Monday, April 10, 2006

Of Bungling Lovers, And Their Tales...

Whats funny these days is the amazing candour with which we discuss a subject that was among the most taboo and worst kept secrets in school and college life...love! Back then, it was an affair of private despair clumsily stashed away very from public glare in the deepest recesses of the mind, only to be reopened, mulled at, strategised, procrastinated and once in a while mustering the guts to make a public airing of feelings. Today with the girls who then captivated our hearts married and gone, we look back and laugh at all the embarassingly funny situations that infatuation, love and trying hard to keep the affairs of the heart secret produced. I had the good fortune to study with a huge set of dimwits from school through college who conceived ideas of megalomanical proportions to win over the ladies, and though we knew how bound for failure they were, yet we would prod them on in their heroics for a good laugh later on at the unfortunate victims expense. Today those duffers regret their heroics as even years later because of unforgiving, unforgetting friends using those mistakes to have a jolly, good laugh at reunions and idiots like me blogging those down for eternity.

School was the heyday of infatuations. What made our situation more precarious was that we kept Vishwamitranian ideals and a belief that girls entering the fold would damage our batch's unity. But boys will be boys, and from motta who could find his way to a gals heart so easily that we would stand respectfully at his side trying to get the "mullapoonkodiyettu kedakkum" effect to the forever love-lorn chunni to the tough and hardy hooper, everyday in schoollife had a most hilarious outpouring of somebody's woes, another's gaffes and someone's successes to narrate. As for me, I remember waiting for my crush, all over the place from Nanthencode Junction to Pattom
LIC wondering what mode of transport she used and finally giving up that tactic when she arrived with a policeman for escort...her dad wuz an IPS officer!!! But what took the cake was a love rectangle shaping up in class and Hooper forming a planning board with a few guys to deduce who the gal was interested in, and finally for all his efforts landing up with a nickname chairman which still stands! Well that was not the end of chairman's travails as he used sentiments to appeal to an HAC gal and she broke into tears in the middle of Statue Junction with hundreds of people watching and abba and gundu who accompanied chairman, running away with chair trying his best to console her... that was the last i ever heard of chairmans tryst with the fairer sex. Infact something happened so reminescent of Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar that we would tell muthu, "ninakkum oru waste penninum vendi loyolites peruvazhiyil chenne adiyondaakenda gathikedayi"!!! There are so many more tales that merited mention here but due to lack of space you readers could look up this link

College brought on dilemmas of the same nature as school. I again fell into the hands of a dedicated gang of rogues whose first priorities were mischief and adventure and who considered love and gals as waste of time and money. But then human nature has a way of asserting itself...viswan soon began writing love poems, shan began to study hard to catch up, kiran went from gyms to diets to naturopathy to loose weight, anoop trying to be quiet and obedient in class, i would try my hand at sitting studiously in the frontbenches...oh, unforgettable all our experiements at taming our wild ways and finding a path to reform! None of it really worked...we would think to ourselves, "ithinokke oru knack venam enne thonnunnu" and return to what we were best at...movies, cricket, booze and alambufying in class. Still remember the day Kevin hit on a novel way to propose to his lady love...got a t-shirt specially painted with a "Right Here Waiting for You" caption and borrowed a bike and a sunglass, waited for her at the college entrance and the gal walked right by giving just a smile and not making much of the hardly crafted tshirt. We then decided a more direct, "I love you" painted tshirt could do the trick but by then poor kevin had enough!!! Or the day Viswan got his first love letter, thanks to Yours Truely's nascent writing ability, arriving late in class that day with a most bewildered look on him...taking a seat somewhere in the front, and every few mins looking back sharply at us as we struggled to maintain a straight face and then at the unsuspecting girl, trying to glean where
exactly the change in his life's fortunes emanated from! The mutual distrust among our guys was so great...there were surprise visits to each others house, complete ransacking of computers, bnedrooms, almirahs for personal diary's and other incriminating evidences there were times the savages actually dreaded each other...actually we couldnt blame each other...shan's fone bill, viswan going to ponmudi or kovalam without us, i once went to a coffee shop and the next day as I gingerly stepped into class a shout from viswan, "Eda Kalla Kattankappi, nee aalu kollamallo" and the sinking feeling of embarassment with me wondering despite all precautions how they found out, chakkas secret visits to the gyms and so many more incidents always raised our suspicions...and at the other end of the spectrum there was arun hari who in between playing super spy and enfant terrible to us would "silently" scream at us with a "look at me, learn from me" attitude on how to lead life.

