Guest Post

Some things happen out of the blue. For instance one of my readers sending in his guest post when I least expected it. I need not introduce Rupam as he has done it himself very nicely. So here it goes.........

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It’s been a while since I promised Srini that I shall write a piece for his blog. Of all excuses/reasons for not obliging within “scope” and “time”, I would have to say not getting/cooking a topic to write about wins over other petty reasons like laziness, etc. Does that mean I have one now? No, not at all. But, sometimes boys act like men, feel the obligation, get surrounded by nothingness (in short get bored) and the urge to reflect back (nostalgia may be) make them do weird things; one of them would be writing this.

Honestly speaking, the number of times my name has appeared here, here and here, I must say it does a lot of good to my morale. In short - makes me feel good, in a way proud. Don’t ask me why. Somehow writing all this seems corny to me, and right now I have a sheepish grin on my face and still contemplating should I delete these lines and start again. Such is my maturity/immaturity. Anyway, a lot has been said in Srini’s blog regarding our good old college days which makes me feel just one thing – time well spent! So it is my turn now to dig on those days once again.

Well, now you might argue that this could have been done long back and my excuse stands void. But, here’s an interesting piece of information. My memory is short! Unlike Satyakam, I seldom remember exact historical events. Satyakam can recount exact conversations, aesthetic setting and the facial expressions from days long ago. If you know the latest buzz word of “Multiple Intelligence”, Memory is prime requirement of all types of intelligence (linguistic, spatial, analytical, etc). No wonder, God gifted him with super memory (and heightened sense of smell :D) in lieu of energy to actually apply his brains (catch 22 eh!). Explains his laziness and lack of humour (Satyakam, this is where you should pick your cell phone and call me). Ah well I haven’t explained the humour part yet. So, let me explain. The most important requirement of a humorous statement to be really funny for a guy (ya guy, coz for gals it really doesn’t matter) is its novelty of the joke to that individual. This is where, memory plays a big part. You can tell me the same joke every Wednesday and I shall still laugh my ass off as if it was the first time. For likes of Satyakam, Coupled with intelligent pattern recognition (among different jokes) and super memory, by the time you are 25, chances are that almost all jokes turn out stale. You see where I am getting? No? Well ignorance is bliss! (…and funny)

But, it is not about pros and cons of memory that I intend to enlighten you upon. I wanted to tell you my perspective of college days. In a way, I have already mentioned about Satyakam and I shall move onto other aspects before he forms fatal opinion about how to get me killed. Talking about college days, what binds Srini and I are PESIT hostel, hostel mates and mindless long hour discussions in our hostel rooms. Among, other PESIT hostel survivors the first few I can recollect are Advith, Santa, Nagaraj, Sourav…

I will keep it short about them, because I recognize that most of Srini’s readers are not from PESIT/Hostel.

Advith = Business! An ardent movie fan, my Bangalore’s guide, the guy who introduced us to national market and Kabab Magic! He seems to have vanished suddenly, so have we all. But, Srini’s blog is one such avenue, where we can find us back.

Santa = Sports! “Gentle” soccer player, amazing concerntration, and his latest feat – married!

Nagraj Iswar Joshi = Religion! Brute religious, inescapable simplicity and disciplined. Somehow I fear that all this good things about him is holding him back from achieving greater heights. But, I doubt if we both have the same scale to measure heights.

Sourav = perfectionist! Master planner, “precise” in many sports, and other aspects of life. But, presents a picture of an anti-dreamer, holds himself back from full flow – unless we are talking about top spin in TT or a cross court volley in tennis.

And all this, leaves me thinking about Sriniketh. If I had to equate our blog’s protagonist in one word, what would it be? If I think hard, I would say Practical, Smart, “Appa! This_is_irritating_yaar” and many such words. But, what struck me first was “Dreamer”. I can’t say for sure why, but that seems to be my image of Srini. Now, lets try some reasoning. All I can think of our discussions with Srini (apart from the ones where we frantically tried making Srini talk about girls) I would have to say, they were all futuristic. We often discussed what “enough” is and how we saw ourselves in many years from then. What would truly fit into our definition of “life well lived”. In a way, we dreamt together. He might have told you a number of times how being an IITian/IIM grad/MS is important in getting a “suitable” tambrahm bride, but believe me this is definitely not his reason of making it big. Talking in Freudian terms, I have seen the lust for success in his eyes, and his urge to go beyond the “average”. But all this without taking it to any extreme. By that I mean, he is not a drifter (some would say I am a drifter). He wouldn’t flow with imagination such that it crosses over from a realistic ambition to wishful utopia. Neither would he think of his dreams in dismay, as if it’s too much to ask for. “Balanced” – yes I got another word for him. Guess I need to stop. But, before I do so, most of you who don’t know him that well, he might come across as the non-sporty type – but just wait to see him play tennis. He also carries his Harihar simplicity to this day. Amsterdam, Eindhoven or Bangalore has not corrupted his true self as he continues to see the brighter side.

Well, there’s a small pact between us, whoever gets his company started earlier would recruit the other as a “high end dude”. You know like CTO/CFO/COO etc. Talk about Dreamer huh?


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