My Life @ VBS - I

For a Chennaite, ‘Bangalore’ is indeed just like another ‘Darjeeling’ or ‘Manali’. With the same anticipation on mind, I got down at Bangalore Majestic Railway station at early morning 4.15 a.m. on 15^th July 2012 with my huge baggage weighing three times more than me.  Once I got down, moving Crowd at the platform took me towards the entrance. I realized that my forecast was almost true that it was a downpour but not a snowfall at Bangalore (For a Chennaite, even a downpour is more like a snowfall).  I reached the entrance of the station where it was almost flooded and I was awaiting a call from my first pal of VBS Mr. Sudhir Prasad. Yes, I know this chap from a month prior joining VBS. We conversed a lot to convince ourselves post our decision of joining here. And, I was invited to his home that day. Thankfully, he called when I was struggling to come out of the flooded station and gave me the directions to come to his home. I adventurously walked outside the station towards the main road on the muddy road with my giant baggage and it was drizzling hard on the way. 

Finally, I got an autowala at the main road, with no intension of bargaining with him.  I okayed Rs. 180 to go to his home which isn’t even 3 KMs from the station. As he directed, I guess it was Vijaya Nagar where I had to go. Bangalore is full of “Nagars” just like “Paakkams” in Chennai which I didn’t know at that time. Also, it was kind of a prestige issue for a Chennaite if he got cheated by an autowala anywhere. So, please Shhhh... !!

     Reached and refreshed at his home. His parents were too traditional and caring just like mine. Before we started, both his mom and dad spoke with me in person when he was not around and asked me to TAKE CARE of him more than hundred times. I wasn’t knowing the reason behind their requests at that time but now, of course, I realized!

It was around 11.30 a.m. Thanks to his friend who had brought a car to take us to our place Bommanahalli. Oh Sorry, it was Garebhavi pallya (I always end up in this confusion from bus conductor to corporate people even today). After an hour journey through the wet city, we landed in our supposed place, I mean our S.L.V. Hostel. We both got down and met our Hostel Owner Mr.Guna who was so professional to us in all means at that time and had never given any opportunity to us to get to know about his real face. Finally, we got a beautiful corner room in second floor to land up. We were unwinding our luggage and was settling down.

While stepping down, there was a terrace on first floor where we have noticed a seemingly professional discussion going on. There was a bit stout fair guy talking something about ‘why the growth of Indian economy is slowing down? What pushes the inflation up?’ and all those bombastic issues. We were literally shocked on noticing that on the very first day we headed. It was none other than Mr.Subhashish and two more who occupied the panel were Mr. Argo and Saikat the Great.  Actually speaking, we had no clue since their discussion was on Bengali. It was our wild guess. We introduced ourselves and moved back to our room.

After some time, around 2.30 p.m., Nirmal along with someone who looked like Ghajni Aamir came to our room and called us for a tea. Nirmal was pretty well known to almost everyone since he was the owner of our FB community before we head to Bangalore. That Ghajni fellow was none other than our Hostel Placement Convenor Mr.Radhakrishnan Swaminathan., I mean Krishna. Oops! The reason why we call this gentleman as Placement convenor in hostel will be disclosed little later.

We all together went out and had tea. The mausam (Climate) was awesome as it was still cloudy after a rainy morning. The road was quite wet and muddy. While walking back to hostel, we have found our another fellow arriving  in a car with jumbo luggage. Yes, it was Arvindh Kejriwal. I am sorry. Arvindh Kumar. (Kejriwal was quite popular at that time). . Interestingly, he was not known at that time that this new place would get his soul-mate for whom he would dedicate rest of his lifetime. (Korbo, Lorbo, Jeetbo!!) Life is crazy buddy!! We took him to our room which was little better than Delhi Belly room and he too got impressed and settled down with his things. So, then on, we were three musketeers. I mean roomies!!

Next small gentleman who came to picture seemed like got down at Bangalore airport in the morning from Japan Airlines was Dapmon or dearly called as “Mandaya” by us.  We were glad to meet that new chotu fellow with his weird activities and in no time he mingled with us. After sometime, I just went up just to check out whether any new people have turned up to hostel. In the third floor, I met one guy who was actually sitting on his bed was quite seriously starring at his laptop. I thought that he was someone studious who has started working on a business plan even before heading to a business school. And, he had noticed me in the middle of his whatever work he was doing and after a formal hand shake and intro, we started chatting for a while. He was later our cute CR Mr.Ashish and by the way, he was actually busy with just transferring movies from his pen drive to his laptop which I got to know later. No misunderstanding please !

After a while, we noticed a Tavera or sumo kind of a jumbo vehicle arrived to our hostel. We were expecting a VIP student out of it and it was Mr. Azad. We noticed that many people along with him got down from that four wheeler to get his luggage out of the vehicle and helped him out. Later, we realized that it was his entire family who had come to drop him here. It was just like a newly wedded bride and her whole family members who came to drop at her groom’s home. Followed by, we met Jayanth, Dinesh, Mr. Maadu (Abishek Jain), Gulia, Dr.Rajarajan and many more on the day before day one. In fact, the first intro of everyone over there was an amusing tale which would last forever.

Fortunately, for guys, it won’t take much time to break the ices and we were also not exceptional from that fact. In the late evening, we all together went for a shopping to the market nearby to purchase the basic things required to settle down at hostel. We bought a few and returned to hostel and it was around 8.30 p.m. We noticed another studious fellow with thick spectacles occupied Dappu’s room and wondered on seeing his cupboard filled full of books unlike us. He looked calm, quiet and nerdy to some extent. In fact, we ourselves approached him with a petty talk and introduced ourselves. Then, he introduced himself and again stayed quiet. He told like he was from Andhra, he was an engineer and nothing more than that. It seemed like we had to pay to make him speak. Yes, he was our Mr.Media, Dheeraj a.k.a. Dheeru!  He had never given any chances to guess that he would be a typical chatter box later on.

It was 9 p.m. We realised that we had to go for dinner and we decided to go to our clueless mess a.k.a California (Courtesy - Mandaya) with no prior idea. The feast on the very first day was literally an emotional shock to most of us on trying mouth-watering food that day. I am sorry, I couldn’t find any other sarcasm to mention our first day dining experience at California. Thanks to California, there were people who started to adapt to the practice of fasting owing to California’s yummy food and the quality of service with a superlative sanity.

With the first deep disappointment, after little bit of chats and pats, everyone went to sleep little late to dream about the new journey in that new world, in a new place with new people and a new life altogether from the next day.

 “Suno to Zaraa, hum ko hai ye kehna Waqt hai kya tum ko pata hai naso gayi.. Wake up Sid Saare pal kahe Wake up Sid Chal kahin Chale..”Wake up Sid… Wake up Sid…”,  half-heartedly I had to stop snoozing my alarm and got up. Yep. It was 7 a.m. the next day morning which was gonna be my first day @ VBS! 

To be Continued !!