Flat ke kaand: The unforgettable night

It was 2^nd September,2009. Yup , my second birthday @ pune. The day had all the ingredient of a typical Bollywood movie. It had fun, party, get-togethers, celebration, villains, friends, police, songs, dance, drinks, comedy,  suspense etc etc.

The day began like another ordinary birthday where I woke up early, had my morning run, took a bath and went to the nearby temple to seek blessings. After returning back, I had my breakfast. Last night, my friends came at midnight to wish me. I planned to throw them a treat at my own place instead of going to an outside restaurant. I made the list of the guest, planned the menu, bought the ingredients and briefed my cook about the things he was supposed to make. I also planned some interesting games for the day which will keep us busy. The music system was already installed if anyone wanted to shake a leg.

The second year had just started, so I didn’t know much of the new people so most of the guest was the friends from my first year. I called them to double check their availability. Most of them will be coming.

Me and Kaushal went for shopping that evening to buy the drinks, paper plates, glass and sweets. We decorated the room a little. I was all busy since 5 pm. Cook did a nice job. He made a non-veg and a veg dish to cater the entire crowd. By 7 pm, people started coming in. Music was running in the background while we all chatted.

It was all going very smooth until that terrible incident.

Someone from us, proposed an idea of switching of the light and dancing on the beats. Initially it was slow. But then people started making request of high beats songs and raised the volume a little. We all danced like there is no tomorrow. We were all sweating but then, nobody wanted to stop. We made the place more of a dance club. We forgot that we were staying at a residential apartment where they hung boards like “Dogs and bachelors not allowed”.

More people came in and they too joined the dance party. Occasionally I advised people to not make a lot of noise and it can have it repercussions but then boys will be boys, right? Everyone was flowing and the most interesting thing was, none of us were drunk.

Someone from the group made a request for playing “Jila top lage li” ..a famous Bhojpuri song. It was close to 10. This was supposed to be the last song after which we were all supposed to stop for  dinner. Everyone wanted to make the best of the last song. We danced, we jumped and we howled. Unknowingly we were making noise which was crossing the limiting decibel for the zone. Between the beats, I heard a noise similar to the doorbell. I thought some more of our friends would be there at the door. I lowered the music a little and then went to check. I peeped through the door. I saw some 6 to 7 people outside. I came running and stopped the music. I told everyone that some strange people are at the door. So no one should make a noise and everyone should stay indoors while we are talking. I and devoo went to the door. 

We opened it. We had no clue what was about to come.

The gentleman started howling. He looked more furious and angry than gabbar from sholay. He made some valid points too that boards of the students were about to start, there were old people residing etc etc mostly in Marathi which we picked a little. I called our Marathi friend to talk to them hoping the Marathi will help us as Hindi was making them hate us more. We made a counter argument that we were informed that we can party till 10 pm and it had not crossed that. One of the guy told that he was calling the cops as you guys have been disturbing them a lot since evening. One of the guys entered the room to check if we had liquors also. When he saw some empty glass and cold drinks he made a judgment that we all were drunk. The wet-sweaty clothes on our body didn’t helped. One of them called our owner and informed them about all this. She too got furious.

We were all asked to vacate the room or they will call the police and get us all arrested. We panicked. I moved in and told everyone to leave for now. Very quietly people marched downstairs. The gentlemen e raised an eyebrow by seeing the attendance. They were all in very bad mood. Maybe they had quarrel with their bosses, or their wives or their girlfriend. They were not ready to listen to us. We also thought, it was not the right time and we should not argue much. The politics of Mr.Raj thackrey was also active then and we didn’t wanted to be there at the headline news. They locked the room and took the key. All of us moved toward our owner’s flat.

It was close to 11. Four of us went to have a meeting with the owner. We couldn’t raise our eyes. We knew we did a mistake. See was still nice to us. We felt a little consoled. After 20 mins of talk we came down. Boys were waiting for us. Around 10-15 of us were sitting on the footpath near Shristi apartment at d.p road trying to think what just happened. There was an awkward silent. We all looked at each other and started laughing. Discussing the way some of us danced. Suddenly the tense mood got transformed to a fun mood.  We all knew that we are into some serious trouble, but somehow after such a beautiful evening we couldn’t be sad.

We all made a walk to Akolkar apartment which was half a kilometer away. We got hungry. I realized that our whole food is still there at the apartment, the chickens, the cakes, the sweets, the drinks….the cold drinks actually and it was all locked.

But then came the rescuer. Kaushal informed that he have an extra pair of keys for the lock. Now someone will have to volunteer and bring back the stuffs. Being a birthday boy nominated me by default. I and devoo took the mission – GHAR WAPASI

We took Akolkar bike and drove all the way back. We made sure we make minimum noise and so he parked the bike 100 meter away. We slowly walked all the way. We moved like a cat on the stairs. We were almost there. I slowly put the key and opened the door. We packed all the stuffs and moved down in similar fashion. Now and then I feel someone is coming and we got scared of being caught but eventually we made it.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!! Time to celebrate again. 

