Life has been generally very eventful, starting from the second day itself. I was born on the 31st of December 1972. It was New Year’s Eve and immediately after I was born, people all over the world started to binge on and lose control. Sadly, the very next day the records said that I was born last year. How fast can one age? But somehow, the aging process stopped once I left home in 1990 to take up college. Since then, I’ve liked to believe that I am just a boy.
I was that typical mallu kid brought up in a small town outside Kerala. The ones who could not converse fluently in their own mother tongue, yet loved to crack jokes on their parent’s mallu accent! The ones who loved their mallu food, mallu movies, the Kerala rains, those beautiful sandy beaches and every other thing about the God’s Own Country, but not the idea of living down there beyond a month’s vacation.
As a kid, I had my own close knit gang of friends and my friends, like me were from dislocated mallu families. We were a gang of five and I had Ani, Tom, Deep and Stan as my best buddies.
Anirrudha Thomas, Ani was the most charming guy in our group. He was also the guy who had a motorbike at the age of thirteen and the only one who possessed a money purse. He was always loaded with enough cash. His house had everything that I could fathom of at that age; all the latest electronic equipment and gadgets, beaded curtains, sofa set with plush cushions, a glass top dining table, exclusive chinaware and, also by far the biggest TV Antenna ever atop his three storied bungalow. He was definitely the wealthiest one of us all. His dad had moved to Gujarat in the lookout for a livelihood and started his career twenty years back as a truck driver. They now owned five oil tankers and he maintained that his dad made all the money transporting oil from the refinery in Baroda to various cities in Gujarat, which we boys liked to believe, was fake. We were convinced that his dad and his cronies illegally tapped oil from the refinery and sold it in the black market. That was the only way they could make so much money! What ever it was, he had the right genes, the ones that were responsible for being notorious. But, what ever he did, he was not as notorious as Tom.
Tom Daniel was our science teacher, Elyamma Madam’s son. She was also our most hated teacher, and this was no secret. The amount of hate we had for Elyamma Madam was directly proportional to the love we had for Tom. Tom was the potential gangster in our group. He had this quintessential help all, fight for all attitude. Someone who’d go that extra mile to help you and end up in deep shit himself. He was also undoubtedly the boldest guy in the gang and the undisputed leader of the pack. We three were chaddi-buddies, and our friendship began primarily because our parents were family friends and took us to the same church. Our parents used to team up on Sundays after the mass to have illegally procured brandy and laze away playing the card game of rummy; which almost always ended up in a lot of commotion. The Sunday meetings stopped for me once my dad left for the KSA, but I hanged on to them. After my dad left, mom got increasingly worried about my academics and later, on the suggestion of Elyamma Aunty, Tom’s mom, changed my school. And lo, there I was, in the same class, VII-C as that of Ani and Tom. This was cool, but the only hitch was that mom’s friend now became my teacher, and I was totally under her radar. Every Sunday after church they would meet and mom would ask Madam, “How is Sweety in Class? Is he doing well?” and her response invariably would be “Oh, this boy, he is a paavam, doesn’t even open his mouth.” And she would look at me and say “He has that innocent look and that naughty smile, I know he is up to something, you just wait…. I will catch you one day” and then they’d start talking about their usual stuff, just to allow me to sneak out with my buddies.
It is in this new school and new class that I met Pradeep, or just Deep as we used to call him. He was the guy who was custodian to the heaviest balls in the school. Don’t get mistaken. Deep was a sports oriented guy and a district champion in our age group and his sport involved a ball, that’s why. Not a football or basket ball or cricket ball or even a hockey ball; these balls were too light for him. He was a shot putter. He was the biggest guy in our school and, the rate at which he grew; we estimated that by the age of forty, he would be as big as King Kong. Except for the size and his ability to throw iron balls farther than how much I could a tennis ball, he had no filling in the head. It was empty or so we believed, for the all the dumb things that he used to do. But he had a genuine heart for us and for our enemies, a punch that could break the jaw. His size always came handy whenever we had any disputes. Tom would start it and Deep would finish it. That was the norm.
