10: Wonderful Memories

            "We song many sangs", these were the words spoken out by an excited Nandhan as we were on the way back to Bangalore. The spoonerism exhibited by Nandhan was just an example to illustrate how excited we were on the trip.

            Joey surely did have an unforgettable experience. We kept pulling his leg all throughout for the act of his. Feel sorry for him at times, but whatever, we had fun.

            We had a dinner at a famous restaurant back in Goa. Some choose to sit at the section where they serve meat while the rest along with me and Joey where seated at the vegetarian section. Joey is a tall and a thin guy with very sharp features. Even a hot model would get jealous of his outstanding figure :). He weighed a mere 111 pounds. So the obvious thing was, we would advise him to eat lot of food and not to starve. Joey always retaliated saying he had a better appetite then most of us. I don't think he had it, but he kept talking about it and until proven we could neither deny nor accept it. So we would just smile off and listen to him. But that night things changed. Each of us ordered a meal. Joey looked like he was enjoying the food. It was really delicious.

            As were walking out of the hotel,

Joey asked, "Isn't the food tasty?"

I replied, "Yes, it is awesome"

Joey: "Oh Shit! Hold on, I have to puke".

            Joey rushed into the restroom and puked the entire meal out. I was worried. He seemed fine. I assumed it was food poisoning or if there was something in the meal that put him off. After he recovered, I asked him what he thought was the cause of vomiting. He replied, “I think I ate more than what I could”.

            We didn't care if it was offensive towards Joey, but from that day whenever we offered food to Joey our next statement would be, you should have guessed by now, "Make sure you don't eat much or else you will vomit." I pulled his leg throughout the journey and I guess even to this day we do it. He keeps arguing that it was a one off incident and nothing much should be derived out of it. And what do we do? just ignore him and continue pulling his leg :).

            So this way the puking act of Joey, the embarrassment Arjun faced at the hands of the Eunuchs, Chetan's legendary dialogue, "I swear, I will kill that boy", the uncontrollable excitement exhibited by Nandhan, the hilarious game of Rammi, all gave us lot of moments which will be cherished forever.

            The trip of Goa was one of the first trips I took with my friends. It was filled with lot of wonderful and golden moments which are etched in my mind forever. No matter where I or my friends end up, when we look back at the trip, we sure will have a smile on our face.

9: Who was she staring at?

"She is staring at me", Abishek said

"Nin mukha ge, ashtondu scene illa", Arjun replied.

(Literal translation: Your face, not that much scene :). The meaning: She can do much better than your face.)

            Nandhan interfered and said, "Dude, I think she is staring at me". Chetan and I burst out of laughing. This was the condition the guys were in.

            Out of all the beautiful damsels, one of them seemed like she was staring at one of the guys from our group. The argument, “whom was she staring at?” We still do not know the answer to that question even to this day. Everyone felt like she was staring at them, it was not like they would go and ask her out. None of them had the guts to do it, but some sort of childish satisfaction that a hot chick is staring at them. We argued on and on for the next couple of hours. At the end of the argument, each one believed that she was staring at him. That made all of us happy, so we stuck to that thought.

            That night we ended up coming home tired and hungry. We quickly gobbled up some food and were all ready for a game of cards. We played the 13 card game also known as "Rammi". The concept of the game is that, one needs to make sure that all the 13 cards given to him are in a set. A set consists of minimum 3 cards. Two kinds of sets are compulsory, a sequence where one needs to have a minimum of 3 consecutive rank cards with the same suit and a triplet which consists of at least three same rank cards with unique suit on each of them. The player had the freedom to arrange the remaining 7 cards either as a triplet or as a sequence. In order to view the joker which is chosen randomly for each game, a player needs to show a legal sequence to other players thus giving him the right to view the joker. Without this sequence a player cannot proceed to make the other sets.

            There are always some characters in a group to whom you narrate an entire story and they bamboozle with you with such dumb and basic questions that you feel like just landing a punch on them. It’s like you narrate the entire Trojan war at the end of which he/she asks you questions like, who is Achilles? Or who is Helen?

            As I was aware of the game rules, I explained it to all the guys who didn't know the rules of the game. All the guys listened to all the rules with a lot of concentration and we began the game. We were 5 minutes into the game and Abishek with a certain assertiveness said, "I wish to see the joker!" I was impressed as it was his first game and he got the hang of it real soon. So I asked him to flash the cards to cross check if it was a legal set. When he flashed the cards, I was dumbfounded and perplexed. I came out of it only when Nandhan spit out the water from his mouth unable to control the hilariousness of the moment. :) :).

