Few Things Left Unsaid (4 page)

“Stop it. Enough” I heard someone shouting. I wanted this kiss to continue. However, I had to stop. She opened her eyes. She was blushing. I think she loved it. There was a spark in her eyes. Was she in love with me or with the kiss? She was just looking in my eyes. There was a deep silence in the classroom. And she slapped me suddenly. She did slap me hard.I was shocked.But I had to face it. I almost fell down. It was a tight slap. We were asked to leave. And we both left. I tried to follow Nikita approaching her. But she went away. She did not care to stop.

Was I a bad kisser? She did not even look back. Was I in love? Maybe I wanted her on the bed. Not love. She was an excellent kisser.

I went down to the quadrangle and noted down the subjects and timetable. College timing was from 11am to 6pm.Difficult task. In addition, all the five subjects seemed like names of some drugs. I hated all of them.

1. APPLIED MATHEMATICS. 1.

2. APPLIED SCIENCE 1.

3. BEE

4. CP1

5. APPLIED MECHANICS.

My section was E. ROLL NO 36.

As it was first day, college started at around 2pm.After lunch break.

I sat on the last bench. Classrooms were arranged like a theatre. Each row was at some height from the previous one. I was sitting on the last row from where each student in the classroom could be seen clearly. I was watching all the girls. There were a few nice looking girls in my class. I was happy to see that. Sameer was in a different section. Section B. I started talking to a guy sitting besides me. His name was Swapnil. He was average looking. Almost of same height as I was.5feet 6 inches. He seemed very friendly. He also stayed near my place.Central Mumbai.

The first lecture was quite boring. I never heard what the  professor was teaching. He was teaching something  related to transistors like bjt...He had drawn some block diagrams that were looking funny. He was telling us the advantages and how bjt works. I hated everything. I wondered how I was going to spend 4 years in this college. After the lectures were over at 4pm there were practicals, from 4pm to 6pm.BEE practicals.when I saw the lab, all my admiration for the college was gone, I was in shock after seeing this. Forget about chairs, the lab didn’t even have fans. Seriously speaking it was very tough to convince myself that I was going to spend my days in that place. Never imagined a college like this. One positive thing was there, I talked to some seniors and they were all very optimistic, they were all saying that it was a good place for engineering; I would enjoy my day here. They believed that this college had a great alumni base and that was the biggest advantage.

Now we were three friends. Not bad I thought as they were good friends. I had a good time with them on the first day.Sameer was also there. We formed a group of 4.Sameer, Swapnil  , Anup, and I.

Attending lectures regularly from 10:30am to 6pm was like watching the same movie in a multiplex everyday. Bunking classes became a regular habit. I never understood what made those first benchers sit for lectures. There was nothing interesting in the lectures. It was Monday morning, the 1st lecture of the day. Swapnil was dozing during the lecture. Even I was doing the same.Swapnil was planning to bunk. I never thought that was possible. These first benchers would never co operate with this. They watched the professor during the lecture with so much enthusiasm as if Shakira was moving her hips in front of them.

What was running through Swapnil ’s mind? He was very smart in these things. After the first lecture, we had practicals. As we reached practical, he told me to send a sms to one student of each batch.

MASS BUNK AFTER BREAK.TELL YOUR ENTIRE BATCH.

We informed each student of our batch. A few students were afraid of mass bunking. They feared their attendance would go down and they would get less marks in term work. These were the most irritating students of the class. Every engineering college has a few students like this. I never understood what they get by moving around the professors all the time. For a few marks they could do, anything.Swapnil warned them not to sit for lectures. Still I thought they would sit for the lecture. It had happened earlier also. We were told it is mass bunk and six students sat for the lecture. This time we were serious. We convinced everyone from our batch.

The practicals were over. Our entire class was standing outside our classroom. Who ever was coming we told them not to attend lectures. Looking at the majority standing outside, those 5 to 6 students were not able to enter the class. They went home. We were still standing in front of the door. We did not want a single student to sit. There were 10 min left for the lecture to start. We told everyone to leave the corridor. Almost 10 of us went to the second floor to check if the professor was going back to the staff room.

Professor came and saw that the classroom was locked. He opened it. The classroom was empty. He was still standing there to see if any one was around. Almost 10 min later, he saw some student.

Some discussion was going on. After talking to him for few minutes, he left. We went down running and asked that student what the professor was saying.

“He said to tell everyone that tomorrow we have to submit punishment assignment.”

“Punishment assignment?” Swapnil  asked.

“Yes, we have to solve 5 problems from the Kumbhojkar textbook.”

“Forget it; he didn’t take your attendance, right?” I asked him.

“No he didn’t.”

We left. It was our first
mass bunk of engineering
. It was fun. Mass bunking is always a challenge. It is not so easy to hold the students from sitting for a lecture. These students had the same blood group as of the professors I think. Their bonding cannot be broken. However, we did it today. A proud feeling came in us as if we had our engineering degree in hand.

