Chapter-1

Life shares with us a whole lot of experiences. Most times, we just live through them, never really experience them the way we should. We never really live life with a sense of each day being a last. Then, one day, it all ends. An experience is over. A door closes. It is true, that another door opens elsewhere. But this door is closed forever.

It is with this sense of a closure that Pramod and I walked back to insti. Four years done, a year to go. We had been a gang of six, Pramod, Madhav, Shakti, Shankar, Nidhi (Srinidhi actually) and I. The other four were done with their coursework at IITM, and had flown abroad to pursue further studies. Pramod and I had a year of coursework to complete. When we’d signed up for the five year dual degree course at IIT Madras, we did give it a lot of thought, since people were generally done with the campus in four years. But what we did not realize then, was that the toughest part of staying in a five year course was that you had to spend a year away from people you had spent four years with forging wonderful friendships.

We entered the institute campus at 1.55pm. I had recently acquired my cousin’s Bajaj Pulsar, and it was definitely a wonderful experience driving a motorbike, after three years on a scooty. But afternoon winds were always a pain in the ass. We entered the campus, got done with the security screening, and were riding inside when we saw Paras at the bus stand. Ram Parasnis, or Paras as we generally called him, was a dual degree in Elec-VLSI, the same sub-branch as Pramod. I was an Elec-Communications student. We knew him decently since we attended the same classes initially, but then we weren’t really buddies. The bus drivers were out for lunch, and would be back only at around 2.30pm. So, we offered Paras a lift on the bike, and manoeuvred routes to the department so as to not be caught by the security. Over that small ride, Paras told us about how he had spent the entire summer in campus with Lakshman, another guy from VLSI, and how the Chennai heat totally beat them. It helped that our department had a canteen, people could pick up something to drink from time to time.  We reached the department entrance and I was parking my bike when I met Panchapakesan, and Hameed parking Hameed’s Yamaha R15 in the stand. This was a legendary R15, we used to call it “Bijli”, in honour of it being sexy!  Panchapakesan was such an ancient TamBrahm name, and so we used to call him Punch in college. Punch and Hameed were both VLSI guys as well, and along with Lakshman, they formed a trio of insti renowned coders. We called them to join us for a cup of tea at the canteen before they could go to work.

As we entered the canteen, we met two more of our brethren. There was Gautam, whose insti name was Katrina (he was made to gyrate like her in one of the insti ragging sessions in our first year), and Navneet, aka Nigga. Gautam was my roommate in my first year, the epitome of sincerity and modesty, he was known to be one of those guys who used to crib about not doing well in an exam after scoring an 80%. Navneet was the only guy in this group of 8, other than me, who was from Elec-Comm. Navneet was the branch topper, but one who was confused about what he wanted to do after he got done with his dual degree. One thing he knew though, was to put cock, which in insti lingo meant being able to ramble about something, possessing limited information about the same. He also liked to be called Nigga, as he considered himself a specialist in the Nigga way of life!

The eight of us got our teas and a quota of butter biscuits, the biscuits our canteen was extremely famous for. We sat down on a round table and started chatting. After a long session, we decided to meet again at 4.30 pm for evening tea, and to make that a tradition, where we spent some time together chatting together, and killing the loneliness that the final year had brought into us. This also kick-started one of the best periods of my life.