Stanley was Tom’s cousin. He was three years elder to us and we got acquainted to him when he along with his father and sister came to settle down in Baroda. This was a positive move initiated after a string of negative things that happened in their family. Stan and his family lived in Abu Dhabi, where his dad worked as a Car Mechanic and his mom as a Head Nurse in one of the biggest hospitals. Needless to say, his mom was the real bread earner. His dad, was a habitual drunkard, didn’t have a permit to drink in that country, got caught, was put in jail for a week and ultimately deported along with his dependent kids to India. His mom, who was on her own visa stayed back. With a ban on entering Middle East and no potent source of livelihood in Kerala, his dad took the harsh decision of moving to Baroda, where the kids could go to the same school that their aunt, Elyamma taught. The plan was that his dad could look for a job or even start something of his own and later on when things settled down fairly, look for a new house and move out to their own place. One of the other reasons, why his dad decided to come to Gujarat and not go to their other relatives in Bangalore or Calcutta was that he had resolved not to get into his tippling habit again and what better place for penance then the only state in India where liquor is banned. But, was this man going to change? And the answer was, A BIG NO! As time went by, they found an independent house very near to Tom’s, broke the wall of their new living room, fixed a rolling shutter and started a spare parts shop. This was the only spare parts shop in whole of Baroda which sold illegal liquor. And as statistics went, this was their biggest business.
The five of us did innumerable naughty to notorious things together. While at school we did silly things like peeing in the wash basin; drawing caricatures and scribbling our words of wisdom on the bathroom walls; making crank phone calls to our teachers from Stan’s shop; stop alongside the road on our cycle ride back from school, just waiting for the girls to ride by and try to peep into their skirts and find if we could spot the colour of their panties while the girls noticing us would desperately try to hold it down with one hand; coupling up girls and boys bicycles and locking them up together with a common chain lock and many more. Those were the usual and miscellaneous things that we used to do.
I still cherish those long bicycle rides on the weekends; stealing Mangoes, Guavas and Bananas from the orchards on the way and pedal off on brief sojourns to those scenic spots and the banks of river Narmada. As all kids do, we too had our internal games. We had something of our own; games like ‘who pees farthest’, ‘longest snake pee’ and ‘touch the marbles’. Unlike the first two, which was like an event game, played en route our usual bicycle rides, ‘touch the marbles’ was a never ending game. The rules of the game were simple; just hit the balls of any one of your unsuspecting buddies and keep a record of it. At the end of the week, the guy who has the least number of hits pays for the bhajias and samosas on our weekend bike ride. As it was always, the biggest guy was the weakest. He just could never manage to hit us on the crotch. Or was it? I always believed that he never hit because, if he really did, I would die. Anyways, losing the game did not have any fiscal issues with him. As always, it was Ani who paid.
We also had our gang fights. One of them was, when we were caught plucking bananas. On that day, one of the watchmen who held us lost a tooth and possibly his job too because as we left the place after that big box punch from Deep, we ransacked the field and fled, never to tread that road again. Its not that we always beat up and ran; on one occasion we guys were all beaten up black and blue. Tom picked up a fight at a Science Fair with some local boys at the Gujarati Medium affiliate of our School in his usual style playing chivalry to one of the local girls, who later on became his better half. As usual, he started it, but this time Deep could not end it. The boys were inside enemy territory. In no time we got cornered and were showered with hockey sticks and cycle chain blows from all sides. Luckily, the teachers intervened and we lived to see another day; but the saviours we not kind, they taunted at us, and referred to the English Medium students as softies and publicly warned that we should not be seen again in those premises. We were hurt and for next few days maintained a low profile and dared not to get involved in any sort of mess. So much, that we barely even talked to each other. This period of hibernation lasted for a week and the boys couldn’t help, but regroup and get back into sync. But, for the boys that we were, we didn’t plan to leave it there, we had to strike back. That school building was just single storied and I masterminded an attack. After much deliberation, the boys endorsed an onslaught, which would take place nearly a month after the fateful event. It was summer time and like most teenage boys in Gujarat do at that time of the year, we too got permission from our respective parents to sleep on the terrace of our apartment blocks. One night, as programmed, each one of us packed up all the detergent that we could from our homes, picked up some strong rope and some waste grease and a can of coal tar from Stan’s shop and headed for that school before it dawned. We parked our bicycles at a distance and jumped over the boundary wall from the back side. The boys made a human pyramid and helped me to climb over the eaves. From there, I lowered down the rope and pulled some bricks, made a platform and climbed on to the terrace; tied the rope to a firm pipe and in no time we all were on the roof. At the terrace, it was just a matter of one strong kick and Deep broke open the stairway door. We went down and emptied all the detergent into the overhead drinking water tank, coated their main hallway with coal tar and grease, broke open the principal’s cabin and painted ‘PODA MAYIRE’ in bold on his desk, and left the scene the way we entered. As we sat back on our bicycles, we turned, looked back and showed our middle finger and rode away on what was possibly one of the best rides that we had in days.
