For students like me, the struggle for recognition had two facets. one was concerned with my degree and the other was concerned with my own recognition as a person. the college authorities were expected to do everything for the first part while, naturally, for my own recognition, i had to do whatever i could.
as i have elaborated earlier, the groups of like minded (and like funded!)started forming in our class. since we were averse to concept of closed walled groups, we never attempted formally to form any group. so we, i tapasvi and hemant remained aloof from all the groups, ultimately resulting in 'no group' group! our group also consisted students like bimal chhaya- a fanatic proprietor of no group theory, anish shah, chirag shah and of course biren gandhi-my room mate. but truly speaking, our 'no group' group was lacking in girl members.
as far as girls were concerned, hemant was least interested in any such relationship. in fact, though being a fair and chocolaty collegian, he was averse to girls! if any girl tried to take even a glimpse of his face anytime in the class, his expression remained such, would never dare to speak with him.
for tapasvi, the case was different.It was not that he was deeply interested in girls, but some how you could find him now and then in between bunch of girls and girls! may be he was very good communicator and knew exactly how and what to speak with girls.though he was a tall but an average guy, his eyes were very caring and truthful, probably making him a very trust-able man.
in between these two, probably i was on a mid line. not averse to girls like hemant on one side and not a krishna kanhaiya like tapasvi on the other. i was a thin, a bit dark skinned and serious appearing guy.honestly, i must say, not that i was not interested in girls but i never knew how to speak with them. as i have written earlier, my first experience of talking with a college girl , that too my own classmate, added to my disability. i felt grossly insulted due to that bizarre event and feared rejection every time when i talked with any girl.
thus, one day, when beji and jasmine invited us to join with them and to make a group,though facing full resistance from hemant, i was happy. the original idea of forming a group was of beji.the group was officially formed and consisted jasmine, beji and anu from girls and tapasvi ramesh and me. But unofficially, all my other friends were in a way part of the group since they were joining us in one or other activity of their choice and this included hemant also.
beji was an uncontested dictator of the group activities. she was a keralian christian girl with big and naughty eyes, smiling face and sharp brain. she used to speak many a times in riddles that no one could ever understand (even today, if you wish to cross check my statement, just open up her facebook wall and look at her posts - half of them probably she might not be understanding herself!). still, to our gross irritation, she and jasmine would giggle and would say some words secretly in each other's ears, after such riddles! she was very out spoken and liked to be at the center of the attention.she was a very confident girl assured of all her qualities. but strangely enough, though she appeared adult, sometimes she behaved like a child. the bottom line for her was - she liked to be liked !
jasmine, looked more like a shadow to beji, had a little desire to get noticed. it was her nature to study study and study. though she had thick glasses, i could notice, her eyes were full of tender innocence.she loved beji as much as she would endorse almost everything said by beji and would do everything to please beji. she was so much influenced by beji, she used to forget even her own independent identity in beji's presence.
to me, their friendship was something that made me feel valued for myself and added some answer to quest of my own recognition.
some times, beji and jasmine had weird ideas. like, on my very first birthday after my entry to psmc, they suddenly appeared on the gate of boys' hostel. it was hot evening time of the august. until now,all my birthdays were celebrated at my home. this was my first birthday away from my home. the whole day had passed like a routine one. how could i imagine, something would happen of such a kind, i would remember the day for the life!
" hello neh! let us go for party!" exclaimed beji and asked us to come for a surprise party. there was a colorful gift packet in her hand. i wondered what was there in! was it really for me?
we were summoned to our lecture hall's terrace. i tapasvi and hemant climbed exhausting stairs to reach to our beautiful terrace. it was so high, you could feel like to be on a small mountain. since ours was a rural college, once you climb up, the eyes could feast on trees and farms all around, till the skies met the horizon.as the terrace was on the lecture hall there was natural almost forty five degree slope in half of the terrace making it a leisurely place. you could throw your body loose on the slope and enjoy the sun set. our psmc was a college with many couples and lovers - no doubt the terrace had many stories to tell and was full of hidden secrets!
jasmine, beji and anu were waiting for us.the sun was about to set.the air was clean and the terrace was glowing golden with setting sun's light. we all sat in one of the corner of the terrace and a candle was lit urgently.
