I apologize for the fact that I haven’t written a post in the last twenty days. I have been planning to write a day by day analysis of my life in Kota, for a week, and haven’t been able to do it, so I gave the plan up today, and I’ll just write it generally, but it’s gonna be a long post. BTW thanks to the people who inquired why I hadn’t posted including Ish and tigger.
My journey began on the night of 16th April. I had a lot of work to do that day and I was backing up my Desktop data till the moment my father was shouting for me to come down, as we had to leave for the railway station. I wasn’t very sad, but I knew I was gonna miss my friends a lot. So we reached the station, caught our train, and I embarked on a new journey, leaving behind a closed chapter of my book. But, was it really closed so soon? I would live in Jalandhar ever again like I used to…. but how could it end in just fifteen years…. so many plots of the chapter were still undeveloped, or not finished. But, I had to move on.
My parents were coming with me and Vipul(Binny) and his parents were there with us too. It was so exiting… starting something new… you know that rush of getting into a new life routine. But, I sure didn’t know then, that it would turn out to be so difficult. The next morning I spent talking to Vipul and getting to know him better…. we had not been very good friends in school, more like acquaintances or someone you hear about from your friends. Last evening, Sarvesh had called me to tell me that Vipul “ki setting ho gayi hai.” I asked him about it and surprisingly he told me all about it. I also spilled my beans about the oneitises. Well, they didn’t really matter to me much then.
When we reached in Kota, it was hell hot. My father’s friend’s brother, was there to receive us. My father wanted to book the rooms in advance, but the man was like, “It would be done, we would get you whatever hotel you would like” on the telephone. But I had some idea, that many people would be there, and we won’t get a place easily. We hotel hunted all afternoon and after many no availabilities, had to stay in a 3rd grade hotel. It wasn’t so bad, but bad according to our standards, or for that matter according to standard of many people. The rooms weren’t clean, were small, the walls were dirty, the bathroom wasn’t so clean, but we had to adjust.
After hotel hunting, came PG hunting. It was hard and frustrating, as there were many institutes in Kota, with no arrangement of Hostels by the institutes due to which the demand of good PGs was high. My mother threatened me that if we didn’t find a good enough PG, they would take me back with them. Vipul’s dad’s some relative showed us some rooms in Indravihar, but he also said that it was pretty late, most good rooms were already booked. Wherever we went, either the rooms were already booked, or only one was available or the rooms weren’t good, or they had common bathroom or the lavatory seat was Indian style. Me and Vipul don’t know how to operate that way…. call us spoilt, but we have never used or been taught to use Indian style lavatories. Anyway, so it was really difficult. At last we had to settle for a single room, with a double bed and two almirahs. The landlord’s were the relative’s brother, who they didn’t talk to anymore…. so we did the deal ourselves. We had dinner at the relative’s place. We also saw a tennis racket type thingy which has current in the net and is used to kill mosquitoes, for which Kota is pretty famous. We bought one for our room the next day. Anyway, the relatives were pretty nice people, and I mixed up with them quite easily… making jokes and all. They told us that students were easily beaten up here by local boys and police didn’t do anything. So Vipul was advised to keep his head down, as he was quite an influential dude, where he lived, you know what I mean. We returned to the hotel and that was the last time we saw them. By the way, maybe I shouldn’t say this, but Vipul’s dad is like the biggest Kiss-ass I’ve ever seen. He has a wierd style of saying, “Acha acha achachachach” really fast and is a big ass kisser, praising every word by saying, “Kya baat hai”, or “Maza aa gaya.”
