The Season - Episode 1

The way my final year at college shaped up would be of the range of the final Harry Potter book. But what made it even better than that was the way I got my job. The whole drama, stretching over a year can be compared to a comedy TV series or a year at some league for a club or a feel-good movie. The initial setbacks, the incessant heart breaks, the half time reprieve, the loss of everything you wanted, the never say lost attitude, which was later found out to be plain ego (this being the part where the obvious truth hits you in the face), the last fight, the unbelievable luck, the happy ending. It had it all.

Maybe that’s why I decided to call it ‘The Season’. How over the course of twelve months I found out a lot of things the hard way, only to realize that I had learnt these lessons long back. Normally, you would put the moral at the end of the story, but I’m going to give it right now.

Never have an ego bigger than your shadow at noon.

How this is applicable in my life, as I’m sure it’ll in yours, will be described by me below. I’m going to describe my final year in the way a manager would file his monthly reports for his football team. Hope you have fun reading it.

Pre-Season

The pre-season was pretty much a local affair. Before I go into the details, let me give you an idea of how things were. Since joining CET, my parents wanted me to keep up a ‘decent’ 8 pointer by the time I passed out. It’s not that I didn’t try. I did what I thought would be enough in the first year. Sadly, the University wanted more. And ever since my seniors gave me these ‘valuable’ advice,

•It’s hard to get an 8 pointer average after getting 7.5 for the first year.
•If you can maintain a 7.5 average, you’ll get a decent enough job.

I decided that instead of trying to do something ‘impossible’, I should better find ways to use my time at college so that I’ll have all the fun I could have there. (By the way, there are people who got an 8 pointer average after getting in the 7’s in first year, and there are people who scored a big job, even with a just above 7 average).

Luckily the ‘extra-curricular’ activities that I decided to take part in didn’t ruin me. It actually helped me in having a commendable resume by the time companies came. But it also was the basic reason for the swelling of my ego bubble.

Anyways, let me talk more about the job scenario. Recession was at its best during June 2009. You couldn’t ask for a worse time to look for a job. And here we were, about 500 students sitting inside the college (see, I didn’t use the word ‘class’, but the word ‘college’ ;) ), hoping someone would come, call us up and give us a job with a fat paycheck, like we used to dream about when we joined the college.

And there was the choice of career that was made by two kinds of people – the pure hearts and the self-conscious fools. The difference was in the ken of the two kinds. The pure hearts knew where they were going, and the self-conscious fools thought they knew where they wanted to go.

Broadly speaking there were four types of jobs on offer,
1. Core Engineering Jobs. (CGPA > 8)
2. Management Jobs. (CGPA > 7.5)
3. Embedded Systems Jobs (CGPA > 7.5)
4. Software Jobs (CGPA > 6.5)

And my order of choice was Embedded, Software, Management and Core.

So, with a difficult environment, a bleak chance at the crown, but with a puffed opinion of myself, I did my pre-season preparations. I went around asking seniors for ‘advice’ (I never learnt to stop doing that.) And that’s when I found my first love. A 5 lakh a year worth payday, located at Bangalore, great working atmosphere, wonderful work in the field of my second choice. Words used to flow in torrents when DSK described his company. He hadn’t even joined then and he was having a jolly time thinking of going there. It got all those juniors who listened to make THOUGHTWORKS his dream company. But before I go into the tryst I had with TW (that’s what we called it), we’ve to go through the month of July. And man was it a month to remember.

July

Sometime in the middle of July, when we were just back after another university, we started hearing rumors of it. IOC was coming to campus, 7.8L CTC, government job to top off everything great and nice about it. And, dispelling the rumors it did come. That’s when the season started for us, CET 2010. Ten people each from Electrical, Mechanical and Civil were called up based on CGPA to attend a direct interview. On the date of the interview, we had actually planned an IV (a real one to NTPC). But since many of my friends were in the top 10, I decided to go with them later. I was planning to go to college and support them for their first interview, but I ended up playing cricket at Poojapura the whole day. But in the evening, I heard the happy news.

