MEN-ACE!!!

Disclaimer: The events mentioned in this article are purely from the experiences of the author and may be prejudiced. The characters mentioned may or may not be real. Any offensive resemblances are purely coincidental.

Location:C30 Agasthya Bhavanam.Mood: tensed

I was shouting. I could see a guy with his square framed spectacles trying to pull me apart. I was in fury. The person standing in front of me was jabbering in Hindi and Oriya mixed. A short guy with closely cropped military hair stood there watching the quagmire unfold in bewilderment. I don’t remember the exact reason for the bellicose mood of the room. But I remember those faces. Every moment of that fight. The foul mouthed and stupid comments called out.

That’s how I started my freshman year at college. Sharing a room with three different kind of people from three corners of India republic.The fights kept happening. Between different guys. At different times. For different reasons. An Andhra guy fought with a Karnataka guy. The Karnataka guy fought with a Mumbai guy. The Mumbai guy fought with another etc. As per records, I fought with everyone! Whoa.

The C30 team

By the end of the first year, the groups had split. The Andhra, Karnataka, Mumbai, Dubai and Orissa came as one team. This simply meant that I was out of the list of roommates and was estranged in a quite smooth and sweet fashion. Denigrations were levelled against me. Sooner than later, I came as an outcast. 

Defiance was the first weapon. I kept resisting. Picking up fights here and there. But the saintly figures from the states mentioned, kept together. One unifying factor being the Hindi they all spoke. The other one being the need to stand equal and as a team to survive against a wave of other Tamil and Mallu guys. So where was I? Disparaged, I levelled myself as an outsider surviving every day of my third semester.

The fourth semester brought a big tide of disappointment with it. It was my first official breakup with my first official girlfriend. Phew, finally had some time off the topic of infighting in the department! I spent my lugubrious days alone or for support, with my closest friends from electronics department. Mean while, new fights began like American gang wars. This time war broke out between the Tamil gangs. The “meek” students were accusing of being ruled over by the “jerks” in an insolent way. The Hindi speaking “guys” kept out of the fights though one of their members were active in the gang war due to vested interest in utilizing the split for building up a strong and ubiquitously adored department.

Thus, the story clearly suggests existence of 4 categories of people: The meeks, The jerks, The “guys” and the outcast; me and alike. Funny though, the fights got serious. There arose long discussions at late nights for consents on topics involving the development of department. Along came the first harbinger for a apocalypse; the department club. A club for AERO. In a management perspective, it was suggested that the club needs a proper structure to persist. Problem? Everyone wanted power. Elections were planned, but strongly detested and deceived. People behaved like eddies in ocean. Their “currents” of interest and allies changed as the El-nina and La-nina of the situations changed. Secrets were revealed. Betrayals became the order of day. The students came interested in more of the politics than the studies. Class rooms became parliamentary houses. The “guys” stayed out as a safe house. But the guy with the spectacle was a marvel with his creativity. The Karnataka guy  was good at management. They eventually got involved. Actively. Sadly, the Orissa guy had already developed some academic problems which forced him to keep out of the war. There existed a Trivandrum guy who always followed one golden principle: “To burn your ass, it’s comforting to sit on a stove than to involve with these classmates!”.I tried to contribute my part for the club activities as much as I can. Again, without support, efforts sounded like the fretting song of a beggar on a passenger train.

There were clever “Gollums” on both ends who played the cards behind the scenes. These “Gollums” were solely focussed on breaking the fight into a fierce one and keeping the situation irate. They pretended to be the affected or the insouciant category, whose veins were flowing with the most immaculate blood to exist on earth. The fights elevated to the attention of the professors. They took charge. The “ meek” played their cards right to get into the good books of the men with power and exacerbated the situation by levelling additional charges against their enemies, the “jerks”. The first blow came for the “jerks”. It was administrative warning for the misdoing and malpractices in the club activities. The club proceedings came to a halt. There was an awkard silence between people. The ceasefire was a forced one rather than an agreed one. By this time, I was changing. It was a change enforced by my personal demeanour of having lost a relationship. The transformation from an angry, rude, insecure male, to one whose confident, calm and thoughtful was on double speed. Also, since my contacts with the Dubai guy(another character in the “guys” group) and the Trivandrum guy lingered on in a positive role, my social networking included hanging out with the “guys” of which they were a part. Though not close enough to share information of your bank balances, the “guys” group were fast advancing as a group with varied talents and completely extreme people coexisting.

