I got drenched!

You might think, what’s so special about getting drenched that I made a post of it? Read on please!

On this lovely day, I have come to Kolkata for our exams tomorrow. I and my friend Avinandan got off the bus at Esplanade. Lucky for us, the lights were still red. A short sprint and we were across the road. Within minutes we were down at the metro station, waiting for our rides. Avinandan was luckier, he got an AC one on his way to Dum Dum! I had to travel in the usual one. Never mind. The fun started at Tollygunge station. As soon as I got out of the station and boarded an auto, it started raining hard! On way, I got soaked to my underwear, but just on my left side. Anybody and everybody on road was cursing the rain, except me!

Guess why?

Coz this year I haven’t had the chance to get wet in the rain. Obviously, this was special! And moreover I got drenched in Kolkata for the first time! “So far off home“, “traveling alone” and “getting drenched in the rain” all together at the same time! To top it all, nobody was gonna scold me! It could not get any better!! So, I was really happy and excited! I could not contain my glee and my smile was driving my co-passengers mad! 😛 My co-passengers were an elderly couple. They were to attend a party. So obviously, getting wet was a real setback for them.  They were already frowning and my glee added to their anger 😉 .  Getting off the auto, I had a change of mind. I didn’t have any umbrella or rain coat.  I thought it might be  seriously careless on my part, if my exam hall ticket gets soaked in the rain, so I should wait till the rain stops. Yet, I could not resist the temptation of getting totally drenched. After a little fight, the devil won the match. I said to myself, “I haven’t actually prepared at all for this exam, if I don’t get an entry into the exam hall it wont be much of a loss. I am gonna lose anyway, so why not enjoy while I have the chance“. So, I decided to walk the rest of the distance, 15 minutes on foot.

I was enjoying every moment! My socks getting soaked in the puddles, dodging the potholes underneath, the vehicles passing by, their splashes, my windscreen (specs 😉 ) getting hazy, sudden thunder,lightning and the immediate following darkness… It was an experience worth in itself!  Loved every bit of it!

Today my Barber was frustrated

Tired of playing angry birds since morning, I remembered that I needed a shave and haircut. It has been over 47 days and counting..

At the first sight, the barber contorted his face, he hadn’t expected. He knew this wasn’t going to be another normal haircut (I mean the regular way, sprinking water, then trimming off with a comb and a pair of scissors, working smoothly etc.)

He pulled out a drawer from under a desk, took a bit bigger pair of scissors and went on a demolition derby on my head. He was “snipping my locks” without mercy and at random angles. I was noticing all of this, but didnt care much. Except for the occasional pricking pain at my hair roots, there wasnt much to care about. He didnt use the comb till the end. When he finally did take the comb, he raked down a ball of hair off my head, about the size of my face.
I was scared out of my wits!

Had I gone bald??

Had I gone bald??? I was starting to dream about horrible scenes of my friends making fun of me, right when the mirror told me that my hair was shorter than I had asked for. Thats all. I wasnt bald! phew.. Like a load had been taken off my chest..

P.S. Throughout the exercise till the end, I could feel his frustrated breath on my neck. 🙂

A day of protest at my college

I joined the protests on the 3rd day,  around 10 in the morning. The scene at the college gate was an unusual one. Students (around 600 by strength), all were squatting at the college gate. Heads were bobbing up and down throughout, all shouting slogans against the college management. It was the most unusual sight in my college. (I should mention, our college management is a Draconian one. Fully dictatorial. Nobody ever dared saying a word against. So, this was the most unusual sight.)

I went in, sat down with others. Initially I was silent. It took me sometime to warm up to the atmosphere of protest, then I joined the chorus. It was a hot day. So some students took initiative and arranged for water bottles.Some took rounds at leading the SLOGAN-eering. Pent up anger of years had got a vent. It was nothing like I had done before, and being a part of such a huge protest felt awesome! After what felt like 1/2 an hour, I took a look at my phone for the time. It was 1 pm! 3 hours had passed by without any notice! My stomach gave a slight growl of hunger, and within minutes I was on my way for lunch.

I returned around a hour later. This time, this following scene gave me goose bumps.

There was a whole police team armed with bamboo sticks and tear gas guns. My heart was racing fast, feet went cold, sweat drops were pricking me in the neck..Uff.. I could have fainted. Right then something brought me back to my senses. A group of girls were sitting right next to the policeman with the gun. If they could shout fearlessly, what was holding me back?? –I call this, “Inspiration, staring u in the face!“– I took my place on the ground and joined the chorus again. 1/2 an hour later, the policemen did retreat and left us even more confident, our voices grew even louder! In between, when we were tired of “Slogan”-ering, we had short chats about our 4 years of our college. There were short rounds of  narration, anecdotes, laughter and fun. But everytime anybody from the college management was visible, we started shouting again.

Around 7 PM we broke up the assembly. Telling each other to meet at the same place next morning, we came back to our rooms.

A tiring day it was. Lying in my bed, there was a feeling of accomplishment, inspiration and lots of fun. Most importantly, I was felt braver than ever. 🙂

My first metro ride!

The day began with an unusual excitement and slight tension. Tomorrow I got to attend another job interview. This time, I have to take the whole journey by myself,  all alone… After packing, I went to buy the tickets, the shop was closed. A look at my mobile told me, I had gone there early. To pass the time I went to visit my friend Arijit. 10 am in the morning, and he was still sleeping. Noticing that, I thought of running off, but aunty wouldn’t let me go. I was very much pleasantly surprised that Arijit wasn’t angry at me for waking him up 😛 . Helpful as always, he gave me some proper directions to reach my destination. He also gave me some contacts, whom I may ask in case of emergency and the most important thing!!! He had given me detailed explanations on the way to travel by Metro trains.

By 12:30 I was on my bus. It was time for departure. contrary to the cold and cloudy morning weather, now it was a warm noon, leaving me sweating under my jeans.. The whole journey was quite uneventful, except for a little jam at Panagarh. By 4 pm, I was at esplanade. Knocking down people with my huge rucksack, I was walking up and down around esplanade. For this is the first time, that I had such a  chance to explore a new place all by myself. No rules, no limits, nobody to tell upon me..

Keeping exploring aside, I called up my elder bro to inform him of my location. He straightaway replied “take the BBD-Garia bus, and come to my place”. Bit apprehensive, I asked him if I could take the Metro Train route. He paused for a few moments, my hair was standing on edge for the climax…

Finally he said,”yes, if u have traveled by a metro before”.. I went ecstatic!!!! Crossed the road in a run, and there it was. A LED display board over my head, inviting me into esplanade metro station. At first I couldn’t find the ticket counter. A policewoman gave me proper directions. At the counter, I was given a plastic token. Then I crossed the barrier. Took the escalator, down into the station. I asked a person where to wait for the train and went to the platform indicated. I was a bit nervous. But the height of it happened when a crowded train came on the opposite platform. People were jostling to get in and out of the train. I was thinking, “this is no 8B bus that will wait till I am in. If the door shuts with me in between, or worse, if  I am not able to get on the train at all…”  I must have shown some signs, or maybe for my perspiring forehead, some people were curiously looking at me. That was complicating matters even more.. that is why, I was both surprised and happy when I saw that my train was quite empty!!! The train came to a halt, the doors opened. Instinctively, I sort of jumped in, my rucksack knocking off two men 😉 . No empty seat, I had to stand. Standing near the door, my eyes were wandering over the numerous heads and faces. I was sure no one around me was a novice at riding a metro. Some were dozing off in their seats. Some blabbering among themselves, some others looking at them and listening as if students in a class. A few tall heads were towering over all. In the meantime, my attention was interrupted by the mikes announcing the station names. Some had noticed my curiosity and were trying to be curious about me :-P.. All of a sudden, the announcement said “next station, MAHANAYAK UTTAM KUMAR, platform on the left side”. I got ready. The train came to a slow halt. This time I got off smoothly. Following other passengers, a deposited my token and got out of the station.. My first metro ride, all alone!!!!

P.S. sorry to disappoint my readers, but I couldn’t get pics good enough for this post

The 1st day of 2012, a Lesson is Learnt

First of all, a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR to YOU. Sorry for being late. I was a bit busy with the job of applying for some job interviews 😉 , thanks to my friend ROKY GHOSH. Anyway, let’s get on with the story..This is how my 2012 started..

1^st January.That day I got up at 6 45. Morning was strangely warmer than the prevoius day, and less chilly. I went out to check the weather, and to my surprise it was cloudy! Winter has always been my favourite season. But, when it is adulterated with this monsoon weather; I don’t like it. 😦
Having nothing to do I thought, I might SMS some friends. That could take care of my boredom. Then I remembered, it was another blackout day, so I coudn’t SMS.Somehow, I had a feeling that if I tried, I could find a tweak for this problem. I use WAY2SMS for sending SMS on blackout days, that also only when I am at home with my computer. So I had been searching for apps which would allow me to SMS over the phone net connection. There are indeed plenty of apps, but none worked perfectly on my 2700 classic. So I had been searching and trying them all, one by one, hoping that the next would work. But the new year day, was my lucky day. I finally found a app, (named JAXTR SMS) which actually works on my Nokia2700c!!!!!  I could’t believe it! After 1 whole year of searching, I had finally found it!!! I felt ecstatic! Like, I was on cloud nine!

To some, this incident maybe such small and insignificant, it isnt worthy of mention. But, it has taught me an old lesson, Keep trying and u will succeed..

(O! I forgot to mention, SMSing with this app, it isn’t free, but still far better. On blackout days each sms costs 60 p. With this app and bsnl net connection, I am sending each sms for approx 4 p.!!!! Now, it doesn’t seem logical to fill the coffers of these Mobile Service providers, does it?!!) 

What a way to start a new year!!!  😀 “WELL BEGUN, IS HALF THE WORK DONE“.

With such a great beginning, I am not hoping, but actually confident that this year, is gonna be a great year!! 😀 😀

A JOB INTERVIEW, 3rd in my life,1st one away from home -> The written test

Today morning started with karthik waking me up. He was asking for the login password to my lappy. Unlocking my lappy, I went for my usual morning business. Saaki was still fast asleep. By the time I was back, karthik was busy practicing problems of “time and distance” on INDIABIX. I joined in. After sometime saaki woke up and joined us. By then we were practicing “permutation”, “pipes and cisterns”, “work and time problems” and etc, all on different tabs in the same browser. We were much tensed about the test. Saaki and Keto were solving the problems; I was just looking at the solutions lazily (to my surprise, that too helped during the test).  Next thing was to look at the watch and we decided it was time for breakfast. We took a short walk of around 10 min and found a shop selling “kochuri” and ”ghugni”. Had  a hearty breakfast. Then another short walk and we were back into our rooms. The mail had told us that our test was scheduled at 11am. A phone call to our TPO Mr. Francis  told us that the test was postponed to 1 pm. That was a good news. We got down to practice a few more problem types.

taunting saaki!

O! Did I forget to mention that in between all of these scheduled jobs, we were doing a lot of unscheduled chattering gossiping and lots of laughing!!

Got ready, and then boarded a taxi after a little bargaining. Like last night, this taxi driver too didn’t know the place we were supposed to go. Anyway, within 15 min we were at Esplanade.  This left us regretting. As last we had taken a karunamayee bus instead of the espalanade one, and had a lot of trouble getting to Chetla. Anyway, by 12 30 we were at the centre.

waiting and gossiping...

the EVER-SMILING Tanmoy, and our ABHIJEET KASHYAP

There were students roaming all around us. A friend told us to go to the playground, and register our attendance. At last we found the guys from our college. They were sitting in a group in a tree-shade. Then the long wait started. Every now and then our TPO would inform us that our exam time has been postponed. To our bad luck, our TPO had been temporarily hired by the campussing officials from WIPRO, as they found him very active. So, we saw him escorting students of all other colleges.

"Mastaar" da!

handsome guy!

Our guys were swearing at him aloud. At last around 4 pm we were allowed to enter the exam hall, a big auditorium.

Quickly, I took a place beside Karthik. Soon we were shifted to the gallery seats on the 1^stfloor, because only 2 students were allowed on 1 bench. Me and Saaki took a bench. We were given “career boarding pass” (a card) to fill up. Then the officials came in distributed the OMR sheets, gave instructions, and the test started around 5 pm. To my surprise I did fare well in the verbal and quantitative sections, but technical was a bit hard. The test completed around 6. Then we had chowmein, then went off roaming around the place.Karthik says he hasn’t fared well, but we 2 are bit more confident than him.After a little bit of “sight-seeing” we took a bus to sealdah, and another back to chetla.

OMG! I have again forgotten to tell u.  A pet monkey lives near to our guest house. It is a small one. Today morning it had tried to snatch Karthik’s  X6, while he was taking its snap. In the shock Karthik had dropped his phone.. Anyway, we did manage to get some snaps of this little monkey..

what is it doing?

 cute, huh?

looking for something?

