said.
“See, I am not saying we stop mugging. We just draw the line. A day of classes, then three
hours a day of studies and the rest is our time. Let’s just try, just one semester. Isn’t it fair? A
kind of decentralization of education.”
Alok and I looked at each other. Ryan had a point. If I never played squash in college, I’d
probably never play it again. If I did not take part in Scrabble now, I’d never do it when I
had a job.
“I can try,” I said, mostly to agree with Ryan. He would not have stopped otherwise
anyway.
“Three hours is not enough.” Alok was doubtful.
“Okay, three and a half for our super-mugger,” Ryan said, “Okay?”
Alok agreed, but his voice was so meek, it sounded like the chicken he just ate speaking
from within.
Ryan was elated, and he drove us back to Kumaon at speeds that made the traffic police
dizzy. No one stopped us, or rather, we didn’t stop. I covered the number plate with my foot,
so that cops could not take it down. After all, this was a celebration of drawing the line.
Meanwhile, I ran into Neha at the campus bookstore. I had not met her since she had tried to
kill me and it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Mostly that whole jogging plan was a bad idea. Even
with the prospect of meeting Neha, I just could not wake up. I did try once again, but I was
late and did not see her car. After that, all my motivation dropped and Ryan gave up on
waking me up. He had to, cause I kind of threatened to withdraw from his draw-the-line
study plan. So, what I’m trying to say is, when I saw Neha again, it was a nice surprise.
”Hi,” I said, raising my hand to catch her attention.
She looked at me, and then kept looking, her face expressionless. She acted as if she did
not recognize me. Then she went back to flipping pages of the notebooks she had just
bought. Now that was hell, I mean, if you are in a public place and say ‘hi’ to a girl, all
beaming and everything and she’s like ‘have we been introduced?’
The shopkeeper looked at me, as did a few other customers, and I felt like low-life
though I gave it another try. I mean, just a few weeks ago she was all sympathetic and
friendly, so maybe she just couldn’t place me.
“Neha, it’s me! Remember the car accident in the morning?” I said.
“Excuse me,” she said huffily and departed.
This time the shopkeeper looked at me like I was a regular sex-offender. The girl bumped
me and gave me a lift and all dammit, I wanted to scream, even as I bought my pencils and
loose sheets. So I am not that attractive and that is reason enough not to recognize someone
in public because I guess being friends with ugly people kind of rubs off badly on you. I had
been some sort of a loser in school as well, so this was not a total shock. I mean what
happened to me once in my school, I don’t even want to get into all that but somehow, I felt
strange. I don’t know, Neha did not look like that kind of girl.
I walked out of the shop as quickly as possible to get away from the humiliation. I was
feeling crap. I mean, she could have at least said “hi,” I thought. I know I am fat and if I
were a girl, I’d probably not talk to me either. I was walking alone on a narrow path
connecting the bookshop to the hostel, when someone tapped my shoulder. I turned around
and guess who?
“Hi,” said Neha.
Go to hell, was my instant mental reflex. But I turned to look at her and damn, she was
pretty. And with that one tiny dimple on her right cheek flashing every time she smiled…
Now tr y saying ‘go to hell’ to that!
“Hi. Neha, right?” I said, this time really careful and slow.
“Of course. Hey, I am really, really, really sorry, I could not reply to you properly there.
There’s a reason,” she divulged.
Now, girls do this all the time, they think repeating an adjective makes it more effective;
the three ‘reallys’ were supposed to constitute an apology.
“What reason?” I said.
“It is just that, I mean…can we just forget it?”
“No, tell me why?” I insisted.
“The shopkeeper there knows me and my dad for the last ten years and they talk
regularly.”
“So?”
“My dad is really strict about me talking to boys and he will totally flip out if he hears I
am friends with a student.”
“Really? Just greeting someone?”
“He is like that. And campus rumours always get blown out of proportion. Please, I am
sorry.”
She was being a bit ridiculous, I thought, but I kind of knew where she was coming from.
Some girls’ dads are a bit touchy, and with over a thousand boys with their proportional
quota of hormones on campus he would be worried.
“Well, I can’t see you then anyway, right?”
“You can as long as it is out of campus.”
“We live here!”
“Yes, but there is a world outside. We can go to the Hauz Khas market. Do you feel like
some ice-cream?”
It is hard enough to say no to pretty girls or to ice-cream but when it’s offered together, it
is well nigh impossible. I said yes, and she instructed me to walk out the campus gate and
walk two blocks to an ice-cream parlour. She would come there as well, but gave me a
five-minute headstart, walking sedately behind me.
It was completely weird to walk alone that way, and I kept thinking how stupid I’d look
in the parlour if she did not show up. At least I’d have ice-cream, I thought. Food is almost
as good as girls.
But Neha did show up and inside the Cadbury’s ice-cream parlour she was a different
person.
“So, Mr Jogger, did not see much of you after that day. Did I scare you off?” She began to
giggle. Girls do this all the time, say something half-funny, and laugh at it themselves.
“No, it’s just a pain to wake up.”
“Well, I was kind of hoping to see you,” she confessed.
“Yeah, looked like it at the bookshop.”
