Friday 20 April 2012

When i earned real friends...!!

“Maybe love won't let you down. All of your failures are training grounds and just as your back's turned you'll be surprised...as your solitude subsides.”- Beatles. My solitude was on the rise when I walked back to my flat; my home for the past eighty days. The flat was silent, and lacked skirmish of any human vocal. I felt lonely; the feeling is one of the worst that I had felt. I still remembered the first day I had come here, alone and curious. Curious I was, because I didn’t know the kind of people I would meet. I regard myself, an anathema.
          After finishing off my Post Graduation, I stayed at home for a month. Tragedy struck thrice during my stay, first I and my brother were charged with physically abusing a woman. A fake complaint was lodged. No evidence was found and nothing bad happened. Secondly, one of my uncles’, who was battling with cancer, succumbed, and left a void in his family. Thirdly my Mother suffered a septic attack, precisely Septicemia. She survived the attack, but she was diagnosed with bronchitis. My mind took a battering that time and within ten days I had to join TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) Hyderabad, for the start of my career.
          I landed in Hyderabad on the 9th of July 2011, at about half past nine. I took a cab and reached the home of one of my chum, Ashutosh. He was in Hyderabad for the past eighteen months. He made arrangements for my night stay, and also helped me in shopping. The next evening I went at the accommodation provided by TCS, known as Manjeera towers. It was far from the city, but closer to the training center. I reached with my entire luggage alone. Although my college students were also called, yet I knew no one. I could make out some familiar faces, but I had interacted with none. I hoped to find somebody I knew. All my classmates were called to Trivandrum and I was told to join Hyderabad.
          July 10th 2011: There is a perception, I don’t know where it comes from but I got it too. It’s said that South Indians are not good people. They speak their own language, eat different food, and hate people who speak in Hindi or English. Some of my friends, back at home, who have been ignorant throughout their entire lives, claimed that the only food you get in South India is Dosa, Idli, sambhar, and wada. I had heard this from a long time. I was terrified at the thought of it and walked towards the reception.
While on the way to the reception desk, I saw parents of my prospective colleagues, I remembered mine and hoped that my mother will be discharged soon. She was still in ICU while I arrived in Hyderabad. I finally reached the reception desk. I saw a lady there who was very busy. She told me to register my name address and mobile number. I jotted down as fast as I could. She then told me that my room will be in the ground floor, numbered H-005. I requested her to give me a room with my university fellows. She declined. I moved with my baggage and met my first flat mate- Sarath. Full name, Karanam Venkata Sarath Chandra. The people in the south do have long names, I don’t deny the fact. Most people in Andhra have Venkat or Venkata in their name, as a matter of fact; Venu is also a common name. Then I met my room partner Ajay, full name Ajay Mohan Arasada. He probably had the shortest name in my flat, after me of course. Back in the place from where I come from, people regarded my name as long. I like long names; it gives an aura of a dignified person.   
I started talking casually to Sarath, after he asked me where I came from. My SIM could not connect to the service provider and I had to call home. I asked Sarath for his phone, he accepted without reluctance. I asked him for one call, but I made three, I panicked and thought that informing everyone concerned was more important. Till this date I don’t know if Sarath knows about the three calls, but it hardly mattered to him. This is the first natural fact I got to learn about Telegu people (not everybody but most of them), they are very helpful. It doesn’t matter even if it costs them money, they will go to the stretch to help you. Meanwhile I also spoke to some other people, one of them wanted to change rooms’ with me. I tried requesting the receptionist who accidently was from Darjeeling. She declined again.
    It was late when I arrived and Ajay told me that we had to get up early the next morning for the first day. College has spoiled my habit, I usually slept at two, and now I had to get up at half past five. I usually take a long time to sleep, but today was different. I slept fast and woke up at half past five. All my flat mates were up on time. I am ready too I said to myself. It’s a very uneasy feeling when you see people talking among them but not to you. I looked in the mirror for a final glance and saw one of my flat mates approaching me.
“What is your name?” he asked
 “Manoj” I replied.
“You don’t have any friends from college?”
“No”
“Okay, no need to worry, we are friends now”, he extended his hand for a shake and I gleefully accepted. It was a big hand indeed. He looked dangerous from the outlook, but he surprised me by his gesture. He was Sai Ram, full name Satya Alla Sai Ram. (Just for fact, alla is not pronounced same as the Muslim god Allah, it’s pronounced aa-la, but everybody called him Allah). He is tall and well built; he even claims he has the most beautiful body structure in this world, no six packs but just natural. Then I met two others Prasad and Anil, Vattikolla Venkata Siva Prasad and Yerramsetty Anil Bharath respectively.
Although the people I met were very nice to me, but I didn’t get along with them instantly, maybe because of the language barrier. I looked to befriend other people, who spoke the language I knew. I found some of them in my batch. They were from Haryana.