            Abishek flashed a "hybrid" of sets, a sequence and triplet. Instead of flashing three consecutive ranks with the same suits, he ended up with three consecutive ranks with all different suits. We were all rolling on the floor laughing at this unique set created by Abishek and took quite some time to recover from it. Abishek was quite embarrassed  but he was a real good sport. He just laughed it away and gave us 10 minutes of rib ticking laughter by the act of his.

8: Arrival at Goa

I received a good morning message from Aksha at 6 AM in the morning. I had been messaging Aksha throughout the journey ignoring the fact that SMS in roaming cost me a fortune. But at that point of time, I was in "love" and love has no barriers my friend. I just kept messaging on and on ignoring the factor called money. In middle of exchanging the good morning kisses, we reached Goa. Woke up everyone and we quickly packed up our things and got down from the train. Joe's father came to pick us up. All the guys could not fit in the car, so his dad had to make two trips to the railway station.

            We were very excited to be at Goa, the idea of beach filled our minds with excitement. I was expecting a beach as soon as I arrived at the station, how foolish of me! We all freshened up at Joe's place, nothing better than a hot cup of Boost :) in the morning. We were all set to hit the beach, but we had no idea how. So we set up a package tour for the first few days so that, we get an idea of the entire city. Our idea was then to pick out the best places and head there by ourselves. We traveled the entire city in a mini bus, accompanied by few more people in the mini bus. 

            The weather at Goa was very humid, it was a rude change in the weather for us when compared to Bangalore, and so we were profusely sweating. In spite of that we visited couple of beaches, the famous Anjana beach and the Calingut beach. These were the beaches where most of the holiday crowd flocked to. Apart from the beaches, we visited couple of holy places. You must be wondering, what the hell are these guys doing? Holy places in the city, which is full of beaches and semi naked chicks, not to mention the amazing sea food!! I don't know, even to this day I don't get it, why did we go to holy places?

            Our first lunch at Goa was just simply outstanding. The spicy shrimp tasted just perfect. The thought of the food makes my mouth waster even to this day. The guide in the tour explained to us the prominence of the places in Goa. It was interesting in the beginning, but became a drag later on. Adding to that, there was some really stupid song playing in the background.. Goa..Goa..Margoa..some shit like that. It was really bad and to top that the same song was played again and again!!

            The first couple of days were interesting, we had covered a lot of places and got a feel of the Goa city. One fine evening, we headed off for a cruise. It was my first time on a cruise, so didn't know what to expect. There was some sort of a dance show on the cruise, where a lot of beautiful damsels danced to the local tunes, these tunes didn't sound as bad as that Goa song, as my eyes were fixed on their beauty. After the dance show they invited the audience to join them for a dance. Abishek was quite upbeat about it, after a little push from us, Abishek and Nandhan joined them on the stage for a couple of nice dance moves. By the way I am a terrible dancer, I am better off dancing when I am drunk, as my stupid moves can be attributed to my drunken state rather than the fact that I dance horrible.

7: Goa! Here we come!! part 2

Eunuchs barged into the train and created Havoc. Eunuchs are popular in the train stations and at several road junctions, where they seem like they beg for money, but what they do is just demand for it! Most of them surrender to it and end up paying it, irrespective of their liking. And generally the ones which enter the train are like the most demanding ones. They feast on students and those poor souls who look vulnerable and all set to surrender. Arjun was at the receiving end this time, when they came into the compartment where we were seated, each of us ended up paying 10 INR, 5 times more what would be paid to the normal beggar. But our hero Arjun, chose the bold way, he just paid like couple of bucks. They say fortune favors the brave, but in this case fortune chose to laugh at him. The moment he paid 2 bucks to the eunuch, it got enraged. I chose to refer the eunuch as "it", as it is hard to pick sides between male and female. On receiving the 2 bucks, it got so pissed, that it literally abused Arjun and went onto pull his check and further teasing him by touching his face and chest. We just couldn't do anything, forget about the fact that it was enjoyable looking at him in that condition but the whole situation was shit scary. 1 tip of rule while travelling in India, do not take up a fight with a Eunuch, you are bound to get embarrassed and certain to loose dignity. The important point here is, a eunuch has nothing to lose, while you have got everything to lose. Arjun was handed out a really rough treatment for about 30 seconds and he ended up paying 50 INR. He must have had his heart in his mouth while facing it. But if you look at the whole incident from a neutral person point of view like me, you would realize how laughable that incident was. The eunuch with its blood red saree, a bindhi on its forehead about a size of 50 p or 1 cent coin with lot of piercings on its face was surely a scary site to us, leave alone the "not matured" Arjun.