I was generally average in schoolwork and at times even touched my buddies’ low levels too, but my parents decided to believe otherwise. They kept telling me that I was brilliant and that I could make it. Somehow they managed to con me into believing this lie and pinned on all their great expectations on me. That was the 80’s and like every other first time migrant middle class household, I, the boy born after two daughters, the God’s gift, was their blue-eyed boy and their only source of hope. The hope of a rest assured future. The only hope that they would be redeemed well for all the sacrifices they made in their personal lives. They also drilled into my mind that the only way to fulfil their dream was by me becoming an Engineer. Not that the girls were not intelligent or capable. There were just no expectations.
Back then, getting into an Engineering College was not a matter of Money. It was pure numbers. And in Gujarat, those numbers had to come from your 12th Board Exams. As a kid, I was not the engineering types. I must be the only kid who had all his childhood toys intact and the very rare one, who never assayed into dissecting any of them to understand its mechanics. As it was with most of the kids my age in that decade, I was not cognizant enough of my strengths and weaknesses. I didn’t have any aspirations of my own and the best and the only option available was to do as I was said to. And so, fuelled by their faith, I embarked on this journey. The journey to become the first ever Engineer in our Tharavad. Somewhere in 1988, despite living a dirty mix of bad mallu boy gangs and those nooky experiments with local gujju girls, I, Jacob Sweety Nelson, managed to do extremely well in my 10th Board Exams. I didn’t know how, but, this happened. Back then, the 10th Board Exams were the prelims for gauging a kid’s likely performance in 12th. And so, immediately after, my parents were joined in their dream by our friends, relatives, neighbours et al. Now, I was suddenly everyone’s new found hope. I was a nephew to one, and lived in the other’s neighbourhood, for someone else I was the closest family friend’s son and the other was just my teacher. The company that I so loved to be in, my mallu boy gang was now branded ‘inappropriate’ and the elders tried to coax me out of it, lest I should lose track. I didn’t budge, but. While everyone else was plotting to win, I lost. The boys despised me for being the new kid their parents adopted. They dumped me and lost into the oblivious by lanes of lesser trades like commerce and arts. The girl in my life was secretly learning the art of making soft idlis and non vegetarian mallu recipes, but I dumped her and resolved that, for the ensuing two years, I would do nothing but just study.
As it was demanded of me, I stopped being a boy. The neighbourhood kids would come under our apartment and shout “ey seeti ey seeti….seeti,….” calling me out to play, but I had important things to do. Study! As it went, they stopped calling and left me with my books. As I sat in my room and shifted from Chemistry to Physics to Calculus, I would watch the boys on the ground shifted from gilli-danda to cricket to ise-pise. I was deeply frustrated and wanted to break free, but I was kept reminded that I belonged to an elite company of academic, intellectual and serious kids. Yes, I had my new friends. Like me, these guys were studious, got special treatment at home over siblings, were looked up to by their parents, and extraordinarily boring. All of them behaved like smart asses and tried to talk big and correct. The only other place they visited other than School was those myriad tuition classes one for each subject, which was spread out over the length and breadth of the city. Sports in general were banned by the parents. If at all, Chess was the in sport, but the less smart ones like me were allowed to stray into lawn tennis and swimming; nothing else. They never did anything wrong or inappropriate. They would never ogle on aunties melons and never heard anyone speak about masturbation. I kept to believing, that it was only me and Jai who had this dark side.
Yes, Jai. He was my next door neighbour. Unfortunately, he too did well in the 10th Board Exams and was overloaded with expectations. In fact, he did better than me. His only advantage was that he was from the Vernacular Medium cause of which he was not as popular in our circles and so didn’t have the burden of redeeming the whole migrant junta for their sacrifices. And, he was the smart one too. He didn’t dump his girl, nor lose his core buddies. Didn’t have to. His girl too did well in her secondary academics and their parents became immediate friends and brought the idea of ‘ek se bhale do!’ Soon, Jai and his sweetheart, Hetal were seen sharing their moped rides to school and tuitions and partnering joint night-out studies. I was jealous.