“I said I am sorry, Hari,” she said, and touched my arm again like she had earlier. I kind
of liked that, I mean, which guy wouldn’t. You have this pretty girl all smiley and sorry and
touching your arm; better than ice-cream I tell you.
Five Point Someone What not to do at IIT Novel Chetan Bhagat
Re: Five Point Someone What not to do at IIT Novel Chetan Bh
There are two kinds of pretty girls in Delhi. One is the modern type, girls who cut their
hair short, wear jeans or skirts, and tiny earrings. The second is the traditional type who
wears salwar-kameez, multi-coloured bindi and large earrings. Neha was more the second
type, and she wore a light-blue chikan suit with matching earrings. However, she was not a
forced traditional type, like fat girls who have no choice but to wear Indian clothes. Neha
was just fine, and actually way out of my league, with her long light brown hair, which she
mostly left open, a curl catapulting carelessly on to her forehead. Her face was completely
round, but not because she was fat or anything, just a natural cute shape. I just kept looking
at her as my strawberry ice-cream melted.
“Friends?”
“I guess so. You know, when you ignored me there, I first thought it was because of the
way I am.”
“What way are you?”
“Never mind,” I said.
I told Neha about our harebrained scholastic plan.
“Three hours? Pretty brave I must say. Guess you are underestimating the profs and their
love for assignments,” she said, scraping up whatever remained in her cup.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Anyway, you tell me about yourself. Learnt driving now?”
“Yes, I even got a licence,” she chirped and opened her bag to show it to me. She started
taking stuff out of her handbag and a million things came out – lipsticks, lip balms, creams,
bindis, earrings, pens, mirrors, wet tissues and other stuff that one can live without. She
found what she was looking for eventually.
“Wow. Neha Samir Cherian, female, 18 years,” I read her name aloud.
“Hey, stop it. You are not supposed to notice ladies’ ages.”
“That is for sixty-year-old women, you are young.” I returned her licence.
“Still, I like chivalrous men,” she said, repacking her bag and the million belongings.
I did not know if it meant something. I mean, did she want me to know what kind of men
she liked, or did she want me to be like the men she liked, or did she like me. Who knows?
Figuring out women is harder than topping a ManPro quiz.
“Samir, isn’t that a guy’s name?”
“It is my brother’s. I decided to keep it when I got this licence made.”
“Really? What does your brother do?”
“Not much,” she shrugged. “He’s dead.”
Now this was unexpected. I mean, I just thought I’d tease her on a mannish middle name
and everything but this was turning heavy. “Oh!” I said.
“It’s fine, really, he died one year ago. We were just two years apart, so you can imagine
how close I was to him.”
I nodded my head. Her beautiful face was turning sad and I wished I could do something
clownish to change subjects.
“How did it happen?” I asked, for it seemed the polite thing to do.
“A freak accident. He was crossing the rail-tracks and got hit by a train.”
I wondered if I could take a chance and hold her arm like she had a few minutes ago. I
mean, that is how shallow I was. She was all choked up and everything, but all I could think
of was if I could make my move.
I shifted my hand closer, but she startled me by talking again. “Life goes on, you know. He
was my only sibling, so that is kind of tough. But life goes on,” she repeated, more to herself
than to me.
I pulled my hand back. I sensed this was not the best moment.
“Ice-cream? C’mon let us do round two,” she said brightly and went up to the counter
without waiting for me. She returned with these two big sundaes, and she was smiling again.
“So he had a train accident? In Delhi?”
“Yes. You don’t think that can happen?” she asked challengingly.
“No….o.”
“C’mon, tell me something cheerful about your hostel.”
I told her about Ryan’s scooter and how we over-speed on it and things. It was hardly
interesting, but it changed the topic. We talked about other things until dusk and Neha’s
internal clock went off.
“Have to go,” she jumped up. “Shall we walk back?”
“Yeah. Separately though right?” I was catching on fast.
“Yes, sorry please,” she said in a mock-baby tone that girls lapse into at the slightest
provocation.
I stood up, too.
“So, Hari?”
“So what?”
“Aren’t you going to ask me out or what?”
That stumped me. I mean, of course I’d wanted to but thought she’d say no for sure and
then I’d have felt crap all night. I would have been satisfied with the ice-cream and
everything but this was kind of neat, and now I had no choice anyway.
“Huh? Sure. Neha, would you like to go out…with me?”
She had made it pretty safe for me, but I tell you, the first time you ask a girl for a date, it
is like the hardest thing. Almost as stressful as vivas.
“Yes, of course I will. Meet me at this parlour next Saturday, same time as today.”
I nodded.
“And next time, don’t be this shy IIT boy, just ask.”
I smiled.
“So, what are you waiting for? Leave now.”
A demure five minutes ahead of her, I pleasantly dwelt on the mechanics of the female
mind, waddling back into hostel.
Page No 32 completed.............
hair short, wear jeans or skirts, and tiny earrings. The second is the traditional type who
wears salwar-kameez, multi-coloured bindi and large earrings. Neha was more the second
type, and she wore a light-blue chikan suit with matching earrings. However, she was not a
forced traditional type, like fat girls who have no choice but to wear Indian clothes. Neha
was just fine, and actually way out of my league, with her long light brown hair, which she
mostly left open, a curl catapulting carelessly on to her forehead. Her face was completely
round, but not because she was fat or anything, just a natural cute shape. I just kept looking
at her as my strawberry ice-cream melted.