            "I swear, I will kill you" This was the most used line by Chetan. Whenever anything pissed him off, those were the words he used to utter. Never did anything, but when he spoke out these words, he sure looked like he meant it, but would mean nothing. I met Chetan in the 2nd year when students from both the sections got shuffled around depending on their names in an ascending order. So Chetan and Joey moved into my section. Chetan, appeared like he carried a lot of attitude, a lot of it can be attributed to the fact that he was into western music, his English was a lot more fluent and is a guitar player. Apart from the fact that his sense of humor was slightly on the lower side compared to me, he was a really good buddy. His patience levels were thoroughly tested by a 5 - 6 year old kid, who was jumping all around the train. As the sun set, we decided to get some sleep before we arrive at Goa the next day morning. So all of us got our pillows and blankets ready and were just about to sleep. This hyperactive kid dressed in a white t shirt and blue shorts with curly hair, popped up from nowhere and started pulling the blankets and legs of Chetan, Aditya and Nandhan. These were the guys sleeping in the lower beds, while the rest were sleeping in the upper compartments. He kept doing that continuously, Chetan initially was laughing, but one could see the irritation levels growing in him. But the thing with which Chetan got mad and uttered those words "I swear I will...." was when this kid bit Chetan's leg!! Yes, he bit him, I have no idea what that leg looked like to him. We were laughing uncontrollably sleeping in the upper compartments. The kid left few minutes after getting a rude warning from Chetan.

            We woke up the next day to see that, we arrived at Goa!!

6: Goa! Here we come! - Part 1

Did u know that, Goa is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population? If you didn't know, your general knowledge is not up to the mark. Just kidding! J I just found out about that, before writing this piece, courtesy Wikipedia.

I along with Abishek, Aditya, Arjun, Joey, Nandhan, Chetan headed off to Goa for a week. It was one of the most memorable trips we ever made together. I get a kick out of the fact that Arjun's mom considered him, not mature enough to let him go on the trip. I can never stop laughing thinking about that. She quite literally told him on his face, "Arjun you are not mature enough, you cannot go to the trip". He looked like a kid. I mean who doesn't? We just turned 20 that year and our parents were not sure if we were big enough to take care of ourselves. After a lot of convincing, Arjun eventually made it through. I met Nandhan and Chetan much later after I met Abishek. But they quickly became an important of the group. All of us along with Prithvi and Joey became a set of very close friends. Unfortunately Prithivi could not make it to the trip. I had a fair of bit of convincing to do at my place and also at Abishek's place as their initial answer was a plain NO. Parents finally agreed to the trip finding solace in the point that Joey's father was residing in Goa at that time.

I and Aditya arrived at the train station, Abishek arrived late as usual. He has a habit of showing up in the last moment for almost everything. He proved it once again coming just minutes before departure. Nandhan's and Chetan's parents had come to give them a sendoff. I was subdued initially, but later something got into me. I was at my maddening best, cracking some stupid jokes and PJ's. It was as if someone injected me with a pill which sorts of awakens the madness in one. Now that I think of that, I was always like that. I was very happy to be with these guys, it sort of gets out the best in me. The fact that I was leaving Aksha for so many days made me feel sad, but quickly came over it.

So there we were, train from Bangalore to Goa, if I am not mistaken it was like an 18 hours journey. I am not sure about the railways in other countries, but the railways in India are really interesting. Constant activity, people getting in and out all the time, children making a lot of noise, elders submerge themselves in a novel or they end up talking the entire journey at the end of which one will know the other person’s entire life history including their sons or daughters annual paycheck. There is always something special about a train journey. One can see people travelling from all walks of life. The train stops at many stations on the way and the best part about it is that there are so many vendors selling the local delicacies that one can sit and buy everything that comes along. If you are a foodie, you will be surely in for a delicious ride!

