Archive for the 'REC Calicut' Category

Mishap@Rose Day

Published on May 8, 2008 in REC Calicut. 8 Comments Tags: , .

Apparently it was Rose Day some days ago. Someone was kind enough to wish me Happy Rose Day although I did not get any rose(s) this year or any other year before for quite sometime now. Not that it prevented me from breathing or living life in any case. I was just amused by the interest in this particular day by the younger generation. Ah, to be a teenager and still be in the process of building sand castles in the air.

We too used to celebrate Rose Day religiously back in college. By stupidly buying roses at over inflated prices of 10 rupees per rose. And sending them anonymously to certain parties over at the Boys Hostel. Or at least thats what the senior girls told us.

There was this particular senior whom my friend and me thought was pretty cute. His friends nick named him Katti, in the local language. I think that means one-who-speaks-a-lot. Anyways, after repeated assurance that anonymous roses wouldnt be traced back to us at any cost, we sent one to him along with the message, “from your admirer” (I think)

Innocently enough, the senior girls made us write out names & the message number in a register after which the sale would be made. We were stupid enough to write all that. What we didnt know was that the seniors girls would be so co-operative with their male colleagues that they would hand over the register for a complete scrutiny of who sent which anonymous rose to whom and how many.

I was later horrified to hear people snickering about being enamoured with Mister Katti. The guy himself was decent enough not to address the issue even once. So much for anonymous roses. And so much for female unity. Moral of the story: Dont trust girls, at least those who’re not in your friend category.

In a pickle

Published on April 30, 2008 in REC Calicut. 14 Comments Tags: , , .

(Memory triggered by Priya’s mentioning of exotic Sikkim pickles way back in hostel)

The funny thing about college is that I dont really remember attending classes all that much. Nor do I remember that many lecturers who used to have time of their life torturing my ignorance of the technical world. I can think of only two reasons why I wouldnt remember my classes/teachers. Either I’m just getting past my initial stage of Alzhimer’s or else I didnt really attend classes all that much as I was supposed to. Considering that I had attendance shortage in almost every alternate semester, I’d say the second option was more accurate.

What I remember very vividly is spending some of the most memorable times of my life in the Ladies Hostel (LH). I was ragged in the very first few days of my arrival at the LH. There was this big haired, wicked witch in the final year whose voice was like whiplash and who shot daggers whenever you happened to catch her eye. I dont remember her name or else I would have gladly printed it here, trust me. I’m not trying to protect her identity and be a nice person or any sort of such foolish thing.

Anyway, I never understood the logic behind ragging. Something about facing the person with the real world and blah blah. What I personally think is that it was a major opportunity for sadistic, evil people to bridge their insecurities and make fun of potential threats. And all one can do is rave & rant about it in her blog 10 years down the line. Nothing else much.

Deep breath. Realization strikes that I’m digressing. Back to good memoirs. Repeat mantra three times (along with fist pump) - No anger against fools. No anger against fools. No anger against #*@#&*# fools.

A way of dispelling early homesickness was by haunting the post office for much awaited parcels from home. My dad used to be such a sweetheart and send me stuff like L’Oreal hair colour, in burgundy, sweets and pickle. My favourite pickle was this exotic pea one, which my dad wrapped it up in layers of plastic and parcelled all the way from Gangtok to Calicut one fine day.

When I went to collect my parcel at the post office, I was summoned to the Post Master’s cabin. He then pointed to an oil-stained parcel lying on the floor and which was pretty much soaked through & through with yellow oil. I got a big lecture on how my oil-leaking parcel went on to destroy so many important letters and so on and on and on.

After about 20 minutes of strained lecture from the Post Master, I ran away from the post office, holding on to my pickle-parcel all the way to the hostel. I retold the story later on to my friends, while eating dinner alongwith yummy, exotic pea pickle just arrived all the way from Gangtok. We laughed & laughed not caring one bit about important letters getting destroyed by getting soaked in pickle oil.

Such pickle incident happened twice in the entire duration of my stay in the hostel. The staff at the post office then started smiling the moment they saw me henceforth.

I wonder if at the end of this post, some people are going – “Ohhh… thats why I got yellow oil-stained letters that particular day…” Yes, I’m afraid to say, that was me.

The rating game

Published on January 30, 2008 in Gender blender and REC Calicut. 21 Comments Tags: , , .

nitc.jpg

In rememberance of some of the silly things that make college life memorable.