Until now, i really hated the English way of celebrating the birth days. back at home, i used to celebrate the day with my friends without any kind of candle blowing or singing happy birth day. no friend was allowed to gift me. it was rule to give all something to eat but never a cake or a pastry. i used to ridicule my other friends which celebrated birth day in so called English way.
here, on the same occasion, things were up side down! everything was prepared beforehand. even, they bought some gifts for me. what gifts? they had a small packet nicely covered with a shining decorative paper.
'Hey neh, cone on! what are you waiting for? " looking at my hesitant expression, beji said. i was confused and was thinking if i could deny such a ceremony. but looking at the enthusiasm, it would have been too harsh behavior from me. i did not say anything and simply obeyed the order.
as soon as i blew the candle, all my friends sung "happy birthday"- the song i hated till date. before i could think more, the colorful box was put in my hand. they asked me to open. to my surprise, there was a kite shaped water push button game of rings and there was a balloon attached with a noise making hollow wood stick.i was stunned.
"what is this?" i said in puzzled voice. what did they think of me? a child of 3yr ? a mentally challenged baby? i really could not understand how to react to it. i accepted it with a bit hesitation.
" cant you see boy?"within seconds, beji snatched my game and showed me how to play, as if i was the most dumb lad available around! she also blew air in the balloon with all her lung capacity and showed me how to blow in the hollow stick to make noise from the gifted balloon!
" so, you can play like this! " said beji tagging the line with her big smile. tapasvi laughed.
think of a situation when you are trying to behave more like a man but pushed by your girl friends to behave like a kid. any way, i had no option but to accept the gifts. i could have said no, but that could have hurt their feelings. i felt, the love and care shown for me was far more important to respect than to stick to my beliefs and principles. probably that was not the time to have discussion on such a serious topic.
they had brought pastries and something more to eat. every one was happy. i was too! the evening was made special by making each of my friend sing for me something.
i remember, though i never played, i had kept those gifts carefully till recently with utmost care. it was a symbol of love and care showered on me by my new friends of the college. the quest of recognition started taking some shape.
as i have elaborated earlier, the groups of like minded (and like funded!)started forming in our class. since we were averse to concept of closed walled groups, we never attempted formally to form any group. so we, i tapasvi and hemant remained aloof from all the groups, ultimately resulting in 'no group' group! our group also consisted students like bimal chhaya- a fanatic proprietor of no group theory, anish shah, chirag shah and of course biren gandhi-my room mate. but truly speaking, our 'no group' group was lacking in girl members.
as far as girls were concerned, hemant was least interested in any such relationship. in fact, though being a fair and chocolaty collegian, he was averse to girls! if any girl tried to take even a glimpse of his face anytime in the class, his expression remained such, would never dare to speak with him.
for tapasvi, the case was different.It was not that he was deeply interested in girls, but some how you could find him now and then in between bunch of girls and girls! may be he was very good communicator and knew exactly how and what to speak with girls.though he was a tall but an average guy, his eyes were very caring and truthful, probably making him a very trust-able man.
in between these two, probably i was on a mid line. not averse to girls like hemant on one side and not a krishna kanhaiya like tapasvi on the other. i was a thin, a bit dark skinned and serious appearing guy.honestly, i must say, not that i was not interested in girls but i never knew how to speak with them. as i have written earlier, my first experience of talking with a college girl , that too my own classmate, added to my disability. i felt grossly insulted due to that bizarre event and feared rejection every time when i talked with any girl.
thus, one day, when beji and jasmine invited us to join with them and to make a group,though facing full resistance from hemant, i was happy. the original idea of forming a group was of beji.the group was officially formed and consisted jasmine, beji and anu from girls and tapasvi ramesh and me. But unofficially, all my other friends were in a way part of the group since they were joining us in one or other activity of their choice and this included hemant also.