Next day in the morning, was my introductory class. We were getting late, and we took breakfast(a bread pakora) sitting in the auto-rickshaw. There was a long lecture by Mr. V.K. Bansal, but it was good. I mean it gave you the feel for the first time that you are here, in Kota, to study in Bansal classes. But it was a 3 hour long class, and I hadn’t brought a water bottle with me. Whenever Bansal drank water, mann karta tha, chaper maar ke paani cheen lun. At the end of the class, they told us about our batches. Mine was R8. The batches are from P1 to S10. So, I was pretty far behind, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hurt. But, I drank the pain as a bottle of dew and went on the shopping spree waiting for us. It was pretty easy, but it was really very hot, which made it tiresome. We also purchased bicycles, as it is the mode of transportation used by most students here. It was a weird feeling to drive a bicycle after like 4 years, and I also remembered how I used to fall every time I took out my bicycle. While I was in the class, our mothers set up our room. But the room is very small, and one of my bags, containing my books, novels and dvds is still unpacked. Vipul’s class was in the evening and he got Q2. Saala, I am smarter than him….. but it doesn’t matter. The batches will be reshuffled after the first test on May 25th. So that night I washed my hair, so that the “juda” done by my mom would last another week. Truly, that was the only thing I was dependent on my mother for, anatomically, at this late age. That day, I also got to know that Vipul ate a lot. The man ate two bread pakodas at 9, then 2 samosas and sprite at 11:30 and 5 chapatis in lunch at 1:30. I mean, I juat eat two chapatis a meal and he looks thinner than me (although he’s not). The next day, early morning, our parents went back and we had two free days before classes began.
The next two days went by pretty quickly. We watched movies on the laptop (who’s volume capabilities sucks), talked to each other and got to know each other better. We are much closer friends now. We also got to know the dude living in the room right by our room, who’s from Ludhiana. He seems to have been pretty spoilt in Ludhiana (girls and fights wise). He is also in Bansal in S5 batch. But, he’s a good kid…. and is sometimes overconfident about his success which he veils as positive thinking. Also, he’s crazy about Amway, as his father does network marketing for Amway and he uses all the supplements and other products made by them. He is also sometimes a little irritating. We also met 3 other guys from Gwalior. One, who doesn’t talk much with us, but is supposed to be pretty intelligent. The other is a total Joker, I mean you just sit with him for a few minutes and you would be laughing your guts out. Their mothers still stay with them and would be leaving in May end. The last one is a IT dude, I mean he’s into computers so we have a good tuning. But, none of these guys watch much movies, and I am a movie buff, so I can’t talk much about movies around them. We now know much about them and we know much about them. Its surprising that we have become good friends in so few days. We also have gotten into the habit of mimicry of the landlord and his family. Me and Vipul also imitate our old teacher and the new science ones. Its really funny.
No one like the landlord our of all of us. He is a middle aged man who smokes a lot, and once when he was sitting in the Verandah, he told Vipul to pick up the stool like “Kamod chakk liya”. We now call him Kamod wale uncle. He is not a nice man btw, and got rude with me once for no apparent reason. I try to avoid him and his family as much as possible.
We eat food at a mess called Annapurna, and the food isn’t so bad, but it isn’t good either. I have decreased my food intake has decreased because I don’t like the food here. And my jeans are starting to become loose, which I consider good news. The most surprising part about the city is that, despite being a major industrial city, It doesn’t have any McDs, Pizza Hut, Dominoes or even a Cafe Coffee day. All the fast food you get commonly is samasos, kachoris and patties, which they fill up with sauces and namkeen like a gol gappa. There a couple of restaurants nearby which have ok-ok fast food. We just had some last night as the mess was closed.
We have been searching for a new PG for 2 or 3 days, which has 2 rooms available and all the facilities we need. We have searched all houses with a board of “room for students” on it, but didn’t find anything nice. We did find an apartment and and a hostel, but everyone has been suggesting against staying in a hostel, so I guess that’s out. But, everything was almost final about the apartment, infact we were gonna give the advance this evening, but Vipul feels like this place is better. And to tell you the truth, I think so too, as at the flat, we will have to take care of many things ourselves, and there will be just the two of us there. So we have decided to stay here only for now.
The classes are OK, but I kind of feel that I could have done studying like this at home also. The thing is that they haven’t put much pressure on us yet, as the second installment of the fees. But still, the 6 or even 3 of us, when study together, spend most of the time joking around. And I haven’t studied in two days. The thing is ki padhne ka mann hi nahi karta yaar……… and the room is a mess because of all the stuff accumulated, which is also a big turn off. We have our first test on 25th May, which is 6 hours long, and after that the batches will be re-shuffled. And I have totally decided that if I don’t get in the first few batches, I’m going back…. it seems like the sensible thing to do….cuz our senior(who is a genius btw) told us that good teachers are only alloted to the first few batches. So lets see where life takes me next.
Back and Forth 