We were a group of twittering first year girls hanging outside our classroom during short break in our very first few months in college. Since the fear of ragging had subsided considerably and we were slowly getting to know the rest of the guys, we girls stood joking and laughing in the corridor as hordes of other first years passed us by.

Although nobody knew how it happened, we found ourselves ogling at the guys passing by; the ones we fancied getting showered with smiles from all around along with nods of pretty girls’ heads. The lesser in the ranks were not given so much as a second glance. One thing led to another and it all avalanched into a rating game. (I have a sneaky feeling that I had a lot to do with spearheading the issue but its all a blur now, thanks to 10 years since then and now)

Soon, the cute guys were being given thumbs up and full points, amidst major giggling, while others were being thumbed down with a sad shake of the head. Thats how we passed 10 minutes of the intended short break. The rated guys were also flashing smiles all around and strutting happily as far as one remembers. It was all a harmless time pass which for once, the girls were taking lead of. And that was that. Or so we believed.

Apparently not all the guys who passed by were freshers like us. There were some seniors too – but – they too didnt look like they minded our silly game and were finding it quite amusing. And that was that. Or so it was believed.

Unfortunately some senior guys, who probably felt left out when they heard the story later on were supposedly startled to actually hear that a group of guys (junior or senior, who cares) were disrespected by a bunch of junior first year girls whose ragging period had hardly gotten over and who should have known better than insult people like that – how dare they!

So after a major overnight brainwashing session by the seniors, a group of angry first year guys (most of whom weren’t even present the previous day) formed a huge crowd on the Rajpath to intercept the girls to teach them a lesson. While they did blast some unfortunate girls passing by early in the morning – including one innocent day scholar who hadnt been one of us – but by the time we reached the crowd, there was a frantic scattering of all the guys as they quickly ran for their life. Puzzled, we looked around and saw the head of security walking cluelessly behind us. And surprisingly enough, that was finally that.

Bartley, my son

Published on November 29, 2007 in Favourite posts and REC Calicut. 14 Comments Tags: , , .

I once took part in a play in college. I was the mother with the powdered white hair. Although looking back, it seems I was always chosen to play the mother, dunno why. So anyways, this play was put together at the last minute which meant that nobody actually had any time to practice their lines or remember a long list of never-ending dialogues.

A classmate graciously offered to stand in the shadows, holding the script and prompt whenever the characters on stage forgot anything. With that infallible concept in hand, we headed towards enacting a most unforgettable and thoroughly laughable play in the history of that particular stage at least.

The scene was supposed to be a dramatically sad one; the dead body of the son is brought home and the family weeps at the loss of a life so young. When it was time for the mother’s speech of lament, luck had it that I remembered only two sentences which I stupidly repeated like about 10 times. I dont remember now exactly what misfortune befell the prompter but either she took just that time to take a break or she spoke so low that I couldnt hear any of my other lines.

So the white haired mother lamented thus – “Bartley, my son Bartley… now that you are gone, who will feed us and look after us?” That was the first line that I remembered. The second one went something like this – “Bartley, now that you are gone, who will fish for us and bring bread on the table“.

Later on, a friend in the audience told me that the mother came across as being only concerned about where her food is going to come from and for her, that was a tragedy even greater than a son dead.

Bartley, on his part also did his best to have the audience in splits. Although he was supposed to be dead, his eyes wouldnt stop blinking and his feet kept twitching for a dead body. We, the cast ourselves had a hearty laugh when we heard of the shenanigans that happened onstage later on.

And to think we got third place for this play. Maybe the judges gave points for all the laughter. And for the semi-dead Bartley perhaps. I’ve not had the courage to participate in any other play after that.

Friday

Published on September 21, 2007 in just and REC Calicut. 2 Comments

This is a line from CREC that has always stayed with me:

Friday evenings are the shortest and sweetest things in the world.

TGIF.

Join CREC

Published on August 28, 2007 in REC Calicut. 3 Comments

I applied to join the CREC community on Orkut but the owner still hasnt approved my membership! I wonder why.

About days of yore

Published on August 17, 2007 in REC Calicut. 3 Comments

Recently, an old classmate emailed an album of our college days and going through it was like looking at ghosts from a previous life. Not only was I thinner in college (!!!) but recollections of Oh, this person had also studied with me went rampant in my mind. People I had forgotten all about and perhaps would have never remembered again had it not been for those old photos.