The journey was fun. We spoke about all the possible topics under the sun, sang songs, and played cards. Initially we were quite apprehensive about cards in a public place as they might mistake it for gambling, we took a chance and ended up playing UNO as well. That is one hell of a game if you are not aware of it.

There were some breathtaking landscapes and sceneries as the train made its way from Bangalore to Goa catching up steady speed as she moved along.“Dudhsagar” is one of the most exquisite water falls in India. The water plummets hundreds of feet in large volumes during the monsoon season and we were blessed to see her in full swing. Legend has it that a beautiful princess lived in a forest where there was then a beautiful palace. She loved and enjoyed bathing in a lake nearby, while at it she used to drink "sweetened milk" from her "Golden Jug" after finishing with her bath. One fine day, she found herself being watched by a young prince while she was in her inadequate bathing attire. To cover herself, she poured the jug of milk in front of him to form an improvised curtain to hide her body, while the maids rushed to cover her with her dress. And it is said that, it is that sweetened milk that cascades down the mountain slope to this day as tribute to the virtue and modesty of the Princess, as the "Dudhsagar Falls".

Just as we were awestruck by the beauty of the falls and mesmerized by it, there entered the Eunuch's!!

5: First Kiss

She typed "Sid, I am missing you a lot, I want to see you tonight, please come home!" This was the first time Aksha said something which meant she too loved me. When the phrase “I miss you” is used in a general context, it could mean a lot of things, but in this context and given the circumstances, it conveyed a deeper meaning. I replied back if she wanted to see me right away. I was a freaking 600 km away from Bangalore, with what guts I asked her if she wanted to see me, was something I never understood. As it turns out she said yes, which left me with no other option. So I took the next bus to Bangalore and made it home eventually the next morning in one piece.

 Does a girl really have the ability to change a guy's plans? Or is it that, the guy is so completely blindfolded by the girl that, he leaves his plans to her choice. I guess it is something for which I have no definite answer. I was happily enjoying my vacation at my aunt's place hoping to catch the newly released film that night and to spend some quality time with my little cousins. And within few hours I saw myself stranded in the middle of the highway at 2:00 AM in the night. There was no direct bus to Bangalore. Adding to that, I did not have any reservation as the whole thing was totally unplanned. So I boarded the available bus which took me just half way, I did not even have any connecting bus from there. The only thought in my mind was that,"300 km away from Aksha is better than being 600 km away". That was the extent of my madness!

I could obviously not meet her that night but did meet her the very next day. I was really excited to see her as I was hoping that she would shower me with her feelings :) and was hoping to be rewarded for the journey I undertook the previous night.

They say hard work pays, it did! Aksha deeply fell for that act of mine and later I was rewarded that night. Now now!! Do not get your dirty minds to think. :) She messaged me that night saying, "The girl, who marries me, would be a lucky girl". This was my reward! I am like an "alpa santoshi" – one who becomes happy for little things.

As days passed by, we shared a lot more things and Aksha even mentioned one night that "She was beginning to love me, as my love was too hard to resist". The moment she uttered those words, I was literally jumping with joy. It was like, there were 100 guitars playing in my heart at the same time, my joy knew no bounds. But the very next day, that joy was snatched away from me. The next morning she said that,” She was not in her right mind the previous night and asked me to ignore whatever she said”. Can you just believe that! Why are girls like that? Why??

I don't want to generalize, but I din't understand why she did that? By then I had got used to the periodic disappointments, so I recovered quickly. I was wondering what stopped her from expressing her love, but strongly believed that, one fine day she would be mine.

As days moved on, I was wondering where the next ray of hope would come from, I was waiting for an opportunity to knock. On a Wednesday afternoon, while we were in the middle of a class, Aksha received a message from home, asking her to return home immediately. Her house was very far from the college and she asked me to accompany her. How could I turn down an offer like that?

It was a long journey and was accompanied by long gaps of silence. I guess she was wondering why she was called home on such a short notice. On the other side, I din’t quite know what to talk. So I chose the silence.

I broke the silence after a while by offering her a piece of chocolate. What came next was a sweet surprise. She asked me to feed her! That left me confused and nervous. I mustered some courage and did eventually feed her. The interesting twist here was that, the chocolate had melted completely. How I managed to feed her in spite of the melted chocolate is left for the reader to imagine :).

