Two Small Pegs

One good thing about taking admission in an engineering college and staying at hostels, is that guys get enough opportunity to enjoy and worship the heavenly fluids. We had the opportunity to worship a wide range of holy spirits with different types of smell and colors. Even though guys passed out from different other colleges would equally claim their devotion and intimacy with the holy spirits, but the engineers usually use to worship a little more seriously. True devotees normally don’t wait for special occasions and they regularly continue their devoutness and spirituality with extreme passion and sincerity.

During my hostel days I witnessed worshiping of the heavenly fluids in one room or the other, almost every evening and on some auspicious days (which usually used to come quite frequently), the rituals used to last till early morning. But even in such kind of a sacred environment where spirituality flowed freely all around, there were some ignorant and unfortunate guys who were totally unaware about the blessings of the heavenly spirits. I had no idea what prevented them to join the club, but I heartily appreciated their willpower. 

But even the minorities couldn’t refrained themselves from the joy and happiness of our rituals. Most of the time they enthusiastically participated in our holy act and gracefully consumed those typical snacks, including peanuts and all different sort of mixtures. Sometimes for a change we even tried to dress them with sliced onions.


How could I ever forget those fried potatoes served really hot directly from the hostel kitchen and wow! those hot and crispy big pieces of fried brinjal, stuffed with Besan was so tempting.

On one normal evening, Jishu Da heard those intriguing gossips and laughter from a nearby room. Even though he was from the minority community, but he couldn’t stop him to be part of the gathering and entered the room. Everyone inside was very excited to see Jishu Da and heartily welcomed him.  What the hell was that? It was quite an unusual kind of ritual going on that particular room and instead of colorful fluids, guys were enjoying some colorless stuffs. The room immediately busted with Jishu Da’s typical blistering laughter and he commented "Hehe Haha.. what’s wrong with U guys? Why everyone enjoying vodka tonight?"

The room was occupied with some of our seniors and even our great Kaustav Da and Thapa Da were also present that time. Jishu Da already started to consume the mixtures and Kaustav Da offered him a drink, which Jishu Da gently denied. Kaustav Da tried to convince him and said "It’s just vodka and it’s consider to be a ladies drink. Also I’ve given only a small quantity and diluted it with almost the entire glass of water. Just have few sips and if you don’t like the taste then no need to have it"

Jishu Da consciously had a couple of sips and it seemed he wasn't very embarrassed with the taste. He commented that it’s kind of tasteless and Kaustav Da clarified him that vodka’s taste just like that. So Jishu Da also joined the party and tried to consume his peg quite slowly, sip by sip. As soon as he finished half of it, his behavior changed a bit and he started to talk more frequently and much louder. Jishu Da loved to crunch those mixtures after his every possible sip. By the time he finished his entire peg, his eyes were slightly red and then Kaustav Da offered him yet another drink. Initially Jishu Da hesitated, but it seemed even he also pretty much enjoyed the heavenly blessings and couldn’t resist the temptation for long. He enjoyed his second peg for almost half an hour and behaved quite normally according to the DRINK theory, which would be very well applicable to every degree hostel. Well, the principle is based on 5 large pegs. After first peg (D), guys usually behave as if they are very decent. After second peg(R), everyone becomes little bit romantic. After third peg (I), guys suddenly claim themselves to be very intelligent. After the fourth peg(N), guys start to get little naughty and ultimately after the fifth large peg(K), it’s actually knockout time. 

Jishu Da was quite punctual with his timings and immediately after his second peg he politely asked everyone inside the room to just excuse him. He wished goodnight to everyone and returned to his room. He had a very sound and deep sleep that night, but the fact of the matter is, Jishu Da never consumed even a single drop of vodka that night, all he drank was just pure plain water.