          July passed by and I was hanging out with my Haryana friends more often. Watching movies, going to the training together, eating and watching TV I did all of it with them. They were funny at times, but abusive on most of the occasions. They abused more than anything else. Haryanvi is a coarse language, I didn’t like the way it’s presented, but I can’t help the fact. There were six people in the so called Haryana flat viz. Sumit, Sagar, Punit, Yogesh, Surender and Vikas(aka Pahadi). There were few others whom I saw occasionally, Vikash (aka chotu because of his enormous size), Sandeep and KD. Till date I don’t know the full form of KD. He is the most difficult of all of them. Sometimes I couldn’t figure out if he was speaking or abusing. Chotu was a very informed person; he had the knowledge and remained cool and composed. He is the only person who knew where Darjeeling was and the political condition there. Sandeep was a self parsing person, I didn’t know him well, and neither did I want to. Same was the condition with Punit, a lanky, miser boy who was in love. I spoke very less; I was open to Surender, Sumit and Sagar, because they were my batch mates at training. I didn’t connect to the rest of them much. The other Vikas (Pahadi) was very intelligent; he had the knowledge of almost all the things I liked. In fact I can even say that his knowledge was better than the other five combined.
There is one more thing which I learnt about Haryana folks, they are believed in castes. Not all of them but a few, Yogesh specially. He used to ask people of their caste on the very first meeting. I have always hated such prejudice, I do it even today. Caste is no means to differentiate people, for that matter there are no means. 
          Some of them misunderstood my silence. They thought I was not open to them. I don’t blame them, but I am only open to few people, to my close friends and family, and with the name of family I remembered my Ma, I hoped she would recover from her diseases faster and return to her good health. I hardly contributed to their discussions because on most occasions it was futile.
In came August, I started to bond with my room partner more. He is a nice guy. He wants to be a musician. I hope he succeeds. We also connected with music; he played the guitar better than me. I wrote stories and made him read. He analyzes it very well. I like the way he says “Ah huh….” It assures the speaker that he is being listened to. He is from Vizag. At times he calls me Annaya, meaning brother. I feel nice to hear it. Anil and Sarath also call me the same.
         On alternate weekends I paid visits to Ashutosh, I never missed it. I even cancelled other plans to see him over weekends. I went over to his place even if it was raining cats and dogs. Certainly one of the best friends I have ever made.
         During the training, I kept mostly to myself, soft spoken and a man of few words. My batch was good. But, like every rose has its thorn, there were a few, who were competitive and not friendly, I don’t want to take their name. There were some people who looked down upon people. They had the air f condescension flowing around their head. I pity them.
         I was the only Post graduate in my batch, which meant I knew more. I did know but, I never voiced it in the sessions. My knowledge was fair enough, but I lacked concentration. My mind could not concentrate on things that were taught. It always thought about other things. I missed my home very much. I wanted to return home, to Ma and Dad, but I couldn’t. Slowly August passed away too, but before going it gave us out first salary. It felt nice, very good in fact. In the first week of September we got a holiday for four days. I decided to spend all the four days with Ashutosh. But, before I could go, Sumit, my good friend decided to leave TCS and go to Videocon. It paid him more and he will be working on electronics, he had majored in that.
         In September, I couldn’t bond well with my Haryana friends, Sumit left and his place was taken over by KD. I didn’t like him, because of his aggressive nature. So I started to ignore them. My relationship with my flat mates developed exponentially. I was closer to them more than ever. Anil became the closest to me. We went to the training together and even took evening walks together. It is during this period, that we were grouped into projects. Each team comprising of six people and one of them will be the leader. Lucky for me Sai ram and I were in the same group.
          Our leader was Udit Kararia, from Haryana, but he always claimed he was from Delhi. I don’t know the reason why he does it. Maybe he considers them as yokels. He is a typical person and I doubt anyone will see a similar kind. He is fast in calculations, sharp mind but he had the air or condescension around him. He hardly trusted us for anything. He wants to be a leader, give ideas and lead. But the place where he lacks is that he should lead by example. He never does that. I appreciate his brain, its fast and filled with ideas, but he has knowledge of very few things. He has no knowledge about current affairs or sports. I personally feel that every person should be good at something other than academics. We as a team did well. Except Udit, every one shared a good relationship with each other. I just hope he learns how to make friends in future so that he doesn’t get lonely.
         Back in the flat, I enjoyed more than ever, I watched Telegu movies without subtitles, and astonishingly I never complained. I liked it. I heard news in Telegu, I didn’t get the news entirely but I could understand some of it. I was so into Telegu that I started leaning it. This is one thing I thought was impossible, learning a south Indian language. I started with the abuses; I started to swear at most of my flat mates. They enjoyed it and never took it to heart. I respect them for it. We had biryani’s together. We even had a karaoke evening one time. Ajay brought me prawns cooked by his Mom, while Sai ram got me cakes. I loved both of them. I stayed with Anil most of the time, I told him about things, my love life and my mother. Well I actually told about my mother to all of them. Anil and I had breakfast together, watched movies together and studied together.
         Project completion was a daunting task and when we were all engrossed in it, we stayed in the training center for thirteen hours. Those were tough times, and I am happy I did my part. We did have our usual differences with Udit. He even made one of our team mates cry. Jackass he is. The times I spent at my flat were very good and filled with joy. In September I didn’t go to Ashutosh’s place. Not once, and I didn’t want to, because I had such great friends here. This was the first time I didn’t feel home sick, I didn’t think about my Ma as much as I had done in July and August. Slowly it all came to an end on 30th September.
After the final see off of our batch, it suddenly felt hollow. I couldn’t believe that my time here was over. I could not help it but I had to leave too. I had two days in hand; I thought I will spend it entirely with my friends. But, it was not to be. Prasad and Sai left on the 30th itself. When they went they had tears in their eyes. Sai cried. I remembered our first interaction, when he told me not to worry because we are friends. I wanted to cry but I could not. I had to be strong. I waved them good bye and returned to the flat.
          Ajay left to search for his room as he was posted in Hyderabad. Anil, Sarath and I remained. Sarath left that day too but in the evening and Anil the day after. Ajay left in the evening the next day. I met his Mom. She had also come. I felt nice to see his family. Finally we made way to his car to bid farewell. He greeted his friends and told me to go or else he would cry. I understood the feelings, even I wanted to cry, but there was no one, I couldn’t cry here too. I came back alone in the flat H005, Manjeera Towers. I left the day after for Mumbai, far away from all my flat mates. I don’t know for sure what they think about me, but I left with some fond memories which will be cherished forever.

