us. He used to sing Himesh's songs with a nasal clarity which even Himesh would not have been able to achieve. Such would be his dedication to his songs!!
Our quarterly practicals were a total mess, as the guys like us who hadn't come all that prepared had a field day. We had made a fool of ourselves, especially in the chemistry lab where making a fool of yourself wasn't anything new to all of us. It was a lot of fun flunking together, but still we did somehow manage to scrape with practical scores of above 25 on 30. The theory papers were even worse. A 40+ in Chemistry, and Computer Science seemed an achievement and a 50+ in Physics was out of the world. But these were forgotten quickly, as a short and sweet second term was awaiting us, and so were we awaiting the hectic test schedules, the bunks for the olympiads to follow, the olympiads themselves, the various subject projects and then the JEE practice tests.
At this juncture, our IIT classes were also on in full flow. We were having a great fun. Other than the time we were exposed to some awesome physics, chemistry and mathematics, the remaining time used to be spent in some fun gossip. There was also some real fun had during this time.
Once while having a break, three of us, a guy called Anirudh Narasimhan from our class, along with Karthik, was narrating to me a story for which he wanted me to be hero. I was unsportive at first and then decided to listen to the story. They brought in the name of Priya Raman to be cast as heroine and slowly shifted to that of Priya Rajan, which was actually the name of our ex-chief minister. There was a guy walkin in front of me, who I didn't know was a party labourer of the ex-CM's party. He came to us and started blasting us for have used the party leader's name in bad light and he told us that he would have killed us if we weren't kids. He picked on Anirudh, and a scared Karthik ran for his life. Then, I spoke to the party guy to get Anirudh out of trouble. Then, we discussed this in class and had a hearty laugh.
At this point of time, I started realising that my chemistry was absolutely pathetic and that JEE was going to be all trouble unless I did something serious about my chemistry. Life was getting more about studies and I was slowly getting used to all this. It was at about this time that Sailesh Shivakumar, a really dear friend of mine was losing track. Till my class 10, Narayan, Sailesh, a guy called Vasanth, and I were dearest of friends. Vasanth had moved to Halebid, as his dad had been transferred there. Sometime around the 10th holidays, Sailesh had lost his dad. He had changed schools, but was still an avid student of Mathematics and Computer Science. But sometime around this period, I started recieving some sort of a negative report about him. He was losing concentration, something that was extremely vital for him at this juncture of his life. He had fallen into bad company, and there seemed nothing which could get him out of the company he had made. Suresh and I tried a lot of speaking to him, but there was nothing we could do about Sailesh.
At around this time, there was a physics project we had to do at school. Initially Vishnu's team had taken me in, but when the submissions had to be done, he kicked me out of the team. I realised then that it was just a trap to get me into trouble, perfectly engineered and executed by Vishnu. Now, when I was in trouble, Suresh told me to get him two creative articles and those were enough to get me into his team for the project. I did two articles on Robotics olympiads, and the chemistry behind robotics within a day, and Suresh had me into his team list for the project. That just shot the amount of respect I had for Suresh, and then he became one among my best friends of all time.
My interest of music grew multifold in this period. I used to listen to a lot of music, be it Carnatic, Hindustani, filmy, everything in this period. I had developed into a huge fan of A.R.Rahman in this period and even started collecting a lot of trivia about him in this period. The interest grew more so thanks to Rajesh, who was a really good singer, and used to every now and then hum a different song. I started listening mainly to a lot of filmy stuff only due to him, and the interest generated by his humming. In this juncture, I have to mention, Karthik was a huge fan of Himesh Reshammiya's nasal twang, and this made him a constant object of ridicule amongst us. He used to sing Himesh's songs with a nasal clarity which even Himesh would not have been able to achieve. Such would be his dedication to his songs!!
Our quarterly practicals were a total mess, as the guys like us who hadn't come all that prepared had a field day. We had made a fool of ourselves, especially in the chemistry lab where making a fool of yourself wasn't anything new to all of us. It was a lot of fun flunking together, but still we did somehow manage to scrape with practical scores of above 25 on 30. The theory papers were even worse. A 40+ in Chemistry, and Computer Science seemed an achievement and a 50+ in Physics was out of the world. But these were forgotten quickly, as a short and sweet second term was awaiting us, and so were we awaiting the hectic test schedules, the bunks for the olympiads to follow, the olympiads themselves, the various subject projects and then the JEE practice tests.