The clock was touching almost 2. We all were enjoying my birthday treat watching the t.v. We all chatted and then fell asleep.

The coming days were difficult for us. We were given a notice to vacate the room in a month. The apartment came out with a new rule to not lend a room to a bachelor. Because of us, another bachelors living downstairs also suffered .We moved in to a new and better apartment ,closer to our college, which gave some new stories to our life.

The day was unforgettable to all of us who attending the party !! People witnessing the events were:

Arvind,Kaushal,Devoo,Rohit,Aniket, Anurag Agr and Lall, Akolkar, Moti, Anshul,Pratik,Abhijeet

PUNE UNIVERSITY: Expect the Unexpected

The happy days of first year were over. We all got divided into our respective branches. I got SE 1. Very less people from my earlier class F.E 1 were there. Most of the crowd was new for me. I could recognize some cute faces too. The good thing was that, I and Kaushal were now studying in the same class. He had many friends from div 9 into the class and he made me friend with them.

In less time, we all gelled up with the new boys. The topper from the last year, Varun, was also in our class with most of his intellectual friends. The crowd from my first year was more fun to be with. I still remember how we played “catch catch” and table tennis on the teacher table now and then during free lectures in the first year. The people here were divided into their own small groups. There were “mehnati” people from the lateral entry too. Since I was more into sports after the college, I couldn’t hang much with the groups and so the bond was not very strong between us. Now and then, people planned road trips and outings but the lack of pocket money limited my ventures and I found happiness in other extracurricular activities. I only joined them mostly when they planned movie at Alka theatre.

In no time, the semester seemed to fly by and it was time for our exams. In first year, I got a distinction and so I was kind of confident that I will be able to sail through this one too. The subjects were little trickier this time with SSDC and communication being everyone’s fear.

The lab quiz and viva got over and the PL got started. I and Kaushal made sure that we will be economically studying and we bought only one pair of books from the market. Then we tore it into units and then shared it throughout the exams. Many will be surprised to know that, we followed the same routine till our final year. The advantage was that we were paying less individually and were also getting to keep the books unlike the library system.

The exams started after a week I guess. As everyone predicted, the paper was difficult and we somehow scribbled something throughout the 3 hours. Some people even exchanged sheets under the eyes of the invigilator. After some 10 days, the exam got over. We had a train to catch in the evening. It felt enthusiastic. After 6 months, we will be going home.

2 months passed away since our fourth semester started. Now and then, came the rumors of our result. Finally the D day came. Everyone was a little nervous and anxious. I expected all clear with around 60%.A queue was made and the result distribution started. People standing at back were curious to know the result of the people getting it at front. I thought of staying calm and quiet. I made a little joke now and then to lighten the mood.

I was next. The teacher asked my roll number and gave an A5 size sheet to me. I checked the marks. It was depressingly low. The total made an agr. of 52% with two backlogs. I was shocked. My heart beat increased. My palm got sweaty. I was heavily breathing. Few of my friends inquired. I showed them the result. They too were surprised. Since, my school days, I have been a consistent performer being among the best of the class. This came as a big shock for me. The next coming days were difficult. I was a completely changed person from then. I went into depression. Most of the time I remained isolated. It was unacceptable to me. The next semester with 2 more paper will make it more difficult. I was caught in this vicious cycle. I started paying more attention to my academics. No more games, no more movies. I invested all the time I had in books. I was a changed person. I applied for reval hoping for some changes.

2 months had passed by. Our next semester was about to start in some days. The result of the reval was still awaiting. I still remember that day. I was studying in my room when I suddenly got a call from Swapnil that the result of reval are out. I went running to check. There was a huge crowd looking at the Xerox sheet . Most of them came out dejected with NO CHANGE appearing against their subjects. I got my chance after sometime. I started looking turning papers. There I was. SSDC 52 Communication 41. Both the paper got cleared. I felt relieved and a bit happy. The change in marks helped a bit to improve the percentage too. There was definitely a lot of anger in me toward Pune University. First they don’t check your paper sincerely, then they take huge money from you on pretext of reval and will make you wait the whole semester.

I read the rules that if there is a change in marks, the whole money for applying to reval will be reimbursed by the university but after going several times to office, Bondere never mentioned about the money. I guess this is the other way the college made money.

After so many years, what I remember now is that the result came as a shock to me but it also had some positive effect. I introspected myself and realized the real importance of being there. My friend says that I changed a lot during that phase and I don’t disagree with them. I only wonder that what would have happened if such mistake would have happened to a weak hear-ted student who can’t take such burden and would have committed something with him. Who would have taken the responsibility of the teacher’s mistake? Pune University is large with lakhs of student and it is understandable that the pressure on the teacher is huge, but the only thing I would like to suggest them is that it’s a matter of whole career of a student so please pay a little more importance to it.  

I always  share this experience with the new fresher’s and tell them that they should be always prepared for all this with the university.

If suppose University of Pune was a movie, the tag line would be “EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED”