The month of February had a very singular incident that needs to be mentioned cause it helped me to know two very important things (1) That I am fully capable of hurting myself (2) That there are people who can make me hurt myself. Have you ever encountered people who really PISSED you off? I am sure you did a lot and so did I, in my lifetime I have met many people who have managed to piss me off BIG TIME but the person that I am going to talk about now is perhaps the king of all the incompetent clever BASTURDS that ever existed on earth and by the sheer virtue of this quality he can make you go insane. Although he was never my friend but yet after my graduation he came to me and pursued me to take him along with me to wherever I would do my MBA. He followed me to Delhi and took admission in my college and I knew from that very moment that my bad luck has started. From day 1 that we started to live together he began to piss me off and it only increased exponentially. While I would go to college he would stay at home everyday coming up with newer and better names of diseases to bunk classes but that is only the beginning of it, at first I didn’t complain cause I thought that this was the first time he had come to Delhi and may be he needs a little time to settle in but things just kept getting worse and his incompetence in every matter grew in a geometric progression. Very soon I found myself doing his homework, cooking, buying grocery and listening to his worthless point of views- basically I was baby sitting him. After about two weeks I saw that the situation was not improving and he was becoming more and more homesick and that is when I decided to explain to him in my ESPECIAL way( which is not a very nice way and believe me you don’t want that explanation). Although people have always agreed to my explanations in the past yet this obnoxious fool seem to have a different set of genes altogether. He would not go to college, not go out or bother to do any work at home and his incompetence just kept on increasing along with my BP. Then came the dreaded day that it all happened and I completely lost my temper. Although he had not been doing any work or studies or anything worthwhile I was still adjusting with his incompetence, mountain of artificial sickness and his poor company but what happened that day made me do something that I never thought I was capable of doing. We had come from my Didi’s place and she gave us our dinner, which had been the usual custom for a few days since she knew that I was doing all the work so she helped me a bit every now and then, I realized that we needed some grocery so I ordered the stuff and within minutes I found that the delivery guy was here with the things. I told my roommate to please go down stairs(we were living on the 2^nd floor) and get the things but he gave me the i-would-not-do-any-work look and then followed it up with a how-dare-you-ask-me-to-work look. So, I had to go downstairs myself to get the stuff and that is when I found myself saying what the F***( F means fuck but this is a family blog so I have to be conscious) and suddenly like a nightmare it came to me that what was I doing, how can I let this mother f******(family blog mind you) son of a b**** do this. I realized that it was enough and I had done enough, I have taken crap and more crap in my life but this amount of crap was just too much for me. I went upstairs and began feeling a cold rage inside me and I never felt such way before, I knew I had to do something. I entered our room and said ”you mother F****** son of a B****, you bloody swine you won’t live with me you F****** A**HOLE you get out of my house” saying this I punched my hand thrice in the wall only so that I could control my anger and went out on the terrace leaving him in utter shock and dismay. Now why did I hit the wall and not him because in that cold rage too I knew that if I had hit him instead of the wall he would definitely end up in a hospital with cardiac-arrest, broken jaw and a ruptured eye and I would end up in Noida police station. I was still angry when I touched my hand to see if I had caused any injury to myself and discovered that I had broken one of my metacarpal bones. I did not worry about it at that time and quietly put on my sweater and went out to the nearest hospital. He(my roommate) tried to follow me but I warned him and said I would beat him to death if he followed me, on the way to the hospital I called Didi and told her that I have broken my arm, she was in gurgaon attending her friends birthday party and needless to say on hearing the news she gave out a cry that would put to shame even Nirupa Roy and other Ekta kapoor drama queens. I went to Prayag hospital and the receptionist was even more shocked to see me so calm and composed even with my broken arm. By the time Didi came to the hospital from gurgaon the doctor had already plastered my hand giving me about 400 pills to eat in the next seven days along with the dhai-kilo-ka-hath of Sunny Deol. I later came to know that my roommate had called Didi and was crying and too scared of me after witnessing me in such a volatile state. I gave no importance to that story cause I was still pissed off at him and no amount of tears from his eyes could change that. I came back to Didi’s place that night, she called everyone back home and lied for me saying that I had fallen off the stairs( god bless sisters) and broke my arm. I went to bed that night and was fast asleep because of the several shots of painkillers and sleeping medicine that were given to me. By the way for those interested to know my roommate’s name is Rajdeep Purkayastha…….and I was glad to get rid of him!!!!!