Wednesday, 25 June 2008
Chapter 2
It was the last day of election campaigning. The height of campaigning. A day when there was more jeering than cheering for me. Half my class was jeering me, the part of the class which belonged to the same class as Vishnu in class 10, was in full flow to jeer me. The other part of the class, with either newcomers into PS in class 11, or the people who had come in from other classes in class 10, or Karthik and Narayan, who were with me in class 10 too, was cheering me. I didn't mind the jeers, because I expected nothing better from Vishnu's friends. But I really felt I could make a good Headboy, because I thought I could lead by example, from the front. But no one was ready to look into such claims, it looked like what one needed to win the elections was style, and popularity. On the second day, with the way the campaign was going, I was getting more and more pissed off. I had already lost out on so many many votes thanks to lack of charisma, lack of style, and a lack of popularity among the non-studying group of juniors. A lacklustre practicals session in the chemistry lab with our crazy lab assistant JayaSharadha ma'am. She had a hoarse voice, and the very entering of the lab, got you the feeling of entering a cemetry at around midnight!! The experiments were the rescuers, and we used to rush out of the lab with the joy of having won a lottery, as soon as our experiments used to be over. This day, our lab session, I felt was even more bad. Following it, we came back to class, and after 2 more class sessions, we could leave. Before leaving, it was another wicket to fall. Another friend of mine, Vidya Sharma wasn't voting for me, I heard. I went and asked her to vote for me. She told me she was voting for Saurabh. I couldn't face her, and with a nod, I turned away with an eye of tears. Tears, for two reasons, one being the vote of each dear friend of mine mattered a lot to me, and secondly because, I had reserved her vote a week before the elections. Vidya was actually planning to stand in the elections, but then pulled out because she didn't want the school commitments to affect her studies.
So the next afternoon had the elections being held, and the results were out the morning after that. As the principal announced the names of the Headboy, and his assistant, I was not only shocked but also disappointed, not to find my name in both the lists.
But then I got over it soon, and it was then time for the cultural seceretary and the wall magazine editor elections. I supported Vishnu's opponent Chinnu in the cultural seceretary elections because Vishnu had opposed me in the headboy elections, and not because of any personal affinity for Chinnu. But, you generally don't bark back at a dog when it does bark at you. I decided to bark back, and I paid for it. Vishnu was the cultural seceretary. In the meanwhile, Sandhya, who was also a good friend of mine and Suresh's, was standing in the wall magazine elections. We engineered her election strategies. Karthik was looking for a license to get closer to Sandhya, and as a friend helping in need, I provided him with the necessary help. I got him to do the domestic jobs like pasting Sandhya's posters in school and the so. With this, she was impressed with him, that they soon became good friends. Sandhya won her elections by more than 350 votes, and had an outright majority.
Now, that the elections were done, we moved on to the next most enjoyable part of our school life. Saurabh, Vishnu and I were a quizzing trio till class 11. We had rocked the city-wide Iliad quizzing contest in 10th and were the most happening quiz trio in school. At this juncture, we had attended a culturals quiz in 11th. I misspelt 'irreparable', which lost us the quiz. Not that Vishnu would have done everything right on his day, but he just wanted me out, and now he had a reason. I was chucked out. Saurabh didn't bother to fight with Vishnu regarding this, because 'they were best friends'. I mean what is best friendship when you can't even try to influence your best friend out of a folly of his. I lost half the respect I had for Saurabh after this incident, and our friendship took quite a beating. Vishnu, now that he was cultural seceretary was over the moon. I had found a new quiz team in Suresh and Pradeep. We had rocked the Iliad in 11th, but still were made the second quiz team. You couldn't have done anything about it because he was the boss, and he decided things there. But after a few victories, we couldn't be ignored, and with the pressure mounting on him, Vishnu had to send us to quizzes now and then. The culturals were an enjoyable experience. But for stuff like fashion shows in some culturals, the rest were all fun events. The loud cheers, the O's and many other experiences were stuff everyone had to experience as students.
Parallely our school was also rushing with stuff. We barely managed a pass in the chemistry and physics assignments, when the only people who comfortably managed a clean score in these too were Rahul and Vidya. We enjoyed our time, even in the little time we used to get in school amidst all the culturals. We shouted out 'O Raghupradeep' whenever someone entered class (in memory of Raghu, a classmate of ours), and made gestures of 'Adhu Try' every now and then. It was a rocking time we had at school then. The happiest times of our school days.
