When I was 16...

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I happened to read some of my old autographs (is this concept extinct now among friends that part...because there is no real parting now?) and was amused by what dominated our lives when we were 16 -- thoughts and words and relationships that had seemed important then...

A few excerpts:

So, "I" start my autograph book with a quote: "To meet, to befriend and then to part  is always tough for the human heart"


A quote on the second page: "If we meet again, we shall smile, else this parting was well made"


So heavy and dramatic?

From my friends: almost all of them start with "Dear Mosa" -- my pet name in Bits...

"Wherever you go, whatever you  be, please keep in touch with me"


"I will always remember along other things, you knw, your kottals and of course, the way you eat sam in IC"


That hasn't changed much, k tells me I eat samosas in a ridiculous fashion even now!

"There are many more things I wanted to say but I cannot put them down on paper..."


"What do I write in your autograph? It is a very painful task for me to write your autograph because it means parting..."


"Though circumstances are going to separate us, I am sure that our friendship will hold us together..."


"Marry some body who loves you as much as...then...when you narrate your college stories to your grandchildren, don't forget to mention me" -- No, I don't know who that someone was...really.

"And nobody can match you in telling long stories about the kadalai of the day!"


A lot of them wishing me good luck with my university applications. That seems to have occupied a big chunk of our thoughts. A lot of advice about not worrying -- hmm.

I remember crying for days together, walking aimlessly in a red-eyed daze after leaving Bits. Who are these people now and if I meet them, will I recognize the person in them that wrote these words?

I really don't know. Perhaps, we can  pick up where we left off...that's what good friends are supposed to do, right?

Arranging the library is always a soul searching process for me one way or another. The photos or the words get me every time.

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Being grateful.

L~ sent me a link a few months ago about this blog which is about three things that the blogger is grateful for everyday. So, a new post a day each of which describes why the blogger is thankful for something in her life. And I filed away the blog in my head to refer back to it sometime in the future. Of late, my head seems to be constantly reeling with to-dos and tasks, consumed by day-to-day routines and rigours and I thought I should make a conscious effort to remind myself to unwind and as wise Van put it (to letitgooooooo).

Part of this effort is to attempt a technology-free day -- no TV, no phones and gasp! No internet! Of course, the project promises to be a spectacular failure thanks to k's total disinterest and distaste for the whole idea. So, what do you guys think? Is the idea too cliched to work? Or will the very thought that we can't lean upon technology to kill our boredom and contribute to our entertainment will make us more stressed? What will we do instead, you ask? But, with a toddler in tow, I wonder if going tech-free will make any difference to my day except after r~ has slept for the night (1-2 hours me-time at the most) and then, I always have my book tower to fall back upon. What this exercise will probably buy me is my inability to access facebook and my online tadalist...hmm. Not much but everyone keeps claiming how going back to a slower paced world will fix all woes and so I thought this was worth a shot!

Meanwhile, my three thanks go to:

Hari:

"Ramya?"

Me (holding back tears at Atlanta airport, August 2000 -- first day in America): "Yes..."

"Naan hari? Nyaabagama iruka? Bits senior...mechanical engineering..."

"Oh" (His face vaguely familiar was like that of a guardian angel's)

"Are you ok?"

I give him a hesitant nod and show him my boarding pass.

"You have to catch the train to go to that terminal...you know that right?"

"No..." (At this point, my eyes are watering up...what train? Where?)

He points to where a few people stand with luggages and says, "You need to board this train and get down at your terminal..."

"Ok...", I say in a small voice.

He hesitates, "You know I can come with you if you want...was waiting to receive a few friends..."

"No, I'll manage..." (Please come, I say in my head. I am scared and alone and my luggage tore and the nasty lady at the counter screamed at me, "Expecting to sue the airport I suppose? With your cheap old baggage from India" and I shook my head vigorously and she dismissed me with a "Seal your bag and get it". I waited helplessly until a kindly old American gentleman sealed my suitcase in a plastic wrap and patted my shoulder when I thanked him profusely...)

"Sure? Ok, I'll walk with you..."

And he waits until I board the train. I am busy trying to balance my overstuffed hand luggage and am thrown off balance momentarily when the train starts. I manage to get off at the right terminal and the rest as they say is history.

So...thanks Hari for being there that day and saving my day. Some day maybe we will meet and I will remember to thank you properly...

Salooja, Lakshmi, Anusha:

All of them my school buddies. Their faces are just vague silhouttes for me today but I enjoyed their friendships while they lasted...for reasons I can't fully recall I lost touch with them. I remember why Lakshmi stopped talking to me like she used to...

"Lakshmi, Ramya...stand up!" My Geography teacher? Or was it Math teacher? I can't remember but I do remember she sounded extremely displeased that we were whispering to each other while she droned on about something she felt was of utmost importance.

"Stop talking in class."