“Friends?”
“I guess so. You know, when you ignored me there, I first thought it was because of the
way I am.”
“What way are you?”
“Never mind,” I said.
I told Neha about our harebrained scholastic plan.
“Three hours? Pretty brave I must say. Guess you are underestimating the profs and their
love for assignments,” she said, scraping up whatever remained in her cup.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Anyway, you tell me about yourself. Learnt driving now?”
“Yes, I even got a licence,” she chirped and opened her bag to show it to me. She started
taking stuff out of her handbag and a million things came out – lipsticks, lip balms, creams,
bindis, earrings, pens, mirrors, wet tissues and other stuff that one can live without. She
found what she was looking for eventually.
“Wow. Neha Samir Cherian, female, 18 years,” I read her name aloud.
“Hey, stop it. You are not supposed to notice ladies’ ages.”
“That is for sixty-year-old women, you are young.” I returned her licence.
“Still, I like chivalrous men,” she said, repacking her bag and the million belongings.
I did not know if it meant something. I mean, did she want me to know what kind of men
she liked, or did she want me to be like the men she liked, or did she like me. Who knows?
Figuring out women is harder than topping a ManPro quiz.
“Samir, isn’t that a guy’s name?”
“It is my brother’s. I decided to keep it when I got this licence made.”
“Really? What does your brother do?”
“Not much,” she shrugged. “He’s dead.”
Now this was unexpected. I mean, I just thought I’d tease her on a mannish middle name
and everything but this was turning heavy. “Oh!” I said.
“It’s fine, really, he died one year ago. We were just two years apart, so you can imagine
how close I was to him.”
I nodded my head. Her beautiful face was turning sad and I wished I could do something
clownish to change subjects.
“How did it happen?” I asked, for it seemed the polite thing to do.
“A freak accident. He was crossing the rail-tracks and got hit by a train.”
I wondered if I could take a chance and hold her arm like she had a few minutes ago. I
mean, that is how shallow I was. She was all choked up and everything, but all I could think
of was if I could make my move.
I shifted my hand closer, but she startled me by talking again. “Life goes on, you know. He
was my only sibling, so that is kind of tough. But life goes on,” she repeated, more to herself
than to me.
I pulled my hand back. I sensed this was not the best moment.
“Ice-cream? C’mon let us do round two,” she said brightly and went up to the counter
without waiting for me. She returned with these two big sundaes, and she was smiling again.
“So he had a train accident? In Delhi?”
“Yes. You don’t think that can happen?” she asked challengingly.
“No….o.”
“C’mon, tell me something cheerful about your hostel.”
I told her about Ryan’s scooter and how we over-speed on it and things. It was hardly
interesting, but it changed the topic. We talked about other things until dusk and Neha’s
internal clock went off.
“Have to go,” she jumped up. “Shall we walk back?”
“Yeah. Separately though right?” I was catching on fast.
“Yes, sorry please,” she said in a mock-baby tone that girls lapse into at the slightest
provocation.
I stood up, too.
“So, Hari?”
“So what?”
“Aren’t you going to ask me out or what?”
That stumped me. I mean, of course I’d wanted to but thought she’d say no for sure and
then I’d have felt crap all night. I would have been satisfied with the ice-cream and
everything but this was kind of neat, and now I had no choice anyway.
“Huh? Sure. Neha, would you like to go out…with me?”
She had made it pretty safe for me, but I tell you, the first time you ask a girl for a date, it
is like the hardest thing. Almost as stressful as vivas.
“Yes, of course I will. Meet me at this parlour next Saturday, same time as today.”
I nodded.
“And next time, don’t be this shy IIT boy, just ask.”
I smiled.
“So, what are you waiting for? Leave now.”
A demure five minutes ahead of her, I pleasantly dwelt on the mechanics of the female
mind, waddling back into hostel.
Page No 32 completed.............
Re: Five Point Someone What not to do at IIT Novel Chetan Bh
5
—
Make Notes not War
U.S. WAS GUNNING FOR IRAQ, TAKING AS ITS FIRST CASUALTY our majors, or
end-semester exams. Thousands of kilometres from our campus, a despotic dictator annexed
another smaller despotic dictator’s country. It just so happened that both countries had heaps
of oil and that made the whole world take notice. Next, the world’s most powerful country
asked the dictator to get the hell out. Big dictator refused and very soon it became clear that
he would be attacked.
So, what the hell did this have to do with the three of us at IIT, you’d think. If this was one
of Ryan’s stupid sci-fi movies, the three of us could be like involved in a conspiracy, using
the IIT lab to provide superior weapons to the CIA or something. But this was not sci-fi, and
the three of us considered ourselves lucky to complete the ManPro welding assignment on
time, let alone provide superior war technology.
No, the Gulf war did not personally invite our involvement but it was a big bang that
swallowed our first semester majors, a catalyst for all our competitive, macho instincts.
But before that let me tell you of the glory days of the short-lived ‘draw-the-line’ policy.