Happy Teacher's Day

I don’t know why but whenever I think about “Teacher”, usually image of Bishwajeet Sir, comes to my mind. He was our class teacher during our primary schooldays. He taught us mathematics. Our school was the only private English medium school in Bongaigaon, a well known town in Assam, those days. It was founded by a Mallu couple and even today, it’s popularly known as “Menon School”, even though both of them are no longer  associated with the school anymore. They returned to their native state Kerala, almost a couple of decades ago. Mrs. Menon, popularly known as Head Madam was the principal those days. Well, she was a tigress and was quite well known for her strictness and discipline. Mathematics was always my favorite subject, till I spoiled myself in Engineering college. Even today, I feel proud that I was one of the favorite students of Bishwajeet Sir.

When I was in my 7th grade, my father admitted me in Kendriya Vidyalaya, BRPL. KV was a different experience, I got lot of exposure. KV BRPL was like a mini India and I had the opportunity to interact with all sorts of people. Unlike Menon School, the new one had a big library and the image of our librarian, Pandey Sir, flashes in my head. He was a true entertainer and an amazing story teller. We had few opportunities to listen to his stories, usually when other teachers remained absent or when the library was occupied by other students. Pandey Sir used to tell us Indian mythological stories, especially kind of stuffs like "If anybody steals something then in next life, he would be born as a rat"

We had one more entertaining teacher, Hotilal Sir, our Hindi teacher.  I always felt literature subjects, both English and Hindi quite easy, but every time  my teachers deducted almost 50% of the marks in spelling and grammatical errors. I remember Shivlal, younger brother of Hotilal Sir. He was our class mate. Hotilal Sir tried to make his lectures interesting by his self appraisal kind of stories. I remember one instance when he told us he did his schooling with Kapil Dev. 

During my 11th and 12th grade, Mishra Sir was our Maths teacher. He tried his best to improve our mathematical concepts, but somehow we guys couldn’t follow him. He used to pass the entire lecture in solving one problem on the black board and quite often he got confused. We last benchers, tried our best to confuse him. His eldest son studied with us in the same classroom. Poor guy was very polite and quite innocent kind of, and was a soft target for guys who used to take great pleasure in pulling other’s leg. I remember one incident when our Mishra Sir once again became a proud father, while his eldest son was in 12th class with us. We asked for a party to junior Mishra and it seemed he felt shy about that. Even though it was quite unusual, but we felt proud about our Mishra Sir’s capabilities.

I remember one instance when our physics teacher, Mr Solanki Sir was quite upset with someone. I don’t exactly remember why he was so upset that moment but I do remember his precious words, even though those were out of anger. He said "Don’t ever compare yourselves with your teacher. No matter how much hard we try, but we have very limited growth, now. You guys have no limitation, no one can stop you from reaching anywhere and it’s all up to you how you go forward. We teachers are only there to guide you, that's all"

When we entered our 9th grade, suddenly Science became quite tougher and interesting. That was the time when we interacted with John Sir for the first time. Well, John Sir was a typical south Indian and was a man of principle. He used to teach us chemistry and was quite well known for his teaching skills. Most of the parents knew quite well that we needed a much better understanding of chemistry concepts for our career and some of them approached John Sir for private tuition. John Sir was not in favor of private tuition and gently denied them. Well, some other teacher got the opportunity instead. Next day, John Sir said to us “Yesterday, few of your parents came to me for private tuition. I don’t know why you guys need extra classes. If you have any doubt then please approach me any time, not only during school time but whenever you feel free.” But unfortunately John Sir couldn't be with us for a long, as in next few months he got transferred to his native place. 

During our 12th grade, just few months before our final board exams, our English teacher got transferred to her native place as well. A new teacher replaced her temporarily.  He was quite young, probably 24 or 25 years old. Unlike other teachers, he was different. One specialty about him was that he could easily connect with guys like us, I mean little Bigra kind of. He was more like a friend than teacher to us. He used to say "there's no difference between you guys and me. Even I also think in the same way as you do".  During our farewell many of our teachers gave speeches and it was quite monotonous and boring. But all of a sudden that guy arrived on stage, kind of shy and simply said few words.

"Well, all of you are very nice and intelligent people. There's no doubt that all you guys will do very well in life. Few might do a little better than others, but no one would die of hunger and everyone will do something in life. But whatever you do, always try to be a good human being, a good citizen of this country and always love your parents". 

While writing this post images of many teacher flashed in my head.

