Yeah, this took a looooooooong time coming. Since quite some time back, I had thought of writing about these two guys but somehow couldn’t due to lack of time or my poor “thought” process as to what all I should include in the post. But nonetheless, I am here to tell you guys about two of my closest friends – “Padhee” (ok before you ask, his full name is Siddharth Sourav Padhee…Then why Padhee?..cuz he has always responded to Padhee and that stuck to him so much after a certain period that when people called out Siddharth or Sourav, he never bothered to even look around :D) and Anish (My junior at VIT not in age though but he still calls me his “elder brother”.. one of the very very few guys in this world who I feel I share a number of qualities with).
So where should I begin? I met Padhee in the beginning of 2008 or so and Anish in the middle somewhere though I spoke to them the most in the last sem. Unsurprisingly, I met both of them through the one and only Ranjani. Ranjani became friends with the Mechanical group – Kalla, Rahul, Padhee, Udayan and others. Among them, she became really good friends with Padhee and this gave me a great chance to get to know him a lot more. Initially though they used to keep talking and I used to say “Hi” and then “bye” and go away to hostel to speak to people. But as time went by and I and Ranjani started sitting for CAT practice in the library, I came to know him a lot more. Since both of us were practicing while he used to take in the usual technical knowledge from “N” number of books, (God! seeing him take so many books from the library, I used to always feel guilty as to how I just end up studying from xeroxes all the time, but thankfully I never let this guilty feeling turn into useful action :D) many times we would just end up doing timepass and talking and chatting on anything and everything happening around be it the girls, the gossip, the relationships of anyone in class anything!
I met Anish – one of Sruthi’s closest friends while working on the IIT Guwahati Business Plan sometime when he spoke about bra sizes, types and everything else as if he was an expert on that! It was an interesting first meeting though I guess he got a pretty nerdy 😀 opinion of me at that time. I seriously laugh thinking at the way I asked him if he was interested to be a part of the Riviera editorial team when Sru was there at that time in the canteen. Maan it feels so funny thinking of it now…Hahahaha 🙂
The times we – me, padhee and ranju or me, ranju and anish or all four us have had together sitting outside FC, having gobi65 continuously over many days, trying new dishes very frequently like cheese dosa, thick milk shake to name a few, walking so many times around campus till we got tired, at Singh is King (when all three of us were drooling over Katrina and Ranju dint know what to do) in Raghavendra – the “world class” theater at Vellore which I really miss (maan Rs 30-40 tickets), visits to the best ice cream parlour in town “Gelato” which I am sure was specially open for VIT students, just walking around campus and Ranju updating us on all the gossip saying “You know what” till the time we thought that cmon lets have an ice tea (the Nescafe parlour guy would surely be a rich man cuz of the number of times we frequented it :D) or go 2 FC and many more have been so beautiful, so amazing and are really cherished.
The best experience of probably all four years of my life was making the movie for “madame’s” birthday and planning for it. Maan the way we planned each and every bit about the birthday and the way we systematically spent about 1 hour for 1-2 hours for approximately 10-15 days for the video was tremendous. God! I doubt I planned on my studies so well seriously. Mine and Padhee’s nomenclature of my friends as Badi Madam, Choti Madam, Roller Coaster Madam, History Madam etc was hilarious to say the least (Though I shall not name the respective people here for privacy reasons :D).
I always thought the last sem will be soooo boring and dull because many of my friends had left to do projects outside. But in the end, it turned out to be one of the most busiest semesters for me in 4 years in terms of the amount of “mental” stress I had to go through some of it through my own making and some through others. But thankfully to their presence, I think I remained sane. The conversations all three of us – Padhee, Anish and me had over love, life, friendship and careers were really amazing. I remember all their suggestions, advices and talks on all these issues.
The day when Ranjani left for good was a day wherein I couldn’t control myself but thankfully managed very well due to their presence. That day interestingly all of us slept in Anish’s room. I guess were talking till about 2-3 or so.
In the end I would just like to quote something what Padhee has said – “I wouldn’t ask that why didn’t we meet earlier cuz I seriously feel that the times we spent together were the most amazing of our lives”!