THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT..........

Ever heard of the adage ....Birds of a feather flock together

Ever heard of another one.....Opposites attract . Put them in one context and what you get is an OXYMORON.

Let me go back a little and then explain to all my readers the logic of the analogy provided.

People ..........spring was yet to come, green shoots were yet to spring forth from the ground........ and the fickle cupid had struck. People were falling in love left , right and centre. My gang was hell bent on teasing me until i turned red ...and it was'nt even confirmed....hell Atreyee had ditched me for another guy(of course that is of doubtful authenticity whether he was a guy or not ........... he was more of a CASSANOVA ). 1000 bucks say that their hopless love story doesn't last.Actually I had lost interest in her ...always sulking as if someone had spilled catdung in her breakfast....and foremost of all she had taken an absolute dislike to my blogs ...which was a cardinal sin.....

The UBER COOL gang of Prateek , Lohit, Debasish ,Anurag , Nishan and Agnish always had a word to say whenever i strolled into their rooms.......the happily single Yours truly was dogged with comments about my ex-girlfriend.....and somewhere in between somebody else was slowly being entrapped in the throes of love.....GUESS WHO???

Still guessing............well it was Prateek and the mystery girl ? .....well i had'nt a slightest clue as to who she was until very recently. Yep........... also a good friend and arguably one of the coolest girls of our batch ...Ankita Behera. yes people you have read correctly , cool people do fall in love ....of course i am an exception

Well i can write this blog with ease knowing that neither Prateek nor his girlfriend would kill me in my sleep if i write about them in my blog ...for both of them were good friends....its cool when good friends fall in love ...cos atleast you can joke and fool around and no one would feel bad.

But what really amazed me is the suddenness of the lovestory.....no one knew about their story ...there were no hushed phone calls, no first date sightings by our college mates , no secluded place talks .....would have fooled even an hardcore CIA agent.Yep the cool pople fraternity fall in love like this ......and good news all BPL people it doesnt even cost much ...ive never seen Prateek shed money on expensive and completely useless gifts...not to mention that he hasn't given me my treat yet.

Yes ...now coming to the cliched proverbs used by me at the outset....ok no hard feelings Ankita ....she was just 5 feet and Prateek was around 6 feet..........thus justifying the nomenclature of the blog ...She was a caring girl who never gave any her assignments to her juniors and yet Prateek would'nt stop at a chance to rag a junior and hand him bundle of assignments. and that is probably where all their differences end.

And their similarities are many.......Both of them are bundles of energy , both of them enjoy participating in various college fests...both of them are comfortable with seniors.............both of them think global ....both of them are optimistic and are never influenced by small talk.And foremost of all both of them are impulsive and have a scant regard of rules and the status quo.

I remember Ankita for getting a severe dressing down from the warden of the Ladies Hostel for secretly buying and bursting crackers.

She has no frills about her and is direct and straight forward in her approach , just like my chum Prateek.And BOTH OF THEM ARE CRAZY.......

But what i doubt is Ankita has a penchant for tall guys ....first Agnish was the probable suitor( no hard feelings Agnish ...that was just a standing joke amongst us ) and then Prateek.Of course the guy used reverse psychology....he would always tease Agnish and at last ended with her himself...well u cant fool me for long.....the sudden disappearances from our hostel would evidently result in a visit to the LH......

I once went with him to the LH and what we got there was nothing less than a -soccer- stand- full- of chanting- masses- approach.

Strains of "Dekho Chand Aaya ,Chand nazar aaya rent the air and wouldnt give the lovebirds a chance to talk properly.

Their love story was the talk of the town....be it the hallways or the hostels... wherever both of them were sighted...it elicited a host of comments and sniggers from the crowd.

an example - i once overheard someone saying that for Prateek to kisss Ankita he ould have to exactly bend 45 degrees and kiss her from a distance of exactly one feet. Still dont get the drift ...well she differed from him in height by exactly one feet and if he stood one foot apart , according to Pythagoras theorom his angle of depression would be exactly 45 degrees....(and who says that Maths is boring)

of course it would be rude of me to mention the other comments ......but their couple was certainly an odd one ...

Cupid certainly would have had a hard time trying to adjust his love arrows on this couple ..

so for all those who have been searching for girlfriends who exactly complement them ...take a leaf out of this couples book. All the best to Prateek and Ankita and yes ....Prateek the first time you try to kiss her ...just remember dear old Pythagoras....