While their parents slept peaceful nights dreaming of distributing laddoos and jalebis on the Board Exam Result Day, these two shifted their academics pursuit from science to kamasutra. Theirs was a mix of Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Eventually, Jai mastered the arts of unhooking a bra with just two fingers and withdrawing just in time to ejaculate outside the hole. The second one was an important achievement, ‘cause buying condoms was not an easy task those days, let it for a 16 year old. As he mastered the various acts and positions in sex, he developed a feeling that he was coming of age. Soon, he started smoking and would on some days invite me for a smoke at our apartment terrace. His intention though, was to boast about his coital exploits and make me feel low and demeaned, but I enjoyed listening. Playing elder, he would offer me to organize reconciliation between me and my ex, which I kept avoiding. Not that I didn’t want it. I was just scared that my mom or sisters would find out. Although I kept vehemently denying it, this guy knew that deep inside, my testosterone levels were brimming. He had a plan. To let me vent out my carnal frustrations, he would at times get me a porn video cassette or BP as we used to call it in those times. Actually, it was not me that he was helping. He was taking care of himself. He had the sources to get a BP, but did not have a Video Cassette Player at his place and that’s how I got revealed to his dark side. It was about give and take and this gujju boy knew how to do business. Along with this player, my dad, who toiled hard to make his monies in gulf, had got us this fantastic cable, which could let us watch the video on two television sets at the same time. Fortunately, for us, the cable was long enough and we both managed to establish a permanent line between our flats by hiding these cables behind potted plants and other furniture. As soon as our mothers would go out to the local market for making their daily groceries purchases, we would swing into action. In my house, it was pure pleasure in solitude, but next door, he and his mate were actually taking practical classes and reinventing the various positions. An account of which he would give to me during our smoke outs.
Time went by and the term was to end. It was time for the big exam. My mom, in all her sincerity, did her best to please me and keep me focussed to the ultimate goal, albeit, the girls in the house were creating a ruckus. I had all the priorities. I got almond milk, fresh juices and all the other exotic stuff, had the best shoes, clothes and many other liberties at home while my sisters grumbled. I was sad for them, but was anyone listening? It was exam time and I was not allowed to ride my bicycle to the exams, lest I got involved in an accident or so. Since dad was away, my maternal uncle ‘Maaman’ volunteered. And one day, it was finally over. The exams done, Jai’s parents asked him now to stop going around with that girl! He rebelled and was expelled to their home town at Vareli in Surat, while the girl was put under house arrest. I didn’t like my current company and tried going back to my old mallu boy gang. But, by now, the boys had changed; I was too slow for them and in no time, out. They dumped me again. Eventually, I was alone. Having no friends and nothing to do, I would just take my bicycle and go on a long ride to no where, just to come back late and see a tense and worried mom spewing with anger. I didn’t rebel. I did not have the guts to.
After a lonely vacation of some three odd months, the results were out. I managed to do well, but not great, not as great as the guys from the elite gang, they managed to do extremely well. But my achievement was much bigger. Jai and this girl both failed miserably. We lived in a place called Gorwa, which could well be dubbed as ‘The Ghetto’ of Baroda and academics was not generally in the blood. Of all the kids who gave the exam from my locality, I was the only one left standing, rest all fell. For the next few days, everyone would interview me on how I managed this feat and I would proudly say, “…I used to study every night till 2AM…”, “…..Mom used to give me almonds… not the local ones….these are from gulf…. my dad sent them…” and all those blah-blahing. I enjoyed the attention. While the other guys enrolled into coaching classes for medicals and IITs, I chose to apply for the local engineering colleges. And while doing so, inadvertently, ticked ‘yes’ on the box for REC, little did I know, this was going to be my fate.
REC is the acronym of Regional Engineering College. These were 20 colleges created under the joint cooperative collaboration of the Central Government of India and the various State Governments on equal partnership. These colleges don’t exist now. In 2003, these were made autonomous and rechristened as the NIT or the National Institute of Technology and taken over entirely by the Central Government.
