Pune Memoirs (III): bitching under the nose, met a beast and sour grape

Pune Memoirs, 2005-06

Third & Final Year

FC Road:

The beautifully intense black eyes flitted towards my feet and bobbed up, sniggering at me while whispering to her friend, “Who wears black formal shoes to college?” I overheard her. We were inches away, separated at different tables and was making a move out of Savera. I was amused. No! The casual remark didn’t goad me to hunt for sneakers or trendy shoes down at Fergusson College (FC) Road or Jungli Maharaj Road in Pune.

So many things happened at Savera, the place nestled opposite college and shit loads of laughter, conflict with a junior, spending time to save my coffee and smoke during Monsoon, pep talk or wolfing an entire Harry Potter book in a day. It was the place I bonded big time with Beast, yes our friend’s nickname for everyone had a unique name and with whom I have recently touched base again after a decade plus. We happened to meet at the same table with a group of people and fleetingly exchanged Hi and bye. Once, I was feeling sleepy and hurtling my steps out of college to crash at home when I spotted a pair of hands waving to me from the other end. I waved back and the hands flapped, calling me to join them. It was the start of an amazing friendship, gulping alcohol and smoking together, driving together on his scooty. The dude was good in narrating tales of someone making fun of himself at a pub in Europe where they went together and once he asked me, “Dude, you look frustrated!” Hold your breath, we didn’t fight but was irritated with, “No dude, I cannot be frustrated ever in life.” Later, we laughed about it.

In those days, Beast was my senior, if I am not wrong and was already working with some exams to clear and he would regularly hang out at Savera with us. Obviously, there were loads of time pass that we would be doing together and driving on his scooty from FC to Ghole Road, Karve Road and again FC Road to kill time since the dude actually skipped work or pretended to be on an outside duty. We spent wonderful moments together and a couple of times, been to his house and once crashed there off Koregaon Park. That makes for quite an interesting tale where our daaru party fell apart since a couple of peeps came late after being knocked high at a rock concert. It shall be written at length in a brand new post and quite an amusing anecdote to narrate.

I did found my gang with peeps like beast, Sudhendhu, Koko, Chanda, Ajitabh Bhaiya and people who were the seniors. In fact, there was no such thing as a gang like many others who would be running an exclusive club in and out of college. I never carried excess baggage and was pally with everyone. There was Chanda and Amol with whom I hit off in college. The dudes were Science students and once coming from somewhere, hopped at one of the yummiest places on FC Road, Vaishali Restaurant and saw them sitting in the garden compartment of the restaurant. I walked to them and started chatting since we knew each other in college or often bumped into each other at the traffic signal from Pashan, Sus Road and facing the University, famously called University Circle.

There was Amol and me who had lots to talk about and particularly, something unsavory that happened during one of the college fests that we volunteered for. It’s quite a story. At that time, some activities took place in a bungalow near Hanuman Nagar for the first volunteer meeting and on my way there, was clueless and called some senior chicks in charge who guided me. They told that someone would be waiting for me in the lane where the bungalow is located. We have spoken about it so many times.

A cheerful guy waved at me. That was Amol and perhaps that’s how we hit it off together. But, somehow, there were some girls in that group who didn’t want us to be part of the all-volunteer team and gave us could shoulder for some reason or the other. Perhaps, we were not as cool as the other dudes. But, that didn’t prevent us to be part of the festival and remember having a good time with most of the people during the fest as volunteer.

There was another incident that happened once and we are all sitting together with the rest of the junior people, joking about something. I pulled someone in good faith and at that time, U who happened to be a friend was laughing along but wasn’t aware that he got pissed off. Later, someone told me that U is very powerful. I happened to meet this dude who told that the joke shouldn’t have been made in the first place and that if he wanted could have beaten me but the only thing that stopped him was that I was his senior. Of course, it upset me and if you didn’t like something, you should have told so in the first place. Then, I guess, the reason he got worked out because there were some chicks sitting behind us and he felt a bit awkward about. Why use this dumb argument about your power! It was funny, to say the least. But, I guess that how people are wired in the first place and there is little you can do is to stop people from thinking.

After that incident, we happened to exchange pleasantries with each other from time-to-time and even wished him once on Facebook. But, then, I am no longer in touch with him but someday would like to sit together and laugh about the entire episode. There was also S, whom we would call Mote because of his huge belly in those days and who started a website about something that I ignore till date. He was asking quite a few people some 200 bucks to sponsor the website and hounded me with the same demand for almost three years, just because he has put my name on the website. That was quite a funny business proposal.

The moments, be it absolute bliss, good and not so good ones are meant to be told. Penning the memoirs is all about being truthful during a carefree stage that has defined my life and promising to make as spicy and personal as the stream of thoughts hits a high note.

Love

V