The classes started after our so called Orientation program and the first few days were very exciting and I felt very enthusiastic as if someone had pumped into me a gallon of adrenaline in one shot. All of a sudden the ball-freezing Delhi winter had no effect on me and I felt like Superman without my underwear over my pants. I began to imagine the kind of landmarks I would create, my unimaginable success, my impregnable speeches and all that I would do in the coming years that will come as a rush of fresh blood to the country and make me the NEXT BIG THING!!! But it was not very long before my idea of making it big and ruling the roost were punctured by my increasing disinterest in the course. The plans that I had and the hopes that I had developed for myself all of a sudden seemed so distant. I started hating the course and I did not like what I was taught because frankly speaking most of it was plain old BULLSHIT!!! Some people have this instinct they can identify bullshit when then see some and I have that special gift. The whole thing about being an MBA and working in the corporate sector was made such a hoax with faculties coming everyday and trying to scare the shit out of us. The students of our class were 80% introverts and the faculties did a pretty good job of intimidating them further, so much so that they began having second thoughts only after a week. Although I have to say that apart from all the crap that I was fed everyday I was happy to be here. I had come to Delhi several times in the past but have never been here during the winter and everything looked very beautiful to me. The atmosphere was amazing the days were cold and the nights were chilly and although I did not have any source of entertainment with me in my room I used stay up late and read a lot. We were given n-number of assignments during the first few weeks and having bunked classes all my life in G.C.College and never attending lectures, forget about assignments, I found it to be a bit hectic initially but then got used to it or I guess I thought it was pointless to complain. I have a real problem with names of people and I tend to forget them no matter how beautiful or unusual ( I would have said ugly but it would sound inhumane) their names are!! So everyday I made newer acquaintances with my classmates and kept forgetting their names with lightening speed …….but I was hopeful that in the course of the next 2yrs I would at least be able to remember 22 names of the 122 students in our batch. And while I was struggling to remember the names of my classmates our course on the other hand was advancing on full throttle!!!!

I went to college on 26^th Jan for the first time for our Orientation Program (HELL!! I still don’t understand what that means) where we were introduced to the various faculty members at the start and then began the endless and painful process of introducing ourselves to whoever came in. The students started introducing themselves to whoever entered the class irrespective of class, creed, gender, position or utility. And this process continued for months to come and I began to feel like I have been admitted to Kindergarten all over again and I have to tell my name, my father’s name and most importantly why I thought of ever being born on this earth. The first day was clueless nobody knew what was going or what we were supposed to do but just carried along. We were given complementary lunch that day which tasted like horse food ( N.B :- I have never tasted horse food but it must be that way). Among all the faculty members that we have had one person needs a mention and he is none other than Alok Anand, he used to teach us PPM, and why he needs a mention is because of the sheer way he dealt with the students. I have in my short time on earth seen very few people who can truly intimidate others and Alok Anand sure could and he left no stone unturned in doing that, he would make you feel insignificant like anything and make you question your existence his motto simply was (1) If you are wrong then you are definitely wrong but (2) if you are right then you must be wrong (I hope get the idea). Our orientation program continued for three more days and we were given lectures by various visiting faculties from different strata’s of life sharing with us their experiences, ideas, thoughts and to give us a glimpse of the kind of work they have done. During these three days there were several other activities most of which I could not get the hang off because of the limited ability of my brain, there were activities like the coffee drinking competition, graffiti making and a few other I dare not remember, and by the end of the third day I guess everybody was quite happy that it was finally over. The fourth day was scheduled for what they called “ Delhi Darshan” and I could make it as I decided that sleeping more on that day would be a better idea then going for Delhi “darshan” and anyways I couldnot understand what that has anything to do with our course( not that anything else that happened in the past three days did ). Later I came to learn from some of my new classmates that my decision to sleep wasn’t such a bad idea afterall !!!!!!!