The interviews for engineering were in Ahmedabad, and I remember travelling with my Maaman, who took a day off to help me with the admission. On our train journey, Maaman explained me the essence of being an engineer and how my interview today is going to change my life. It all depended on the branch I got and that I should look for either Mechanical or Electrical Engineering and grab whichever I get, no matter which college it is. Civil Engineering was looked down upon. “There’s no value” he said “Civil Engineers are working for Rs.400/- per month salaries at the Narmada Dam Project, what good is it. Nothing.” And to add to it, I was also asthmatic, so I should not think of anything to do with cement. I went in for the interview, while my uncle waited outside. I was given a platter of available options within Gujarat and in those many RECs throughout India. And out of which, I chose to pick, Civil Engineering at the REC, Calicut. As I walked out of the chamber and confronted Maaman, he pointed to the electronic display board above and reprimanded “Why Civil? And, how Calicut?……you had these options in Gujarat itself….. why not this?, why not that?……didn’t you understand what I told to you on the train….”. I just stood there, looked away and said “I chose this”. Infact Maaman was flummoxed; he couldn’t digest the idea of someone from Gujarat getting into a college in Kerala without appearing for the entrance and thought that I was bluffing at this critical juncture. To make this one easy for him, I had to explain the fundamentals of how the REC system worked. He kept staring at me with an annoyed look, said “Okay then, we’ll go back, where are your papers….” and grabbed them and we left. To this day, I don’t know why I made that choice. At that time I was very naïve and really did not have any high regards for Civil Engineering as the subject or even looked up at Civil Engineers as nation builders. Not that I had any innate desire to go back to Kerala. Was I running away? Was it my way of punishing myself? Or was I punishing someone else? I don’t know. But, I did it. And it was a decision, which would weigh down heavily on many.
Those days, there were no mobile phones, and we didn’t have a telephone connection at home, and so, the only way to deliver this information at my house and to all those eagerly waiting in the neighbourhood was to deliver it in person. It was late in the evening by the time we reached home and as we got down from the auto, I saw three eager and anxious faces in our balcony. As I informed them of the choice, my mom who was standing, slouched on to the sofa, and my sisters stared at me agape. As obvious as it seemed, their response was, that they were not happy. They were not as much worried about anything as much they were about me going away. As genuine a person that my uncle is, he did not reveal that it was my goof up and, consoled mom saying that this was one of he best colleges to send me to. Later that evening, I and mom went to my dad’s old office in Baroda and send him a Telex message. The clerk typing in the message typed Cuttak instead of Calicut and my dad retorted back with a “No” After the corrections were made, he was glad, that I was going back to his motherland.
People in our neighbourhood as well as our friend circles were generally happy and congratulated on my admission. Some were genuinely happy, others were happy because I managed to get only into a lesser trade. As my future plans were solidifying, I started getting scared. Scared of the unknown. I did not know what to look out for or what to expect and I secretly wished that something wrong would happen and that I could stay back.
There was yet no Konkan Railway and travelling from Gujarat to Kerala was some task and mom wanted us to travel sufficiently in advance so that we could spend a couple of weeks at our hometown, Kannur before I headed for college. Unfortunately, tickets were not easily available and we had to wait for a month before the family, excluding my dad got aboard the two and a half day long sweaty train journey to Kerala touching all the south Indian states. I was already late for admission and to make matters worse, as it was with the railways, our train got delayed. At Palakkad, our bogie was detached and left in the yard overnight and we finally reached Kannur, our hometown with a delay of twelve hours. The very next day I packed in a few essentials in my favourite blue rucksack and left with my mom and a cousin to Calicut. Remember taking one of the longest and scariest bus rides from Calicut City to Kunnamangalam REC. Coming from a near desert like city, I loved seeing so much greenery around, and was charged on getting an overdose of it but, still felt that the vegetation around was not well managed. We made initial enquiries at the Main Canteen next to the bus stop, and the ‘Maash’ over there directed us to the Main Building or the MB as it is popularly known.
On our way to the MB we saw many guys walking along the main road with books in their hand and looked like old students from the college, most of them had bad hairdos, piercing eyes, were shabbily dressed and to my utter dismay were sporting bathroom slippers. I just looked down on them and I bet they were thinking "new bakra in college".
I was late to claim my admission and so, after a light reprimand the clerk from the Admission Office took us to the Registrar, who asked us to meet the Vice Principal, guess it was Prof Moni. He took us to the Principal’s Office, where my cousin waited outside. The Principal, Prof UKP had his own set of questions to ask to which my mom responded in Malayalam. She showed him a postal receipt of the telegram that we sent informing the college of my delayed arrival. I just stood next to her with an innocent look on my face and kept nodding my head. Finally, without saying anything affirmative, UKP wrote something on my papers, signed it and asked us to leave. We thought we were late and have lost the admission. My cousin’s blood pressure was already raising, my mom had a worried look and I had no clue of what happened. At that point of time, for me, it would have been just fine if I was asked to leave and go back. I was thinking “It would be nice to go back to Baroda and do some college. I could have a bike and try to get back to my old friends”. But the clerk who accompanied us form the Registrar’s Office had other plans. He was going to ruin my day. He informed to my mom in Malayalam that classes have started but we could do some additional paperwork and then it would be okay.