In the meantime, our JEE classes were also on in full flow. We were having a gala time there too, with an awesome professor in K.K.Anand sir, and a group of dedicated friends. The greatest thing about my IIT classes, was that more than the stuff I learnt, I made really good friends. Suresh and I slowly became the best of friends. Raghav was getting close too, but everytime he got close, he irritated me and got down in my eyes. In the meanwhile, Jayakant, Rahul, Krishna, Rajesh and Karthik had also become an integral part of the team. So was Nishant Rajkumar, a guy from PS, but in the D section.
Then we had the culturals we hosted 'SCINTILLATIONS'. It was truly a scintillating experience, and Vishnu finished it off in style with a group of students giving him leg-butts, and Sandhya rightly ending up with the blasts from the vice-principal for this.
Following that came the school's annual day, where yours truly hogged more limelight than many other friends for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I was the best student in the Science stream!! For what?? For loafing about, after bunking a few classes in pretext of JEE preparation, for having wasted all the time on the net when I ought to have been studying, for having watched so many adult movies illegally, when I ought not have watched even children movies, and what not!! But finally, I was the best student in school, for once in my lifetime!! So, I was glad to recieve it, and that made my annual day special. There was my favourite ex-principal on the dias when I recieved and nothing was more satisfying. Then, another old friend of mine, HariRam, came about to the hall and Sandhya, one of the co-hosts of the programme with Saurabh, went off to flirt with him, while Suresh and I were having lots of fun backstage. But post the Annual Day, it was back to serious stuff. Sports Day was a dampener due to the rain, and hence there was nothing stopping us from facing the Quarterly examination practicals and the theory papers. But considering the amount of preparation we had done for school, and the amount of hard work that had gone into JEE, there was no question about how our quarterly was going to go. We had to live and experience our fate going awry in the next few days to come...
So the next afternoon had the elections being held, and the results were out the morning after that. As the principal announced the names of the Headboy, and his assistant, I was not only shocked but also disappointed, not to find my name in both the lists.
But then I got over it soon, and it was then time for the cultural seceretary and the wall magazine editor elections. I supported Vishnu's opponent Chinnu in the cultural seceretary elections because Vishnu had opposed me in the headboy elections, and not because of any personal affinity for Chinnu. But, you generally don't bark back at a dog when it does bark at you. I decided to bark back, and I paid for it. Vishnu was the cultural seceretary. In the meanwhile, Sandhya, who was also a good friend of mine and Suresh's, was standing in the wall magazine elections. We engineered her election strategies. Karthik was looking for a license to get closer to Sandhya, and as a friend helping in need, I provided him with the necessary help. I got him to do the domestic jobs like pasting Sandhya's posters in school and the so. With this, she was impressed with him, that they soon became good friends. Sandhya won her elections by more than 350 votes, and had an outright majority.
Now, that the elections were done, we moved on to the next most enjoyable part of our school life. Saurabh, Vishnu and I were a quizzing trio till class 11. We had rocked the city-wide Iliad quizzing contest in 10th and were the most happening quiz trio in school. At this juncture, we had attended a culturals quiz in 11th. I misspelt 'irreparable', which lost us the quiz. Not that Vishnu would have done everything right on his day, but he just wanted me out, and now he had a reason. I was chucked out. Saurabh didn't bother to fight with Vishnu regarding this, because 'they were best friends'. I mean what is best friendship when you can't even try to influence your best friend out of a folly of his. I lost half the respect I had for Saurabh after this incident, and our friendship took quite a beating. Vishnu, now that he was cultural seceretary was over the moon. I had found a new quiz team in Suresh and Pradeep. We had rocked the Iliad in 11th, but still were made the second quiz team. You couldn't have done anything about it because he was the boss, and he decided things there. But after a few victories, we couldn't be ignored, and with the pressure mounting on him, Vishnu had to send us to quizzes now and then. The culturals were an enjoyable experience. But for stuff like fashion shows in some culturals, the rest were all fun events. The loud cheers, the O's and many other experiences were stuff everyone had to experience as students.
Parallely our school was also rushing with stuff. We barely managed a pass in the chemistry and physics assignments, when the only people who comfortably managed a clean score in these too were Rahul and Vidya. We enjoyed our time, even in the little time we used to get in school amidst all the culturals. We shouted out 'O Raghupradeep' whenever someone entered class (in memory of Raghu, a classmate of ours), and made gestures of 'Adhu Try' every now and then. It was a rocking time we had at school then. The happiest times of our school days.
