First of all, let me introduce you to the entertainer-in-chief for the rest of this post, Kanishk/Kanishka. It’s actually a ‘he’ and to be honest, I haven’t been able to figure out whether he actually uses the last ‘a’ in his name or not( I wonder if he himself knows that). The simple reason is that I have seen him use both the versions of his name with ease. I stick to the version sans the last ‘a’ for two reasons:
- It’s shorter.
- I recently mentioned to a few friends of mine that I went to Pune and stayed overnight at Kanishka’s place and their reaction made me realise how easily the longer version can be confused with the name of a girl and to what extent its meaning can be (mis)interpreted.
I’ve known him post my 10th standard and in general I have no abnormal observations about him apart from what I am going to write. Kanishk is to good luck what Green Goblin was to Spiderman, what Mozilla is to Internet Explorer, what Pope V was to Galelio, what Zayed Khan is to hit films and what Virender Sehwag is to bowlers. In short, these two can’t co-exist. One eventually ends up killing the other and as my ill-fate would have it, Kanishk emerges victorious more often than not! To sum things up, if there ever was a percentile score assigned to person for having/causing ill-fate, my dear friend would be having a percentile similar to the CAT score of the brilliant minds who secure interview calls from IIM-A(B/C).
The second point of interest would be his (lack of) intelligence. I know he would not be taking too kindly to this aspersion but then, here are a couple of incidents. Just read through them and then you are left to decide for yourself:
Scene 1: Me and Kanishk waiting at a bus stop(for a bus, in case you had any doubts!) after school. An overcrowded bus comes, I rush to the back door, Kanishk to the front door. I decide to give up after observing that 20 people were already occupying the footboard. Kanishk somehow clings to the front door. Now the bus starts moving. Kanishk looks back to see if I’ve made it(the bus is picking up speed constatnly). And, on finding me stranded at the stop itself(the bus is moving at its normal speed now), he decides to jump off, with his face still turned backwards(people with their IQ in triple figures would get down at the next stop or at least care to be facing forward when jumping off a bus), towards me. About 2 seconds later, there he was, lying on the road, flat on his face! The first reaction should have been to sprint through the distance of 50m and ask him if he was all right. But, when you see that happen to a guy like him, you cannot resist laughing your stomach out and I was no exception! Thankfully, he didn’t get any visible sign of discomfort and he got up laughing.
Scene 2: Kanishk has travelled a good 80% of the country’s length, from Shimla(H.P.) to Manipal(Karnataka) to pay a ‘surprise’ visit to his girlfriend. He’s staying illegally in one of the vacant rooms of my college hostel and has run out of balance on his mobile. I went to class in the morning and asked him to be comfortable in my room and call me up from the landline phone of my room, in case he had any trouble. Now, the guy was so love struck that he could not wait to talk to her. And finally, in an act of utter and abject desperation, he called her up from the landline number. Even though girls are generally considered stupid, but there was no way in the world she was going to buy the lamest of excuses that there had been “some problem” in the airtel network, as a consequence of which a landline no. with a Manipal code was on display on her mobile when he called her up and that was how his surprise ended.
Now to the actual story:
We had written our 12th boards and results were awaited. It was that phase in which you were done writing all the engineering entrance exams (including IITs) and were hopeful enough of making it through to at least one of those(obviously, not expecting anything positive from the IITs until, of course we had the merit to rig-up the merit list upside down). Life was pretty much boring, with nothing to do whole day apart from watching TV, eating and lazing around in the house, getting used to being scolded by mummy for anything and everything, starting from waking up in the morning to taking a bath and have my meals on time. In short, life was missing adventure and that was the time when The Almighty decided to inject exactly that into it.
We had written our 12th boards and results were awaited. It was that phase in which you were done writing all the engineering entrance exams (including IITs) and were hopeful enough of making it through to at least one of those(obviously, not expecting anything positive from the IITs until, of course we had the merit to rig-up the merit list upside down). Life was pretty much boring, with nothing to do whole day apart from watching TV, eating and lazing around in the house, getting used to being scolded by mummy for anything and everything, starting from waking up in the morning to taking a bath and have my meals on time. In short, life was missing adventure and that was the time when The Almighty decided to inject exactly that into it.
