Halcyon Days

Hokay. Greetings to you earth beings. In your language of preference, country of origin, pertinent time zone, color, sex, creed and any other differences you might have invented to preserve or advertise your individuality (what with bombings all over the place, you seem to be doing it quite a bit mate – might I also add, there is no use, you are, after all, human). Hokay. You get the gist, greetings. There has been a request. Yeah, baby, we’re talking big time now. There has actually been request to write something about (most of) our alma – mater (alma – pater too) SIT. I will do this in style. And here it is:
My dear studentsssssssssssssssssss (spittle spittle), I take thissssssssssssssssssssss opportunity to welcome one of you, two of you, all of you. On thisss auspiciosssssssssssssssss (spittle spittle) occasion of you joining in our insssssssssssstitute, I would like to wish you all the best. May you have a wonderful life here at SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSIT. (Hooting and loud cheers from the back – The principal Mr. MNC glaring, all the students looking out for the lunch).
That was October 16th, 1995, at 12:13 Hrs TST (Tumkur Standard Time). It’s been more than twelve years since but this scene will remain etched in my mind. “Aw, crap”, I thought to myself, How am I, a thorough – bred city goon, going to survive this ordeal for the next four or five or six or seven years? The reason for the “Aw, crap” was that my dad did not wish that I should be in Bangalore. Because one of my stupid cousins (I hope he is not reading this, if you are, dude, I thought you were stupid then.) somehow got it into my dad’s head that I would live on beer and get wasted in Bangalore. Well, I came to Tumkur where I lived on whiskey and rum and got wasted anyway. I also made some friends and we all got wasted in a pleasant manner. We had the best times of our lives. We really lived it up. We got proper screwed, but we sure did live it up. And those of you who are reading this, take a moment and try to recollect the craziest thing you’ve done in college. You can gladly add it to the comments. It will be read, recollected and laughed at thoroughly by our competent professional team of the “wasted” guys. I still remember G. A, who was all dressed up in a nice suit with a bright yellow Mickey Mouse tie, when he was the MOC for Halcyon (our college fest), He set the record for the shortest speech. His speech is below:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you all. Thank you.”
Curt, precise, to the point kind of speech which I really admire and what is remarkable is the feeling behind the speech, which was, that the chap wanted to get out and have a smoke. I remember those thatteidlis from Kyatsandra, which, somehow always seemed delicious only at about 2:00 in the morning. I remember Joy lying drunk in Doing’s house singing “Knocking on heaven’s door” while he was strumming “cats in the cradle” (or something like that…I was drunk myself) and I thought the boy had talent. Pity he wasted it and chose to work someplace. I would not comment on K. B. here, there is another chapter coming about him (and yeah, be very scared, big boy). Remember that once when me and Gee went to some college to find some girl and you left a series of notes outside the door? I remember Mastah, and those nice conversations with him done using the fine art of pointing at one’s nose every time you say “yooo”. It is difficult to describe the process here, but you can learn it if you watch enough kung fu movies. I remember those endless cups of coffee and loathing in Las Woodlands. Where the phrases “The stain on a napkin is not always tomato sauce”, “The stairway to Heaven is 16 steps downstairs”, ”We’re just good friends – we use condoms”, “69 is you do me, and I owe you one” among many others, took shape. Las Woodys was also the place where I first heard an interesting use of the language, embodied in the statement, “Bloody bi^%h has got cockroaches bungee jumping from her cu%t”. Still can feel that rum when I was having my first conversation with Naren. Dude, how is the great gig in the sky? I miss you. A lot of us do. And then there was a guy whose middle names were honesty, modesty, etc, etc. Yeah, right. Everyone one of us has very fond memories of college. I should thank you, Kanta from Glasgow, for the request. It made me remember a lot of things, which were dormant. Those were our days, days of glory. I once told G. A. about a funda, that in life, there are three kinds of people. There are people who direct the play, there are people who act in the play and there are people who watch the play. We, my dear boys, are the fourth and hitherto unknown clan. We are the people who don’t go to the play. We choose to go to the nearest bar instead. There is a song from a Telugu movie called Gulabi, which goes like “College lo Maharajulu ee gate dataka prajalavuduru” which means, “The kings in college will become commoners once they cross the gate”. How true.