On the way back home me and Jij spoke extensively for about four minutes and for the rest of the way I just kept staring at the busy night life of Delhi while at the back of my head I began to compare it with the stand-still life of rural India that I had witnessed in the past 36 hours of the journey. Delhi is a very charming city and although I haven’t seen any other capital of any other country I still felt that this city is very special in many of its ways and I have always had a special affinity towards it. I reached Didi’s place and found my sister more happy and jubilant than she ever could be to see me and thought of the very unlikely kind of a farewell I had back home but anyways everyone seemed happy on both shores and I was just happy to get some home made food. I found that my didi had kept a couple of girls as PG in her flat, both of them students of Amity studying microbiology or was it biotechnology who cares, which meant I wouldn’t get my usual room but I was just too tired to feel bad about it …..I could have slept on the dining table. The next morning I woke up late, real late, so much so that I joined everyone for lunch. My Didi lived in Noida and since her marriage I have been here more than half a dozen times but still I find Noida a very lifeless place that is very different from Delhi and it may be because here everything seems so planned and perfect whereas Delhi with its imperfections is just perfect. I still had few more days before my college started and I thought of making the best utilization of it by …..well watching TV, sleeping and eating a lot. I also made a call, somewhere in between all that hard work, to my college to make sure that the day of commencement of the classes were still the same as said and that’s because when you have been living in India for almost quarter of a century you get used to these unscheduled delays!!!

….contd
I went to bed and though I was tired like hell I just could not manage to sleep. I was not thinking much or probably didn’t think at all, only abstract thoughts. I saw as the night turned from pitch black slowly to a bluish morning sky and then when the first glowing rays of sunlight pierced into my room I knew it was time for me to get up. I got ready and didn’t even bother to think about breakfast I had a train to catch. I went to the station and having traveled in these routes for many a times now I didn’t need to ask anyone. I found my compartment, kept my luggage, and since there was still time for the train to leave I got down to grab a quick cup of coffee. I had a reservation for sleeper class but just to be extra sure I thought I would check out the list outside my bogie and found my name missing. I didn’t panic cause I knew exactly what had happened as this was not the first time. The Indian Railway started this new system of upgrading passengers from sleeper class to AC section if the seats were left empty. This happened to me the last time while I was going from Delhi to Guwahati and it happened again what can I say luck was on my side and I was not complaining. I took my berth and thought of what kind co-passengers I would have to deal with and didn’t have to guess much as I soon found out. An aunty with her daughter and her brother hopped in and started having the robust of all discussions I have heard in my life. The girl was very exited as she was about to get married and her mother just couldn’t seem to get over the thought that her only daughter could manage such an accomplished groom(I began wonder what was wrong with the girl) who is a navy officer and earns Rs.21,000. And how did I know all of that well they spoke or rather shouted so much that it was tough to ignore and I have every possible reason to believe that even the driver knew about her marriage. To my relief though they got down at NGP station and I could not help but thank God. The new dwellers of my compartment were a Bhutanese family, whose daughter had met with an accident breaking one arm, fracturing both her legs and her spinal cord and was undoubtedly in a great amount of pain. I had my dinner and spoke with the father of that girl asking him how it all happened and came to know that while riding her new bicycle she came across the edge of a cliff and forgot to pull the brakes. I went to my berth and got into a slumber only to be woken up by a half hearted shout and found my next compartment swarming with police officers. Some passenger’s bag has gone missing and the GREAT INDIAN POLICE instead of helping the poor guy and trying to find out the baggage was pinning the whole matter onto him for not being too careful and by doing so they wasted enough time and lost all possibility of a search. I tried to speak to the guy who seemed devastated as if he had lost his wife but I found out that the bag didn’t have any valuable thing in that except his mobile and the numbers along with it. I didn’t sleep after that and as day broke I managed to get a news paper and found that the Left was still opposing the nuclear deal. All day long I kept on watching the hundreds of kilometers of farm land and once spoke with an air force officer who seemed very upbeat about the fact that the government was about to come up with the sixth pay commission. As they sun began to set and the fields looked more golden than ever I saw the farmers slowly returning and could not help but think what exactly were they thinking at that point of time. It was January and after dusk the air became more and more chilly, I switched on my cell, we were entering New Delhi Railway Station. My brother-in-law(I call him Jij) had come to pick me up. I helped the Bhutanese family to get their daughter off the train and was on my way to Didi’s place.