That journey was special for the obvious reasons, it laid the foundation for our love. As days passed by, we spent a lot more time talking on the phone. In spite of all that talking, those three magical words never came out. So there was always a certain degree of uncertainty involved. This probability of uncertainty eventually faded away day by day, and even before I knew it, I kissed Aksha for the first time! 

It was truly magical when my lips touched her lips for the first time. She seemed tensed initially, but her nerves calmed down after few seconds. I could sense our hearts beating a lot faster. I felt as if the time had slowed down. It lasted for quite some time, it felt just amazing! I am telling you guys, the first kiss is definitely something. 

The after effects of the kiss were as sweet as a candy. Love definitely made my life beautiful. All of a sudden smile became an un-detachable part of my face. Life looked in all glory and smiled at me every single day.

4: The Reply

I said "I love you", I was greeted with a long silence. My heart was beating 10 times faster, I was sweating, dying with anticipation. After a long wait she said "I never thought of you that way". I was literally heart broken. I felt embarrassed and disappointed at the same time. It was hard to take the conversation further after a rejection like that. Even at that moment, there were a lot of questions in mind, but my mind went blank for that moment.

There was a sudden rush of thoughts in my mind. Why did she say no? What did she mean when she said I did not think of you that way? How will I face her tomorrow? Is it the end of journey! Countless thoughts. I eventually mustered some courage to ask, "Did you never think of me like that?"

The answer was a blatant NO. The heart broke into finer pieces this time. It felt like the whole world was crumbling right in front of my eyes.

           I just could not sleep that night for the obvious reasons. I did not want to face her the next day, in fact did not want to face anybody for the matter. I just did not know how to behave or move around with her. To top that, the next day she said,” Don't worry, it happens. I am sorry Sid, I never thought of you like that". It was like a slap on my face. All of a sudden she looked devilish to my eyes, she seemed completely like a different person.

            Days passed by, I suggested her that we be friends, as I did not want to lose the friendship. This is like a default option all guys fall back on. Get rejected, suggest to be friends as usual. This gives the guys a chance to try again, it’s like the friendship net is the fall back option.

Anyways we began talking as usual in a few days, but there was this unexplained tension at times. I thought to myself, there was no point going further. But due to my unprecedented love, I ended up proposing her again! YES you did read that right!! I repeated the same act. I tried to curb the feeling, but just couldn't. I expected the same answer, but this time Aksha said, "I don't know". The reply definitely infused some hopes in me. I was thinking in my mind, couple of more times and it might actually work. The moment she said "I don't know", I knew, that was my chance, I grabbed the opportunity and poured out all my feelings. The idea was to build on her reply.

In the same way, I ended up proposing three more times. "I Love you" now had become a joke. But the important thing was, every single time Aksha's answer was different. It was better than the previous. But it was never a "Yes" or "I Love you too". Her best reply was, "Maybe, I don't know". I tried and tried the entire third semester, but always in vain. 

Then came the semester break, I knew that I could not see her for a month. Was happy for the vacation, but was sad that I wouldn't be seeing her. I visited my aunt, an overnight journey from Bangalore. In spite of the location or in spite of the fact that messaging used to cost a fortune on roaming, I continued messaging Aksha.

One bright sunny afternoon, I received a message from Aksha, the message which changed the dimensions of the relationship or at least what I would call, the turning point of the relationship.

3: The Proposal

So tracing back to the beginning where I spoke about the Bollywood intro to love, you must be wondering what was all that about! Well, it happened in the beginning of the second year. There was no wind, no sparks, and no thunder in the sky. It was just a guy meeting a girl. In fact I don't even know, how and when it hit me. I did not even see it coming. It could have been attraction or as they say infatuation.

When I heard the name Aksha for the first time, I smiled to myself and thought, weird name. But little did I know that, my life would revolve around that name for a long time to come. Aksha was just an another girl, there was nothing extra-ordinary about her. She was cheerful, always full of energy. Many girls are like that. Even her dressing was quite normal, she used to dress up in salwar (a traditional dress worn by women in South Asia) all the time. She had a small forehead with her ring finger larger than her index finger. She was mostly into regional films and loved everything about them. Aksha had a wonderful smile, the kind of smile which would let you forget all your problems. On the other hand she was quite loud spoken and mischievous as well. As far as I remember, she would always hang out with two of her friends and the three of these would be in a world of their own. I don't remember my initial interaction with her but we eventually started as acquaintances.

I have never mentioned before, but I have always had in me a romantic and a flirty side. I do have the initial hiccups but once I find my feet, the going gets really smooth.