Myself and Kanishk had appeared for an entrance exam for getting a 5 year MBA-Tech course introduced by the famous(and VERY expensive) NMIMS, Mumbai. We had both been shortlisted for the second round, i.e. Personal Interview, which was to be conducted at their campus in Mumbai. Kanishk had been absconding from Delhi for the past few days and I had no idea where he was on the face of Mother Earth, if at all. I myself was wondering whether to attend the interview or not, until my brother forced me into getting my ticket reserved and preparing for the interview, due in less than a week’s time(8th of June, to be precise). The trains to Mumbai were all booked and I booked my tickets in Goa Express, till Pune, from where my cousin brother would receive me and then I was all his responsibility. The train was to leave Hazrat Nizamuddin station, New Delhi at about 3pm. By 1 pm I was done with my packing and was going through the checklist and pretending to be listening to my dad’s famous “How to ensure a safe journey alone” speech (that I never actually follow, but listen nevertheless out of sheer respect).
That was the time when the dreaded K-factor struck. In hindisight, this blog post wouldn’t be born had that phone call not been made, but at that time it was the last thing on my mind. Kanishk called up from New Delhi railway station, asking me if I was going. He had just returned from his home with his dad and was in no mood to embark on a 24 hr train journey again. I cursed him internally, bid him goodbye vocally and continued with my check list. Within half an hour, he called up again, saying that he will meet me up at station and he had “made up his mind” to go to the interview. Having known him for two years, I wasn’t really a stranger to his mood swings but honestly, even for a person like him, it crossed the line a little bit. So there we were, 2 hours later, negotating with the TTE as to how much he should pay to get an extra berth.
Now with Kanishk into the scheme of things, my travel plans were altered slightly. My interview was scheduled on 8th of June and his was on the 12th. We had decided we’ll come back together, which meant we’ll get 3 full days to explore Mumbai. The idea itself was exciting but there were quite a few hurdles to clear before that, one of which was to come to Pune station to receive us the next evening!
We reached Pune on the 7th June(evening, with my interview due in Mumbai the next day at 9 am.) and as decided, Sonu bhaiya was there to receive us. We went to his flat and ate like we had never eaten or will never ever eat. We finished our dinner “hurriedly”(in about 30 mins) and then took towards the highway, relatively relaxed at the knowledge that Pune-Mumbai busles ply frequently till midnight. However, as I soon realized, I had not taken into consideration the K-factor that was accompanying us. At about 11 pm, we were standing on the highway, signalling thoughtlessly to any moving object which seemed capable of carrying us for 4 hours and dumping us in Mumbai. The buses/taxis were nowhere to be seen(the K-factor was making its presence felt) and it was foolish of us to expect private cars to stop by at midnight for 3 guys. At last our efforts did pay off.At 12:30am(8 hrs 30 mins to go for my interview), a good old commander budged. It was going to Mumbai to fetch the newspapers for the next day. He happily accomodated the three of us for Rs. 80 each and we were breathing much easier. It was about 4 am when we had our first sighter of Navi Mumbai and by the time we reached Andheri, it was 4:30(4 hrs and 30 mins to go for my interview and we didn’t have any place to stay yet!). The driver had guaged that we weren’t exactly looking for something on the lines of Burj-al-Arab and told us that he’ll take us to the lodges/guest houses he knew and if we were lucky, one of the caretakers would excuse us for waking them up at that unearthly hour and allow us in. About half an hour and 4 guest houses (and an equal number of NOs) later, we found ourselves stretching on the bed of a guest house. We slept at 5:30 and woke up at 7, took our luggage and reached NMIMS, Ville Parle in time. I went in while Kanishk went away with Sonu bhaiya to the nearby Juhu beach. The formality called interview went smoothly and now was the time we had been looking forward to. Sonu bhaiya had to return to Pune the same day and we were shortly going to be on our own in Mumbai. We were worried about the boarding and lodging expenses there and that was when Kanishk’s uncle emerged onto the scene as the saviour(of our LOW four figure bank balance)and offered us free accomodation, which we shamelessly accepted. The fact that his family was out of station for a fortnight ensured that we did not cause him unreasonable hassles. One thing I cannot thank Kanishk enough for is his ability to provide me free shelter in unknown cities whenever I’ve really desired one(Mumbai and Pune are on the list as of now and hopefully the list will grow!). So, now both of us were on our own. Uncle’s job was going to keep him busy throughout the day, we had saved up on the boarding expenses and we were free to explore the city of Mumbai for the next 3 days. Well, this post has got longer than what would keep you interested and if at all you have survived it till now, wait for the next part, as that will contain the real (mis)adventure!
....to be continued