Its time to wind up this post...but i need to mention this incident from cet of a guy who was hellbent on eloping with his girlfriend, despite both sets of parents agreeing to a marriage that he took along with him goondas to whom he lied that the gal was in house arrest, tied up the gals parents, and strutted out with the gal and when the gals father told the truth of the story to the goondas, it wass the guy's turn to get thrashed by the goondas and spent a few days in hospital. Unbelievable...none of us ever understood his logic...whoever said love is blind could never have forseen such a situation...beats even the most twisted bollywood romance!! And to call it quits this last anecdote, may be the best of our schoolife...the gal who cried above drove into her akarshana valayam another of our classmates who started to excuse himself everytime with a strange excuse..."ente oru thengum purayadathil, thenga pothikkan pokanam" and once after tuition he used this excuse and left while chairman and the other guys proceeded to the above said gal's house and surprised on seeing our new romeo at his flame's place, chairman in anger
and jest tells the gal, "Ivide thenga kedappondo...ivan nannayi pothiche tharum"!!!...Oh My God, incidents like this as i have never been tired of saying made our school one of the most extraordinary experiences of our lifteime. Like its funny side, many of us experienced its sadder side too but with time, the scars heel and what remains is a wealth of humor that love and infatuations contributed. Well, unfortunately there's no way to rewind time, but there's always going to be days when I can unwind and laugh and wonder what an amazing maze of feelings, experiences and embarassments litters a man's path to maturity and adulthood. Back to my books now...hope I dont get lynched for this post!!!

17 comments:

Sreehari S said...

hahahahahahahahhahahaahaha

me again!!!!

da jabbar i rolled on the cafe ground with laughter gr8 post man

i hav a new idea lets put a copy of our posts in the mail grp along with the blogs ..i hurriedly copied ur links and started work on my blog ..this is real interestin hope 2 b active soon

my prob is i m only use 2 arguing not preachin hahahaha so cant write up a monologue
http://sree9898blog.blogspot.com/
my humble beginings

Arun said...

ah! finally a post on love...
I expect a lot of commenting on t his one ;-)
A few thoughts that raced by while reading this:

-Viswan's first love poem. Me and Shan had unearthed it. It started with "You are my fantasy, you are my ecstasy..." Viswan thought that we wouldnt say it to anyone. How wrong he was!

-Shan's mp3 list on winamp was always a matter of great debate. Known outwardly as a tough guy, he was trapped by yours truly several times listening to some ultra soft mushy numbers which were arranged as a secret playlist.

-Kiran being spotted at the gym by Viswanath was an all time classic. The way viswan narrated the story was absolutely hilarious! And the reason that kiran had given in the spur of the moment was that "Im preparing for placements. Ive heard companies look at fitness when they recruit!" Yeah right, like we were in army school or something! lol..

-And how can one forget the greatest of all incidents when Shinoj announced publicly how he felt for two women at the same time! (Unable to publish it here because of its explicit nature)

ARK said...

hilarious post. these lines will fit,

"Oh when I lock back now
That was seemes to last forever
And if I had the choice
Ya - I'd always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life"

alas! in IIT, we don't have enuf girls to run after :(

Jiby said...

N.B - for all u guys reading, sreehari is the 'chairman' who had a starring role in this post...hehe!

chairman, was that long 'haha.....ha' one of your hyena laughs...i thought of the linking blog to the mailgroups idea earlier but i am scared the frequency of emails will come down...and that wud be a disaster. da dont worry abt writing...i have found out that there is no better way to marshall your thoughts and precieve issues in different light than by just blogging away.

arun, i'd forgotten all abt shan's playlists and kiran's placement excuse...like u said we better leave shinoj's moment of enlightenment out of this blog!!!

arjun, thanks and you know what, i feel a bit stupid, with a junior getting to read all our blunders. too bad, ur in the wrong neck of the woods now...but i thought uttaranchal is from where pahari gals like udita goswami and preity zinta come from!!! and reading this dont think we were behind gals all the time...its just that our lives were so dramatic those days, whatever little we did on the "girl-front" was enough for complications and comic situations to arise!

Sarah said...

gosh it is funny going through the youth and the things we did.. I enjoy the way you describe.

............ said...

that waz really funny yet true(mean the end part)!!

Thanu said...

that was funny to read how hards guys try... and u guys make it seem like we girls have it so easy

silverine said...

This was such a cute post.Loved it. I thought you guys were very suave and savvy when it comes to girls. Thought it was us girls who were the babe in the woods :p Thanks for enlightening!!