As per plan we studied for three exact hours every day, mostly late unto night, which meant
we had the evenings free for fun.
“The best game ever invented,” Ryan said as he took us to the squash courts despite Alok
and me looking like guys who never came near a mile of a squash court.
“This game will rest your mind, and burn some of that fat off.” Ryan, who had been the
squash captain in his school, tossed warm-up shots in the court.
Unless you are like a champion or something, you probably know how difficult the damn
game is. The rubber ball jumps around like a frog high on uppers, and you jump around it to
try and connect it to your racket. Ryan had played it for years and Alok and I were hopeless
at it. I missed connecting the ball to the racket five times in a row, and Alok did not even try
moving from his place. After a while, even I gave up. Ryan tried to keep the game going as
we stood like extra pillars on court.
“C’mon guys, try at least,” Ryan called out.
“I can’t do this,” Alok said and sat down on the court. The guy is such a loser. I mean, I
could not play squash for nuts, but at least I won’t sit down on the court.
“Let us try again tomorrow,” Ryan said, optimistic to say the least.
He dragged us to court for ten days in a row, but Alok and I got no better. We found it
hard enough to even spot where the ball had gone, let alone chase it.
“Ryan, we can’t do this man,” Alok said plaintively, panting uncontrollably. “If you really
want to play this, why don’t you find other partners?”
“Why? You guys are getting better,” Ryan said.
Yeah right, maybe in thirty years, I thought grimly.
“So you don’t enjoy this?”
What was Ryan thinking? Enjoy? Enjoy? I was in danger of tearing that ball into roughly
fifty pieces.
“Not really,” I ventured mildly.
“Fine then, we don’t have to do this. I mean, I can give up squash,” Ryan said.
“No, that is not…” Alok said.
Ryan had already decided, no point arguing with him. It was his whole ‘where my friends
go, I go’stand, though I kind of felt bad making him give up his favourite sport.
“You can play with others,” I suggested.
“Others aren’t my friends,” Ryan said in a firm voice that sounded like the final word.
Alok and I shrugged and we left the court.
After squash came something tamer and less active, chess. Alok and I felt somewhat up to
this one, for, unlike squash, we could at least touch and move the game pieces. But Ryan
usually won, and I would never be passionate about bumping off plastic pieces like him.
Apart from chess, we spent our free time riding Ryan’s scooter, feeling the fierce wind
whistle through our hair. We caught every new movie, visited every tourist destination in
Delhi, did everything, went everywhere.
For the most part, we managed fine within the three hours assigned to studies. Sometimes
assignments took longer, leaving no time for revision. That worried Alok, especially when
the end-semester exams edged closer, and he suggested increasing the limit. And we would
have if it hadn’t been for one thing – the afore-mentioned Gulf war.
Now wars happen all the time and India alone has fought more than it can afford. But the
Gulf war was different, as it came right on TV. CNN, an American news channel, had just
opened shop in India and brought the deserts of Iraq right into our TV room.
“This is CNN reporting live from the streets of Baghdad. The sky is lit up with the first
air raid,” a well-groomed person told us.
Alok, Ryan and I looked up from our chess game. It was sensational, spectacular and
unlike anything we had ever seen on TV. To put it in context, this was before cable or any
private channels came to India. Until then we had two crummy government channels in
which women played obsolete instruments and dull men read news for insomniacs and
retards. Colour had only arrived two years ago, and most programs were still black and
white. Then, in one quick week, we had the glitzy, jazzy and live – CNN.
“Is this real? I mean is this happening?” Alok looked dazed.
“Of course, Fatso. You think this is a play?” Ryan scoffed as two American pilots hifived
themselves after hours of pounding a perfectly real city. A CNN reporter asked them
questions about their mission. The soldiers told about bombing a godown, and taking down
a power station that gave electricity to Baghdad.
“Wow, the Americans are going to win this,” Alok said.
“Don’t underestimate the Iraqis, who have fought wars for ten years. Americans are just
pounding from the air,” Ryan said.
“Yes, but America is too powerful. Saddam hasn’t a clue.”
“He does, wait till a land battle happens,” Ryan defended.
The war sucked us in like quicksand, Alok and Ryan got really into ‘who is going to win
this’ kind of crap. I mean, you stop doing that when you are twelve I think (Superman or
Batman?), but there was no stopping them. I liked watching the war as well, though I primly
took no sides.
Iraq was kind of anonymous then, and we unabashedly cheered on America. IIT cared
about America. Most of our foreign aid came from rich American firms and quite a large
percentage of our alumni went on scholarship there and for jobs, constituting a chunk of the
brain drain. So, unsurprisingly, our heart bled for the US.
At the same time, the war visuals became more gruesome. Americans pounded Baghdad
non-stop, and Saddam hid himself deep in one of his oil wells I think. Many times,
Americans hit civilian targets and people died and everything, and that was crap. I mean,
the aid to IIT was fine, but how can you justify bombing kids? But then, Saddam was kind of
this loser General anyway, and apparently shot his own people when he was grumpy. Oh, it
was impossible to take sides in the Gulf war. And it was all pointless for us anyway. These
guys would realize this soon.
“Man, the majors are eight days away,” Alok finally said one day. “We’ve got to switch
off the TV.”
