3 frns in a new City Part 1 (complete)

It was early 2005, and we were in an obvious frustration. And why not, its common feeling of all private Engineering collage students of UP Tech University. After getting patches of carried over exams, we had the challenge of life cunningly laughing at us. This is the truth of three boys with average looks, diverse heights and versatile thoughts. There was nothing common except the fact that none had a girl in their life. And none of them allowed others to have one. That’s another interesting story but I will stick to the subject of this post. Let me go further back to get these guys introduced. It was day1 of college and we were bombarded by seniors. And unlike to what people say, we enjoyed the ragging. And let me tell you it was not decent. It had all dirty things that you must have heard...But that’s what we are...indecent people... Okay.... so fist day in college...first hour of first semester engg.....it was workshop lab. There were 3 girls sitting next to me and I was planning for three different plans for all of three. But sooner I realized that I was not alone, a tall black (I will not say dark because that will take him near to tall dark and handsome trio which I don't want) guy was also looking at girls with almost (might be with more dirtier) same intentions. This was the first time I met Nishant Porwal. He was a local boy. Since we both were good in sharing non-veg jokes and lab was not interesting.... soon we became friends...at least to sit together and share notes. Beside Nishant there was another person (he couldn't be categorized in boys because of age factor). He was looking bit frustrated. Probably because he found kids around him with whom he had to spend 4 years.... or probably because of ragging...or probably he was first time out of his home... He was showing some anger, mixed with frustration along with blend of dissatisfaction on Nishant's and mine joke sharing. Unexpectedly (later down the line it became expected behavior of him) he did not laugh on jokes. He had lot more attributes that is beyond my capacity to describe here. Oh yes he was Rahul singh from Gorakhpur. A name that never suited his personality. Aaah, that’s my bad habit.... I always tend over explain something.... Ok...enough of intro...lets come to the final year of engg. Well we three were now in final year and the biggest question was..."What we would do next...JOB??? Who will recruit us...what do we know about industry...we were nearly bad in English communication (least qualification to get an average job...at least at that time we all thought so)...technically we were not so sound (at least we were not in any great confusion as our other mates were).... Should we go for further studies...This was not an option for Rahul. Nishant an me prepared for CAT...that was a disaster...I don't want to recall that... In this dilemma we finished our final sem exam and pushed to an edge where virtually we had nothing to decide.

Nishant had few contacts in various MNCs and he was relaxed. His Shobhit bhaiya (relative of him) assured him a good job in HCL. Some other relative assured him a job in Tata Indicom... His brother's friend assured him a job in another MNC... that was enough to kill Rahul out of frustration...

The damage CAT had done to Nishant and me was incredible... We never expected any score more than 75, but 45... wasn't it too bad... Probably not... at least I was never a more than average student...and in the given condition I couldn't have done better but Nishant always over estimated himself. His miscalculation led him to prepare for 2nd class management exams... and he could not excel there too. I could not think of another waste of money (pereparing for management exams is costly affair).
I don't know why this ugliest thing called money was always a obstacle for me... even now too. There is a misconception in the minds of all the competitive exam aspirants. Nearly all the unsuccessful JEE aspirants think that they can crack the other non-JEE exams very easily... wait a minute... Boss this is India... never under estimate its population. Specially the population that has done research in such exams after reappearing 'n' no. of times. Nishant became (n+1)th victim of that misconception and turned back to jobs (wise deceision in my opinion)... well no problem I have lot choices in my hand, thought Nishant.

A similar thought was there in Rahul's mind for Nishant. We met at a chai shop in Chinhat (a common place for us lucknow). And rahul started... Sala kismat ho to aisi... yaha ek job ka thikana nahi aur sale ki 3 - 3 job... @#$%% meri kismat kitni *&^% hai... (One should be lucky like this...There is no single sign of a single job for us and he has 3...How bad my luck is...). He ordered for one more tea. I tried to relax him, abe lag jayegi tumhari bhi... kahe ko pareshan ho... sala kuch saal bad sab ek level pe honge... aur tum kya kisi se patla mootate ho... (Dude! you too will get one good job... don't worry, some year later down the line we all will be at same level... you are not less intelligent than anyone else... you too don't piss thinner current of urine then anyone else)... My words triggered more frustration... abe bakar mat karo... tum jante ho kaun kya hai... sala itna hi tej hote to itni back na ati... (Don’t talk non sense... you know who is capable of what... If I was so intelligent then why did I wrote so many carry over exams??)... And as usual I bowed down against his frustration. Few people are very innocent furstu... they don't need any special cause to turn their frustration on.

Well 2 day's later we 3 met at Nishant's house. I said - Guys lets go to bangalore and search for a job. This time industry is at boom and we will get something nice... This volunteer choice surprised every one. Nishant said... if 'you guys' want to go then go to Delhi, I can offer you few references. Nishant wouldn't have meant anything wrong but his words offended Rahul and me too. Rahul smiled meaningfully but didn't say anything. Probably he didn't want to miss any chance. Even if comes out of someone's favor. We have a saying in our industry (and probably fits everywhere)..."Freshers' are begger... not a chooser". Rahul understood this fact very well but probably I was not ready to accept that at that point of time. I took almost 5 months to accept this fact.

I was a guy who always believed doing things with good plan. I was firm on my stand on going to Bangalore for job search and I decided a date, 17th July. I started looking for available train. In our huge country if you don't plan your travel at least 2 months in advance (specially if your starting point is somewhere in northern part on the nation), there is a fair chance of you not traveling peacefully (sometimes even if you plan, the journey is not peaceful. Well I am not complaining about
anything but just trying to give you true picture) or not traveling et all. Meanwhile Rahul and some other freinds kept wobbling in their minds about the destination. Some told lets go to Pune, some said Delhi, and some said haydarabad and some new destination out of nothing. But no one was so determined as me. Rahul realized that more discussion with more people is going to confuse him more and he joined me. We got 2 sleeper class berth reserved from Lucknow to Delhi and then from Delhi to Bangalore. Well now we were bit relaxed because we had something finalized.