At the Admission Office, everyone who read my form had an amused look on their face. Possibly, like all the others they too thought that 'Sweety' was a name only eligible of girls and pet dogs! Anyways, after some one hour or so all the paper work was done and I was officially an Engineering Student. We were then directed to Hostel ‘A’ and asked not to wait for long on the ground floor. There was a batch lagging and we had third semester seniors (the ones desperately waiting to rag freshmen)occupying those rooms on the ground floor.
On our short walk from the MB to Hostel ‘A’, we saw the 'CREC College Bus' and I thought "WOW, a bus full of budding engineers". At the hostel office, I was informed of my room number and that I have a namesake roommate. We reached the room, which was in one corner of the second floor. At the room I had the first meeting with my namesake roommate, the guy would ultimately become one of my best friends in the coming years – Jacob ‘Jee’ Varghese. Jee quickly listed my mom the basic things that I would require to survive – a mattress, a bucket, a mug and some essentials like soap, detergent sachets etc and told us that we could buy it at the Co-operative Store near the canteen. My mom gave me some money and asked me to buy all those stuff in the evening and asked me to visit her at Kannur the coming weekend to collect all my remaining stuff and also see her off back to Baroda. She then told Jee in Malayalam that I was just a kid and that he should take care of me and wake me up on time or else I’d keep sleeping and miss college. That was Jacob Varghese. Even on the first day of college he had that father figure look on him. He was a mallu guy from Bhilai from what was then, the undivided Madhya Pradesh.
After a light peck on my cheek, my mom posited me in Jee’s care and left with my cousin. I kept following her in the corridor and as I was about to follow her down the flight of steps, Jee pulled me back saying “Don’t go down, there are seniors there. Ragging.” I waved them a bye and walked back to the room with my new roommate. As my mom and cousin walked back to the main road I stood there, in my new room, looking out of the window with teary eyes, feeling like an abandoned child. Jee, stood next to me with his hand on my shoulder. As tears rolled down my cheek, he patted on my shoulder, seeming to say “All will be okay buddy” and I had this wonderful feeling akin finding a long lost friend. That evening, I couldn’t buy my bucket and all the stuff as the new mallu guy in my life stopped me from venturing out, for the risk of falling into the senior’s hands, who were prying around on the main road. He had already started taking care of me. As the day went, I was made to understand that, we were six in a room meant for three; two mallu dislocates, one tamilian and three biharis and therefore would have to share the cot and cupboards. Without a doubt, I just clung on to Jee. He gave me the cot and put his mattress on the floor, asked me to go to bed, got dressed up in all formals and left the room for his daily ragging session. As I lied down alone in that room that first night, a sudden and deep sense of loneliness crept in. Lonely I was, but excited to be free. I was also happy for myself for finding a new friend whom I could rely upon; for being free and have no more of mom’s restrictions at all. I closed my eyes and I visualized myself flying. Later that night, Jee returned back after his daily ragging session and introduced me to two more Bhilai mallus, Manoj and Shibu. They seemed familiar, and deep down I knew there were more to discover. The three of them with some other MPites kept swearing on the seniors all night long and the boys dozed off one over the other without changing their clothes and with their shoes on. As the days passed by, my new friends helped me shop all the required wares and get all my stuff. During the weekend they helped me escape out of the hostel to visit my mom and sisters in Kannur, They shielded me well from my gujju seniors for over a week, during which I found Harish from Kumbakonam, Gokul from Mumbai, Joy from Rourkela and Anil from Pune, just some more mallu boys like me. Each one of them was special and different in their own right. But there was one thing that was common to us; the uncanny sense of humour, the eye for mischief and that fraud mallu spirit. Then, I met the best one of them all, Mitul. He was my opposite, the gujju guy from Aluva. Now, I had my own boy gang which would later on levitate me on to one of the most cherished, fun filled and exciting journeys of my life. As time elapsed, more buddies joined and I let myself loose. Finally, I was the boy I longed to be for so long and I resolved not to grow up.