“We still study three hours though.” Ryan quirked an eyebrow.
“Screw three hours! It’s not enough,” I contributed.
“I think Iraq will win,” Ryan said.
“Drop it, man, America has busted him,” Alok said, “so please I beg you Ryan, let’s study
before we’re busted too.”
“Not yet, ground battle not done yet,” he said righteously.
Luckily, the war ended five days before the majors. America won big-time, and Iraqis ate
crow before ground battle. Saddam left Kuwait alone and Americans were happy all the oil
in the world was theirs to burn and Ryan did not eat for a day or so.
“This is not fair. Real wars are fought on the ground,” he wailed as we started revisions
for the final tests in our room.
“Shut up, Ryan. Americans got what they wanted. Now can we study?” I said.
“Unfair man. US is a schoolroom bully.”
“ApMech, ApMech” Alok muttered like a mantra.
Squash, chess and the war – all ate into our studying hours. In the five days before exams,
we dropped the three-hour rule, well we had to; the heaps of course material was un-doable
even if we studied thirty hours a day. It was important to clamp down on Ryan and we
studied until three in the morning ever y day and passionately prayed India would go to war
on the morning of our first majors.
A day before the majors were practical tests. It was the only part of the course Ryan
enjoyed, and he dragged us early to the physics lab. We were in the same group and had to
conduct an electrical setup and then answer questions in a viva-voce. We got a resistancevoltage
relationship testing experiment.
I hated practical tests. Most of all, I dreaded the viva-voce. I don’t know if I told you
about my condition; it strikes me whenever someone looks me in the eye and asks me a
question. My body freezes, sweat beads cover me brow to groin, and I lose my sense of
voice. How I hated vivas and when Ryan was all excited assembling the circuit for the
experiment, I hated him too.
“Hey guys, watch this,” Ryan said, holding the circuit components in his hand.
Alok looked up from his notebook.
Ryan spent the next ten minutes connecting resistors, capacitors, switches and cables to
each other. It was completely unconnected to our experiment and Alok was seriously getting
worried.
“Ryan, can you please connect the resistor-voltage setup so we can start our experiment?”
Alok said.
“Wait Fatso, we have two hours to do the experiment. Do they have a small speaker
here?” Ryan fumbled through the component box.
“What do you need a speaker for?” I said even as Ryan found one and made the final
connection.
“For this,” Ryan said and switched his circuit on. He moved a few connections, and soon
Hindi music came from the speaker.
“Ghar aaya mera pardesi…”
“What the hell!” Alok jumped as if a ghost had shimmered into the lab.
“It is a radio, stupid,” Ryan said, eyes all lit up, “I knew we had all the parts to make
one.”
“Ryan,” I said, as firmly as possible.
“What?”
“We are having a damn major here,” I said.
That is Ryan. The guy will do clever things but only at the wrong time and wrong place.
Alok panicked, too. “The viva is in twenty minutes, boss.”
Ryan ripped off his circuit and looked at us in disdain as if we were tone-deaf listeners
who had rejected live Mozart.
We just about managed to finish the circuit on time when Prof Goyal walked in.
“Hmm…,” the Prof said tugging at the circuit wires. Ryan had made the circuit; he was
good at this, we trusted him.
“So, Ryan what will happen if I change the 100-ohm resistor with a 500-ohm resistor?”
“Sir, we would have higher voltage across, though there would be a higher heat loss as
well.”
“Hmm…” Prof Goyal scratched his chin in response, which meant Ryan was right.
“So Alok, how do you read the stripes on this resistor to get the ohm resistance?”
“Sir, the red stripe is a 100-ohm, then 10 for the blue, implying 110 ohm.”
Our group was doing well. But Prof Goyal was not done. Despite my frantic hopes, he
turned to me.
“So Hari, if I add another resistor on top of the 110 ohm resistor, what happens to the
current flow?”
A trick question. The current flow depends on how one connects the new resistor, in
series or parallel. In series, the current would drop. In parallel, it would increase. Yes, this
was the answer. I think so, right?
I had recited the answer in my mind. But Prof Goyal stared at me and me alone while
asking the question, not surprising since he prefixed the question with what was a good
facsimile of my name.
“Sir…” I quivered as my hand started to shiver. My condition was upon me.
“What will happen to the current flow?”
“Sir..I…sir,” I said, inexorably tumbling toward total paralysis. I mean, I totally knew the
answer but what if it was wrong? I tried articulating, but the thoughts did not cash into
words.
“Sir, the current flow depen...” Ryan intervened, trying to save the situation.
Prof Goyal raised his forefinger.
“Quiet, I am asking your group member, not you.”
I shook my head and lowered it. There was no use, I had given up.
“Hmm…” Prof Goyal said, not scratching any part of his face. “The standard of this
institute is going down day by day. What are you, commerce students?”
Calling an IIT-ian a commerce student was one of the worst insults the profs could accord
to us, like a prostitute calling her client a eunuch. The institute was the temple of science
and anyone below standards was an outcaste or a commerce student.
Prof Goyal scribbled a C+ on our group experiment sheet, and tossed it at us. Ryan caught
it, I think.
