The Not-So-College Life That Was.

  "Cool!" That was my first word when I learned that I was going to do engineering from Karnataka. I heard only good things about Bangalore till then and to me Karnataka meant Bangalore. I was walking the streets of Bangalore admiring the glass buildings and the towering skylines that touches the clouds. Every architectural masterpiece had its own story to tell. So armed with that picture in my mind, I boarded my train. Sparing the details of the train journey, my reams shattered and I had the shock of my life when I arrived in B’lore. It was miles away from the picture I had wonderfully conceived in my mind. Ever experienced a train-lag? Yeah that back and forth motion feeling you have for a few days. So with my initial disappointment at B’lore I set out for this place called Hassan.

    God only knew what it was, how it looked or where it was. Oblivious to me, a more bitter shock awaited me. The first thing that comes to my mind when it rains is gloomy. So I reached Hassan with that ark gloom. Hassan, the place made me wanna cry. I cried “Why God Why? Why have Thou forsaken me? What have I done to deserve this? I swear I’ll never drink again, just get me the hell out of Hassan!” But as always God took my cries and prayers for spam.  But after that it was all fun though.

          Being Mongoloids (please don’t hurt me by calling ourselves “chinkies”) people took us for foreigners. Almost everyone wanted o befriend us. When we told them that we were from Nagaland, people actually thought we were from (the) Netherlands! They didn’t even know where Nagaland was! Ah the days! Who the hell forgets Funny House? The cowboys aka Kabos as they called themselves invited us for lunch. It was already one month after arriving in Hassan and we were missing home cooked food. We munched and chewed the chicken like pigs. I usually stay away from food stuffs that has got anything to do with heads. But that day I sucked the chicken brain like a leech on a mission from the ridiculously tasty cranium. This was the house where we started our affair with Prison Break. We played football and our ground was the hostel terrace. Well not I, football is not my kinda sport. My kind of exercise is picking up my pen. My batch mates were so accurate, one of them managed to knock down one of the mess hall chimneys with his shot. The times my dudes went into the warden’s office with the love letters promising never to play football on our beloved terrace again begging to have the ball back. The funny basketball matches we had. I actually pretended I was a player and I wore a XXXL gray basketball shorts. I just had the audacity. The chicken curry we cooked on a borrowed kerosene stove until Vito decided he had had enough of the bullshit and caught the first auto to buy a cooking heater that lasted…seriously lasted? More like abused and molested. I’m pretty sure we ran the hostel electricity bill to several thousands more.

          Then came the hostel mess chicken coupons. It was Athung who said more is better plus by Naga standards one coupon was just too less. We discovered many things in the chicken curry the hostel mess provided us with. I personally discovered snow like white chicken feathers, unclean, uncut chicken rear. I’m sure somebody discovered some lost treasures too! Then came my trysts with the college principal. It all began when my wallet went missing( I know it’s the postman) and just when I was getting ready for my physics exam the next day, I realized my hall ticket was missing. It was inside my bleeping wallet! I had to write a seriously love letter o the principal and he made me pay a 100 bucks when I had lost everything. Then the time came when I missed my CCP lab exam and had one hell of a time. I thought it was at 2pm while the exam had already been concluded at 11am! Memories.

        Then came the 2nd year where we stood in line to choose our rooms. W made plan after plan beforehand to choose the right hostel wing. I bought my fist computer, played NFS Carbon like crazy. I rebooted and formatted my computer like hell. One night I formatted it 7 times just because I forgot to takeout the CD after formatting! Computer illiterate back then. Then came the time to say my goodbyes to the hostel. I moved into a cute little room where the doors and the windows opened inwards flooding my room during the monsoon. Then there was the gym sessions. I had my reasons despite some people accusing me of trying to impress the ladies. The real reason was I was not blessed with the genes so while my belly was starting to spot a paunch my arms and legs were not getting any stronger. In fact they were shrinking! It was during the 4th semester I chanced upon the fight of my life which all started because of splashing water. It was a 5 against 1 match. Luckily it was Ethnic Day on the morrow and the cameras happened t capture their swollen faces, injured egos and prides and freeze it in time.

          Then came the 3rd and the 4th year when the bull/cow chasing began and the date with the peepy little scooty almost killed me..well I mean my guts. Either I apparently did something horrible for the bovines or they just wanted a kiss from me but I was chased 3 times! I ran like Usain Bolt. I didn’t care where my body was and where my feet were. I just ran for my dear life. Then came the scooty accident FTR, it was the girl’s fault. God with all His wisdom put me in the middle of the bleeping first gate junction. I was minding my own business, checked both sides of the road and was crossing when this Harley Davidson of a scooty hit me. Luckily I didn’t do any stunts there. The scooty fell right at my feet and the girl did some 4, 5 barrel rolls. Thank God no vehicle was coming from the other direction. It was just me alone and the entire Kannadigaas that day. I got super scared, I was just waiting for the slaps and the flaming chapels praying to god it wouldn’t hurt me that much. Thankfully the girl was fine and so was I…or so I thought.  Couldn’t control my laughter after that I had to keep biting my tongue the whole day to keep myself for getting hysterical. The next morning I couldn’t get out of bed. The sores, the aches. I had to use pain relieving pastes and salt water to help me nub the stupid invisible injuries.

            Why do I even forget the praise and worship practices. I started with a guitar, demoted to bass and sidelined for the drums. I was never there for the vocals because I did a better job scaring the cats away with my voice. Then there are Jamboree and Malnad fest. I am not proud to say this but my introduction to drums was the stupid hindi song “Socha Hai”. Kenei and Moa were singing..more like screaming at the top of their voices doing their side vocals and me trying hard to show off at the same time trying not to knock down the hit-hat and the floor bass from separating from the rig. Suffice it to say, I got blisters all over my palms playing drums and even bass. Who gets bleeping blisters on his fingers for playing bleeping bass? Nuno Changkiri, sala.

            Then finally came the time to get our projects started and done. Okay to tell you the truth we cheated. Yes everyone cheats but they buy their cheats, their projects. We bleeping downloaded it..for free!! Everyone was calling us awesome, but we didn’t know shit about MATLAB. To this day I don’t know how we, rather I got a 187/200 from our plagiarized project and I still don’t know how it works. Then came the time to say goodbye to Hassan. I posted and mailed a staggering 35 kilos of books, home bound. We hired a Qualis for our last journey to B’lore. It was Longhcen, Vica, Vito, Azo a.k.a. Neilhou, Kenie and yours truly and 17 luggages only. The Qualis looked like a stuffed turkey J. It was now the final flight home and it was Vito, Kenei, Azo and I again. Kenei with all his audacity and god-only-knows-whats-inside airbags decided to buy a lovely white Ibanez and ended up paying a cool 6000+ bucks for extra package and Neilhou too tailed behind him paying cool 2500+ bucks himself. Then we landed at DIA aka Dimapur Airport While I was searching for my pick-up guy, almost half the people at the airport rushed towards us. It was chaotic. There was pandemonium. It was like a herd of raging bull ready to gore us to death. Thankfully it was just Kenei’s mom, aunt, big sis, big bro, small bro and a Zen or was it an Alto. Never mind. Meanwhile yours truly was still searching for his chauffeur and that’s just one way to tell a boring story.

            Kenei is now gaining a few pounds around the waistline. I’m so happy God has finally answered my prayers. The end.