Studying in an all girls schools we grew up looking at guys like some sort of exotic creatures. Didnt quite understand them and all guys were treated as creeps out to do 'bad things' to us (according to the nuns). But the St Joseph's boys next door more or less made up for the lack of testosterone in our campus :)) And looking at their antics near our school walls we were convinced that the nuns were right lol

Geo said...

Man, tooo good a post!!!
Absolutely hilarious… :_D :_D :_D

And loads of memories….
I too had written a dummy love letter to one of my close buddies… Man, I still cant forget his face when I told him the truth.

Number of ‘collective’ crushes our gang had… collective in the sense, one guy will have a crush and others will be following up, investigating, spying and what not…

The ‘toughest’ of guys harboring the ‘softest’ of feelings secretly….

Great post!! :_D

Anand K said...

Aliyo, hats off! This was such a chweet post, took me back 40 yrs. Ohhhh those days of youth! I remember trying to stalk this Nirmala Bhavan girl (to find out where exactly she lives) who cycled all the way from somewhere near Peroorkada to Kawadiar for Math tutions... in 8th standard. Well, this four-eyed wee little thing turned out to be a fr1ggin Lance Armstrong on her Ladybird. By the time I huffed and puffed into Ambalamukku Junction, she had already waltzed into the Artic Circle or something. Darn, the mortification..... the shame! That day I decided never to go after girls who are in better physical shape than I am. So help me God! ::P
BTW, it was only today I got to know who Leelu literally crashlanded into. She blogs too.... u reading this, Miss P ? Pleej forgive us onlee for any taqleef. ;)

And about that melee we respectable Loyolites got into (like some gang of urchins) at Pattom Junction..... remember the very bro' who got us into that sh1t staying away from the streetfight and remarking to the bystanders- "Countree boys, fighting! Cheeeee!" :P

Brijesh Nair said...

The way you write about school/college days make me really nostalgic. I have a very funny incident to share. When I was about to finish my engineering one of my friend decided to marry his childhood sweetheart without telling his parents. The previous day before marriage he started feeling guilty and went home with few of his friends (me included) to tells his parents about his marraige. He told his parents "nalle ente kalyanam annu..anugrahikkanam".. I will never forget the way he told that and reaction of his parents. They got soo wild that somehow we ran back to hostel. He married the next day. When thinking back all these stories of school/college brings a great smile in my face. Wish I could go back to that period of my life.

You have got a great blog! Keep it up. I have added your name in my blog. Keep posting.

Jiby said...

sarah, glad you could relate to it.

disillusion, yeah casually remembered the end part and that became the inspiration for the whole post.

thanu, we knew that the gals were also making these kind of attempts but ur kind is so secretive we always wondered what was cooking in the gals corner of the classroom.

silverine, i remember an old hilarious post of urs way back...i think a one dedicated to teachers were you mentioned these things.

geo, thanks a lot...man a lot of things we have in common...i always thought that love letters were old-fashioned but the rush of blood when i wrote it and my pal entirely falling for it and finally years later when i broke the secret he just gave me a sad smile.

pappanabho, athukondalle njan leeluvine kurichonnum ezhuthaathathe...and ow yeah muthu's "country boys fighting dialogue" took the cake....i had forgotten totally abt it.

brijesh, glad u liked it...that was a great story u shared with us man...engg college days were the best...no doubts about that!!!

silverine said...

I guess you are talking about Roll Back. Thanks for the link on your schoolmates, went over and laughed my guts out :))

Cheerio

Geo said...

>>"ithinokke oru knack venam enne thonnunnu"

how could i miss this :-?

My feelings, man, thats exactly what I too feel ;_)

joseph said...

Leeluvine kurichu iniyippam ezhuthi kalayaam.. Alle !!!
-Jofu

Jiby said...

silverine, yeah thats the post i was talking of. glad u liked the anecdotes!

geo, well lets all mourn those wasted days....or were they wasted??? the doubts will continue.

pooja, we certainly set benchmarks in stupidity!!!

jofu, njan adhyam onne njetti...theri kekkumo enne bhayannanu aa comment vaayichathe... havooo...ashvaasamaayi...eda pulle nee pazhaya swabhavam erakkalle...ithinte edayil kedannu kalikkalle!!! talked to leelu...eda with his marriage coming up he is putting on all decent airs and claims he doesnt remember his old blunders.

Anonymous said...

Jiby,
Amazing man...real gems in there that all can relate to...inspired by your post, we have set up our school days mandatharams at http://www.geocities.com/pmandanmaar
i will add a link to your loyola days on that page shortly. :)
guys will love reading it...after reading the anecdotes, it almost feels like we went to the same school !! :)

James