M*d*r*ch*d Tera Baap

Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs. --Pearl Strachan

Goa: renowned for its beaches, places of worship, serene beaches and most importantly for cheap liquor and feni. Our trip to Goa is a fond memory for all of us except KD. KD was known to all of us as a pacifist who might lose his temper sometimes, but rarely. What we never knew was that his temper could spark like damp firewood until we witnessed it firsthand when he was subjected to a totally new situation in Goa.

There he was, admiring the Goan beaches and babes, in the company of Vegudu. So was I, fully engrossed and involved in feni that all my efforts to reach hotel failed. I found myself sleeping in the beach only disturbed by occasional puking. Leaving me to come to terms with my stomach, KD and Vegudu continued their babe watching, eagerly expecting some hot scenes that could be of use later. They spotted a Maruti Omni van that went past them and parked at about 50 feet away from them. Two-three guys came out of the van sipping beers. Both Vegudu and KD were very sure, aided by the feni-induced hallucination, that they saw a couple of hot babes in the back-seat and the gang was really up to (or already doing) something worth watching. All they needed was an excuse to go up to the Omni and they were sure to be in for a visual treat. Feni can bring in some ingenious ideas, and out came one from Vegudu’s magic brain: "Let’s play Kallan and Police"!

It might have been a decade since either of them played that game but that did not matter for the ever-ever-child Vegudu. KD was the future sports-secretary of the collage and of course he can play any game. So the game started without a whistle, and Vegudu ran off away from KD playing the part of "Kallan". KD ran behind him playing the part of Policeman. The kallan was running with head turned to his left, so as to make sure that he gets as much of the hot-scenes as possible. So did the police. On running past the van, they both thought they could only see some well-built men inside. Never the fellows to give up, they ran back playing the next round of the game that ended some 5 feet away from the Van. Then they started the third round, running past the van again. Alas! They still could not get a glimpse of the hot babes the feni-gods had shown to them in the same van it went past them. Nobody knows how the events turned out after this. Legend has it that Vegudu opened the sliding door of the van just to confirm there weren’t any babes inside, but he denies this steadfastly. All I can tell for sure is, when I got up for another round of puking, I heard one of those well-built men (all of whom were presumably locals) shouting " M*d*r*ch*d". There was a complete silence after this, and I realized that the expression on KD's face was changing. It turned red with anger. He clenched his fist and bursted out " M*d*r*ch*d Baap", in perfectly accented hindi and a voice that had a tellingly clear pitch and tone.

As I puked again I heard a sickening noise. I looked up and saw KD on ground, fiercely holding his balls and screaming. What puzzled me was the posture of Vegudu, who was standing with his hands covering his balls, as if he was one of those football defenders standing against a free-kick just outside the penalty box. I can remember the foot of one of the heftiest men heading towards KD, aiming his middle stump. KD was clean bowled. Vegudu’s Posture? Of course, he was preparing to save himself from a free-kick that could come his way.

Needless to say, KD was admitted to a hospital, but he bravely put that off until we all reached back Kerala. After he was back in the hostel, everyone asked KD why he had to use Hindi; Malayalam would have saved the situation and KD could be happy that he gave the "theri" back. KD was calm, and did not reply; just repented about choosing Hindi as the second language in pre-degree. Somebody commented:

"Uska baap ko galli deke, KD ko baap banna mushkil ho gaya".

An eventful encounter with Joe de Franc

“Da nakki, enthdutteda m***** ithu. Purathottokke irangi nadanoodeda m****. Ethu neravum murikakathu computeril irunolum. Nee enth’da athinu garpham undakkan nokunno”. I was in front of my computer when Werel, came to my room and told this.

It was a lazy afternoon, about 3 pm and wirel came to my room wearing jeans and shirt. In hostel werel’s dresscode was just a lungee, worn half mast, whose top edge lie 12 cms below his navel and bottom edge was always 20 cms above kneecaps, just like the skirts worn by Deepika. Seeing him in his shirt and jeans, I guessed, that he is back from Kottayam, but was surprised to see him come to my room straight from Kottayam.

After a few seconds of chit-chat, to my second surprise, weral invited me for a drink. Thinking of weral two things that come to our mind are his miserly nature and ability to obtain money from others by fooling them. Knowing weral for past 2 years, I humbly declined his invitation. Knowing what was in my mind, weral took out a pint bottle from his jeans pocket and said “Nee cash kodukendada m****, ithu ente treat aa”. It was ‘Joe de Franc’, which was categorized as “expensive” by us at that time. I should say it was my third surprise in a short span of two minutes. Weral has become very unpredictable, I thought. But later towards the end of this story, I understood that weral could never change; he is all what he is.