We both being "good students" hung our heads in shame.

"Ramya, don't let Lakshmi spoil you also!"

And that was that. Lakshmi although a conscientious student seldom stood within the top three ranks (which I did). And after that day, Lakshmi maintained her distance. I was too immature to discuss the incident openly and here I am today.

Salooja had the sweetest round face of any girl I have ever known. She was gentle and mild-mannered and just happy to go along with my ideas. I suppose I was the bossy one then but in general she had a calming influence on me and I felt protective around her -- she was this delicate sort of girl. I don't remember why we didn't stay in touch...

Anusha was this bubbly, boyish, cute girl. I was very fond of her. I can't even remember why. Just remember that she had this cute front flick and she was fun to hang out with.

Thanks to you girls for being really great girl friends. I miss you and even more because I don't have any girl (or best) friends so to speak (just friends and family friends).

Radha:

When I was still a freshie at Bits, one of the final year seniors, Radha, called me to her room (they were supposed to be the worst raggers) and I was terrified. The first thing she asked me to do was to fill her water bottle with water :p She wore glasses and looked smart with her hair high up in a pony tail. But the ragging was not quite what I expected. She asked me what I read and we discovered we liked the same books. We discussed Darcy (who else?) and quite a few other characters from novels and three hours later she said I was free to go! I came out shocked that I had talked so much to a senti-semite and that it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience!

A few days later at our mess, I heard "Freshieeee" and my heart stopped. A pretty girl dressed in a faint pink saree gestured me to her table. Several other seniors sat with her and I carried my lunch plate and stood with my head bowed in front of her, "Yes ma'am."

She stared at me for a few minutes and I didn't know what to say, "Yes ma'am aaa? Ada paavi? Don't you remember me?"

I hastily tried to place her but by then she was already waving me off. And a few minutes later it came back to me. Radha minus the pony tail and glasses. Dressed in a saree instead of western wear and wearing contacts and a bindi! I felt a sudden urge to rush back to her table and apologize but I was still a scared freshie and decided not to test my luck.

A year later when it was graduation night, Radha and Sowmya (her best friend) cried and hugged each other because they were leaving Bits and I thought it would be pretty awesome to have a best friend who would cry and hug you when you left college. That didn't happen. Of course, I didn't know it then and I really wished that would be true in my case also.

So thank you Radha for a fantastic ragging experience. If we met now, we would have so much to talk about.

Why these people? When I could thank a million others? I don't know. Just picked the first few people that came knocking at my mental door step when I dug back into black and white photos in my head...and I really do feel better now. Being thankful is an awesome feeling indeed.

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Happy Days, Bits Pilani

Ok, I'll come clean. I am one of those weird people who googles names of old college mates once in a while, just for the heck of it. Not just the names of guys I had a crush on or best friends, even those that I secretly wanted to be like in college, those I had a fallout with, the studs (as we called them in Bits), the freaks, even the nobodys. I guess I am just curious at times to know how their lives turned out, after all these years.

And once in a while, along comes a movie like Happy Days and I feel nostalgic again, pull out my old photo albums, autograph books (how sad to see them die a slow death now that we can boast of always staying "connected" - I just realized am hardly in touch with the people in these fading photos who shared some of the most enjoyable years of my life!) and read the words I had read so often many years back (teary-eyed the first few weeks after leaving Bits).

Oasis (Cultural festival) and Apogee (Academic/movie festival) were the times I enjoyed the most. After coming back to Meera Bhawan, my wingies and I would talk endlessly about the actual events and of course about boys! There were times when we would rush to get seats in the campus cinema hall next to the fun guys. The unlucky ones among us got stuck next to the not-so-fun guys or girls :p. And then back in the bhawan we would get ragged for sitting next to so-and-so. Sounds so silly when I say it now but then it was a big deal!

And Tripping! Tripping, bitsian lingo for teasing you with a boy (girl), was fun especially when you got tripped with the right guy ;) My favourite tripping routine was to substitute names of my friends in famous movie songs and sing it loudly when they were in "kadalai" mode.

Ragging was fun at Bits, for girls at least! There was this one senior dude who made it a point to catch all the pretty girls multiple times until one of them fell in love with him (or at least that's what I thought his persistent efforts indicated)! My number was 3, which wasn't so bad considering he had ragged the two prettiest girls on campus 7 and 5 times respectively (When you are 16 you remember stuff like this for a long time) :p Then, there was this time DAV school seniors at Bits "caught" me for a ragging session and they were being nice and all but I was homesick I guess and I started crying and that made them really uncomfortable. So, they took me to Connaught (Bits hangout area - restaurants and such) and treated me to a strawberry milk shake and cracked jokes to make me laugh and accompanied me back to Meera bhawan since it was getting dark, which was all very sweet of them.

