Sandeep Singh, Gaurav Thakur, Shailesh and Sukhiya -I

Acronyms :

DAV JVM - My school. Did my +2 frm here.
NOP/SOP - North/South Office Para (colonies close to my school)

PS: occassionly words in brackets describe inner feelings..bhawnaon ko samjho..

Ranchi is close to my heart, more than any other place on earth for sure. It surpasses my affection for evn Godda, my hometown. I did my +2 (DAV JVM) and then Engg. (BITS Mesra) frm this place, which means the better part of my higher education. My love for the place goes to the extent tthat I can simply roam around the places, the market, the Shyamali colony thr and that too evn alone [not that I wud prefer roaming alone]. Climate s good, ppl are lively, girls are pretty n to top it all it has lil in common with its state next door Bihar.

Enough abt Ranchi I guess.
(Soch rahe hoge description to aise de raha hai jaise Swiss land ho)
Getting back to the topic. Its an unusual topic for sure. Has just four names. Who are these four, forming the centrestage of this post. These four were ['are' rather, m sure they are still alive] my seniors (immediate ones) at Ranchi who I came in touch with. Each one of them being distinct different, weird and unusual at the same time. I will talk abt each one of them in the order they come into picture. First comes Sandeep Singh, my HERO [well no sarcasm meant!!] in many a ways. I alongwith my friend Kunal had come to Ranchi for the first time after we had got ourselves admitted to this prestigious DAV JVM, 11th Std. We had thru our seniors got a room booked at one of the houses at NOP since NOP was close to Shyamali colony; where JVM was located. At noon we approached the landlord and said we were the ones who he'd been xpecting. He led us to a set of two interconnected rooms, one of which wud be ours. After seeing our room we tried to enter the other room. But we had to knock as it was locked. The door was opened by a sleepy fellow. I looked at the watch. It showed 12.15.
(pata nahi kaisa insaan hai, insaan v hai ki nahi)
Anyhw, he introduced himself as Sandeep Singh.We kept our baggage and left for a frend's place who had already been at Ranchi since past few days. We got back to our room the next day. We tried entering the next room .

Locked.

Knock knock.

A sleepy Sandeep Singh opens the door. Time 1 pm.
(Wah beta avi v so rele ho.. jiyo!!)
We said sry for the disturbance and got back to our room. It was only in the evening (around 5 pm) when Sandeep Singh has had his full quota of sleep that we had a full formal talk wid him. We told we had come frm Godda and had got admissions at JVM, 11th Std. He on his part said he was frm Ramgarh (a place close to Ranchi - 3 hrs) and is in 12th Std, at DPS.
(Kahi ye Thakur ke khandaan se to nahi..Are nahi, iske to dono hath salamat hain!! )
Sounded good so far xcept the Ramgarh thing which I found filmy.

Next Monday - 7 am.

I am getting ready for the school. Just when I was to leave, I saw Mr. Sandeep Singh still sleeping.
(Abe kumbhkaran ab uth v ja..)
I gently tried waking him up showing him the clock.
(Kahin Kumbhakaran ko gussa na aa jaye...)
He reluctantly pointed a finger at the wall. I followed his finger and saw that he was pointing at the calender.
Me: 'what r u showing.?? Its no holiday today.'
Sandeep Singh: 'See there will be a star marked on todays date'.
I closely observed the calender. There was actually a star on todays date.
Me: 'Yes thr s a star, so'??
Sandeep singh : 'On days that are star marked, dnt wak me up. I dnt go to school on these days.'
(Haan haan, jaoge v kyu, saal bhar me 6 mahine sona v to hai..!!)
I took a closer look at the calender. And I saw that nearly every alternate day was star marked. I left for school wondering hw he managed his attendance.

On getting back frm school around 1pm, I saw Sandeep Singh still sleeping.
(Shabaash, keep the good work going!!)
When he saw me , he finally woke up.
(Aakhirkaar sharam aa hi gayi..!!)
After the usual enquiries abt my first day at JVM, I asked him how he went abt his lunch n dinner. And he said it was Raju the tiffin wala who brought meals. Naturally we joind Raju, We enquired more bout this tiffin system and he gave us his first sermons on life at Ranchi. He taught us the 5 commandments :

1. Never to give advance to Raju beyond a sum of Rs 100.
2. Never pay the rent until Bhaiyya (the landlord) asks repeatedly for it.Try delaying it for as long as u can.
3. Live life ur own way. Girls, sports , padhai..Do watever u like as n when.
4. Always watch night shows. U'll never hav to tak tickets in black.
5. Do not join the trio of Navendu, VK and HariOm for tuitions. They are all crap.