beji was an uncontested dictator of the group activities. she was a keralian christian girl with big and naughty eyes, smiling face and sharp brain. she used to speak many a times in riddles that no one could ever understand (even today, if you wish to cross check my statement, just open up her facebook wall and look at her posts - half of them probably she might not be understanding herself!). still, to our gross irritation, she and jasmine would giggle and would say some words secretly in each other's ears, after such riddles! she was very out spoken and liked to be at the center of the attention.she was a very confident girl assured of all her qualities. but strangely enough, though she appeared adult, sometimes she behaved like a child. the bottom line for her was - she liked to be liked !
jasmine, looked more like a shadow to beji, had a little desire to get noticed. it was her nature to study study and study. though she had thick glasses, i could notice, her eyes were full of tender innocence.she loved beji as much as she would endorse almost everything said by beji and would do everything to please beji. she was so much influenced by beji, she used to forget even her own independent identity in beji's presence.
to me, their friendship was something that made me feel valued for myself and added some answer to quest of my own recognition.
some times, beji and jasmine had weird ideas. like, on my very first birthday after my entry to psmc, they suddenly appeared on the gate of boys' hostel. it was hot evening time of the august. until now,all my birthdays were celebrated at my home. this was my first birthday away from my home. the whole day had passed like a routine one. how could i imagine, something would happen of such a kind, i would remember the day for the life!
" hello neh! let us go for party!" exclaimed beji and asked us to come for a surprise party. there was a colorful gift packet in her hand. i wondered what was there in! was it really for me?
we were summoned to our lecture hall's terrace. i tapasvi and hemant climbed exhausting stairs to reach to our beautiful terrace. it was so high, you could feel like to be on a small mountain. since ours was a rural college, once you climb up, the eyes could feast on trees and farms all around, till the skies met the horizon.as the terrace was on the lecture hall there was natural almost forty five degree slope in half of the terrace making it a leisurely place. you could throw your body loose on the slope and enjoy the sun set. our psmc was a college with many couples and lovers - no doubt the terrace had many stories to tell and was full of hidden secrets!
jasmine, beji and anu were waiting for us.the sun was about to set.the air was clean and the terrace was glowing golden with setting sun's light. we all sat in one of the corner of the terrace and a candle was lit urgently.
Until now, i really hated the English way of celebrating the birth days. back at home, i used to celebrate the day with my friends without any kind of candle blowing or singing happy birth day. no friend was allowed to gift me. it was rule to give all something to eat but never a cake or a pastry. i used to ridicule my other friends which celebrated birth day in so called English way.
here, on the same occasion, things were up side down! everything was prepared beforehand. even, they bought some gifts for me. what gifts? they had a small packet nicely covered with a shining decorative paper.
'Hey neh, cone on! what are you waiting for? " looking at my hesitant expression, beji said. i was confused and was thinking if i could deny such a ceremony. but looking at the enthusiasm, it would have been too harsh behavior from me. i did not say anything and simply obeyed the order.
as soon as i blew the candle, all my friends sung "happy birthday"- the song i hated till date. before i could think more, the colorful box was put in my hand. they asked me to open. to my surprise, there was a kite shaped water push button game of rings and there was a balloon attached with a noise making hollow wood stick.i was stunned.
"what is this?" i said in puzzled voice. what did they think of me? a child of 3yr ? a mentally challenged baby? i really could not understand how to react to it. i accepted it with a bit hesitation.
" cant you see boy?"within seconds, beji snatched my game and showed me how to play, as if i was the most dumb lad available around! she also blew air in the balloon with all her lung capacity and showed me how to blow in the hollow stick to make noise from the gifted balloon!
" so, you can play like this! " said beji tagging the line with her big smile. tapasvi laughed.
think of a situation when you are trying to behave more like a man but pushed by your girl friends to behave like a kid. any way, i had no option but to accept the gifts. i could have said no, but that could have hurt their feelings. i felt, the love and care shown for me was far more important to respect than to stick to my beliefs and principles. probably that was not the time to have discussion on such a serious topic.
they had brought pastries and something more to eat. every one was happy. i was too! the evening was made special by making each of my friend sing for me something.
i remember, though i never played, i had kept those gifts carefully till recently with utmost care. it was a symbol of love and care showered on me by my new friends of the college. the quest of recognition started taking some shape.