In the meantime, our JEE classes were also on in full flow. We were having a gala time there too, with an awesome professor in K.K.Anand sir, and a group of dedicated friends. The greatest thing about my IIT classes, was that more than the stuff I learnt, I made really good friends. Suresh and I slowly became the best of friends. Raghav was getting close too, but everytime he got close, he irritated me and got down in my eyes. In the meanwhile, Jayakant, Rahul, Krishna, Rajesh and Karthik had also become an integral part of the team. So was Nishant Rajkumar, a guy from PS, but in the D section.
Then we had the culturals we hosted 'SCINTILLATIONS'. It was truly a scintillating experience, and Vishnu finished it off in style with a group of students giving him leg-butts, and Sandhya rightly ending up with the blasts from the vice-principal for this.
Following that came the school's annual day, where yours truly hogged more limelight than many other friends for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I was the best student in the Science stream!! For what?? For loafing about, after bunking a few classes in pretext of JEE preparation, for having wasted all the time on the net when I ought to have been studying, for having watched so many adult movies illegally, when I ought not have watched even children movies, and what not!! But finally, I was the best student in school, for once in my lifetime!! So, I was glad to recieve it, and that made my annual day special. There was my favourite ex-principal on the dias when I recieved and nothing was more satisfying. Then, another old friend of mine, HariRam, came about to the hall and Sandhya, one of the co-hosts of the programme with Saurabh, went off to flirt with him, while Suresh and I were having lots of fun backstage. But post the Annual Day, it was back to serious stuff. Sports Day was a dampener due to the rain, and hence there was nothing stopping us from facing the Quarterly examination practicals and the theory papers. But considering the amount of preparation we had done for school, and the amount of hard work that had gone into JEE, there was no question about how our quarterly was going to go. We had to live and experience our fate going awry in the next few days to come...
Chapter 1
It was Day one in Class twelve. My eighth year in school. We, the lastbenchers were at our usual places. I was in the second last bench, with Narayan Vasu, my friend for more than 5 years, and behind us were Suresh Shastri, and Raghav Krishna. Next to them, in the adjacent final bench, was Karthik Balu, Rajesh Ravindra, Pradeep Seshadri and Rahul Ramesh.
This was more or less our group of backbenchers. Not backbenchers in the true sense of the word's usage, but here backbenchers because our focus was less on school, and more on JEE preparation. We were fun-loving guys, but focussed all the while.
Narayan had come to P.S in class 7. Ever since, we were the best of friends. We had started our JEE preparations together, but due to his inability to cope up, he had shifted JEE preparation base, and started concentrating more on AIEEE preparation.
Suresh was a head-strong guy, with a lot of attitude. A fun loving guy, highly focussed, but at the same time, a big pervert. He complemented me to a 'T'.
Raghav was one heck of a padips. With a baby-like face, he was fondly called 'baby' by the others.
Karthik was this guy who streched beyond even the skies, a guy who had been trying Sandhya Ramakrishnan, the so-called hottie of the school, for more than a year then, but was failing miserably, slowly shifted base towards JEE preparations.
Rajesh Ravindra was a childish character, who turned to tears every ten to twenty minutes for some or the other reason. He was called Right thanks to some ad imitating Rajinikant.
Pradeep Seshadri was what you would call the height of goodness. Fun loving, but had everything within the limits, except his studying. That alone streched beyond boundaries. But was a good quizzer, thus making the third quiz partner to Suresh and me.
Then there was Rahul, a last addition to our group. Known better as a king of chemistry, he could do anything and everything in it. Plus, he watched a lot of movies like me. He got into mainstream JEE preparation a bit late than the others, but had coped up very well. He had placed himself among the main contenders for a great JEE spot.
Morever, our group consisted of Jayakanth, from DAV, another chemistry thala, and Krishna, from PSBB, who were part of the group from our JEE classes.
At this point of time, I was just back from Mumbai after the IMO training camp there, just missing the cut off by around 5 marks. There obviously was some disappointment, but there wasn't any time for me to brood as school began almost immediately. We were waiting to see our new English teacher, as our old one had become principal. Then entered our class teacher, who was to be our English teacher as well, the person all of us knew as 'Peter', and he was R.Subhash. I initially for a few minutes didn't know why he was our class teacher, because he seemed to like the adjacent class better. Only then was I told that he had been their class teacher the previous year and had been promoted to become the class teacher of a section in class 12. He then asked for the names of the ones who wanted to be nominated for Head Boy of the school. I had been nursing ambitions of leading school for over a year, and hence, I got up, and I found another classmate Saurabh Rangarajan. He was probably equally popular, but he worried me about getting my votes split. So, I had to be on my guard. Saurabh's best friend Vishnu Vinayak, was a guy who hated me, and he was actively campaigning, not for people to vote for Saurabh, but for people to not vote for me.