Having had this gyan, we followd rule 1 right in the evning when Raju came, passing him a 100 Rs note as the advance.Time to follow rule 3. We playd indoor cricket in the evning, and were happy to see a few pretty faces watching us frm the balcony of one of the flats in the apartment opposite. And we wasted no time to try out rule 4. We left for the night show, late in the evening. Time passd on and in due course we followd rule 2 n 5 as well, though I found the 5th a bit odd considering the trio ruled the teaching circuits..

A week passd . And then came back frm home Sandeep singh's roommate - our personality No. 2, Sukhiya. This wasnt his real name, which I dnt rmmbr anyways. He was the most unusual being on earth, I have ever known. He used to study for atleast 8-10 hrs a day but still failed in most if not all of the subjects. And equally unusual was his mode of studing. He wud study for a couple of hrs and then wud sleep for sum odd half an hr, and this continued in loop, through the night. He wudnt tolerate the slightest of noise/evn music while studying. Many a times he wud skip his dinner to save money, thriving on biscuits. And this when he had a figure that wud challenge the best of female models. Actually it was his thin frame that had earned him the nick name Sukhiya. He was a regular to school unlike his roomie Sadeep Singh. Sandeep singh made fun of him all the while and we too chipped in wenever we saw a chance. His xploits earned him lil respect frm me n Kunal. We cared lil if he was studying or watever. We played music whenever we wanted.

This annoyed Sukhiya no end and he asked his friend to gimme a threatening. Came his friend one evning - enter our 3rd character Gaurav Thakur. Tall fair handsome but lean. He entered my room in gravity and asked me y I disturbed his frend while he was studying.
(Apne chomu dost ko samjhate kyu nahi..Music se disturbance nahi hota..)
I said, 'I dont purposely go out to disturb ur friend. Its just that he cant stand music at any hr of the day for his so calld study' (putting stress on the words 'so calld study'). He changed his tone and said , 'look we all know of his ways to life. More than the disturbance, its just that he needs some respect to be shown, evn if he deserves none'. His maturity at handling this struck a chord. We got along well since.

And since then some water problem at his flat made him come almost daily in the evning to our flat with his schoolbag which never during the two years carried books/notebooks or evn a pen or pencil. So wat did his bag contain. Clothes, comb, shampoos, and a hell lot of cosmetics. He wud spent hours b4 the mirror. Ok taken that he was a smarty but he went overboard wid his acts. And one day Gaurav brought wid him his flatmate, the fourth character - Shailesh. He went str8 to the bathroom and shouted 'Baba, yahan to mast paani aa rela hai'.
(Bechara, lagta hai sadiyon baad paani dekh raha hai..)
Shailesh gave perfect company to Gaurav wen it came to gettin their looks right. And then began the first of their numerous tales of how they had proposed their last girl and how things were on a roll and how they were so close to the final hurdle.
(Fenk to aise rahe ho jaise Salman Khan ho..!!).
Incidently Shailesh n Gaurav both did idolised Sallu. But they for sure had the best database on all the hotties be at JVM , DPS , NOP or SOP.

One fine day on getting back frm school, Sandeep singh askd me an unusual ques :'U kno Aparna jha ?' i say an unusual ques. coz Sandeep singh used to talk lil abt girls. Nor had he ever talked of his exploits with the fair sex. Probably he knew his limitations and was grounded unlik his two mates. So the ques. came as a surprise. This was a sort of ques. that was expexted frm gaurav or Shailesh. Anyways I answered a dumb NO. He exclaimed saying wat the hell was I upto at DAV. How come I had not seen/evn heard of the hottest thing at JVM. He finished the topic saying me to find out the cynosure of all eyes.

So did I meet her or did I not..? Oh come on, sure I did..!!In the sequel to this post.