I was in my 2nd year of UG education and my college life already sucked big time. It is mandatory to have the following during your college life:
1. Bike (occasionally you can sneak out your Dad’s car)
2. Money (which involves only your daily Bata)
3. GIRLFRIEND (s)
4. Every weekend PARTY.
5. BOOZE and Cigarette.
As far as bike was concerned I had a Royal Enfield. And I earned it from my dad after 24 months of fight. My dad and I had an oral agreement of a sum of 3000 as a pocket money per month during my college days. And 3000 a month to me was like “IS THAT ALL???” ‘Cause maintaining a GF worked out expensive than maintaining a bullet. Coming to girlfriend, it reminds me of my routine. I was in Arts College and she was pursuing her engineering. My college time was 3 in the noon to 7 in the evening and her timing was 7 in the morning to 5 in the evening. This means I had to bunk at least 2 hours of my class to see her on a daily basis.
So we ended up on a deal. I will bunk the last but one hour and visit her home every weekday and she will come out at 7 in the morning on every Saturday (her mom anyway didn’t believe that). And this involved me forgoing my sleep on every Saturday morning just to pick her up from her place and go to some Bhavan for breakfast and then go to Inox or Sathyam Cinemas (ironically I work with the latter now) to book tickets and go directly to Amethyst or Anokhi or some coffee shop to while away the time and then go back to the cinemas (which involve butter pop corn and pepsi) and then go out for lunch at 2ish and drop her back home (most of the time I ended staying with her at her place till her mom comes from work). NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHY I WANTED MORE THAN 3000 BUCKS? ‘Cause this happened for 2 LONG years invariably on every Saturdays. And my friends were gracious enough to spend on me for the booze night.
What exactly did I do for the MONEY then? As explained earlier, I hated my college life and I called it an asylum because of its strict rules (not that I followed any), class timings (that I missed flirting and dating) and the very name “VIVEKANANDA COLLEGE”. One, it had a unique habit of donating books to the students. All the accounts books and tax books which cost 700-800 bucks were donated to all the students and I, in turn demand money from my dad saying I had to pay for them. Two, I passed on these books to my juniors and demanded half its MRP. Three, bike service. FOUR, I collect semester fees from my dad on the beginning and at the end of each semester. So technically speaking when everyone else had 6 semesters I had 12 semesters.
One fine day, balls it was one fine day. It was a stormy evening and was raining cats and dogs in Chennai. My girlfriend texted me saying:
“I’m stuck in the rain and the busses won’t run. Come soooooooooon sweetie…”
I replied, “WHAT?” When you reply with a What after they sent Sweetie, it means the gal will be offended.
And she texted back saying “Oh guess you are busy, let me not disturb you bye…”
I was like, WTF is wrong with her? I just asked What and that made her furious?
Macha, next two periods put proxy, I said and left to pick her up from her college.
On my way to pick her up (Oh wait, her college is in Sriperumputhur which is like 40 fucking kms from city limit) I noticed everything to be abnormal. The trees were horizontal on roads, the bus, auto-rick, cars piled up on the road like a mismatched dominos and most of all, I felt like having rum.
But nothing seemed to bother me as I had a bullet and the bike will take care of me. All that extra money I took from home, I usually spent on those Saturdays or on my bike to do it up. With the twin seats and the open silencer, I enjoyed the ride every bit of it. And I had this strange feeling that all gals on the roads ogled at me ‘cause of the thump my bike produced.
I was proven wrong the very same evening. When, I was religiously following the roads that lead to my GF’s college another girl near that IIT Madras put her hand with a lift symbol and stopped me from riding.
For a fraction of second I forgot I had a GF and I forgot it was raining and I forgot I had to pick her up and I forgot I needed rum and everything around me started to look exquisitely beautiful with this girl on my left who wanted lift because it was raining. She looked like “ANY-GUYS-DREAM-WIFE”. With perfect jaw lines (when a guy explains jaw lines it is unsaid that she had the PERFECT CURVES). And I stopped my bike immediately to help this prospective GF of mine affected with the affected transportation only to know that she waved her fucking hands for the auto-rick coming behind me.
And she said “Anna Kotturpuram poganum…”
