Those were the days..Part 1

Yesterday I met an old acquaintance of mine from college, St Francis days. It was really nice reminiscing about good old college days. Then we remembered how broke we would be most of the times. We never had money and would always borrow. I am so ashamed sometimes how broke we were. The college canteen and the roadside bandi guy were our creditors. We started this stuff right from 11th12th after school we would head to that corner in Parklane. His gol-gappe were so tasty "with meetha" we would insist. For our satisfaction we would ask him to wash his hands (as if all that dirt from his finger nails would disappear yuck!). That poor chap would simply smile and wash his hands (when young girls request who would refuse ;) anyway his gole-gappe was simply yummm! That guy would simply note down how much we owed him each time and if we had a few Rupees (not more than 10 Rs. usually) we would pay him something.

I remember once (we were such bhukkads), 11 or 12 in the morning/noon time when he just about opened his stall we rushed to him. (I particularly liked his aloo-tikki as well, spicy and chut-pata.) As usual we did not have money and asked him note it down. That poor guy was like "amma, aap pehle girak hain, boni ke liye do rupai tho de do" (boni - is referred to the very first order you receive from the customer (girak) and the businessmen usually prefer some money is received from the first sale for the day, as token of good luck for their business, not sure if its Hyderabadi word or not). We felt so bad for that guy, we managed to find a two Rupee coin that we could spare.

Even in school (St. Anns) when canteen was open (I remember they shut it later for some reason), my best friends and I used to be crazy for chilly rolls (rolls with chilly powder sprinkled). And then onion rings and fata-fat. Even then we used to go around asking for money one Rupee- two Rupees. Gosh! I feel so silly now. If any of our classmates found us during lunch time walking aimlessly in school during the lunch break they would know why we are making those rounds. Now if I think about it wonder how many people avoided eye contact with us during that period.

In college canteen too we had an account with Seenu (every Francisian will know him!) but it was not as much cos we started eating out in better places where they would not give credit ;) and moreover it would have had an impact on our status :)) But yes we have done some crazy things. I dont know if one post is enough to list all of that. Especially first year of B.Com when we got the freedom after 11th12th. And the location of Francis is such that - man! how can you be sitting in a class :) - Lifestyle, Shoppers stop, Amrutha mall - that's all was needed!

I remember another episode clearly. We were bunking a class in first year 12 of us in Hyundai Santro. God only knows how we squeezed into that. We had finished squeezing in and Princi passes right in front of us - what luck! She asks the girl who was driving some questions and asked all of us to get out of the car. And guess what it was like some Pandora's box the girls kept coming out continuously from the car, she was shocked, we ourselves found it a bit funny, she lectured us on consequences if only the car met with an accident how school authorities would be blamed etc etc she noted all our names and numbers, luckily nothing happened except for the girl who owned the car probably she received a phone call at home warning about their daughter's behavior. That was pretty stupid on our part.

I cannot help also recollecting Communication skills class - we had this subject in the first year. The lecturer was very bindaas. She would take the attendance in the beginning of the class and the class would be full and when she is done she lifts her head she would find half the class disappear. And since our class had two doors and it was a class of about 55-60 people and we were last benchers (have been forever!) we would bend and run out of the class. Now this was the time when dress code was introduced in Francis - really long T-shirts, no sleeveless, salwar kameez preferred and hair was to be not left open (though the latter was not stressed upon as much!). Unfortunately once when bending and running away from class one of the girls dupatta/chunni got stuck in the chair and the chair fell down with a huge thud! and dragged with her till almost outside the class, by that time me and couple of others were outside the classroom, we knew something terrible had happened. And heard the lecturer yell - we ran for our life - ran and ran and never looked back. Gosh! we never got caught but lost the attendance cos she took it all over again when this happened!

Man! attendance was such a big deal. We did Janmabhoomi too cos we would get attendance. Later we realized why this is such a good concept (I will dedicate another post to it!). We took up march past on August 15th in college - something we wouldn't ever care doing (marching in sarees !) but for sake of attendance. Then choosing a sport was compulsory. Now I do nto knwo what options we had. But I remember we chose Table Tennis (TT) in three years of B.Com putting in 75 hours of some game/sport was compulsory. The ones in high demand were chinese checkers and caroms (am not kidding!). But we went ahead and chose TT. Now to this day I do not know how to play TT. Somehow we managed the attendance though. I am quite ashamed now to think about it, instead of wasting time in the mall and gossiping if only I had learnt how to play it.

I guess I should end this here there are even more crazy and risky stuff we got into...maybe I will have a sequel to this post!