We did not have much of a chance to discuss the physics practicals, as the majors started
the next day. I had even postponed my next rendezvous with Neha until after the exams. I had
called her once, getting her number from the faculty’s internal directory. She freaked out,
telling me not to call home without notice. How the hell was I supposed to give her notice?
Anyway, we had fixed to meet the day after my majors.
Majors were when everyone studied in Kumaon, lights remained on in rooms until dawn,
people rarely spoke – and then only on matters of life or death – and consumed endless cups
of tea in the all-night mess. Ryan, Alok and I scrambled to revise our six courses. The
exams schedule was three continuous days, leaving little time to discuss the tests. I knew I
had done fine in some tests and screwed up some. Alok had developed a permanent scowl
and Ryan could maintain his laid-back air only with the utmost effort; no jokes, majors blow
the wind out of anyone. ManPro, ApMech, physics, mathematics, chemistry and computing.
One by one, we finished them. When majors ended, it did seem like the worst was over
though the results come only after two weeks.
Those two weeks between the end of majors and the results were bliss. Even though the
second semester began, no one really got into the new courses until they knew how they’d
done in the first semester. The profs were busy evaluating tests, going easy on new
assignments, giving us plenty of time to kill. Ryan upgraded us from chess to crossword
puzzles, taking us from cryptic clues to rhyme words to anagrams.
Meanwhile, I met Neha again on a summery evening early into the second semester even
though she had short-circuited when I called her. It was the same ice-cream parlour.
“God, are you crazy or what, calling at home?” she greeted.
I didn’t know what to say. I thought I’d been pretty cool to think of getting the number
from the profs directory and everything.
“How else am I to reach you?
“My parents are very strict about me getting calls from boys.”
I couldn’t tell her, “Your parents sound like regular psychos,” so in non-sequitur, I asked,
“Strawberry?”
She was wearing a demure white salwar-kameez that day. She held my hand as she took
the cone from me. God, she is beautiful, I tell you.
“So how am I supposed to reach you?”
“Call me on the 11th.”
A pink tongue darting out to catch some melted cream from reaching the ground had
disoriented me. “Huh?”
—
Make Notes not War
U.S. WAS GUNNING FOR IRAQ, TAKING AS ITS FIRST CASUALTY our majors, or
end-semester exams. Thousands of kilometres from our campus, a despotic dictator annexed
another smaller despotic dictator’s country. It just so happened that both countries had heaps
of oil and that made the whole world take notice. Next, the world’s most powerful country
asked the dictator to get the hell out. Big dictator refused and very soon it became clear that
he would be attacked.
So, what the hell did this have to do with the three of us at IIT, you’d think. If this was one
of Ryan’s stupid sci-fi movies, the three of us could be like involved in a conspiracy, using
the IIT lab to provide superior weapons to the CIA or something. But this was not sci-fi, and
the three of us considered ourselves lucky to complete the ManPro welding assignment on
time, let alone provide superior war technology.
No, the Gulf war did not personally invite our involvement but it was a big bang that
swallowed our first semester majors, a catalyst for all our competitive, macho instincts.
But before that let me tell you of the glory days of the short-lived ‘draw-the-line’ policy.
As per plan we studied for three exact hours every day, mostly late unto night, which meant
we had the evenings free for fun.
“The best game ever invented,” Ryan said as he took us to the squash courts despite Alok
and me looking like guys who never came near a mile of a squash court.
“This game will rest your mind, and burn some of that fat off.” Ryan, who had been the
squash captain in his school, tossed warm-up shots in the court.
Unless you are like a champion or something, you probably know how difficult the damn
game is. The rubber ball jumps around like a frog high on uppers, and you jump around it to
try and connect it to your racket. Ryan had played it for years and Alok and I were hopeless
at it. I missed connecting the ball to the racket five times in a row, and Alok did not even try
moving from his place. After a while, even I gave up. Ryan tried to keep the game going as
we stood like extra pillars on court.
“C’mon guys, try at least,” Ryan called out.
“I can’t do this,” Alok said and sat down on the court. The guy is such a loser. I mean, I
could not play squash for nuts, but at least I won’t sit down on the court.
“Let us try again tomorrow,” Ryan said, optimistic to say the least.
He dragged us to court for ten days in a row, but Alok and I got no better. We found it
hard enough to even spot where the ball had gone, let alone chase it.
“Ryan, we can’t do this man,” Alok said plaintively, panting uncontrollably. “If you really
want to play this, why don’t you find other partners?”
“Why? You guys are getting better,” Ryan said.
Yeah right, maybe in thirty years, I thought grimly.
“So you don’t enjoy this?”
What was Ryan thinking? Enjoy? Enjoy? I was in danger of tearing that ball into roughly
fifty pieces.
“Not really,” I ventured mildly.
“Fine then, we don’t have to do this. I mean, I can give up squash,” Ryan said.
“No, that is not…” Alok said.
Ryan had already decided, no point arguing with him. It was his whole ‘where my friends
go, I go’stand, though I kind of felt bad making him give up his favourite sport.
“You can play with others,” I suggested.
“Others aren’t my friends,” Ryan said in a firm voice that sounded like the final word.
Alok and I shrugged and we left the court.
