SIMSR----The Intro

When someone told me , "you'll learn more in hostel than in classroom", it didn't make much sense to me.But trust me, one and a half months down the line, I know what he meant.Let me start the story named SIMSR. I'll keep on introducing the characters as and when they come. All characters in this story are real. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely intentional.

Meet my first roomie Sayan. He's of Type B(thanks Preity Rawat),the most laid back person I have ever seen. But a gem of a student, and why not? He's from JU after all.His favourite pass time is sleeping and I guess drinking.

My second roomie Siddharth, the Nanha Pahelwaan. He's a master coder. Hang on, he's not a boring engineer for God's sake. He has his unique style of creating codes taking initials. Let me give an example. IT is used in Banking, Inventory, Gaming, Railways, Airlines, Telecoms, Hotels, Education, Financial Institutions, Insurance.So he came up with the code BIG RAT HEFI. Sometimes he forgets the key to the codes and runs to Sushovan for remembering the same.

Meet Sushovan, Steve as we call him. He's taller than a couple of girls in class. But don't go by his height.He's a master in Karate and Krav Maga. But alas,that didn't come to much use that day in front of Anand.

Meet Anand,the Nigerian as Monika Khanna calls him. He has got loads of names.Hulk,Daisy (look at the contrast),Flip master,and the list goes on. The strongest guy of our batch, Anand dominates by his sheer brutal physical presence.If only someone can give him competition it's Shaleen .

Shaleen, the body builder. There's a story that Siddharth was once asked by Shaleen to pass on weights in the gym. Poor Siddharth was unable to lift those weights even. Sid has his explanation that he was too tired after gymming, but trust his version at your own risk.

It was a dull Friday coming to a close. Thanks to our strange routine, our only Operations class was over before noon. Though sleeping is a good way of killing time, when you see friends from Mumbai and Pune going to their homes, you can't sleep peacefully. Siddharth was busy "keeping himself updated" with the proceedings of the class with Steve, and I, was doing what I was best at, making use of g talk and IP messenger. When we were slowly closing down on our activities for the day, in walked PD.

PD, or Priyadarsh is the prankster of our batch. I was talking about learning from hostel,well lesson number 1----never leave your laptop open with you being logged in your e mail account and/or IP messenger. I am sure Sushovan will second me. But he's a genius in designing and a fantastic speaker.

"Wassup Chaman log?"----PD at his usual best."Nothing just glancing through today's notes", Siddharth replied. "Oh living virus is also here?", PD refered to Sushovan. There's enough reason to call him that. Whichever laptop he has touched, it has been screwed badly. So we have concluded he's a physical virus. "You know something PD, Steve has a fan ---- Avani Rachh". Sushovan looked at me and in no time delivered a kick right to my left rib. Whether it was Krav Maga or Karate, it made no difference as the pain is what mattered. "Oh man, your future is screwed. It's good you have fan following amidst faculty as well, but I guess you deserved someone better than Avani Rachh",PD was in full mood then. "Imagine you and Avani running on the beach with the back ground score of La La La of Sagar.""I guess the only difference will be that we'll run in the same direction."

The next Sunday we faced the Mumbai showers for the first time. Most of our friends were out. Sushovan had gone to his Krav Maga class in Dadar. Sonali and Madhumita had gone for shopping, and Gauraav had gone to his friend's place.

Madhumita and Sonali the two inseparable souls of SIMSR. They come from the same city of Delhi, they share the same room (with Harshita) and the same bench too. Madhumita is very famous in SIMSR because of her tongue. If you ever come across this lass, don't miss any of her words while she speaks in her Boston-meets-Bandra accent.Then you have Sonali, the kid of our section. She is yet to receive her graduation certificate and it shows. And lastly let me introduce the future netaji Gauraav. No there's no spelling mistake, that's how he spells his name. This guy has got loads of experience in life and the best part is he's very humble. As the CR of our class, at the end of every period he unfailingly comes up with an announcement in his unique style-----with both hands in the air and shouting at the top of his squeaking voice "HOLD ON."

DG had warned us for Mumbai rains earlier. But we took it lightly I guess. With only two-three hours of rain,the local train service was called off. Everyone in the hostel was calling up friends to know their whereabouts. Steve's phone was out-of-reach, Gauraav had reached Dadar and Madhumita-Sonali were, well, somewhere in between, even they didn't know the place.The main problem was the 10:30 deadline. At around 10:15 in walked Gauraav. Learnt an useful lesson from him which I have used till date many a time with good effect. He said , "When I couldn't find any rickshaw willing to go, I got hold of one, got on it without asking, and said CHALO. Only after 2-3 minutes did I tell him where I had to go". Trust me, it might sound unimportant, but this lesson is of prime importance in Mumbai.

Sushovan came back 20 minutes later. The poor soul he is, he got drowned till his chest and walked with his bag held over his head for quite sometime before he somehow managed to get hold of a rickshaw. Thank you God for the height. Madhumita-Sonali were the last to reach the hostel. Later they claimed it was an interesting episode for them, though I doubt, because since then they have never gone out for a shopping trip.