Even before the major strike that tore the entire Aero department apart, there existed an event that can be easily counted as the “ Beginning of apocalypse”. The fresher party. The day the Amrita stood still. The single most event that brought together the gangs as one inexorable unit. It’s volition was stronger than the entire Amrita put together. Each one worked indefatigably. The differences were forgotten; repose given birth. I saw it with my own eyes the power of one. As the other departments conducted their fresher parties in an almost frantically and adorably moribund colour, the Aero was filling with nonchalance that arose from their fore sight of the magnanimity of the event they were preparing.

Freshers party: Mach 1.0

During Icebreaker

                                                                       JC-MENACED!

It was an event I would, all through my life, be proud to be a part of. It was such an energetic and elated experience. I worked as the music technician and a co host of an event called “Icebreaker”. The event was a class apart in its idea, planning and execution and has been thereafter widely secured its place at all fresher parties. Our HOD, Mr. J. Chandrasekhar went home a proud man that day. So did all of us. And the contribution of “ Guys” in that event was manifold. I still remember the evening party and the genial field that existed through. The juniors were amazed at the quality of the work by the seniors. There were thank you notes exchanged and gifts distributed. Smiles flowered on the AERO.

But little did that last. Never did I imagine that all throughout, there were “Gollums” and other specious creatures coexisting in this newly united Aero, whose guts cried foul to see a the epidemic of happiness taking lives. They planned. Their minds working fabrics of deceives and artfulness to break the new order. Since their identities remain to the claimed, they waited patiently for their strike.  

The second strike came. Gokulashtami celebration was the battle field. The fuel for the crusade was the querulous sounds of the timorous “meeks” against the insolent “jerks” inclusive of the “guys” too. The story has many dimensions to it, because it is an event that shook the recent history of Amrita. The affection and influence that the “meeks” had managed over a false prophet whome I here address as Kawwa( the crow in hindi!), changed the dynamics of the war at that time. Kawwa was an influential person. Not through the magnanimity or affability of his character, but rather through his sinister and self prescribed dogmatic outlook on life. He wielded his shining sphere of influence and engulfed the emotions and outrages of the “meeks”. This he did in a purely personal interest to take advantage of the cloudy climate of the department. He expected to take charge of the situation and exert himself as the Hero who comes to save the pawns who bears the brunt of the hypocritical villains. The funny part is, the “meeks” trusted him. He became their demi god. His tyrant rule predicted a seemingly bright future for his followers.

They “guys” never foresaw the danger in a crow. That was biggest recon mistake ever committed by the group. It so happened that the turn of events after the fresher party and the preparations for the Gokulashtami, rendered the “guys” to be active participants of the politics. But, frankly, “guys” always had one amalgamated interest: welfare of the department. The “meeks” had ceased the opportunity to work harder to prove their mightiness amongst the rest, this time around. The professors were impressed. I kept out. I wasn’t genuinely interested. Every day, “guys’ had a word of mouth of the various facets of the event preparations from the Karnataka guy and the Mumbai guy who were the most active contributors amongst. Prejudice took its course on topics of common interest. That I recount was the beginning of the blow. The D-Day unfolded. The biggest celebration of Amrita began.

                                             At the location of "Battle Gokulashtami"

Dani was screaming. Thilak was to my left. His trenchant actions cut the air of the situation into pieces .Myself and Gopu were beside. They were shouting at Kawwa as he had made some commotion in the admission to the procession. Kawwa now a molten ball of one emotion: anger, rolled his shirt sleeves, jabbering Tamil and English and spit rage. The whole possession stood still.. There were no complete sentences. It was a compendium of words with un attachable meanings ceaselessly fired at each other. I remember raising my blood to yield to the situation. I was shouting. The group of students that were a mix of “jerks” and “guys”( unfortunately) were irate. Surprisingly, no blows were exchanged. Peace returned as an old man in charge of the processions, interfered. The possession continued. The “guys” and the ”jerks” enjoyed without knowing how their lives would change forever later that week. We took the issue so lightly that to celebrate our heroic action of fighting a “battle” against Kawwa, we made our maiden off campus visit through the fence that very night and celebrated at a local dhabba.

Two days later came the smartly verbose complaints, threats, meetings, planning’s, round table conferences, requests for dismissal of the involved. The “Gollums” played it cool. It was their show. They performed. Stories were cooked up with unbelievable precision. I was the termed the fifth convict. Dani fourth, Thilak third. Initially ,came the decision to expel the charge sheeted. But one of the other two convicted had contacts, which bought the issue to the enquiry tables. A formal “threatening session” or officially called enquiry was conducted. Parents were summoned. The dangerous  silence spread again. People hated each other. Everyone hated us. We were blacklisted in an outrage that questioned the very foundation of Amrita’s culture. Notice boards told the perceived stories. People believed them. I put my head down. Dad fought with me for my misbehaviour. Mom cried. I felt lost. I was again hitting the rock bottom. Shame was the shadow I had to live with for that entire semester.