The other incident I remember well is going to Shankar Bhawan to get ragged! Bits had this weird custom where freshees got to go to one of the guys' bhawans to get ragged, eat a really good lunch with some amazing icecream and come back to Meera Bhawan to share those stories. So anyway, I remember that one of my well-meaning Meera Bhawan seniors called me the previous night and said, "Mosa, just wanted to warn you that you better be prepared for tomorrow. you are the only Illad girl going to Shankar Bhawan and those guys are all Illads but they are really nice guys..." (Illad = Tamil students, from "illada..."). I was pretty scared by the time I got to Shankar Bhawan with a few other girls. Those guys did turn out to be nice guys, although a bit intimidating at first. There were the usual questions about why girls don't get into IIT often if they are just as smart as guys and so on. And then at the end of the ragging session, they asked me to rate them on a scale of 1-10 :p I made the mistake of rating one guy 10 mainly because he didn't ask me too many questions and seemed the quiet, studious not-scary senior types. By the time I walked out of Shankar bhawan (and several months following that day), those guys would shout "10 pointer" whenever I passed through the Bhawan.

Another incident I remember vividly was getting caught with s~ by my school (DAV) seniors. I can't say I was entirely displeased considering I thought s~ was cute :p So, when the seniors gave him 2 options - propose to a cow or write a romantic poem and propose to the freshee, I was amused. I knew s~ was good at English but producing a poem on demand was tough for anyone. Anyway, s~ made a quick decision, plucked a blade of grass (it could have been a weed actually) and got down to his knees and recited this really sweet poem (Ok fine, it was kind of cliched but hey, try writing one on demand in a few seconds!). I think sometime in my third year, I asked s~ if he still remembered the ragging incident and he said he did and actually wrote that poem down for me, which for some girly, sentimental reason, I still save in my treasure box. Actually, it's in k's treasure box and he isn't exactly thrilled that I store my "proposal poem" (below) there :)


There were the tie-ups, breakups, misunderstandings that's typical of college life and I think we ended up being in two different gangs over the course of 4 years. There was this one time when someone spread the rumour that I was going "psenti" (steady) with a guy and several people offered congratulations before I could tell them nothing of that sort actually happened. The funny thing was one of the girls who helped spread the rumour eventually married the guy. Talk about coincidences!

You know how in movies, there are always these friends of main guy/girl who make it their business to advise guy/girl about their lives, I had a couple of those advice sessions too - "Mosa, you shouldn't do this..." blah blah. Which at that point I took a bit too seriously. In retrospect I had the most fun when I was just doing that - being myself! I know better now but that's what college experience is about, I guess. Sweet and sour. Oh! Did I ever mention my blog name is based on my Bitsian name, mosakutti ?!

Bits campus is beautiful, almost out of a movie but I never did get a chance to see Jaipur though. My parents were reluctant to begin with and the warden told them it was not a great idea, she would not approve of the trip but my parents could go ahead and give their approval in which case she won't stand in their way! And there was this guy in the group who suggested that he would talk to the warden in an oldish male voice claiming to be one of the girls' dads. We finally dumped the plan :p

I was in DOPY (Dept of Photography) for a year and then in Art & Deco but never managed to gel with the gang there. Always wanted to be a part of PTM (Pilani Tamil Mandram) and wanted to transfer to Comp Sci/Info Sys...at that time, it was a big deal. I was pretty focused on switching my branch to Comp Sci. Never did happen though.

Half the fun of the Bits experience was in the long train journeys. I think of those GT/TN train journeys sometimes when I am searching for short story ideas...I assumed some dude like SRK would hold my hand (just like in...you guessed it, DDLJ!) and pull me into the train. It did happen. Only the dude was a middle aged, pot-bellied sardarji (God bless him) who gave me a lecture on how educated youngsters these days don't have any common sense and that I should have gotten on to the train on time instead of running to get onto a moving train. In my defense, I did manage to step on to the train but one of my friends decided to use me as a lever to push herself on to the moving train :p

Sigh. Memories, memories. Like quicksand. You are in another life when you eventually pull out of it...

All in good fun.

Remaining stories through photos :)

Bhawan's nites (above) were fun. This is when guys get to invite girls as guests to their bhawan and vice versa. Usually a fun-filled night with cultural programs and great food!

I loved sam and chai at insti cafeteria. Especially after cutting classes. One of the bhaias captured in our group photo above.

Many a memorable moment spent at Meera bhawan mess (above).

Ahem...group studies at Ref Li (reference library on campus)!

Crazy times in Meera bhawan (above)!

Gosh! I can't remember where we took this photo...somewhere close to campus, we had taken our cycles for a day trip there...

Yeah, the DDLJ craze still held strong those days :p

Another Bhawan's night group photo...sarees for a change :)

Holi @ Meera Bhawan

Dancing with the stars...

Sky (where most of the ragging sessions happened) with my first gang...

And here's the song that started it all for me :)

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