People around me seem to be repeating that all good times come to an end. I ask, why does it have to be so. For me, the best phase of my life got over yesterday. I was doing an internship with Mathematical Sciences Foundation [www.mathscifound.org] over the past 1 month which was held at DPS, RKP. It all started with a ‘special friend’ of mine suggesting me to apply for it, which I did right at the deadline. The recommendations also reached 1 day late. But still I got selected for it. There was more trouble as the first and the third day clashed with my pracs which were postponed due to the general elections, so had to ask for partial leave on those days.
Number of girls in the initial list was enough to send a rush of adrenalin through me. Then when I got to know that in the group of 6, I was the only boy it was balle balle time. But as it happens with me all the time, sab shareef nikli.
With eyes on the ISRO trip, I thought taking the ‘Chandrayaan Orbit Simulation’ project would be a masterstroke but what a big mistake it was. How can 6 college going students of diverse backgrounds do anything in comparison to something which took hundreds of scientists to achieve.
Now let me introduce you to my group members (alphabetical order) who truly represented India’s diversity.
- Lubna Wali Shah (Kashmir ki kali): Hailing from Srinagar she had a great time in Delhi. Made friends take pledges that they would go to Sarojini Nagar with her and what a day they chose, 21 june, the hottest day of the year. Her shopping spree ended with a suitcase which she had to buy to fit in all that she had bought.
- Neha Gupta: One of the two baniyas. Very much introvert. Initially was shying away from responsibility of work citing lack of confidence and in the end complained that she didn’t have enough of it.
- Rangoli Goyal: The other baniya girl. Iske kya kehne. Never ragged my junior at college so badnly but she inspite of being a first year from a far flung college in Rajasthan had to face the brunt of my ire. This weird name of her is because of her birthdate coinciding with Holi that year. I have 1 question for her, Why wasn’t she named Gubara Or Pichkari then? Have recorded videos of her singing ‘Tum to thehre Pardesi’ in the mess due to my oppression. Can blackmail her throughout her life with threats of uploading it on the web. All you can find around her are people with more weird names. Still don't remember whether her friend's name is Kopla orKolpa.
My decription of her is that of a girl whose husband has gone off and she is waiting for him to come back.
- Soraisam Monika Devi: She was from Manipur. Reserved kind off, maintained proximity to a boy who doesn’t seem to be straight. Can’t pardon her for life for telling me that the crap I speak is indeed crap.
- Sweety Thomas: True to her name. She hails from Kerala. Her name’s google translation comes out to be ‘Mashooka’ and ‘Chota Kalakand’. Shared a great rapport with her too. Even made her cry once for being too ‘dedicated’. Best of luck for civils. Troubled her a lot by linking her with the worst kind of people I could find there and sending anon messages by their names.
My decription of her is that of a girl who is getting married and her husband is on his way but caught up in a traffic jam.
Also there is me, who created hell on earth for these five, especially Rangoli and Sweety as they were the closest friends I had in the group. At last I found people who could laugh at my jokes. Rangoli being the youngest was made the group leader by MSF, but sadly she never was in control and had the tendency to freak out with deadlines approaching. But those were the perfect times for me to take charge as all my work gets completed just in the nick of time.
Hence we were a group composing of some one from North, East, South, 2 baniyas and me, Punjabi munda who knows only expletives in that language.
Sunaina: She belonged to the other ‘Chandrayaan’ college group which apart from her was composed of a bunch of losers. She had to face the brunt of my cunning maneuvers as her group members used to leave all work on her shoulders to match up with our group for which she had to endure many sleepless nights. She is the only person till now who I have met and have certified her to be ‘weirder’ than me. Composes poem at the drop of the hat and goes off to teachers showing her composition which was done during his lecture. We would have created a supernova had she been part of our group. She must have written around 15 poems within this 1 month. Once I asked her to write a poem for me, as in for my group’s project and she ended up writing a poem on Me. My description of her is a girl in ghagra-choli who is worrying how to arrange for the next meal for her kids.
These are friends I would love to take to hell along with me, but I am sure they are not that good that they would accompany me there as my ticket is confirmed. Hats off to them for tolerating me for so long. We had our moments, some embarrassing ones, when I said ‘dum lagaun kya’ when I wanted to say ‘dum laga’ song lagaun kya (hope you know what dum lagana means in that song). When with a finger pointing to her neck, I told to Sweety to remove her ‘this’ (referring to her I card) as a red ant had crawled up on it but others around took this in a totally different tone.
MSF is an association of big people who are noble minded to create a better India. Prof Dinesh Singh, Dr. Sanjeev Aggarwal, Dr. Amber Habib (his father/grandparents were big time historians associated with Gandhi and have their wiki entries too. His wife is a cosmologist and brother Salman habib has done infinite number of researches); all brilliant minds and names worth googling.
Also there was the staff and mentors who were genuinely nice people. Zia sir (getting married on 1 july) helped us join our slides for the flash presentation. Nitish sir propped up occasionally shooting people while eating and showing them on the projector. He was there with his camera when we were infuriated on being wrongfully accused of tampering with DPS’s monitor screens and managed to bring a smile on our faces, forgetting all that anger. The twin bros Ayaz/ Riyaz too were very helpful.
Also tried my hand at tennis there and after the initial hiccups, ended up pretty well, serving a couple of aces. Also bowled a rib high beamer to Jitin sir who soon had to go off due to a headache. Snapped up a member of the mess staff there, Mr. Ram Prasad for his Nathu Lal style moustache. Basically there, I did everything apart from entering the girl’s hostel rooms. On the day of the final presentation, me, Sweety and Rangoli skipped other’s presentations and breakfast, lunch, rasna time too prepare for it and ended up with a decent job. A timely edit by me at the very end enabled Sweety showcase her work on Gauss method of orbit determination which unlike the other group was done by her and was also a bone of contention between us as I too wanted her to copy it to save her from those sleepless nights in someone else’s rooms on borrowed lappys as her dabba Celeron couldn’t even install Matlab.
The worst part of the program was the traffic jams I had to endure. Everyday something new used to happen to get me late, though the conductor with his baritone and acts of giving ‘vidya kasam’ to commuters to tell their true destinations, asking for the non existent fans to be switched on in his dilapidated bus made up for it.
Our schedule there until the last week was 1 hour lecture, then breakfast, then again lecture, then lunch, a little longer lecture then Rasna time and after that 2 lectures. In the last week it was only work and deadly deadlines. Would never forget this experience, though I might not get into tech field inspite of this (appreciation of Mathematics and some respect for Bsc/ Hons. walas has surely been an effect) but would surely like to sponsor such a noble cause of touching lives if I do become rich enough. Not uploading any pics ( In my orkut album) here cause people around already have been victims of morphing and I don’t want to add to their troubles.
Have to say it once again,
THESE WERE THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE.