A Trip To Nowhere !

Once upon a time there was a class. A class of Mechanical Engineering . This class was very unique. Though ‘unique’ is a right word in a way, I rather use ‘different’ . Different because  the students in the class were so indifferent (to each other) :- )  . There are many instances to write about their ‘being different’ .. let’s check out one .

In all the engg colleges and in my college too (jntu campus,hyd), the students  from every department would go to the Industrial tour in the  final year of their engineering ! . Though students plan to visit  a couple of industries, I guess, the prime motive of the tour would be visiting new places and having a blast with friends . The fun, the picture-taking, the chat-in-the-bus ,the laughter riot, simple shopping, buying souvenirs, and even some expressing their love , etcetera et cetera .

But our class was an exception. A inconceivable, hard nut to crack is OUR CLASS.  Let me take you to those days of our  tour-planning .

First..our class was never a “ UNITED” one. One could find as many “DIVISIONS “ as one wished. There were no groups among students but they were not CONNECTED .I can put it like ‘ they were like  were disjointed circles with little or no intersection area  enclosed in one big super circle ‘ :-) .

Primarily, the students  fall into these  circles .

1.       Circle of the hostellers

2.       Circle of day-scholars

3.       Circle of both hostellers & day scholars who were friends

4.       Circle of girls (some were friends with boys and some not)

5.       Circle of day-scholars who hate girls

6.       ?

Here you should get a doubt.. Wasn’t there any circle of hostellers who hate girls  ? if you got that doubt then I would say “ dude…you asked a complete irrelevant and wrong question” :-) . Not knowing how to define their circle I left it as blank :-) .I will get to this topic a few min later. Let me dive and  delve into the circles  mentioned above.

The major circles were Hostellers and Day-scholars. They  don’t like each other that much. This disinclination for each other began for no apparent reason. Moreover, in our campus, the tag “hostellers”  carried with it some “unwelcomeness” and a lot of  negativity. This whole thing was predefined and was already there. Day-scholars would think about hostlers as uncouth, unfriendly, menacing  Hostlers would assume day scholars as arrogant, unfriendly, self-centric :-)  . Let alone friendship, no one tried to know about the other person in the opposite group . . I think this was a tradition passed on to us inherently by seniors of our own department. we heard it was like that before too.  when we came to this college we  just fell into those pits  unknowingly.

Some day-scholars used to detest girls. I never understood why. I don’t know whether they were just faking it or for real :-)

There was this very small circle which consisted of the guys from both the groups . They were friends. But, this was a very tiny circle indeed.

And coming to the point whether hostellers hated girls..haha… that’s so ridiculous. Let alone ‘hating’ , most of the hostellers never even talked to the girls in their class , except in  very rare destiny-decided-situations. For them ….. girls, in their class, never existed. This is the circle I wanted to place at point no. 6 :-)  . A good number of  day scholars too would fall into this circle.

Ha-ha. Do not get into any kind of assumption that girls tried to talk  .For them, most of the boys  were aliens from some unknown planet. We never ever exchanged a simple friendly ‘hi’ :-)

In a nutshell, barring two or three,  hostellers were not really friends with day scholars  and vice versa ….. and most of the boys in the class were not friends with their class girls.

So when this whole idea of IT tour came up…. Quite expectedly, majority in the class said NO.I don’t know about the others’ reasons for not coming but I know  about the fantastic four i.e., obviously Sreedhar, Kishan, ramesh and kranthi (it’s me :-) ).

We 4 stayed in hostel and so we would come under the tag “hostellers” :-) . if there were a poll to find guys with high IQ we four would win that poll . Before you assume IQ stands for Intelligence quotient, I would better clarify … IQ  here is Inferiority-complex Quotient. We had high IQ whenever we were in the classroom and once we were out from the classroom  back into our accustomed circles and environment we were THE most ‘friendly’ guys :- ) . 

So, when there was this turbulence about the tour started in the class..we 4  were like “No, we aren’t goin” except Ramesh.  Ramesh was so enthusiastic .he absolutely wanted to go and enjoy. But he couldn’t go without us as he also never got along well with the day scholars . He requested us earnestly to come. Though Sreedhar and I cited money as problem  we were not that excited by this whole tour thing. I don’t remember Kishans reason, but he didn’t want to go either.