Ajay: a budding musician, lover of music and a great fan of Dhoni. He is surely one of the best roommates’ I have ever had. He is also one of the best riders of the bike I have seen, smooth as whisky. We shared some good times together. One thing about him I want to mention is that he always listened to songs before going to sleep. And he would get up half an hour later to switch off the music player. He is surely dedicated and passionate about music; I hope he turns into a musician soon.

Prasad: he is an excellent manager; he manages events and takes good responsibility. He is a very cool customer, a fine man. I don’t know what he really wants to become, but whatever he does, he does it very well. One thing about him I would like to mention is that everybody said his father owned a train. I know for certain that he possesses a heart as big as a train.

Sarath: he read novels and my stories too. He danced well. He is a great Ganguly fan. Lover of cricket and watched all the matches. We spoke less but when he said anna I liked it. He wants to do MBA, and I hope he does it from a premier institute. He speaks well and will do well in life.

Sai ram: A hi-fi big shot, Sai never looked down upon anyone. His sarcastic remarks were noteworthy. He acts well too. I will never forget his birthday party. It was awesome and the best party I ever had. Sai wants to do nothing and live a happy life. He has a sharp brain and he has the ability to learn anything. I think that is a Sollu. Sai ra, can understand. I hope he does better than what he is doing now.

Anil: he is like a younger brother.  Stunt is what everybody called him. He is a great Green Day fan and listens to all of their songs. He is also one of the biggest fans of Power star Pawan Kalyan. I hope he gets a girl friend who robs him of his money. He too called my Anna. He is the reason I am on twitter.

The greatest and the best thing I liked about these guys were that whenever they call me or vice versa they always ask about the health of my mother. Each one of them, without any exception and it is this gesture that makes me cry when I write about them or even think of the times we spent together. I stayed there for eighty days, I was close to them for only one month, but in that one month I got a set of truly awesome friends for life. I hope they turn up for my marriage.
I had not been my best during the first two months; I hope you forgive me for it.
In July and August, I missed my family and especially my Ma, In September I didn’t miss her because I had a family here with me.

Naaku Telegu ante ishtam   
Naaku Telegu manushulu ante ishtam.