Four people from Electrical became the lucky ones to get a job first. And it included my project mate. I was happy as I could be. But that was not for long.
When I told at home about them getting the job, my parents were giving me another perspective. What if I had actually studied and got an 8 point average. I could have at least attended the interview, and maybe come home saying “I got a job.”

They didn’t actually hate me. But they hated the way I wasted my chances in life. And seeing them sad made me wish I had done things differently. Sadly, there’s always a time for everything. And now wasn’t the best time.

And with August showing no companies coming our way, we were left to our own thoughts and devices. I was preparing, for my dream company, TW which came soon enough.

aliya..

I took out my mobile and typed, "aliya.. whr u?? i'm in kadu.."
Sent it to everyone in my gang.. And dis is d chat tht happened aftrwards..

Jaison - I'm in class patti.. Why the heck did u cut class?
Me - Oh.. oru mood illa.. I cant sit in his class without fallin asleep..
Ponni - da.. i'm comin.. wait.. i'm near post office..
Jaison - Ivide padippichu thallukaya.. wht u gonna do thr??
Me - Ponni's comin.. Gonna play cricket..
Jaison - Ponni's in lab manda..
Me - He got out early.. othrs comin too.. :P
Jaison - dey.. think he's endin class now.. come n get attendance..
Me - I'm thr in one minute..

All this wud hav made more sense if it had happened atleast two months before, not today afternoon..
Atleast if,
Jaison waasnt in pala,
Ponni wasnt in Bengalaru,
and I wasnt sittin in the cafeteria in my office in Gurgaon..

I know me sending that message made as much sense as counting stars. But, like counting stars, I did it because its something which inspires me. I didnt know what to expect as replies. But when these came in, there was pure emotional bliss inside me. Eyes swelling up (even right now), being at a loss of words, knowing it was something special, something great. Would have been even better if it had even a faint chance of happening in the future.

But I dont say that everyone replied the same. Some said, "is there a forest in gurgaon?". Some talked about their new jobs. Some said "Good one :D"

It wasnt a joke, it wasnt a statement.. It was a call to the past. But alas, past is something man doesnt know how to bring back to life..
All these simply means that there will be no more waking up at 7.45 to catch the college bus at 8, no more general choriyal before 9, no more boring lectures, no more cutting class and going to panjarakadu, no more smsing to friends who were in class, no more meaningless talks, no more cricket in front of LH, no more crowding around people who brought lunch from home at 12.15, no more walks to lakshmi's to find it full at 12.30, no more discussions on whether to have lunch or not in front of chechi kada, no more drives to ICH at 12.45 for further lunch, no more tryin to get in class at 1.15, no more waiting for it to be 4, no more lab records to write, no more procedures to study, no more assignments to write (actually, copy ;) ), no more waiting around at kadu till the last gal has gone into LH (we were the unofficial guards of LH; counted the number of ladies going in each day), no more night meets at zam zam, no more friends, no more college life, no more CET.

Groupism

Politics is the field you normally associate groupism with. Internal groups, groups formed with other parties, alliances, etc etc. All groups are characterized by a strong patriotic feeling for the group. All groups are identified by a strong feeling of dislike for other groups. But not all instances of groupism are like this.

I have been the architect of many a group among my friends since my school days. If it was the LAKE SUPERIOR club till tenth (the reason for the name is a story in itself), four of us (Deepak Jose, Josey Mathew, Sooraj Balakrishnan, Myself) decided at the threshold of our adulthood to take on Microsoft with a company of our own, MastermindS.

I don’t know why I make all these groups. Maybe I need a name to have the feeling of belonging to something. Maybe I'm an evil genius, who is out to ruin the pious nature of friendship, with masked techniques of destruction. But like always, I can’t decide which group I belong to. And like always, I'll leave it to my friends to decide.

Anyways, college provided me with a new platform of eventful surroundings and friendly strangers to start new groups. Hence, the 'Super Six'.
Having shared the second and the third benches in our first year class for the first four months, in all permutations and combinations that is possible amongst us, and because we all had similar interests and familiar choices in life, I decided to give a name to our unofficial group. Hence, the 'Super Six' was born, comprising of Deepak.R (dpk), Krishnadev (kichu), Shivan (shiv), Siddharth (sid), Sivaharsh (siva) and myself. Though only shiv was interested in the concept then, I'm happy to see that everyone has got the feeling of belonging to this group at the end of our four years together.