Anyways it all began with me talking to all three girls giving equal attention to all. Probably it was the initial desperation that I wanted to be with some girl, immaturity personified. :) I do remember one incident in particular, Aksha's birthday, I gifted a bar of Dairy milk, a big one actually. She was surprised as we both were not such good friends for me to be giving her a big bar of chocolate. I too was surprised because there was an insatiable urge in me to gift her something. I did believe that my liking towards her was special but never listened to my heart initially. But eventually I did! I slowly became mad about Aksha and the liking grew exponentially day by day.

I spent a lot of alone time with her at the engineering college fest, we spoke a lot of things that evening. That meeting with her confirmed my liking and I had a bold thought of wanting to propose her. Deep down inside, I had a feeling that even she liked me as I did, because we used to talk all the time, exchange messages all the time. The messages had all the sparks of a romantic affair in it. There were a lot of hidden meanings for each message we exchanged. The most exciting part of a relationship according to me is when both people in the relationship like each other, yet he/she waits for the other person to confess it first. There is a lot of curiosity, expectations, constant urge to hear the person and to be with the person. Adding to that tension, there are so many unanswered questions. Is she the one for me? Does she like me? Will she message me back? What must she be thinking? Will she accept my proposal? So many questions!!

As I think, this is one such occasion, when uncertainty brings about a smile on one's face, because the adrenaline which flows with this tension is amazing. Finally I decided to propose Aksha and one fine night I said to her on the phone "I Love You".

2: First Year

       In the first year at the engineering college everyone apparently took their studies seriously. It was the beginning of the college life and we had not been used to the entertainment side yet, or at least not me. We had this physics lab, where all of us had assembled before couple of professors who were quite good, the realization of how good they were came to us quite late when we met with hopeless professors in the following years!. The entire batch of students at the lab was split into groups of two. There was this one girl who was really pretty and all the guys gave her the stares, they were dying to be with her and talk to her or whatever. Frankly even I wanted to talk to her and be with her. And lady luck smiled on me and we both were in the same group. wow! I was really thrilled and the guys were like, he is the lucky guy. I too got quite the stares but the other kind.

But given how chickened out I was considering the new college and new place, I just could not appreciate anything else apart from physics. How stupid could I get!. But the lab turned out to be quite exciting, this girl was very beautiful, quite intelligent too but she was too careless, come on!! There had to be at least one negative point right, she NEVER filled her lab observation book. And I had to come to the rescue every single time, but look at the irony, I was at the receiving end of the professor more often than not for the bad reasons. Made good memories though, she must have been like who is this boring guy who is into studies all the time, doesn't talk much and he does not even manipulate the experimental values if needed. Needless to say I was quite nervous around her that made me act even more foolish at times. One such occasion was when she offered me to meet her friends and to hang out, I refused! Can you believe that? And what was the reason? I bluttered out saying I had some other work. God alone should know what important work I had to deal with.

Anyways there were a lot more incidents which made the whole of the first year quite memorable. The mechanical workshop where we had to file a piece of metal infinitely to change its shape, but it eventually remained the same. The mysterious chemistry lab which was fun and of zero learning to me. Talking about the chemistry lab, I still remember an incident where a friend of mine had to plot the graph and circle the points to make sure the points are highlighted, he drew them so big that the professor with a silly sense of humor said "Why are they so big, are you circling the points or are you drawing the Mekhri circle!!" For all the non-Bangalore friends Mekhri circle is an important road junction in Bangalore. That was one hilarious incident that seemed to have stuck with me for quite some time.

At the end of the first year I came down as a guy who was sarcastic and very notorious too. I used to pull people's leg and play quite a few pranks on them. But the guys who saw the loyal friend in me, stuck with me.

I wonder that in the beginning I was quite an introvert, but as days passed by I realized that I was just opposite of that. I had the fear of a new place and language, but I shaped up quite well. One noticeable thing is all that characters that enter my journey have quite unique personalities that are something which I have always noticed and been quite amazed about.

It is quite hard to pen down all the memorable incidents, as there were plenty of funny and memorable incidents. At the end of the 1st year, I and 3 of my friends decided to take a small trip to the place I came from, Hyderabad. It was the first time that my parents let me out that way with no adult supervision. It was a big deal for us, as it was mainly associated with three words "Freedom, Freedom and Freedom". Not that we were up to something mischievous but fun in our own kiddish way.