After squash came something tamer and less active, chess. Alok and I felt somewhat up to
this one, for, unlike squash, we could at least touch and move the game pieces. But Ryan
usually won, and I would never be passionate about bumping off plastic pieces like him.
Apart from chess, we spent our free time riding Ryan’s scooter, feeling the fierce wind
whistle through our hair. We caught every new movie, visited every tourist destination in
Delhi, did everything, went everywhere.
For the most part, we managed fine within the three hours assigned to studies. Sometimes
assignments took longer, leaving no time for revision. That worried Alok, especially when
the end-semester exams edged closer, and he suggested increasing the limit. And we would
have if it hadn’t been for one thing – the afore-mentioned Gulf war.
Now wars happen all the time and India alone has fought more than it can afford. But the
Gulf war was different, as it came right on TV. CNN, an American news channel, had just
opened shop in India and brought the deserts of Iraq right into our TV room.
“This is CNN reporting live from the streets of Baghdad. The sky is lit up with the first
air raid,” a well-groomed person told us.
Alok, Ryan and I looked up from our chess game. It was sensational, spectacular and
unlike anything we had ever seen on TV. To put it in context, this was before cable or any
private channels came to India. Until then we had two crummy government channels in
which women played obsolete instruments and dull men read news for insomniacs and
retards. Colour had only arrived two years ago, and most programs were still black and
white. Then, in one quick week, we had the glitzy, jazzy and live – CNN.
“Is this real? I mean is this happening?” Alok looked dazed.
“Of course, Fatso. You think this is a play?” Ryan scoffed as two American pilots hifived
themselves after hours of pounding a perfectly real city. A CNN reporter asked them
questions about their mission. The soldiers told about bombing a godown, and taking down
a power station that gave electricity to Baghdad.
“Wow, the Americans are going to win this,” Alok said.
“Don’t underestimate the Iraqis, who have fought wars for ten years. Americans are just
pounding from the air,” Ryan said.
“Yes, but America is too powerful. Saddam hasn’t a clue.”
“He does, wait till a land battle happens,” Ryan defended.
The war sucked us in like quicksand, Alok and Ryan got really into ‘who is going to win
this’ kind of crap. I mean, you stop doing that when you are twelve I think (Superman or
Batman?), but there was no stopping them. I liked watching the war as well, though I primly
took no sides.
Iraq was kind of anonymous then, and we unabashedly cheered on America. IIT cared
about America. Most of our foreign aid came from rich American firms and quite a large
percentage of our alumni went on scholarship there and for jobs, constituting a chunk of the
brain drain. So, unsurprisingly, our heart bled for the US.
At the same time, the war visuals became more gruesome. Americans pounded Baghdad
non-stop, and Saddam hid himself deep in one of his oil wells I think. Many times,
Americans hit civilian targets and people died and everything, and that was crap. I mean,
the aid to IIT was fine, but how can you justify bombing kids? But then, Saddam was kind of
this loser General anyway, and apparently shot his own people when he was grumpy. Oh, it
was impossible to take sides in the Gulf war. And it was all pointless for us anyway. These
guys would realize this soon.
“Man, the majors are eight days away,” Alok finally said one day. “We’ve got to switch
off the TV.”
“We still study three hours though.” Ryan quirked an eyebrow.
“Screw three hours! It’s not enough,” I contributed.
“I think Iraq will win,” Ryan said.
“Drop it, man, America has busted him,” Alok said, “so please I beg you Ryan, let’s study
before we’re busted too.”
“Not yet, ground battle not done yet,” he said righteously.
Luckily, the war ended five days before the majors. America won big-time, and Iraqis ate
crow before ground battle. Saddam left Kuwait alone and Americans were happy all the oil
in the world was theirs to burn and Ryan did not eat for a day or so.
“This is not fair. Real wars are fought on the ground,” he wailed as we started revisions
for the final tests in our room.
“Shut up, Ryan. Americans got what they wanted. Now can we study?” I said.
“Unfair man. US is a schoolroom bully.”
“ApMech, ApMech” Alok muttered like a mantra.
Squash, chess and the war – all ate into our studying hours. In the five days before exams,
we dropped the three-hour rule, well we had to; the heaps of course material was un-doable
even if we studied thirty hours a day. It was important to clamp down on Ryan and we
studied until three in the morning ever y day and passionately prayed India would go to war
on the morning of our first majors.
A day before the majors were practical tests. It was the only part of the course Ryan
enjoyed, and he dragged us early to the physics lab. We were in the same group and had to
conduct an electrical setup and then answer questions in a viva-voce. We got a resistancevoltage
relationship testing experiment.
I hated practical tests. Most of all, I dreaded the viva-voce. I don’t know if I told you
about my condition; it strikes me whenever someone looks me in the eye and asks me a
question. My body freezes, sweat beads cover me brow to groin, and I lose my sense of
voice. How I hated vivas and when Ryan was all excited assembling the circuit for the
experiment, I hated him too.
“Hey guys, watch this,” Ryan said, holding the circuit components in his hand.
Alok looked up from his notebook.
Ryan spent the next ten minutes connecting resistors, capacitors, switches and cables to
each other. It was completely unconnected to our experiment and Alok was seriously getting
worried.