Weral was a celebrated drinker who could simply take 6 to 8 pegs in a stretch and I, a novice who got contented with 2 or 3 pegs maximum. After lot of assurance from weral that I need not pay even a single penny from my pocket, I accepted the invitation and we moved to our RIT canteen to savor the drink. Though cautious of some concealed, puckish and hideous plan under this treat, I was deeply moved by werals hospitality and his genial gesture to offer me a drink. We talked about RIT, our hostel life, teachers etc enjoying the Joe de frank. It turned out to be a nice evening and we were at our third peg.

While making the third and last peg, weral asked me about my DOM (Dynamics of Machines) exams. I graciously told him that I expect a decent 75+ for the university. “So you could get more than 70% with your 28 for internals, right?” I was astonished by werals’ strong analytics and his knowledge on my internal marks. He was a mark savvy and keeps an eye on everyones’ percentage but I never thought he knew everyone’s internals. Could be that he guessed, as all of us got somewhere between 25 to 35, yet 28 was six out of six. “Are you going for an improvement?” I was wakened from my thoughts as weral asked it. “No” I said promptly.

He offered me the last peg and said “In that case it shouldn’t be a problem”. I started smelling a rat. All those fears I had in deep in my mind surfaced. After all weral could not treat someone from his own pocket. Werals’ face had that very old, very same, wicked smile. The two pegs I had didn’t allow my cheek muscles to frown. I slowly learnt that the Joe de frank was nothing but my DOM textbook.

I could do nothing but relish the last peg peacefully and silently. With the gratitude towards weral for sharing his fortune with me, we walked towards hostel in each other’s arm.

The Underdog

The table was dealt for 4 people. Achachan, Weral,Machu and I.Players took their cards and 'keech' started.

Folklore is that the Keech,the most famous card game in RIT hostel, was originated in Weral’s village. He used to watch and (as he later claimed), became a legendary player in Keech. When he joined RIT, financial shortcomings due to his extravagant lifestyle forced him to find other sources of income. After successful stint with seasonal activites of income like ragging and selling old books at exorbitant prices, he was in search for a permanent source of income. So keech was introduced in RIT hostel and it enjoyed immense success and popularity due to its simplicity and huge money involved (as per RIT standards then).Weral's winning keech strategy was to mark the back of the cards with his long nails and identify them during the distribution for getting a fair idea of opponents cards.

Achachan mastered the art of Keech and was a regular player with an untarnished reputation in Keech circles. Being an ardent fan of Keech, he was too keen to popularise the game and used to explain things that happened during the games to friends, bringing his strong analytical skills and the probability theory with skillful narration.

What to say about me!. The story goes like this.The keech is played in pothan's room and my room was at the other end.The games end only after midnight and by the time I reach my room all the people in that floor used to wake up by the sound of coins I carry after winning the games.It was only a matter of observing the playing styles of opponents for me.

Machu was a late entry into college as he came 3 months late after getting a transfer form calicut university.First year proved to be difficult for him and resulted in 'supples' which followed him for two more years.By the time he got away from supples, others had gained considerable expertise in keech.That day marked his entry into keech.

3 cards were dealt for each player.Initial betting amount was 50 Ps. After viewing his cards the player can either place an additional bet or fold and leave the game.Triple 'A's are the highest hand followed by triple 'K's,'Q's and 'J's.Then comes 'TIN',in which A,K,Q will be of different types.Then 'COLOUR',i.e the cards of same types followed by double A's & K, double A's & Q and so on.Player holding the highest hand wins all the money.

I was happy for getting triple 'J' and observed others reactions.Achachan was deep in thought, presumably a less hand.Weral had his trademark smile,a high hand for sure but not the best.Machu was worried,sweat dripped down his face and seemed disappointed.I felt sorry for him, he is going to loss a lot of money today. First round went with everybody placing additional bets.It went for one more round.

Third round; weral doubled the betting amount.Achachan followed,so did machu and I.It went for 5 more rounds.Well, I began to get a little concerned about it.As per the rules of the game the play continues till two players remain and either of them asking for a showdown.I went on to loss Rs.10 and finally I backed off.After folding my hand I went to achachan who was holding triple 'Q's .Achachan was in full spirit as his probability theory predicted very less chance for either Machu or weral holding 3A or 3K. After losing 10 more rupees he folded his probability theory. Together we went to weral. Weral was holding triple 'K's.

