Frankly our batch was never one closed unit, but yes, there were various factions which were very close. In the whole of 4 years we were together, the whole department never ever sat down together except when attending classes and writing exams. And even while attending classes, it would be really lucky to find 75% of the people attending. The only ocassions almost all the great minds came together were the department farewell (May 1, 2007) and one fine evening at eggies and subsequently at F-127. The reason I remember this day is because this was the day almost all of us decided to meet for no apparent reason. The auspicious day being May 14, 2007.
The picture below was taken on the day of our last exam when it is customary to dress up crazily to show our defiance to the system :P. There were some though who were too afraid or too disinterested to do anything and they came the way they come as usual (I was one of them).
Here we see the first faction of our department. I guess you can notice the group of five girls standing together dressed up as rockstars' girlfriends. Let me introduce you to them. Starting from the left, there is the stylish and always-on-the-lookout-for-someone-to-tutor-her
Smitalee, followed by the bubbly and mischievous
Ranjini. On the left of her stands Mademoiselle
Rumi, the
maggu and the ever worried about what is going to happen to her (As put by Naween "
uske chehre pe humesha barah baja rehta hai"). Then there is
halu Poulami (yes, one word is enough for her) followed by the tomboyish and mischievous
Priyanka. Together they were the
Paanch Paandav. Ranjini and Priyanka were partners in crime playing pranks in the class on some poor soul. I was lucky never to be the brunt of their joblessness, but poor Naween had to :D. And in this group was the only person on the department who was a model student; so much so that there were times when the professor only taught her and the rest of the class was busy in something else (I think you can guess who she is).
Standing to the left of the girls is dear
Pandey ji, the man who can make anybody laugh but more importantly, the man whose room became a mecca during the examination week. Thanks to him I had managed a
nehli and many people in the department managed a decent grade. Not that he is nerd, not at all. He bunks classes, comes late to class, argues generally with professors and gets them pissed off. He is just plain bright. Pandey ji deserves a thank you from everyone of us :D.
On the left of Pandey ji is
Aditya a.k.a. adikooldude, and I guess the name says it all. He was to be my buddy in GaTech, but alas he betrayed me and deferred his admission to join his job. One important thing worth mentioning about him is that whenever be the class timings, be sure this guy reaches class atleast 20 minutes late. I don't know how he managed it every single time.
Beside him stands
Shashi babu and sitting in front of him is
Saransh. These two patelians were members of faction controlled by Pandey ji ;). Shashi came to class solely because Pandey ji came, and Saransh didn't even care to do so. During the exams, you would find Shashi almost all the time in Pandey's room, but Saransh would come around 1 in the night saying "
Pandey padha de yaar nahin to kal g!@#d mar jaegi". Still Shashi and Saransh somehow managed to get comparable results.
On the right of Saransh is
Iro/Chaks the cute cheerful guy with a smile on his face all the time. If he wasn't busy spending time with Shashi or Naween, he would be playing drums for his band Dark Project. I wish his music career the best and hope one day he gives me an autographed copy of his record :).
Beside him is the man with not just a big body but big words too. He is
Sagarneel/Sagarlaal/.....This guy rarely came to classes, but when he did, be sure to hear the weirdest and most irrelevant questions to the professer from him. He somehow managed to dumbfound anybody with his charms. This guy never gave up on the chance to speak and the questions were a way of venting out his obsession I guess. So much so that this guy came to the department farewell with a 2-page speech prepared.
Beside him sits Mr.YouKnowWho. The man who gave us Scholars' Avenue, the revered president of the department, the eternally cool guy, the guy who oozes with nonchalance, the great
Sunny Somani. And we all love him. I am sure anybody who has seen him during his kgp days would remember him carrying a blue bag, with his intently slightly dishevelled hair, and his trademark walk. But this guy writes really great (you should read his blog) and the guy who eventually got me my dep T-shirt :D.