Our names were given to the principal, and the nominations were to be announced the next day in the assembly. There was Priya Raman, a friend of mine, pumping confidence into me that I would be definitely nominated, and that she would vote for me, and would campaign for me as well. That was when I started becoming a good friend of hers.
I went to school with a speech prepared the next day, hoping I would be nominated. We were standing in the assembly, and we were waiting for the nominations to come, and the principal said 'G.Vignesh'. And off I was to the mike to give a short speech. I forgot half the stuff I had written down in the paper, but I didn't want to damage myself by reading out from the paper. So, I spoke my heart out, to realise finally that I had done a good job of it. Then we had to campaign in classes 6 to 8 that day. I did gather some amount of voters that evening and we did have some amount of fun campaigning. But being the smaller classes, it wasn't of much significance to any of us. The next day was to be a very significant day in my school life, and I was awaiting it...
This was more or less our group of backbenchers. Not backbenchers in the true sense of the word's usage, but here backbenchers because our focus was less on school, and more on JEE preparation. We were fun-loving guys, but focussed all the while.
Narayan had come to P.S in class 7. Ever since, we were the best of friends. We had started our JEE preparations together, but due to his inability to cope up, he had shifted JEE preparation base, and started concentrating more on AIEEE preparation.
Suresh was a head-strong guy, with a lot of attitude. A fun loving guy, highly focussed, but at the same time, a big pervert. He complemented me to a 'T'.
Raghav was one heck of a padips. With a baby-like face, he was fondly called 'baby' by the others.
Karthik was this guy who streched beyond even the skies, a guy who had been trying Sandhya Ramakrishnan, the so-called hottie of the school, for more than a year then, but was failing miserably, slowly shifted base towards JEE preparations.
Rajesh Ravindra was a childish character, who turned to tears every ten to twenty minutes for some or the other reason. He was called Right thanks to some ad imitating Rajinikant.
Pradeep Seshadri was what you would call the height of goodness. Fun loving, but had everything within the limits, except his studying. That alone streched beyond boundaries. But was a good quizzer, thus making the third quiz partner to Suresh and me.
Then there was Rahul, a last addition to our group. Known better as a king of chemistry, he could do anything and everything in it. Plus, he watched a lot of movies like me. He got into mainstream JEE preparation a bit late than the others, but had coped up very well. He had placed himself among the main contenders for a great JEE spot.
Morever, our group consisted of Jayakanth, from DAV, another chemistry thala, and Krishna, from PSBB, who were part of the group from our JEE classes.
At this point of time, I was just back from Mumbai after the IMO training camp there, just missing the cut off by around 5 marks. There obviously was some disappointment, but there wasn't any time for me to brood as school began almost immediately. We were waiting to see our new English teacher, as our old one had become principal. Then entered our class teacher, who was to be our English teacher as well, the person all of us knew as 'Peter', and he was R.Subhash. I initially for a few minutes didn't know why he was our class teacher, because he seemed to like the adjacent class better. Only then was I told that he had been their class teacher the previous year and had been promoted to become the class teacher of a section in class 12. He then asked for the names of the ones who wanted to be nominated for Head Boy of the school. I had been nursing ambitions of leading school for over a year, and hence, I got up, and I found another classmate Saurabh Rangarajan. He was probably equally popular, but he worried me about getting my votes split. So, I had to be on my guard. Saurabh's best friend Vishnu Vinayak, was a guy who hated me, and he was actively campaigning, not for people to vote for Saurabh, but for people to not vote for me.
Our names were given to the principal, and the nominations were to be announced the next day in the assembly. There was Priya Raman, a friend of mine, pumping confidence into me that I would be definitely nominated, and that she would vote for me, and would campaign for me as well. That was when I started becoming a good friend of hers.
I went to school with a speech prepared the next day, hoping I would be nominated. We were standing in the assembly, and we were waiting for the nominations to come, and the principal said 'G.Vignesh'. And off I was to the mike to give a short speech. I forgot half the stuff I had written down in the paper, but I didn't want to damage myself by reading out from the paper. So, I spoke my heart out, to realise finally that I had done a good job of it. Then we had to campaign in classes 6 to 8 that day. I did gather some amount of voters that evening and we did have some amount of fun campaigning. But being the smaller classes, it wasn't of much significance to any of us. The next day was to be a very significant day in my school life, and I was awaiting it...
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