Trip was good, we visited all the famous places in the city and had amazing breakfast on the streets of the famous Birla Temple. The authentic South Indian breakfast "Idli and Dosa served with delicious chutney and sambhar on the Banana leaf". Quite an unforgettable meal! Before the trip began I was pretty upbeat about it as I was from that place and I was trying to show off as if I own the place. There were some situations when I was quite confident of myself, this trip was one such occasion. But that did not last long, I ended up fighting with the auto driver! I feel stupid about it till this day. But I stood up for the injustice, quite a big term for the scenario right. But the embarrassing thing was my friend Aditya settled the matter in the end by paying him more than what was required. Yes, the main aim of my fight was lost :( I know, I am making it a big deal, let me move on from this. Anyways moving on from there, the trip was quite good with no more fights along the way. The first year thus came to a close and we had an important transition from juniors to seniors. 

1: The Beginning

First love as shown in Bollywood movies is generally associated with a beautiful girl wearing an adorable dress, her hair loosened and the climate gloomy and romantic, just about to rain. It would be slightly windy just right to faintly blow her hair. And there is this guy who is staring at her wondering if she was the beautiful princess who just landed on Earth from Heaven. The girl would have a smile on her face for no apparent reason. More often than not this is a typical scene where he eventually falls for the girl and thus begins a love story. How romantic!!
            Well. Nothing of that sort not even close happened to Sid...Ohh! Wait, Who is Sid? To start off, Sid is just another guy who moved into a new city as his father got transferred. He comes off as a guy who is kind of an introvert, shy, who is real slow in terms of interaction or at least was one when his character begins. Whether he changes for the better or for the worst or remains the same is something to look forward to! Sid's family had just moved to Bangalore and this guy was really scared about the new engineering college, but somehow mustered the courage to act bold and look fine.
Enough of the context to Sid as a 3rd person, from now on Sid takes over. :)
            On my first day at college, my father gave me some advice which was portrayed as two golden rules to succeed in college, little did he know that his son would do exactly the opposite :). Rule 1: "Never talk to Girls". Rule 2: "Study and only study". It was like a lol moment. However, I took his advice or at least nodded my head in agreement. I always think I nodded because, the ridiculousness of these two rules were overcome by my fear associated with the new place, unknown language and the kind of an introvert I was.
First few days at the new college were OK, they were not bad as I thought it would turn out to be, but nonetheless wasn’t great either. Got ragged on a couple of occasions, met some new people. Well not that bad right!! Sometimes you prepare for the worst and even the normal turns out to be good.
            As it was the beginning of a long 4 year journey, we had this session at the beginning of every new class. We had to stand up, speak out our name, the place one came from and something about oneself in few words. So I had to stand up and mention that I was from "Hyderabad", the city from which I was born and brought up. Most of them were like who is this guy from Hyderabad. It was like who is this alien. Ohh, dude from Hyderabad! Let’s see what he has got. The funny thing was, not sure if my fellow class mates thought this way, but it was something running in my head on and on. This pretty much sums up the state of mind I was in. Adding to that, there was an awkward moment in every such session. I had a surname which was hard to pronounce and it wasn't even a nice sounding surname. It was something I wish I did not have at that point of time. In the roll call, all the professors would stutter at the name and they would be like "Who... is..this.." So I had to stand up every time and say, "Sir/Madam, that is my surname, please call me as Sid". It did not stop there, the curious mind of these professors prompted them to ask me, why not by that name? They even said, they would call the name that is expanded and which was first in my name. It was ridiculous, I mean why can't they take the easier way out by calling me Sid. I even took the pain to tell a prof that according to some astrology my surname had been expanded by my parents and that is the reason why it was expanded in the first place. It was greeted by a roar of laughter from all the students. But, looking on the positive side, I did grab quite some attention by that act of mine.
            As the 1st year came to a close, I realized that I had a blast. Ok Wait, Hold on!!!This is like a welcome transition from the previous Sid, who now is having a blast. Something must have gone wonderfully different but what was it?
            Well it's not like things went according to a plan because there was no plan to start off with. As days passed by I kept meeting new people. There were some awkward moments for sure, but without realizing it I did manage to meet a few real good guys and we connected really well. I shall introduce these characters slowly as I unveil my college journey, which was like a sinusoidal wave with lot of ups and downs.