Nishant's relatives were always promising for him. But unfortunately those were just promises which were not likely to see the face of commitment. He started realizing that. He decided to join us and got his train tickets booked in the same Delhi to Bangalore train (his boarding was from Jhansi) in which we were coming from Delhi. As Rahul and I had some extra miles to travel, we could not arrange for food for 3 days. We asked Nishant to get enough food sufficient for our journey.

Well, Rahul and I started our first patch of long journey, from Lucknow to Delhi. We reached Delhi on July 18th morning and to save money, preferred to stay on the railway station till next day morning to catch our next train from Delhi to Bangalore. There are interesting series of incidents that Rahul and I shared in our Delhi arrival. I will narrate that some time. Ah... I can't resist... let this story be long... who cares as long as it satisfies me as a storyteller. Well... We had tons of luggages with us. Cloths, personal gadgets, eatable? Shut up... we are engineers... and going for a job search... don't you think we may need any book that we have read in our academics... we may need even those too which we never read. We had all the books of world that we thought could help us preparing for job interviews. We had 1 huge suitcase and one trunk all filled with books. I am not sure how much pain books underwent while traveling with us but the amount of calories we burnt by getting our belongings from platform no. 7 to the sleeper waiting room was deadly. I was a slim (better if I say weak), lean guy with great amount of enthuse; Rahul’s was an average personality. He advocated hiring a collie but my policy of money saving appealed him. Well, the weight of luggage was on our heads, solders, hands... everywhere... every single organ of body was abusing my policy of money saving. Rahul's mind started listening to his muscles and I had no mussels to complain. Rahul said... "abe pandey, chutiyapa bahut hua, sale colie kar lo nahi bangalore pahuchne ki noubat hi nahi ayegi... yahi pe shaheed ho jaoge..." (Dude! enogh of madness... lets hire a colie... don't try a suicide before getting a job)... I gave him a nice lecture on doing your job yourself (most of my speech was copy paste for Gandhi's dialogs... This was my on of the good or bad habits... I am always ready with a great meditative example that I have learnt over a period of time. Sometime that irritates people). And my tinny muscles, calcium and phosphorus (people call it bones, but these chemicals made almost 90% of my body) accompanied my lecture to lead Rahul's mind with example. Somehow we reached at platform no. one. Mistake, the sleeper waiting room was on 2nd floor on platform no. 3. You can (or probably can't) imagin how badly Rahul was scolding me. I was bearing many things... wieght of laggage, rahul's abuses and scoldings, and heat of northern India.

When we reached the 2rd flore waiting room, Rahul was looking like a beggar and I was none less than a TB patient. But life is not only about bad things and struggles dude... What we saw in the waiting room was enough to forget the pain of Rahul’s muscles and my bones. Vertika!!! (one of the bombshell from our college, she stayed near Nishant's home) combing her hairs in front of the waiting room mirror!!! This view of 2 seconds (something happened after 2 seconds) relieved us... Rahul said... "Abe pandey... Porwal ka maal... Vikas nagar... samne dekho sale"… stupid didn't know that I noticed her before him. She turned back and looked with anger and hate and went to the rest room... I hit Rahul and said "*#!^ chup nahi raha jata....jaha muh khologe, kela hi karoge..."

Well she was with her father and left immediately after that. We booked the clock room and kept our luggage there. We roamed near the station till 11 PM and returned back. We had to catch the next train in early next morning. We saw lots of people sleeping on the floor. Tired Indian travelers... sleeping so deep... using their luggage as pillow. Here we saw something funny. A Sardar jee kept his shoes beneath his heads (and was not missing his pillow) sleeping madly. His wallet was thinking to come out of his pocket and his hips were talking to a young boy's face. The boy was dead sleepy. And there happened something stinky… probably the Sardar jee farted (I am sure because I felt the jolt of salty smell in my very next breath). You can imagine the situation of that boy's lungs who directly inhaled the 90% of the air. Rest of 10% was enough to kill us. But the poor boy just made little movement and again started snoring as if a 303 bullet hit a pregnent Godzilla. The fun didn't stop there. Sardar G's leg was doing funny movements... it was trying to discover the exhaust of another men. I think some mosquito was trying to test Panjabi blood and trying to insert his nose in Sardar G's leg. Sardar G's leg at that time found a shelter in between someone's pair of hips. His legs were testing the elasticity of poor fellow’s hips but no reaction from the other side. Poverty always comes with deep sleep.

There were many other incidents... but some time later... We caught the train and started waiting for Nishant... huh not to meet him... but to get the food that he promised to get. We arrived Jhansi at 10 Am and saw Nishant on the platform... what the hell!!! Bloody has only one bag in his hand... no food!! He faced 30 minutes of attack from us. Our 2 days journey was full of fun. We were starving for good food and in the same compartment a family had food for all the occasion. They eat pre-breakfast, breakfast, post-breakfast, pre-lunch, lunch, post-lunch... they didn't miss a single chance of eating. They invoked a food riot in our minds.

On July 20th morning we were near the Majestic railway station and very excited. There was a misconception in our minds that the moment we hit the holy deck of Bangalore (Journey to Bangalore was like journey to moon for us, for me its still.
I never forget my basics), a well figured female HR executive, with job offer latters for us in her left hand, would shake her right hand and welcome us to bangalore. And we would give a super tight hug of our life... ... ... wait a minute... we would hug each other not the HR executive...OKAY!! You dirty mind readers...

Well the story of struggle starts form here on. In next post. Comments plz...