Happy Teacher's Day !

Exotic Malaysia

It would be really great if you could read  Via Singapore as the journey begins from Singapore itself.

We boarded our bus to Kuala Lumpur at Jurong East bus terminal and it started around 8 AM. The journey was quite an exciting one and I kept staring outside the window, but unfortunately couldn’t view much beyond those road side trees and bushes. On the way at one particular place we had our passport stamped. We reached KL by 1-2 PM and waited for Nair at the bus terminal for a while. Shruti already prepared delicious lunch and we couldn’t have waited any longer to satisfy our tummies. As Nair recently joined a new company that time, so after lunch he went back to work. After a little bit of chit chat with Shruti, I enjoyed a couple of hours deep sleep and only woke up after Nair returned home in the evening.

Nair explained us about the package tour he had booked. Well, it was a  3 Days/2 Nights stay at the Tioman island, which included breakfast, lunch and dinner for our entire stay. I was pretty much excited with the barbecue dinner on our final night at the island. The package also included the up and down ferry transport from Mersing to Tioman. As it was weekend, we had some hard time to book our tickets. All the bus tickets directly from KL to Mersing were sold out and we had no other option left with us. We looked for some alternate routes and the  bus guys suggested us to catch a bus to Johor Bahru and from there we could have got a bus to Mersing. Well, Johor Bahru is quite close to Singapore and I felt little odd that we would have to go all the way near Singapore that night. We had our dinner somewhere near the Bus terminal in KL. After dinner I bought a packet of Marlboro, wow! I was so delighted to get the same brand at almost 50% cheaper price than in Singapore. I offered one cigarette to Nair and was quite pissed off with his attitude, well those after marriage effects, he was quite recently married that time.

The night bus journey was a thrilling one and we reached Johor Bahru around 2 AM. Now the next bus to Mersing was scheduled only at 6 in the morning. We were not very comfortable to have waited at the bus terminal the entire night and looked for some other alternatives. We even tried to book some taxi, but the price seemed to be higher than their twin towers. Again we had to book our tickets to some different place and traveled the whole night and then ultimately in the morning, we managed to get a bus to Mersing and reached their by 10:30 AM. Without proper planning, merely 5 to 6 hours  of bus journey from KL to Mersing, took us that long. But I felt it was a blessing in disguise, well at least for me and it gifted us such an wonderful memorable night, full of adventure. 

But the real thrill was just about to begin. We inquired at our travel agent office out there and then waited for our ferry to Tioman. In the mean time we enjoyed some heavy Malay breakfast. We saw people from across the globe out there and everyone tried to take the best possible space in that ferry. Wow! I was so much thrilled and the excitement kept on increasing as we proceeded towards deep into the sea. 

Tioman is a small island located at 65 km from Mersing and the ferry usually use to take approximately 2 to 2 1/2  hours. The island is quite densely forested and sparsely inhabited. The area is surrounded by coral reefs and it’s considered to be one of the world's most beautiful islands. Tioman island is quite popular scuba diving spot. 

It was a breathtaking experience and everyone inside the ferry constantly kept starring outside. On the way we encountered several attractive and quite appealing small islands.

We reached Tioman around 1:30 PM and holy shit!, I was so damn delighted with the surrounding. The  place was completely green and the water looked so blue all around.

We were quite fascinated to see the beach-huts, our place of shelter out there in the island.

That day after lunch we badly needed some sleep and then later in the evening we had a little inspection of the island. I was quite impressed with the lovely open bar out there. The beach was quite calm and the water was full of corals and rocks. We didn't see many people swimming around and also the sea waves was not furious enough like our Indian beaches. We just waited for the next day, as our travel package included one full day boat trip in the sea. As per instruction we collected our life jackets and snorkeling diving masks in the night itself. Next morning immediately after breakfast, we were right into the boat and eagerly waited for the thriller. Our guide was quite macho kind of and we used to call him Mithun Da among ourselves. I could never learn the art to resist the gravitation forces in water and even panic with life jackets as well. But my spirit was on high that moment. I noticed a round rubber tube and a big piece of rope inside the boat. Oh! I was so relaxed and confident after I watched those stuffs and felt, as if I could have swam all the way to China that moment.

