For those who know him, shall be an interesting read. Written in January 2010 as an auto-biography, he is true to the depths. I shall rather caption it confessions for a reason. Unfortunately, these were the only initial confessions he could make and after this i couldn’t draw any other stuff from him. The funnier parts have been made noticeable. This post is dedicated to Garvit Agrawal and i let him do all the talking. Here he goes:
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| Garvit Agrawal with his "Aloo Bonda" |
January, 2010
Finally, its now my turn to express myself through words. It is probably the most difficult task for me. Naisheel and Nero have finally convinced or rather forced me to write and tell them what exactly my life was when i first came here.
“Nobody really has much idea about whats going on in my life exactly as i always resist to say what i really feel”
(I really haven’t yet figured out the reason behind that), but i prefer to remain silent and keep most of the things unsaid. May be writing things in here may reveal out many of those things which i would have never said.
Going back to the first day of my life at IITR, i remember the counselling day when i first stepped into IITR with my father. I got down at Roorkee station at around 8 in the evening with a great feeling of being an IITian( though my father was much more proud than i was, my selection into IIT-JEE was a dream come true event for him). As i came out of the station, i found cycle rickshaws all around( it was for the first time i saw something like cycle rickshaw).The ride to the Indian Institute of Technology was quite fascinating for me. Finally, we reached Rajendra Bhawan to stay for a night before the counselling day. There i met Ankit Shrivastava (presently known as ‘Sasuke’), who was also from gwalior but was one year senior to me and had done his preparation for JEE in Kota in the drop year. The night before the counselling passed away in discussion about the order of preferences to be filled ( though i didnot have much options at my rank but still was enthusiastically going through the last years brochure with a hope of figuring out a branch very suitable for me). At last me and my father decided upon Chemical Engineering at IIT Guwahati( though my mummy was strictly against that place as she was afraid how can a ‘seedha saadha’ boy like ‘me’ will be able to live so far from the family). The counseling session passed very quickly as i was busy exploring things around me and i left IIT Roorkee with a hope of not returning to this place again in my life( i was quite confident of getting Chemical @ IIT Guwahati) but unexpectedly when the counselling results were out, the computer screen showed me Metallurgical and Materials Engineering @ IIT Roorkee which was my next choice after guwahati. I was quite upset of losing chemical by few ranks but my mother was very happy and gradually i also began feeling good at the allotment when i enquired about what exactly the typical looking name suggest.
“I made my orkut account after getting selected into JEE and started searching for my friends with whom i lost contact during my 2 year’s ‘sanyas’ with my orkut profile name publicizing me as a newly made IITian ( Garvit @ IIT Roorkee)”
As i began to spend more time on orkut i met many of my branch mates in the world of orkut itself. Some of them were Mr. Ankit Mahajan( my neighbour in RJB), Devansh Dubey and not to forget Mr. Dishant Ailawadi( this character will appear very shortly in next few lines).Eventually the day came when i was supposed to leave for roorkee, my new home, mummy packed each and every necessary and non necessary thing with me ( this was the first time i was going away alone and she was very tensed for me). I reached roorkee with my father with a bag and a suitcase full of clothes and eatables and also had a big bedding with me. I was allotted room no. G-80, Rajendra Bhawan, IIT Roorkee as was mentioned in a letter sent through administration at my home. I reached RJB in the institute bus that was waiting at the station for the new comers ( this time i could not get a rickshaw ride). I got down from the bus and had to fill the details in a register kept at the entrance. My room mate had already arrived and was named Anand Kumar Agarwal. I read the name and went to my room in RJB. Anand had already chosen his bed near the window and i was not left with any option and had to opt for the other bed. I started to unpack my things slowly with my father and after some time my room mate Mr. Anand Kumar ( presently ‘BOND’) arrived with his father. We introduced ourselves, he seemed to be a very ‘seedha’ type of boy to me and so my father was quite satisfied as he thought we both will have good time here.
First few days at IIT passed by very quickly, i wandered all around the campus with my father( there was a fear of ragging in the minds of both of us) and eventually after staying here for 2 days, my father went back home leaving me alone here with so many unknown faces. I felt a bit disturbed, though i did not make him feel that way. Now i preferred to remain in my room rather than wandering with new guys as most of the other boys did. Probably, the fear of being ragged compelled me to remain isolated. Moreover, 2 years of dedicated study made me an introvert personality and thus i could not interact with new people around me. 80% of ‘junta’ around me was from a very famous pilgrimage of JEE preparation known as KOTA and thus knew each other very well. Also, all of them were habitual of a life away from home and had definitely experienced the world more than i did.