Weral was very confident because he had noted that the 'A'' s marked by him were not distributed and chances of 3'A' was impossible.After couple of rounds and betting on Rs25 Weral asked for a showdown, and to his shock, three aces emerged from Machu's hand.Weral was heartbroken as he failed to identify the right markings on the back of the cards. I asked Machu about his reaction on seeing the hand and he told "I WAS STUNNED". I got it all wrong, neither achachan's theory nor weral's tricks worked .What a way to lose money!. I was only happy for the fact that both Weral and Achachan lost more money than me and the story remained underground.

Reputation does matter!

Basic Electrical Engineering and its importance

Electrical branch was somehow close with Mechanical with regard to classes and course curriculum. But electrical girls were not that close to Mech boys. Be it the teachers or students, the feminine gender of electrical never showed any compassion to us.

A high display of this annoyance was shown during the electrical lab exams. The external teacher who came from another college demonstrated a high level of exasperation to us resulting in supple for many hardcore Rumboys during their S3. The supple exam in S4 was also not different. First day witnessed 3 “Criti” which we felt as the sign of disaster that will fall upon the supple candidates in the next two days.

Something needs to be done to postpone the Lab exams. Discussions started from Hobnob, continued in the LH steps, mess room and ended late night in Room No 407. Someone even called the ‘DC office’ of the prominent students union to enquire on the chances of calling a strike next day. Somebody contributed the wildest idea of even planting a bomb in the lab.

By this time Googly came with a great idea to generate power failure in electrical lab. All of us was thrilled by this idea and decided to throw chain or rod into the electric lines so as to blow off the fuse. But the electrical engineers who designed RIT were shrewder than us that they routed all the electric lines in RIT, underground.

We decided to call an electrical expert who could help us in blowing off a fuse outside RIT so that the KSEB authorities can only fix it. Thus the representative of S4 Electrical came as a consultant. Based on his guidance we located the Main receiving station of RIT which was at the back side of Electrical lab. Detailed plan was choked out and the time of attack was planed at 0600 hrs next day morning. Pothan, Poocha and our rep Bosh were assigned the task and five alarms were installed in their rooms to wake them up at 0545 hrs.

Morning I woke up early at 7 am and saw Pothan, Poocha and our rep Bosh walking towards hostel from the canteen side with cycle chains and iron rods in their hands. I understood from the smiling and happy face of the trio that they have accomplished the task. As they entered the hostel, they told us the numerous unsuccessful attempts of throwing the chain into the wires till the chain did its work and the street lights went off. Though satisfied, they were unhappy that the chain was reluctant to come down and it hung in the wires above their heads. Numerous attempts were made to bring the chain down but all in vein. Poocha was seen very delighted while he narrated how he climbed the ladders and brought the chain down.

We all were happy that the chain, the only evidence of our prank is now safe in our hostel and the fact that there will be no experiments to do made us even happier. Merrily we all marched to our lab much ahead of time and waited for the invigilators to conduct the viva and make us pass. But to our surprise, we saw that the papers containing title of experiments to be done were neatly arranged in the table and all the lights in the lab were ON. RIT never had a DG at that time and we were puzzled how this could happen. KSEB people, through some political contacts were asked not to come to RIT till 2 pm.

While we stood puzzled, the internal examiner said to us “There will not be any experiments in 3 phase motors and transformers as one KSEB line is at fault. You may do all experiments with single phase.”

We stood desperate

Hobnob Uncle and Rumboys

Hobnob – the not so modern yet the only decent coffee shop near RIT was our frequent hangout place. Be it after class, end of a ragging session or after a boring lecture we fell onto Hobnobs’ ambience to unwind ourselves with the coffee, puffs and wills served there.

Hobnob was managed by a man of about 50 years old (I forgot his name) and his son roughly of our age. Though friendly with us he never allowed us to take juniors to his shop and never promoted our ragging affairs in hobnob. He was a typical old man with lots of ego and self esteem that sometimes he forgot that we are his potential clients and the very reason of his existence. He never allowed us to raise our voice beyond a particular decibel and such atrocities of this man made the college union decide to put ‘ban’ on the use of hobnob. This caused us not to avail hobnob facilities but its ambience and the taste of coffee took us to hobnob after two weeks of all such ‘ban’.

Though we returned to hobnob lured by its ambience and coffee, we were longing for a chance to repay him for all his bestial deeds and all the think-tanks of our batch were weaving out plans to make it true. Nonetheless we wanted to do the biggest prank we ever did, inside hobnob.