My second group was one, which had an aim. To make robots. A big dream like this required us to put in big amounts of money. To reduce the amount per head, we increased the number of members, from the usual four to fourteen. Chaithin (cak), dpk, deepu (omana), Dileep (dlp), jaison, Rohan, shiv, sid, siva, Indu, Mrieene (Masci), Lakshmi, Sruthi and myself became the flag bearers of 'Nymphadora'. We struck gold the 1st time we contested, though that was almost all that we ever won. :D

A two month preparation, which was capped off by five days of non-stop work at a hostel room at NIT, Calicut made me decide I had enough of robotics. Not because I hated to work, or hated the work. It was because our sweet little robot decided at the competition venue, that spinning in circles at the starting point would be more fun than doing what it had been doing for the past few times. Trying to solve the maze.

I also had a withering love life to look into. The then gal-of-my-dreams wasn’t taking any keen interest in me. This prompted me to utilize more time for wooing her. After the failure of all my incredible ideas and incessant proposals, a dejected me found solace between the lines of 'Palavattam'. Equating me in real life to the character played by Salim Kumar in the song was the idea of kichu. Using that as an inspiration to make a video was the idea of 'The Latest Pirates'. Originally founded by cak, dpk, dlp, shiv, sid & myself, Arun.A (ponni) was brought abroad for our future ventures.

'Pinneyum Palavattam', 'In engg clg', 'runaway 2 fame', and 'Sagar Aliyan's Suppli' are the videos that we have released till now. An unnamed project is yet to be released. As in the case of the first video, each of our videos depicted an aspect of the typical college-goer. The theme of the video, the style in which it was taken, and the support of friends made this group of mine the most famous, the most successful one of mine yet.

Even though everyone would agree to my above statement, I would gladly disagree at any given moment. The most endearing of all my groups came in the last year. I like to call it 'One6'. You might be tempted to say that it’s just another number, but it’s an important number for me, because it represents the number of people I've come to cherish the company of. Anoop (pajji), cak, dpk, Deepu (abraham), dlp, Jayashankar (jaishu), Jaison, Kichu, Sreeram (kurup), ponni, Rohan, Sanal (saku), shiv, sid, siva and myself make this sixteen. No one among us were like the other, we had lots of internal bickerings going on, but none of that prevented us from having the best of times together. Words fail me in describing the memories. The sad thing about the group is that we have been scattered along the length of India, from Trivandrum to Delhi. But we have made a promise to each other; that we will never forget the memories we had together, or the people who helped in creating the memories.

There's one another group I’m a part of. Having just three members, it’s the smallest possible group ever. And it wasn’t christened by me. My friends tagged us, Indu, masci and me, by the name of 'Love Triangle'. Don’t misunderstand the term 'love' in the name. It’s there, just for the sake of giving some sense to the name. But the three of us share a deep bond of friendship, which I hope we will continue over the years.

After hearing all this, you will be able to understand my reason, if at my death bed, I write 'GROUP', when asked which word will sum up my entire life.

Usually..

Usually, I write my blogs at mid night, when I'm left alone with my imagination and my inspiration. Its different this time. It is evening. Kids are enjoying the last day of their vacations, by wrecking havoc on the streets. And I'm not inspired to write about anything.

Since I started blogging, the two topics I always itched to write about were job and leaving college. I've got a job in the weirdest and the wildest of circumstances, at the most unexpected time. Though it was incessant rain in a blistering desert for me, I could not make myself put finger to mobile, and type in my blog about it.(did I forget to say that type in my blog into mobile first?? :D)

Which brings me to the other topic.. COLLEGE. My final lab's in two days, course viva in one week. My better friends start leaving town in two weeks. I myself leave in four. No one has any idea on when or where we will meet up in the future. To make matters a bit more difficult, I'm placed at Delhi, a decent 2000km away from the nearest person in out batch. But even this demanding situation has failed to inspire me.

I've never been more uninspired in my life. And the funniest thing is I don’t know why. If I were a writer, people would call this a writer's block.(You may say that writing a blog is writing, but I prefer to call it an art.)

