My Friend Mustaque, Part-2

My Friend Mustaque, Part-1

After we joined hostel, for the initial 2 months we used to visit our relatives quite often. The more appropriate term would be "LG", i.e. Local Guardian.  Almost everyone had some form of LG in the Guwahati city. LG need not necessarily be a guardian, in the true sense.  It could be any damn known person, could be a friend as well and we only had to say to our seniors that we would go to visit our LG. During the ragging period it was kind of customary for the fresher’s to visit LG over the weekends. After a few LG visits, it got quite monotonous to drop out there so frequently.  But there was no other option left, as most of the fresher’s preferred not to stay at the hostel during the weekends. Once the ragging period is over, the LG visits decreased exponentially for all of us.

In those early hostel days, one Saturday afternoon, I was well prepared to visit my LG. I was seated beside Mustaque inside the college bus, which used to go till Kachari, the heart of the city. I and Mustaque planned to watch a movie and I thought it would be better to watch in a theater, which was located in the other part of the city. So, we went to Anuradha Cinema Hall and the movie they were showing  that time was "Dil Se". We bought the tickets and were quite happy and relaxed, as we were quite sure that none of the college seniors would come that far for movie.

The movie was OK, not that boring and the "Chaiya Chaiya" song and it's choreography was fantastic. After a few minutes, I asked  Mustaque something regarding the movie, but he didn’t respond. Initially I thought, perhaps he's watching  the movie with his full concentration, but to my surprise he was actually sleeping. I woke him up and he started to smile and said that he was a bit tired. He was alive for a while and then started to snore like a lousy animal. I got little embarrassed, as people nearby got little pissed off and started to shoot glances towards us. Again I woke him up and he was alive for few more minutes. The same process repeated throughout the movie and I was literally frustrated with him.  I thought Mustaque might be very tired  that day and that’s why he acted like that, but later we realized,  it was actually quite difficult for Mustaque to survive the entire movie, no matter how interesting the movie was. 

When I was in my 3rd semester, my father bought me a desktop computer, the one which had Celeron processor inside. That was the first computer in the entire hostel, so it deserved a fabulous welcome and it actually got the kind of welcome it deserved. On the inauguration day of my desktop, we bought 2 movie CD’s on rent, out of which one was those exotic kinds of movies. The system was up the entire night and it delivered countless number of shows. For the next few months there was tremendous load on the system and initially I was little possessive about my desktop. I strictly asked my friends to leave their shoes/sandals outside and not to smoke inside the room. But those 2 rules were followed only for the initial  few days. By the next semester, gradually many more guys started to keep their own computers, so the load was distributed and instead of having show in one particular room,  we used to have multiple shows in multiple rooms simultaneously,  just like a multiplex. 

In those days, one afternoon Mustaque bought a movie CD from somewhere and said to us "it’s a damn good movie, let’s watch it after lunch". Very soon, many of my friends came to our room to watch the movie. Everyone took their position  in the bed and literally each and every corner of the bed was utilized. We didn’t have enough space to sit comfortably, but Mustaque out of his usual habit, somehow managed enough space for him to lie down. The movie Mustaque recommended that afternoon was “A Beautiful Mind”. No doubt it’s a damn good movie and it even won a few Oscars, but such kind of movies could be boring as well, depending on individual’s mood.

As usual, after watching the movie for 10 to 15 minutes, Mustaque went to deep sleep with his mouth wide open and after few more minutes he started to snore piercingly. By that time, we were already aware of the fact that there’s no point to wake him up. Mustaque continued to snore all throughout the movie and came back to life, just few minutes before the movie was about to finish. Finally few of my friends felt happy, as ultimately the movie ended and at that moment, Mustaque became little serious and commented "Wow! Bohut accha movie tha yaar"    "Wow!  It was really a great movie to watch"

My Friend Mustaque, Part-3

My Friend Mustaque, Part-1

My good friend Mustaque, wow!  he was quite a character in hostel. He was very funny, but his funny character was little known to him, as he pretended to be serious most of the time. Mustaque was basically from Manipur and was quite religious kind of person, in his own ways though. He was an extremely good cook and we witnessed him creating some kind of a miracle, literally out of nothing, except those potato and tomatoes   He was quite well known for his horrible concepts in mathematics. Prior to engineering, he was a student of humanity and was very much interested in literature, politics and enjoyed reading magazines. He joined engineering as his father wanted him to become an engineer. Usually, religious people don’t like me much because of my atheist kind of attitude. In my life I encountered many such people, who used to influence me to go for the Friday afternoon prayer and every time, it was quite difficult for me to deal with such a situation. 