One day at around 4.00 pm, we were at hobnob with the usual wills, coffee and puffs. Oolan put in the topic on how to retort on our Hobnob uncle. Though everybody contributed positively, Kurumadi wrapped in his short white shirt and golden lined white mundu (dhothi) resembling a ‘Nair groom’ fall into the side of our enemy uncle and advocated for him. According to Kurumadi, all our uncles’ actions were justified with his intention of maintaining the decorum and ambience of his coffee shop and to establish a title of “ragging free zone” for his shop. Moreover Kurumadi opined that though uncles’ behavior hurt us, it should be nullified by his generosity in giving us credit for more than 30 days and keeping all our accounts till the bill is paid.

Though there was a point in what Kurmadi said no one was ready to agree with his views. Moreover, all vengeance we had towards hobnob uncle got channeled towards Kurumadi also. Everybody gave disapproving and fierce glances to Kurumadi. Suddenly Poocha jumped from his chair, advanced towards our uncles’ advocate, caught his mundu in his right hand and ran towards the exit door of hobnob. All these happened within a fraction of a second and even before kurumadi knew what has happened he was deprived of his mundu. All of us got the plan. Even though the plan was not briefed, we all knew what our part was and how to execute it.

Poocha threw the mundu as high as possible into a nearby tree. We all started walking towards the volleyball court as if nothing has happened. Our puzzled uncle peeped into the shop to see his advocate sitting in the corner chair with hands between his two legs as if to stop something from falling down. While we reached volleyball court we could see the old man with a long stick trying hard to take the mundu from the tree. Mundu unlike his master displayed a high degree of loyalty towards us and preferred to stay at the top.

It was the peak business hour for hobnob as the students and teachers came out from college after class and our poor uncle in the midst of his efforts to take the mundu down, need to stop his other clients from entering hobnob. This continued for 10 minutes and Oolan standing at Volleyball court offered free coffee from hobnob to all he met in the road so as to make this drama continue. Seeing the flow of students to hobnob and the uncompromising stand of our loyal mundu, uncle yelled for his wife and asked her to bring a mundu from his wardrobe and handed it over to kurumadi to end the drama.

Though all were happy with what we did at hobnob, everyone was sad on the fact that none could see the pose of kurmadi sitting inside the shop. Uncle later told us that though he was angry that day, he laughed a lot whenever he thought of karumadis’ posture in that corner chair.

Preface

14 years ago, there were only 14 engineering colleges in Kerala. One of them was at Pampady, a sleepy town near Kottayam, beside the KK Road. The college was under the shades of rubber trees and surrounded by hills. Like its students, the college was also in its developing period Buildings were only slowly coming up and so were the labs. There was only one permanent building - that was the Civil Block. That was where the seniors had their classes. The office staff and the Principal sat out of a temporary office building near the entrance. There were only 4 branches (Mech, E&C, EEE and Civil) with batch strength of 50 each. For S1-S2, there were two temporary class-rooms at the foot of the hill that houses Mech Block and the Workshop, and another classroom inside the Workshop building. The time table was scheduled in such a way that at least one batch was out for Geometrical Drawing, Workshop or such classes that are outside of the classrooms.

In 1998, a group of students joined that college. They were the first batch to have had all Lab classes in RIT itself (the seniors had to go to MA College, Kothamangalam to see how machines work). During their time, the administrative block, the Mech Block, the Library building, the Canteen etc. came up. The dependence on the PTM School ground for games was replaced by a small ground within the campus (they called it K. R. Narayanan's Varavu Memorial Ground because the ground was initially prepared for hosting the then President of India, Shri. K. R. Narayanan to formally inaugurate the college in a function which, never happened of course). They grew along with the college and by the time they were ready to face the world, the college had also grown independent.

The four formative years of their life they spend with this college. The college was part of their life. The ragging sessions, classrooms, hostel, canteens, library, drawing hall, festivals whatever it be, everything left lasting impressions in their minds. They were part of everything. They felt the pulse of the college in every heartthrob. They remained true to each other. They lived together, they dreamed together and enjoyed the happiness of being together - for four long years.

In 2002, they moved out from the college. With heart full of memories, they stepped into the life that awaited them. Life that was truly molded by the college, in return to their love. College days retreated into their memories and they donned a nostalgic smile whenever they met and recounted the times which were so dear to them.

10 years later, looking down the lane, those funny deeds arouse the same depth of nostalgia. Scribbling down those funny deeds, they could hear someone from deep inside their heart saying, “those were the best days of our life”.

We are sure; these stories will take you too to your college days. Those innocent, youthful, colorful days of your life.