That boat trip was some kind of a life time experience. On the way we stopped at some extraordinarily beautiful small islands.

At a particular place the sea water was kind of calm and Mithun Da asked everyone to swim out there. I was all prepared with every possible life safety measures. Some people in the boat including Nair, started to laugh at me, but who the hell would've cared? Even I also enjoyed a thrilling swim in the middle of the sea. Sometimes I even tried to put my face inside the water and looked deep inside the sea. It was quite fascinating to view some colorful fishes out there.

We had our packet lunch at Tulai island and then we enjoyed a couple of hours at Tioman marine park. 

Everyone was extremely tired but the thrill simply continued. The boat stopped at some place and the guide confirmed that's to be the last spot for the day. He asked everyone to swim round a circle by the side of some huge and monstrous rocks. Well, it was too much challenging for me and Anjali already surrendered and preferred to stay in the boat itself. By that time Mithun Da was pretty much aware about my swimming skills and asked me to remain in the boat. I noticed the furious sea water as they struck hard enough at those giant rocks. I already sensed that the flow of the water out there was beyond my control. But the influence of the colorful fluids which I consumed just about half an hour ago was still active inside my brains. In fact,  I was quite overconfident confident and was ready for the challenge. That was the place where the colorful corals were highly concentrated and that was the perfect spot for scuba diving, but only for the professionals. Within a few minutes I lost my confidence and felt being drifted towards those giant rocks. There's no way I could have resisted those fierce water flows with my rubber tube. I totally lost my control and thought I was about to die. I shouted in panic "Please help, please help" But, our boat looked quite far from there. All of a sudden someone held my tube and also my life jacket and said to me not to worry. It took me a while to realize that it was our very own Mithun Da. Oh! I felt so relaxed that moment and somehow just wanted to go back to our boat, but it was still quite far away. 

Mithun Da constantly asked me to look inside the sea and I said "Please, I want to go alive from here" But he was adamant and asked me not to worry, but I didn't dare to put my face inside the waters, as my blood pressure was pretty high that moment. At some point Mithun Da almost shouted at me and strictly said "Look inside, you came here from so far, all the way from India. I would like you to look inside"

That moment I somehow gained my confidence and adjusted my snorkeling diving mask. I looked inside the deep ocean. Oh! dear, I can never forget those moments. It was a completely different world inside and it was so colorful. For a moment I thought as if I was watching National geographic channel on TV. I was completely lost into that colorful world and my blood pressure came down drastically. I saw big colorful fishes, corals and so many other thing inside the sea. I'm so much thankful to our Mithun Da or whatever be his name, anyway what's in a name? Life is too short and I could never forget that person in such a short time. 

By evening we returned back to Tioman island and later enjoyed a magnificent barbecue party.  Ass hole Nair, gave me some real hard time that evening. The situation was so perfect for consumption of heavenly fluids, but thanks to Nair's after marriage effects, I had to slog all alone and after 2 pegs even my wife Anjali, also started to show her wifey characteristics. After dinner we preferred to stay at the beach and gossiped till late midnight.

  

Next day morning, after we had our breakfast, it was time for us to say goodbye to that beautiful island.  It's always difficult to return from such kind of a place and on the way I kept staring at the Tioman till it completely lost to my view. From Mersing we took a bus to KL and reached only by evening. Everyone was tired like hell and my entire body already started to ache. Next day, early morning we had our bus back to Singapore. There was no time for us for any more sightseeing. But how to leave KL simply just like that?Without even saying "hello" to the great Twin Towers. I said to Nair "Abbe, lets go just for few minutes yaar, not sure when next time I would visit this place again" Anjali immediately dropped the idea and I and Nair went to have a closer look at the Twin Towers. Oh! it's really magnificent and I noticed tourists from across the globe out there. Everyone tried to capture those towers from all possible angles and even we also tried our luck.

This post is written for Indiblogger’s "Creating Happy Travelers!" contest,  in association with www.yatra.com