Catch all of you later after my exams

Cheerio folks.

BELOW POVERTY LINE

My parents would kill me when they find out that i live like this in the hostel.....pause ....wait a minute most parents would kill their wards(ok wards would be an understatement ....it would only be boys , as girls always have loads of cash on them anytime) when they find out about the cash strapped existence. Economists throughout the world are stumped by the fact how a huge amount of Rs. 1000/- flies out of our wallet in a mere 5 days .....ok i admit i spend my pocket money like the world is about to end tomorrow.

6 cups of tea in the morning ,2 packets of high calorie biscuits and loads of icecream and soft drinks in the afternoon are some of the necessities that i spend my money on........

RESULT.....

i've finished off my soap and have to bathe in shampoo until i get my next pocket money....but there is always friends in the nearby rooms who are glad to lend me soaps ,provided it hasn't already been handed down or stolen from some 3o other people ....and buckets are public property ...imagine 18 people in one wing 10 buckets and 5 of them are of questionable ownership. Last time i remember i had my own bucket when i was in the first year....and that is all i remember. Countless times i have already asked for money to buy a bucket from home ...and the bucket buying venture remains in the pipeline.
Coming to the most necessary of daily use items ....the DEO..One can survive on a healthy dose of deo even without bathing for 30 days straight. FYI the clothes line acts as a local anesthesia for some ...anyone passing by the line would end up in the bio hazard quarantine unit.

Coming back to the cash issue ..my best policy is to take Rs. 20 in the pocket and end up eating fare worth Rs. 50 from my friends ...the golden rule is to never sit with the same branch guys twice in the same week. They end up sniffing your bait and they don't let you anywhere near their plates. Even by mistake if you get anywhere near their plates they first take the opportunity of spitting on the food stuff...how rude is that.

Moving on to the academic department the last time i had brought a pen was when i started engineering.Imagine 54 pens in my pen stand and not a single one mine......some of them come from my wing-mates ..some from seniors ....and hell..... some even come from the lab teachers.
One copy ...9 different handwritings etched both on the front and the back ....with doodles on the cover page ... Ok the copy was mine ..i had lent it to different people( don't underestimate my magnanimity) I can proudly announce that i have never spent my money on a copy from the start of my second year in engineering.

And to mention some of my fraternity members who always support me with aid in times of need....NITESH DAS ....the best thing about him is that once you start calling him a miser he ends up throwing money on your face ...i like people who get mad when you call them misers.The most cardinal mistake that people make is when they invite me to tea.One tea costs a meager Rs. 3 but i take the humble opportunity of gulping down 6 glasses and then consuming 2 huge chunks of cake and the bill comes out to be a staggering Rs. 40.And after reading my blog Nitesh is promising me a treat........see the effect always works...

Thanks to some of my wing-mates i even have access to their wardrobe. Last time i was anchoring in the film festival of our college ...I had to borrow a shirt , a pair of pleated pants ...a pair of shoes and even the damn comb...ok folks the underwear was mine ...or was it ????

But the best thing about being sans cash is that you can think of ingenious ways of making money ...ok all of them don't have to be morally correct...in the first year we had engineering drawing classes ..we had to submit sheets of incomprehensible drawings of machine parts in one week.So i hit upon a plan to extract money from complete idiots who were too lazy to do their own drawings...i tried it on my friend Mrudu who paid me a stagering rs. 70 for a single sheet ...when all that my friends were paying Rs.10 per sheet...i managed to find some more idiots who i wish not to name who paid off my canteen dues.....please dont feel bad Mrudu ...u got an A++ on that sheet.From this just imagine the depths that a BPL engineer can go to fill his stomach :)

So for all those people who detest the cash strapped existance always remember the engineering pledge ...LOOK AT THE FACE OF THE POOREST ENGINEER YOU HAVE EVER SEEN AND REMEMBER ME.... AND CONTEMPLATE THAT YOUR CASH WILL ONE DAY MAKE AN ENGINEER WHO WILL BUILD THE FUTURE....A VERY WISE INVESTMENT.....CASH AND DEMAND DRAFTS ARE ACCEPTED ...PLEASE MAIL THEM TO Room no. 58 west Hostel , VSSUT Burla.