But Mustaque was little different, but even he also used to challenge my atheism and my distrust in religion sometimes, usually when he used to have few extra pegs. To be honest, I was actually delighted to encounter such kind of  a religious guy. Out of curiosity I asked him on one occasion "Dude, what kind of religious person are you? I mean you are totally drunk and you are giving me religious funda’s."

Mustaque smiled and responded with his usual list of slang "Dude, you should worship from your heart and religion has nothing to do with consuming alcohol"

Mustaque was also quite well known for his typical pronunciation. Most of my hostel friends would definitely remember one incident during our initial first semester days. Mustaque’s branch was Mechanical and we had a huge mechanical gang in hostel. Usually guys from same hostel used to sit together in class room. The professor wanted to note down each and every student’s roll number in his register.  Mustaque patiently waited for his turn, to speak loudly his roll number. When it was his turn, Mustaque murmured "Chabban Chabban Chabban"

The professor couldn’t understand him and said "Please speak clearly, what is your roll number?"

That time Mustaque responded "Tippne Chabban"

The professor made some weird kind of expression and said "what the hell are you saying?"

Nair seated beside Mustaque and he clarified "Sir, it’s actually 777"

Nair was my roommate and his roll number was 786 and Mustaque was extremely excited with Nair’s roll number. Mustaque used to say that Nair got God’s own number and nobody could stop him from becoming topper. He used to say Nair "You don’t have to study hard dude, you have God’s number with you and you would do well in all the exams"

My Friend Mustaque, Part-2

Perspective

Couldn't do well in my 10th grade, but I always had an excuse, not only to convince my parents but also to console myself. I always had that positive kind of attitude all throughout my life and that time, I used to think and even used to say to my parents “who the hell would ask for my 10th grade marks? Its 12th grade exam that would decide our career and I would definitely do well in my 12th grade." Even though I couldn’t do well in any of the test exams in 12th grade but still it never bothered me and was damn confident that I would perform in the final exam. 

But unfortunately couldn’t do well in my 12th grade final exams either. Even that time, I had a very logical excuse “Once I get admission in a good engineering college, who would ask for my 12th grade marks? I would definitely perform in the upcoming engineering entrance exams" Those excuses always made me feel good, as well as relaxed and I also was able to convince my parents to some extent. That time I and some of my friends couldn’t think beyond an engineering career, may be our thinking and knowledge was very limited. We believed that the engineering entrance exams were the real exams for us, which would decide our career. But it was a kind of nightmare, when I didn’t perform in the entrance exams as well. Forget about reputed engineering colleges, I couldn’t manage a seat even in our state engineering colleges. 

That was the time when I and some of my friends came back to the real world from our fantasy world. The kind of marks we obtained in the final exam, we couldn't have got admission in some of the well known general colleges in our state. In fact, we never tried anywhere and we took admission in the one and only degree Science College in our hometown, where the door was open for everyone, irrespective of whatever percentage he/she scored in the 12th grade. That was some kind of depression phase for us, but since we always had a very positive attitude, we thought "Perhaps, we are fortunate enough not to get admission in any damn engineering college this time. We have enough time to prepare and next year we would definitely get admission in top engineering colleges"

We stopped attending lectures after a couple of months and decided to prepare for our entrance exams. We tried to work hard but it was quite painful and boring to study the same thing again and again. That was the time when I had the opportunity to make new local friends, other than my old KV (Kendriya Vidyalaya) friends.  We used to meet in the evening in some well know and slightly isolated hangout places, where we could spend a couple of hours freely. We used to gossip and had tea, along with those cigarette puffs. One day, one of my friend’s father saw our gang together and he even noticed us smoking. The next day, my friend said to us that his father was quite upset after he saw us the previous evening. He heard his father, when he narrated the incident to his mom. His father said “these kids have spoiled themselves. They never study and every now and then used to smoke cigarettes. Very soon, they would start to drink."

I seriously thought "are we really spoiled?"

Time passed by and in the "Durga Puja" vacation, most of my friends who got admission in different engineering colleges, as well as some other colleges, were in town. We had a great time and we used to meet daily.  My friends used to discuss about their new colleges, the ragging stories, hostel incidents and of course about their college babes. We usually used to gather in the evening, in those little isolated kind of hangout places. We used to have tea and cigarettes and used to gossip for hours. Unfortunately one of my friend’s father saw us in that condition and the next day, my friend narrated us, how his father told his mom about the incident. 

His father said "today, while coming from office, I saw Baba and his friends. Those guys have really become smart after joining engineering college"

His mom replied "why, what happened?"

His father said "Nothing, their attitude have changed, they looked different and I noticed them smoking cigarettes"

Initially, it was little difficult for me to digest those words. But later I thought “what else the uncle could have said? He couldn't have said that the guys are spoiled, as they already got admission in reputed engineering colleges. I was little happy that time and wondered “we are not actually spoiled, it's just a matter of time."