We were telling everyone from the other section that we had managed our first mass bunk.

Because of mass bunking, we were given four assignments by the professors of each subjects.Swapnil and I decided to bunk the classes and write the assignments.Anup also joined us. Rohit had done that assignments already. We took his assignments and left the class. I decided to call Sameer also. I called him and he also joined us. He did not have any assignments though. But bunking classes was fun. We decided to sit at Aerol station. It was the best place where you could play cricket, or have a nice time with your girlfriend or even write assignments. The frequency of trains was one after almost 2 or 3 hours. So it was a vacant platform always.Navi Mumbai platforms are very clean. We reached the station, which was hardly 5 minutes away from our college. There were hardly a few people on the platform and few students. Couples were having a nice time. We had four assignments to be written. Writing work started.Sameer got bored, as he did not have anything to write. He broke the silence.

“So you guys were interested in engineering or forced by parents?”Sameer asked Swapnil and Anup.

“I was always interested in engineering. I wanted to be an I.T. engineer. It offers you a white collar job. I love that life. What about you?” Swapnil replied.

“Same here. Even I wanted to be a civil engineer. It gives you an opportunity to earn more than any engineer can. A civil person gets the desired salary as white income but along with that lots of black money can also be earned.”

“Is money everything?”Anup asked.

“No. but we need money for everything.dont we? If we need to drink water then we need money. What better field than engineering. Moreover a civil engineer. It’s like
sone pe suhaaga
.”Sameer laughed and so did we.

“What about you Anup?” I asked.

“Kya yaar….why are you thinking so much. Now we have taken admission. Now we cannot change things. Whether we like it or not we have to get our asses fucked for four years.Ab lag Gaye la**e. so stop this discussion and write assignments. Or else Deshmukh sir will cut our dicks into pieces.”Anup ignored the topic.

It made me feel good. Somebody at least is with me. Who is forced to do this bullshit. I  really felt at that time that engineering is like a marriage. Bachelors are eager to do it. In addition, married persons have declared themselves dead a few years back itself.

After writing assignments and having lunch on the platform itself we started walking towards college.Anup saw a ‘Tapri’ near college and asked us to join him.I was unaware that Anup smoked.

“Anup, smoking kills…” Swapnil said.

“Ya, but slowly.” He replied.

I loved his answer. The feeling of trying a smoke was increasing in me. I had never tried smoking.Sameer had. Even he was smoking. Anup and Sameer were forcing me to try.

“Have it yaar. It’s nothing serious. You will feel like coughing in the beginning but then when you get used to it, it’s normal. Moreover, cigarettes keep your mind active. You think better than you can. So have it.”Anup was forcing me.

Finally, I stopped resisting and asked him to buy a cigarette for me.

“
Bhaiya ek gold flake do
” he said to chacha at tapri. He handed it to Anup.He gave it to me. I took a cigarette in my hand for the first time. It was something different. Something I never felt before. There I was, smoking a cigarette with my best friend….  And five minutes later, I was expertly blowing out rings.

A cigarette is the only consumer product which when used as directed kills its consumer
.

And I was ready to be killed
. Slow poison so why to worry. Enjoy the feel. And I did the same. I started smoking another cigarette.

The rain had increased. When we heard that the college would be closed due to heavy rains, we started making plans what to do. Sameer said lets go to the waterfall nearby. And we accepted. Going by train would be risky. Therefore, we started walking. All four of us were enjoying the rains.

Sameer bought three bottles of beer and we went close to waterfall. It was an awesome view. I did not drink. I had never tried it. Not even on that day. I had taken three cigarettes with me. I was enjoying the moment. Cigarette in one hand while feeling the rains. Feeling the waterfall. Everyone was drunk. It became difficult for me to control them. However, I really enjoyed their silly jokes. All new friends coming first time to a new place and having an awesome time was really a nice feeling.

Sameer- He had a few bad habits but its ok. He was sincere. Friends like him are rare to find. He can help me whenever needed. He has helped me many times.I loved him.

Swapnil  - It was a beginning of our friendship. He was frank. He had an x factor which made him showstopper every time he did something. He can bring girls close to me, a true friend.

Anup- I really could not understand him.we became friends but he never came too close to us. He was transparent with us, but still something was missing. He never came with us outside the college.

                          
RIYA- A LOTUS IN MUD

                                             W
e had made our own world. World of fun. World of enjoyment. I never thought an engineering college would be so much fun. Moreover such wonderful friends. Still I thought something was missing.
The girls. We started observing girls in our class.
We used to sit on the last bench. Therefore, we could observe the entire class very clearly. It was the first lecture of the day.Swapnil whispered in my ears.

“Look at the girl on second row in a blue tshirt. She is looking hot.”

“No yaar, she just has a pretty face, look below her neckline. We can play Carom coins easily.”

“Hmm maybe you are right.” Swapnil admitted.