But there are still a lot of people of our dep missing in the pic. The following pic adds a few more names:
On the extreme left you can see
Apro. He was a revered G.Sec. of our Gymkhana, but people remember him for the greatest guitar solos he has given us in the Netaji. He is a heartthrob and I am sure many girls have a major crush on him, but this guy manages to be single. You would rarely see him in class, but if there is a rock show at the Netaji, be sure Apro is rocking in there. I am not very learned in music, but I feel this guy is the best guitarist I have seen in Kharagpur in the past five years. But when this guy did attend classes, we would be busy most of the time bugging Sagarneel. Although this guy had very low attendance, I don't know how he managed to convince the profs to pass him. Maybe his
juice factor has something to do with it (although I am damn sure that was the only factor when it came to (G)A.(Y) Sarkar).
But talk about
juice factor and don't mention the one who take the cup away. Meet dear
Ici/Icarus (standing second from the right). He is the cutest guy our department has seen in the past few decades. During his internship in bangalore this guy had tried his hand in the game of hearts many a times only for Pandey ji to mess it up with his charm (or absence of it).
On the right of Icarus stands
Calee Kumar, whom I rarely saw in class except during my final year when he did become pretty regular (God knows why??!!!). Never seen him talk much so can't say much about him :(.
All this time, I have been dropping the name of the awesome
Naween Kumar. I always found him very confusing. On one hand, he seemed to be frusth of everything in life, but you would also see this great smile on his face many a times. So I never understood what he was actually feeling. But one thing I want to thank him for is the zillion times he saved us all for the gruesome torture of double lectures by asking for breaks. He was always the first one to ask for breaks and we would all join in like hungry pirates. He was always the first guy to every class and he attended almost every class. He even has the record of having 100% attendance in a few subjects. But the same enthusiasm with which he attended classes vanished into thin air when it actually came to studying, bringing him back to the level of us mortals.
But none of them are from my hall. My hall produced a different breed of students. The one who deserves to come first is great
Happa sahab. He was the unchallenged, incontrovertible king of PJs in the department, and maybe the whole campus. When he spoke, no one could hear, mostly because most of them had already run away afraid of his PJs. He would be seen in the department much more after the semester was over compared to the whole year put together (mostly because that would be when he would be convincing the profs why he deserves to pass). This guy gave us the
Aawas and there was a silent competition between him and Sunny in the department, but there was never a standoff because Happa rarely showed up in the classes. But jokes apart this guy has become the first entrepreneur among us and I wish him the best of luck.
But last and most certainly not the least are these three guys. They were my dearest wingies. On the extreme right is
AD. He is unquestionably the brightest guy in the department and also the one of the best CS player in the whole campus. When there was something that Pandey ji could not help me with, I would come running to AD. And he had his unique way of studying. At one time, you would see him playing CS with the notes on his lap and browsing through the notes in between rounds. In you go after some time, you would see him fast asleep
with the notes on his chest. On top of that he has the cutest smile with 32 all out and really starts blushing whenver you ask him about his girlfrnd. And get him high on a peg or two and then it is a different story all together.
In the middle stands our dear
Satra da. The guy who keeps writing weird things in his copy and attends classes but does everything but take notes. He is the guy who doesn't care about what other people think. It was because of him I had a lot of fun in class sitting in the last row. Beside him stands the great
Jha ji. He NEVER took notes. It would be a great thing if he took a copy of his own to the class. He would buy a copy on the first day of the semester, but invariably lose it by the second day and henceforth took any copy he got his hands on to class, not to take notes but to show the prof that he is taking notes (which he isn't anyways). We spent the whole final year sitting in the last row playing with out cell phones, listening to each others caller tunes, discussing formula one, english premier league football, uefa champions league, and also what we would play in our lowly inter halls. Sometimes we had been so bored that we walked out in the middle of the class. But come exams, these two would come to me and AD to study. But their enthusiasm would be short lived, and they would leave our rooms saying they will study on their own in their rooms. But when you go to check on them, you would see them either sleeping or watching some football match highlights, but never studying.
So these are the great minds of my department, but I feel I failed to mention what department we were all in. Who cares?? I certainly don't.
individuals, but get them a couple of pegs and the true selfs emerge. And trust me when I say you don't wanna be on their bad side (especially the guy who looks the cutest in this pic...I am not taking any names).