The cliché dialogue, which you would find in every man's mind, is that love is the inspiration that makes every fool an artist. So, maybe I'm not able to write anything, because I haven’t loved anyone in the past one year.
Or maybe, it’s the emotional overload that I'm going through right now, which has blocked my arteries of feelings, making me a failure at putting thoughts into words.
Whatever the reason, whatever the solution, I've enough sanity to say two things..

1. I thank the woman who called me six times before I answered the phone, for giving me this job.

2. I thank all things beautiful for giving me great friends and a magnificent campus to hang out with them.

My Pkadu

Never thought I would sit alone in our famous panjarakadu.. It’s not that I always had my girlfriend(s) to be with me here, but some friend - boy or gal, would give me company.. always.. In four years of engineering studies, this is the first time I'm actually alone here..

For those of you who ignorant about our kadu, it’s a collection of aptly spaced acacia trees.. The kadu is strategically located in front of the LADIES HOSTEL and near to the college front.. So, all guys, both with and without girlfriend(s), make it a point to utilize their 'cut' hours here.. At any point of time, you can spot at least two couples in our kadu.. That however is a case of the past..All couples were forced to find new shelters of love, because of a few..

Specifically, us..

Cricket had always been at top of our agenda.. So much so that we used to play inside classrooms till third year.. After that, we couldn’t play anywhere because of space constraints.. Grounds were a long way off.. We had to get bats, enough people to play.. Work of any sort was despised by us..

At the begining of S6, there was another failed attempt to play at the ground. Seeing the futile process, we decided to go to the kadu for some entertainment. That’s when we saw this large clearing right in the middle of it. For some odd reason, this clearing had never been noticed by any one of us. And that’s the moment, he made his appearance.

Apple fell off a tree to inspire Newton to develop the theory of Gravitation. An acacia branch of perfect length inspired us. Ball in hand, a bat-like thing in front, just enough space around, hunger for cricket within. We decided to play right there, right then. Our eyes went around the clearing. Three couples. We would have to clear them out. We first thought about asking them to clear out. Realizing that would be cruel thing to say, we opted for plan B. We started playing.

And, as per our plan, the noise, the runaway ball and continuous swearing, made the couples fly away. And they never came back..

A new constrained venue meant that we had to make new rules for the game. We adopted the one-pitch cricket game rules.

1. All types of bowling with all variations - over arm, under arm, side arm – are allowed. Basically, bowler needs to launch the ball to the keeper.
2. The batsman needs to touch the ball with the bat without getting out.
3. And there’s no team. Everyman for himself.

The game has evolved over the year. Preposterous rules and perfect location for side businesses has attracted players from other branches to try and make a mark in this intriguing contest. It has made mice out of lions of the cricket field, and has given success to many an underdog (ME, being one of those stories). It has given rise to new techniques and terms for the cricket field.

• Stock ball – developed by sivaharsh. Throw the ball up into the air and make the batsman wait. According to him, this involves trajectory planning and projectile motion.
• Deepak’s kutti – deepak’s favorite shot always leads the ball to this tree.
• Siva’s point – a tree we assigned to sivaharsh, because he won’t stand anywhere else.
• Shiv’s reverse – shivan’s reverse sweep to LH.
• Kozhi shot – Running down the track, jumping on one leg, turning the bat from slip to bowler n hoping that the bat makes contact. Developed by, yours truly.

Some of you might be concerned about the love birds we chased away. Don’t worry. They found refuge in the new bike bay. And because of the bike bay’s concealed nature, they love our intrusion into their previous haven.

Over the past two semesters, we have had lots of unforgettable experience here. I would have never imagined me climbing a tree to get a retrieve a stuck ball, and hence make a batsman out, if it wasn’t for this game. Nor, could have I known that you get ice for 50ps at chechi kada, so that you can give it to the gal, whose face you just accidently hammered with the ball.

Most of our seniors say that panjarakadu is the first thing that comes to their mind when they think of college. I think we have made one more reason to think of it, after we pass out. And that’s why, when we decided to coin a name for this hobby of ours, we decided to call it

“Panjara cricket”..