“The ‘F’ word was quite usual and a part of almost every 2nd person’s language and i began the search of my type of VIRGIN people who were very new to this Rapist world.”
Though the ghissu( the first word which became my identity here at IITR and i still regret for that) effect had a strong influence on me but one thing became very clear to me right from the Day 1 that very soon i would also be a part of this Gangue Rape as from my school days i had a devil attitude inside me but i always used to suppress that part of me as somehow a very strong desire to reach IIT overshadowed the Devil inside me and i very seriously and successfully completed those 2 years.
As a part of my search, the first boy who seemed to me of my ‘type’( though i had very wrongly defined my type) was Dishant. Similar physique, similar attitude towards studies and similar regularity assured me that my search has ended successfully.
“I started spending time with him more often and apparently Library became our place of Dating.”
Though i never really enjoyed with him( obviously, how can one even imagine to enjoy life when there is nothing other than books and a very fixed routine to follow. I still feel surprised when i think of those days). I even bought some books from the market as a part of habit that i inherited from school days. As i began to be with Dishant and Naman ( my coaching mate who got civil engg. here ), i could not interact much with other guys around me and thus missed the enjoying ‘Bakar’ sessions going around me. As days went by, i got to know many new things about my roomie. He owned the advanced cell phone in our branch,
“the only motive behind was to download and satisfy his undefined desires( but i must say that the collection of short movies was quite good in his phone and even i many times secretly took his cell phone while he was sleeping and quickly scanned the videos which fulfilled my desires too). At that time, i used to consider it as a bad thing…:D (still i laugh when i think of it).”
My roomie found me a very boring kind of guy as i never went out with anyone, nor i preferred to hangout with people. So, he planned a prank with some of his friends from Kota and they decided to rag me. A first year guy named Rachit Watts( who looks senior to us and obviously a very good actor) came to my room with Anand. I was sitting on my bed with a register in my hand. Anand locked the door and Rachit introduced himself to me in a very rude way as my ‘Room Baap’. I have heard of this term before and suddenly a feeling of fear ran through my body. I had never seen that guy ever before and i had no clue about the prank. So i stood up and prepared myself to get ragged. Rachit started with the usual questions and anand very amusingly started to make a video of the whole event with his very advanced phone.
“I could have given him each and every possible abuse at that time but to my bad luck i didnot know even a single one.”
Slowly, the news of the prank that was being played with me spread like a fire in the entire wing and since the windows and door was shut initially no one was able to get a view of what was going on inside. Thus, the guys outside started finding ways to peep inside and some amusing sounds made me feel relaxed and i realised that it was to make a fool out of me. I demanded that video to be deleted from the phone as i didnot want to get famous on You Tube in that way. Everyone had a lot of fun seeing me getting ragged and with everyone laughing around me i felt humiliated.
“This incident made me think about my own attitude towards life. I began to observe people around me hanging out in groups, enjoying with friends at the birthday party’s.”
Everyone around had a different way of living. They did what they enjoyed the most, some smoked, some bunked the classes and some of them slept throughout. I also started getting bored with the routine life with Dishant and finally we broke up, our relation didnot last for more than 2 months in which period i did nothing other than studying. Now, i began to interact more with Gopal, Ankit, Chanchal, Viswas and ofcourse Vivek who lived next to my room. Still i had that ghissu attitude in me in a much greater percentage as compared to them but slowly and slowly i began to enjoy the lyf with them.The first semester was going on smoothly for me. I attended almost each and every lecture in first sem and i even made MY OWN notes.
“We had a single girl in our class named Khushboo and she was in my batch G-2. Though, i had crush on many of the girls from my school days and sometimes i used to think ki ‘ yaar lagta hai mujhe to har ek ladki hi acchi lagti hai’, but this statement proved wrong( which was very satisfactory to me) when i didnot like Khushboo.”
She was usually grouped with us( eshaan, me and gopal) in the practicals. Gopal took the advantage of being a ‘dpsite’, like her and had many long conversations with her during the practical time. Me, eshaan and dishant used to carry out our prac and Gopal and khushboo used to laugh at each other’s pathetic PJs. Gopal used to carryout each practical till the end with her( the significance of this sentence will become more clear in the later part of the story where Gopal don’t wait even for half an hour in any of the pracs). Though Devansh (who was also a part of G-2 batch) had a strong crush on khushboo and was a big despo at that time felt very annoyed when khushboo enjoyed gopal’s company.
Thus, first sem passed quite successfully and i was able to score a SGPA of 8.875 at the end of my first sem.
“All thanx to my ghissu attitude and my initial commitment to Dishant. As after this sem, i found it very difficult to touch cven a mark of 8.”
–phew!!