....contd

So on 19th January 2008 I left Silchar for Guwahati. I thought I would see a lot of saline water combined with a lot of melodramatic expressions on my departure but to my surprise none of them bothered to shed a single drop of it ....on the contrary most of them seemed pretty happy to get rid of me. Previously my uncle was supposed to leave me uptill Guwahati but blood sugar got the better of him and I had to leave alone(not that I complained). I reached the bus station accompanied by Suren(a cook in our restaurant) and found out that except Rajdeep( Chowdhury ) none of my other friends cared to show up. Tantu and Jeet preferred to sleep and Sourav could not make it because of higher causes. Anyways I was glad that Rajdeep was there when I left and actually dint give much of a thought to others after that. The bus journey from Silchar to Guwahati is something that I have always hated, it was a 12 hour bus journey, and I usually spent most of the time either sleeping or cursing the govt for not making things easier....but at the back of my head I was happy this time cause I was taking this journey the last time for sometime to come now!!! As the Bus slowly moved out of the station, then over the only flyover we have in silchar, a lot of things began to roll on my mind. Ofcourse I was happy but the sights and sounds of silchar suddenly started to feel very nostalgic and I began to think of the things that I will not be able to see for a long time now. I was busy in my thoughts when I was suddenly brought back to reality by a group of tourist, probably from in and around Delhi, when they started talking about all the things they saw and hated about Silchar. They growled about its roads, sewage system, electricity, unemployment, the ignorant people and a million other things and they seemed pretty sure that they will probably never come back. At one point I thought I would jump into the conversation and give them a piece of my mind.But I was a silcharian and I loved silchar for whatever it was and thought that the group behind me was the worst set of homo-sapient in this bus. I don't know when I fell asleep but when I woke up we had already covered about a 100 kilometers and someone in the bus was playing Always-by Bonjovi. The rest of the journey was alright but we had to encounter a two hour delay because of a road block which was ok by our standards.I reached Guwahati at 8 P.M and checked in hotel Siroy Lily for the night....My train was early next morning!!

....contd

I would have to say one thing as the day of my departure came close I was showered with more love, affection and care then i ever was from my family. I could say whatever I wanted, eat whatever I wanted,do whatever I wanted(I was a star!!).And why not the youngest member of the GUHA CLAN was about toleave home turf(Big Deal!!) I remember my father telling me that once I go to Delhi I should not indulge in any kind of unnessesary activities!!!(viz. smoking, drinking, fighting, flirting ...the list is endless) That was probably the first piece of GOOD advice he had given to me in the last 10years(Not that I expected any or I want any in future). I was really anxious and was waiting for the day I was supposed to leave...They say home is where heart is but at that point of time I really did'nt know where my heart wanted to be. My mind was in Delhi!!

Leaving Home

............contd Once back in silchar i had only one thing in mind( Actually quite a few things in my mind!!!) i had to finish my computer course and get out of there as soon as possible!!!! My computer teacher.....boy he needs a mention!!! helped me get through it as soon as possible!!! As the day of my departure( man i make it sound like a movie) came close for some apparent reason i didn't feel sad. I thought this is my chance my opportunity to do something that would shape my career forever(Yeah right!!!).....stood infront of the mirror gave a grin look at myself and took exactly 1682 ( i like to exaggerate) oaths, pledges, vows,swears and promises( i think all of them mean the same thing)....... Most of those i cant even remember and for those i can !!! well they sound stupid and more pathetic now!!!!

I came to delhi last year(2007) a few days before Kali puja for admission or rather for trying to get admission in MBA. Since my marks were a Light Year away from being the university topper, i guess i wasn't left with much choice of colleges. I short listed a few colleges-which i must add was a very short list with probably 2 or 3 names. i started calling them and trying to get a date for my selection, which i can tell you is not much as colleges try to grab whatever they can lay their hands on!! I finally decided on taking admission in Delhi Business School(Dont ask why!! i probably got impressed by the name or something!!!). Come to think of it i was not even sure i wanted to do MBA. Anyways i went to Assam as my session would start from January and i had a computer course to wrap up before that. At that moment having taken admission in MBA, i thought was a career defining moment for me, i felt like Neil Armstong landing first time on the Moon or probably like George Bush attacking afganistan !!!................