The story of 200012086 and 200012087

Inspired by Rahul's recall series where he is reliving the memories of his friends, I thought of just recalling the moments I spent with a certain Mr Tony Singhal, a dear friend from my college days.

It was in the dreaded C labs where I met Tony for the first time. Since we had adjacent roll numbers I was allotted a machine next to his. He seemed to me very intelligent and street smart guy, so I was hoping, he will be able to help me out in the labs as I had no idea about the ABCs of C. He proved his street smartness soon when in the next lab

class, he moved next to a certain Ms RJ as she needed Tony's help. Much later we all came to know that our Tony actually had laid the bait, by disconnecting that poor gals keyboard and according to the plan later came to her rescue thereby becoming the Hero. This of course, infuriated a certain Mr RJ who could only watch as his prized possession was being taken away under his very nose. As a result he took to 'Gum ka sathi Rum' thus Tony was the reason behind our first SMIT version of Devdas.

What Tony had failed to foresee was that his helpful nature would soon prove to be his bane, when in the workshops he had to help Ms RJ, by polishing her share of wood work and filing her piece of iron slab. So as expected Tony successfully rescued himself from that vigorous work and dedicated his evenings to Ms PB teaching her some subject which no one of us is sure of till this very day. Tony actually had impressed Ms PB, when he was chucked out of the class by our psycho prof Thomas since he had no back logs in the first semester. It was during this time, that we had completed our first year in college and he started to realise the futility of his attempts and decided to try out his hand in some lukkhagiri or slacking. Thats where I came in.

Not only Tony and I had adjacent registration numbers 200012086 and 200012087, but also our structures were similar. Both of us were short and lean and when we slept (in our respective beds of course) it was tough to say whether we were sleeping under the blanket or the blanket was actually folded. We both had shitty handwriting and needless to say, were last benchers. It won’t be wrong to say that the gradual decline in Tony’s grades was a result of his newly found love for the HIGH SPIRITS, the SMOKING GUN and the person who introduced him to these EVILS. It was also very tough for us to say no to each other, as I couldn’t say no to him when he asked me to join his evening workout sessions in A-405 or he joining me in the after college football matches even if it was for one match only.

A friend in need is a friend indeed, so our greatest partnership was witnessed in the halls be it the sessionals or the semester exams. We complimented each other quite well, he was good at solving numerical whereas I at diagrams, so when the papers arrived the initial 5 minutes were utilized in scribbling the rear of the question paper with the diagrams or formulas or a few salient points of the question and then passing it on. We did it with relative ease on most occasions except on one particular semester when unfortunately we were allocated seats on the last benches of two separate columns of benches. As they say desperate time calls for desperate measures, so we had to throw the answered question papers towards each

other. I was delighted that once again we escaped the invigilators alert eyes and also couldn’t help but laugh at Suraj (Goyal), when I saw his perplexed look and his expression of disgust at our feat. I sometimes wonder how much more Suraj would have scored if it wasn’t for us always pestering him with our antics. The practicals too wasn't spared when in the 3rd sem EDC lab exam we exchanged the assigned experiments right under the nose of PUT C. Our partnership literally ended with a BANG, when after the last exam in 7th sem we bursted crackers outside the academic blocks.

Things have changed drastically after we left college. Tony is into selling boots whereas I into saving my butt from one. He has no time for social networking whereas I have no time for anything else. He has reached a stage where he must start looking for a good school for his little angel whereas I am yet look out for a good mother for my future little angel. We had last talked, when he had called me to enquire whether I had escaped the Mumbai floods and that was almost 2 years ago. It’s time that i give him a call.