A JOB INTERVIEW, 3rd in my life,1st one away from home

The story starts on a Wednesday, when we got mails for the off campus recruitment. Next day i was off to my college for more info. Took a look at the eligible list sent to us. My friend KRTHIK (keto) and SAIKAT (saaki) were on the list. We live in Durgapur Steel Township near to each other. So we decided that we shall go together. But the very next day KETO had done a big blunder at home (what we Bongs say, “CASE KHEYECHE!!”). I m not going to divulge all the “CASE” details, but we couldn’t book our place of  DSP guest house till Saturday 12 pm. then we had a hell of a time trying to get 3 bus tickets to Kolkata. The ticket counters weren’t functioning normal. at places the agents were not at their shops. By the time i got an agent who could give me he tickets, he said the main counter had been closed. To compound our problems, the UREKA bus transport service had been discontinued. at last on Monday I managed to get 3 tickets on the bus to Karunamayee, that too after waiting 2 hours at the ticket counter in biting morning cold.

Then I informed my 2 partners, and went home to get ready for the journey. i have a short-term memory, so I forget most important things with the utmost ease (I do get a lot of scolding for that). Anyway, I had my things packed, got a bath. All the time I was trying to remember if i had missed anything. Took a bus around 1 pm, the bus was to depart around 2:15. Went to city centre, after waiting for a short period of time, i found karthik with his “special somebody” at a sweet shop. RIGHT then he remembered that he hadnt brought his formal shoes. Leaving me with his luggage, he went back home to get his formal shoes. i was waiting alone, till CHANGA (aniruddha) turned up. He was boarding the Esplanade bus of 2 PM. right after he disappeared, Saaki appeared on the scene. He was carrying just a long blue travel bag. We had a short chat, and then Keto came back. He reminded me that I had forgotten my phone charger. Now, I was growing nervous and trying to remember what else??? By 2 13 we had boarded the bus, Keto and Saaki had given me the window seat, thanks to them.

Now, we were on bus chatting and taunting each other. All of a sudden karthik remembered that he had forgotten his papers for the Guest house. Without them he would not be allowed to stay there. We saw him perspiring in the cold. He tried calling the office phone numbers with no avail. At last, his mom went to their office and cleared the matter. It was around 6 30, we reached Karunamayee. we 3 boarded an auto-rikshaw to College More. There we had an endless wait for the bus to take us to Chetla. It seemed like all the buses were showing up except the one we needed. at last we saw a Chetla bus. Boarded it, but had to get down after a few minutes. The conductor wouldn’t allow us with all our lauggage. alas, we were again walking back to College More. By luck, we saw a empty taxi. the driver didnt know the exact place we were supposed to go, but he seemed to be confident enough to take us there. Then, after another long journey we did manage to reach Chetla guest house. We filled in the rooms. Keto was in one, me and Saaki in another. We had roti tadka for dinner. i am going to sleep, in my room, karthik and saaki are practicing apti for wipro..

Tomorrow is a big day

have free time, but I am trying to relax…

YYAAAAWWWWwwwwwnnnnn……
Finally, I had a lonnnnnggg sleep last night.. After a hectic schedule of sessional, assignments and classes, finally I had a nice rest. Finally, I have some free time to myself.
And the best part of it is that, I don’t know what to do with it!!!

What a strange situation!??! all the time we are so busy, we yearn to get free time. we long for it.. after some time, we are so used to being busy, that we don’t know how to pass the time when we actually have it.
You know, we humans have forgotten how to relax. Nowadays, it is harder for a person to quietly recline on an armchair than to stare at computer screen, chatting with friends..

well, for now, I am trying to relax my body and mind.. my body is at rest, but my mind is busy thinking up material for my next blog post  🙂

HAD A GREAT FALL

Today was my birthday. We had gone to mython for picnic with 40 people. There we landed up at a picnic spot overlooking the Damodar river in sparkling sunlight. After having our breakfast consisting of bread a banana and an egg, we went off on a walk to mython dam. it was a walk of about 3 km up and 3 km down. Anyway, after that we tried trekking the nearby hills. i climbed 3 hills successfully, but descended only 2 times successfully. Strange, isn’t it? How can one climb 3 times and descend 2 times successfully?

Actually I fell down the hill on my third attempt, and came skidding down on my chest. This last one was a steep one and had a landslide recently. That had made a way to climb up, but there were loose rocks all over. I climbed successfully, took snaps as well. While coming down my left foot slipped on a round rock which that sent me running down the hill slope uncontrollably. I could not stop running and I was accelerating down actually. Finally I made a choice to dive and jumped forward. Landed on my knees and hands first then my chest hit the ground and I skidded for another 5 metres before coming to a halt. My palms were bleeding and got scratches on my hands (so I am having a hard time to type this).I got up then n there and washed my hands in the river water and went to rejoin the party.

So, in short, sms had a great fall…..