But for the first time in life, I felt what it was to have support. To have someone to tell you that everything is going to be alright. To belong to a group of men who faced the situation calmly and exhibited real knighthood. I was discovering something more unfathomable; bond of friendship. I remember the number of times the rest of the “guys” would have pleaded to the authorities trying to explain the situation. When a person pleads for his fellow human being, I would term it as a disaster on his ego, which he weighs smaller than the relationship he lives to cherish. The verdict hit like a high tide on a full moon day. 4 of the convicted were suspended for calculated working days. I was left with a warning. I remember the smiles on a faces of a few “meeks” in a lab session, during which the verdict was pronounced. The smiles that today stand obliterated due to funny turn of events during our successive semesters. Then came days of silent “mind your own business” dinners, rhythmic classes and colourless college life. But, the “guys” got stronger as days went by. We learned to share, be equal in issues, grew into a set of men who had a scar on faces and bleed from their hearts that vibrated with a sense of resoluteness of proving the worth of their lives. We wanted a revenge for one being defamed for issues that we were never really charged off. But instead of a violent one, we conceived a more agile and formidable one.

The rest is history. I branched into my all time passion of research and published a fully funded paper at IIT Kharagpur alongside my best friend, a “guys” group member, the Trivandrum guy RK Arjun, popularly called, RK. Thilak (Karnataka guy) became the head and the master mind behind now famous ANOKHA 2011(official Techfest of Amrita) that prides in a net worth of more than 1 crore. Sabari (Mumbai guy), shortly called shabby, now works at IIT Bombay as a research assistant and was our team leader during the AERO events at ANOKHA 2010. This event also saw the most awe inspiring AERO Stall which exhibited ISRO exhibits alongside contribution from the department students. Dani (Hyderabad guy) gets busy with his research and now is proud about his final year project being selected for Quest Global Aerospace awards. Goparaj or Gopu ( Dubai guy), went to head the drama club of Amrita(Navarasa) and also was the Chief of finance at ANOKHA 2011. Vineeth or Pacha is our favourite for his “shopping spree” and “serial” habits, and now works for Infosys. I am also proud that he associated with me and worked as the chief designer for our now famous Vortex Tube apparatus, which is soon to be commissioned as lab equipment for the department. Vishwanath or Vichu who now works with the Infosys, used to be our cute “Admikkannu”. We also had a new entry with Vaishak or Communist Vaishak( for his frivolous support for Communism), joining us for our graduation party and dancing like crazy. Vaishak works for Tata advanced materials.

At IIT KGP with Team "Loco"

During ANOKHA 2010

AERO Stall @ ANOKHA 2010

As an after story, I would like to point out the respect that the group had earned. During the period of apocalypse, to earn the right leverage, the “gollums” spread the rumours that girls of our class played more than equal part in drafting the famous “compliant letter” which thrived as a strong evidence that the enquiry committee mentioned against us. But, due to sheer depraved nature of the committee, none of these evidences were shown to the convicted. Truth remained hidden. Given the circumstances, “ Guys” always believed that the fact held true. This distanced us from most of the women in the class. But during our final days in college, the women took initiative to prove their innocence, and reopened the complaint files. The documents were witnessed by Myself, Thilak and Dani. The identities of the “gollums” were revealed to us by those documents. We saw the harshness in their words, the artfulness in their thoughts and the despicable characters they were when they decided to devastate their fellow classmates’ future. Women were indeed innocent. “Guys” later apologised for their misunderstandings and today share a genial relationship with the women community of our class.

Conquering the "V" mountain

Gopu with his acting skills

Dani- our Eric Clapton!

Pacha busy with his pet: Laptop

Kadhal Mannan Mr.Imran

RK with his remarkable dancing skills

Communist Vaishak

Vodka in our veins!

After party relaxation!

 Undoubtedly, “Guys” were the best part of AERO 2007-2011, because no other mix of men were more stable, smart, experienced life scenarios first hand, honest, hardworking and leaders in their own endeavours. Given the qualities common to all the “Guys”, we deciphered that in four years, what we earned was not just a degree but also the most precious gift of being real men with real character. Thus, “guys” was aptly renamed as “MEN-ACE”. Men who are ACE’s in their lives but who together become a sweet menace to existence.

                    From L-R, clockwise:Pacha,Dani,RK,Vichu( behind RK),Gopu,Shabby,Myself,Imru,Thillu