A lazy Sunday morning spent in finishing the last part of
Shiva Trilogy was followed by a historic afternoon; India whitewashed Australia
4-0. Not sure about what next, I decided to pay my regards to the Sleep Goddess.
Yes, at 4 pm in the evening, I went to my bed chambers (Word inspired from
Amish’s Shiva Trilogy). Hrishikesh Puranik may find resemblance to this act of
mine as He is the one whom I know is the champion of sleeping at odd times.
Barely had I slept for two hours (only!) when half awake, I
started dreaming.
I along with Omkar Deshpande had a ticket booked for the
evening train to Shegaon. We had to attend the lectures scheduled for the next
morning. It was final year. And as I was half awake, I was trying to recollect
who my then room partner was. The left hemisphere of my brain said it was
Mukesh Bhongade but the right one voted for Babloo Vaidya (It’s not short term
memory loss; it’s just that I was half asleep!)
This dream was interrupted in between as my half open eyes
saw the clock ticking to 7 pm. I can’t sleep now. After all there has to be a
difference between Hrishi and me!!! (No offence taken!) Had I been in Hrishi’s
shoes, I would have enjoyed sleeping a bit more!
But this dream took me down the memory lane. That 800 m long
lane from Shegaon gate to Khamgaon gate; the hostels surrounding this lane was
once our home where all of us had met for the first time.
In this span called Engineering The
Puranik-Khandalkar-Joshi-Dabhadkar Family had gradually extended to Deshpande(s)*
-Bhongade-Vaidya-Kothe-Mahajan-Patki-Kokle-Mankar-Pusam-Aaglawe-Alkari-Varadpande.
[(s)* Omkar and Alok]
There are various anecdotes which if I start mentioning then
each one of these can become a separate chapter of a 500 page book which may be
called None of us is as Smart as all of us! (I hope you remember this line).
But still there are few incidences which I simply can’t avoid mentioning here.
Each one of which brings a smile on my face. Majority of them are from First
year!
The year started with our names getting displayed all over
the college. No we had not topped in any event or exam. We were actually fined
for celebrating my Birthday in our own room and possessing a 2 in 1 Cassette
player whose volume was not even sufficient to be heard in a 10 x 10 room. With
our names getting displayed even in the Girls’ hostel, We were famous.
A day before a Unit Test when I was trying to concentrate on
studies; three of my roomies were busy playing with the ‘Sauf ka Dabba’ and in
came the Warden Bhambere!
Semester 1 exam began with M1 (Hrishi lovingly called
it as YAM 1), at mid night few hours before the paper, few of our abysmal
seniors had tried leak the next day’s paper. Not to mention, none of their provided
questions could make an appearance in the actual paper.
A night before Mechanics paper; one Deshpande (Omkar) had
increased my anxiety by enlightening me with the knowledge about previous year’s
mass destruction which Mechanics had caused. The next day saw me getting eaten
up by this paper. Six month later when I was to face this monster again, it was
another Deshpande (Alok) who came to my rescue. He had wholeheartedly taught
the concepts. After the result, he was angry that I had managed to barely pass
and not excel in that paper.
One night after returning from Mumbai, Omkar started living
in room no. D14 (our room, which was home for all, yes in Hindi we may call
such homes as Dharamshala! agaon, no offence taken) never bothering his actual (on paper) roommates
again.
The second semester exam when I suffering from Chicken Pox, had
managed to clear all my NINE papers in one go. That was by all means my most
successful semester (Not by marks but by the way how I had overcome the
situation. Thanks to all the Mahol Pottes who stayed by me)
The rains in Shegaon when all had bathed at the terrace followed
by hot Chai in canteen.
Hotel Krishna which used to serve Unlimited Thali at 25
bucks. Akshay used to eat 25 Chapatis there (and it’s not exaggeration).
Ultimately the hotel was closed one day.
More Bhau’s Tapri, Ganne ka juice, the Mango Juice wallah
(who was rumored to be suffering from AIDS!) were the regular places to satiate
our hunger.
The New Year Celebration at Lala’s residence at Khamgaon and
the Kharangana Morangana Trip at Pusams are few of the outings of Mahol Pottes.
Ketan and KK’s Gaming zone where Babloo and Akshay also marveled.
Being a bad player, I never enjoyed.
Patki and Mukesh’s sketches, Mahajan’s weird acts can’t be
forgotten.
The MANIA Photo shoot was just another weird thing which we
did.
PMC, The Benches near Khamgaon Gate, Rasika Dhaba, the
temple, the faculty building…
Everything is a part of our cherished memories.
It’s now almost four years since we have engineered
ourselves. All of us are now a part of corporate (I heard somebody saying
bloody corporate!). Few amongst us married, many on the verge of getting married.
But everything from the Shegon days is fresh in mind as if
everything happened just yesterday.
In the end as I am unable to find an appropriate end to this
blog, I leave you with a picture which speaks better than these 919 words!