“Ryan, can you please connect the resistor-voltage setup so we can start our experiment?”
Alok said.
“Wait Fatso, we have two hours to do the experiment. Do they have a small speaker
here?” Ryan fumbled through the component box.
“What do you need a speaker for?” I said even as Ryan found one and made the final
connection.
“For this,” Ryan said and switched his circuit on. He moved a few connections, and soon
Hindi music came from the speaker.
“Ghar aaya mera pardesi…”
“What the hell!” Alok jumped as if a ghost had shimmered into the lab.
“It is a radio, stupid,” Ryan said, eyes all lit up, “I knew we had all the parts to make
one.”
“Ryan,” I said, as firmly as possible.
“What?”
“We are having a damn major here,” I said.
That is Ryan. The guy will do clever things but only at the wrong time and wrong place.
Alok panicked, too. “The viva is in twenty minutes, boss.”
Ryan ripped off his circuit and looked at us in disdain as if we were tone-deaf listeners
who had rejected live Mozart.
We just about managed to finish the circuit on time when Prof Goyal walked in.
“Hmm…,” the Prof said tugging at the circuit wires. Ryan had made the circuit; he was
good at this, we trusted him.
“So, Ryan what will happen if I change the 100-ohm resistor with a 500-ohm resistor?”
“Sir, we would have higher voltage across, though there would be a higher heat loss as
well.”
“Hmm…” Prof Goyal scratched his chin in response, which meant Ryan was right.
“So Alok, how do you read the stripes on this resistor to get the ohm resistance?”
“Sir, the red stripe is a 100-ohm, then 10 for the blue, implying 110 ohm.”
Our group was doing well. But Prof Goyal was not done. Despite my frantic hopes, he
turned to me.
“So Hari, if I add another resistor on top of the 110 ohm resistor, what happens to the
current flow?”
A trick question. The current flow depends on how one connects the new resistor, in
series or parallel. In series, the current would drop. In parallel, it would increase. Yes, this
was the answer. I think so, right?
I had recited the answer in my mind. But Prof Goyal stared at me and me alone while
asking the question, not surprising since he prefixed the question with what was a good
facsimile of my name.
“Sir…” I quivered as my hand started to shiver. My condition was upon me.
“What will happen to the current flow?”
“Sir..I…sir,” I said, inexorably tumbling toward total paralysis. I mean, I totally knew the
answer but what if it was wrong? I tried articulating, but the thoughts did not cash into
words.
“Sir, the current flow depen...” Ryan intervened, trying to save the situation.
Prof Goyal raised his forefinger.
“Quiet, I am asking your group member, not you.”
I shook my head and lowered it. There was no use, I had given up.
“Hmm…” Prof Goyal said, not scratching any part of his face. “The standard of this
institute is going down day by day. What are you, commerce students?”
Calling an IIT-ian a commerce student was one of the worst insults the profs could accord
to us, like a prostitute calling her client a eunuch. The institute was the temple of science
and anyone below standards was an outcaste or a commerce student.
Prof Goyal scribbled a C+ on our group experiment sheet, and tossed it at us. Ryan caught
it, I think.
We did not have much of a chance to discuss the physics practicals, as the majors started
the next day. I had even postponed my next rendezvous with Neha until after the exams. I had
called her once, getting her number from the faculty’s internal directory. She freaked out,
telling me not to call home without notice. How the hell was I supposed to give her notice?
Anyway, we had fixed to meet the day after my majors.
Majors were when everyone studied in Kumaon, lights remained on in rooms until dawn,
people rarely spoke – and then only on matters of life or death – and consumed endless cups
of tea in the all-night mess. Ryan, Alok and I scrambled to revise our six courses. The
exams schedule was three continuous days, leaving little time to discuss the tests. I knew I
had done fine in some tests and screwed up some. Alok had developed a permanent scowl
and Ryan could maintain his laid-back air only with the utmost effort; no jokes, majors blow
the wind out of anyone. ManPro, ApMech, physics, mathematics, chemistry and computing.
One by one, we finished them. When majors ended, it did seem like the worst was over
though the results come only after two weeks.
Those two weeks between the end of majors and the results were bliss. Even though the
second semester began, no one really got into the new courses until they knew how they’d
done in the first semester. The profs were busy evaluating tests, going easy on new
assignments, giving us plenty of time to kill. Ryan upgraded us from chess to crossword
puzzles, taking us from cryptic clues to rhyme words to anagrams.
Meanwhile, I met Neha again on a summery evening early into the second semester even
though she had short-circuited when I called her. It was the same ice-cream parlour.
“God, are you crazy or what, calling at home?” she greeted.
I didn’t know what to say. I thought I’d been pretty cool to think of getting the number
from the profs directory and everything.
“How else am I to reach you?
“My parents are very strict about me getting calls from boys.”
I couldn’t tell her, “Your parents sound like regular psychos,” so in non-sequitur, I asked,
“Strawberry?”
She was wearing a demure white salwar-kameez that day. She held my hand as she took
the cone from me. God, she is beautiful, I tell you.
“So how am I supposed to reach you?”
“Call me on the 11th.”
A pink tongue darting out to catch some melted cream from reaching the ground had
disoriented me. “Huh?”