The discussion caught on like fire in the classroom. One day, even our  Associate Professor Mr.Bala Nayak, who was always reclusive, standing on dais in the classroom briefed us about the advantages of the tour  and showed a virtual reel of happiness for a minute. In fact, the speaker Mr. bala nayak seemed more ecstatic than his audience :-)

Okay…. After much thought-process, 2 route plans were made by some. Each plan covered some exotic places. We had to zero in on one plan. Some started convincing their friends to come. But no one responded.

One afternoon, We four were standing in front of the classroom talking when we saw deepa and divya kannan  coming towards us. I always thought they were best friends. It’s a combination of contrasts. Divya - tall and Deepa - short. Many a time we heard them talking in tamil . And one of my friends Karthik would always talk to Divya in tamil :- )

Ok..back to scene…they both  approached us .   Ramesh was the first one to have encounter with them. Deepa asked  ramesh ” why won’t you come? ‘ ..ramesh who also never spoke to girls got a bit embarrassed ,smiled nervously  and answered “ I……I….I’m interested..ask these guys” pointing towards me . And they asked the same question” why don’t u come…we all can have fun” . I was double embarrassed and not finding any words to say, I mumbled ‘ No. i can’t ‘ and ended the conversation. Then, I think ,they proceeded  towards sreedhar and kishan.

I think the group “ boys who hate girls” were also not interested to come. Or may be they were interested. I don’t remember.  Everybody was saying some reason. Though the organizing team put every sincere effort to convince, one thing was sure that nobody gave much  thought about that. The guy who lead the team  to convince others was Mr. cool ..Sharathchandra. he was the only guy who could be approached by all the groups :-) . No ego. No tantrums. He would talk to everybody in the class. He was the intersection area of all the circles.

We were hearing lot of  things about the success  of the other departments’ tours. Our ears were getting deafened by all the high-decibel stories of their fun filled tours. Ramesh was so jealous of them and equally angry at us :-)

One evening I went to my uncles place. When we were talking …this tour discussion came up. When I said it would cost a lot he was just furious. He said” don’t lose this …. … this would be one last opportunity to  interact and enjoy  with your classmates ..go..have fun …”  .Wow that really made me feel guilty and  served as an  eye-opener.  I knew Money wasn’t the only reason stopping me and though money was a crucial factor I wouldn’t think that my parents  would say NO . So I rushed back to the hostel to tell  sreedhar about this. I think he initiated his  thought-process  before I told this my discussion with my uncle. And when we discussed , he was all ready. ramesh was so upbeat and his happiness knew no bounds. I think kishan also  said Yes. Because, we  couldn’t  leave  Kishan . we were a team. Fianlly, we went and told to sharath. He was happy too.

 Plans were being made. Ramesh was dreaming about the tour and what he could do on the train :- )

A  few days passed .everything seemed rosy. And then it happened.

Unbeknownst to four of  us, 95% of the students who said they were more than willing to come actually withdrew from the tour. Nobody was coming. I don’t know the reason . The remaining 5% included  Sreedhar, Kishan, Ramesh, sharath and Me  . That’s it. That’s what I remember. what an irony?  Four guys who were so critical about the tour initially were the only  ones left.  Ramesh’s dreams were shattered . I was disappointed and didn’t want to go and so was kishan. But Sreedhar was still saying yes and even sharath wanted us to go. He was unfazed and didn’t want to step back now .

Everybody’s guess….Finally, the whole tour idea got shelved. I remember Ramesh’s  disconcert and dismay :- ) he could not digest the fact that such catastrophe could happen to his dreams :-) .

That’s how the IT tour saga went on  in our class. We were a bit sad but not too sad because of the cancellation. It’s not that we didn’t want the tour to happen … we wanted it.. we dreamt about something good to happen but none bothered much when it ended finally. Because.. that’s the way  we were, our class was ! :-)

adios

Kranthi :-)

P.S : Just a funny recollection ! dont mind !