Most of the time I went through the old album, I was like God, when were these pics taken??? I dont even remember such a thing happening. And now that I look back, I think I was pretty much in a world of my own and not paying any attention to things going on at that time. Pretty much the same thats happening now, I guess ;)

I was in very few pictures of that old album, not surprisingly. Most of the other pictures were taken in our old classroom or on some trip to somewhere - on mountains, tea gardens, inside the bus. Smiling, happy people, including ex-couples sitting besides each other. One hell of a nostalgic trip down memory lane, thanks to the old classmate of mine.

The last thing I remember thinking was – did she really have a digital camera ten years ago?

The mobile phone story

Published on July 5, 2007 in Life as it happens and REC Calicut. 5 Comments

Sometime back while I was taking a class, a student’s mobile phone rang in the middle of my precious lecture. Amidst hushed laughter and some snickering, the guilty phone accompanied me back to my desk after the class. Looking at the gadget later on and thinking about the whole incident, I realized how technologically advanced today’s students are. Did I have a mobile phone back when I was in college myself? NOPE.

What we had in the hostel was something called a phone room where the mess chechis (workers) manned one STD phone and one local call phone and we students had to line up and wait to make the call. Another option was the PCO/STD booth far, far away in the campus, which naturally couldnt be accessed at night, given the Ladies’ Hostel – LH’s 7 o’clock deadline.

Incidentally during those dark ages, the government norms included a full rate during daytime and half rate at night. Naturally everyone preferred to make the STD call at night. Sundays were also half rate but that was one special day where we were either busy sleeping most of the day or heading off to the city for dates/movies/sight seeing trips. So we had to make do with queuing up outside the phone room.

Of course now I do have a mobile phone and naturally I cant live without it. Although maybe I can… we all did before 2000, didnt we? :)

The AnDePRin Saga

Published on June 2, 2007 in memoirs and REC Calicut. 4 Comments

andeprin-photocopy-effect.jpg

Once upon a time in the remotest corner of civilization possible, lived four good friends in what was called the Ladies Hostel or LH for short. These girls were Ann, De, Pri & Rin and one night all four racked their brains to think what their group should be called before they passed out from college when they decided on AnDePRin. Also sardonically called as The Cough Syrup company by Ms. De, of which all girls were the primary stake holders!

And so, all four members of AnDePRin parted after the short 4 years in REC Calicut where they spent more time solving their personal problems than engineering sums of computer or electrical nature. They not only took along with them a new approach to life as intelligent women but also some memories that would probably last them a life time or more.

These girls laughed together (a lot) much to the bewilderment of other open mouthed, gaping mand-buddhis/doofuses who passed off as their college mates. They told each other all their troubles and shared advices as of what to do next & how and basically played each other’s Oprah to the hilt.

All four would exchange Calvin & Hobbes, Asterix & Obelix, Tintin and a thousand other novels borrowed from Eloor library in town. Someone amongst the four also used to read Photoromance mags but I dont remember now who!

They even wrote anonymous, sarcastic letters against supposed authorities over despotic issues and had them pasted all over campus courtesy of one boyfriend who did quite a thorough job, as everyone in college observed the next day.

They went for movies to the only English theatre in town, against undesired, creepy attention of all leering, drooling males who probably never saw a female in their stupid life ever before. They survived a kleptomaniac & major bitch whose shenanigans would require another whole post dedicated in the harrowing memory…

The AnDePRin members are now succesful women in their own respective fields. Who would have thought that friendships made over puttu-breakfast & cream rolls for tea would last a lifetime. AnDePRin lives on through electronic mail & memories from a sleepy placed called Calicut. The LH couldnt have boasted of better inmates and sooner or later, someone will have to remind it of this fact!

Mutta Chechi

Published on May 9, 2007 in memoirs and REC Calicut. 2 Comments

Back in the days of yore, we used to get bread, jam & eggs twice a week in the Ladies Hostel. The mess worker, fondly known as Mutta Chechi (Mutta=egg & chechi=elder sister, in Malayalam) used to make us customised eggs while we formed a larger than life queue outside the kitchen door.

She used to make these amazing eggs, with onions, green chillies & black pepper, as per the wish of the egg eater. She used to churn out omlettes, double omlettes, Bulls eye day after day for the 4 years that I was there in the hostel. Her eggs used to have this even spread and large circumferences that made us wonder if a single egg could be that big.

Most of the time I make eggs for breakfast at home, she is the first person I think of and wonder if she’s still making memorable eggs for all and sundry in the hostel right now. I think I speak for all the ex-inmates when I say that eggs were the best thing after Mutta Chechi in the hostel mess ever.

Related Posts with Thumbnails