On a Ride

You will notice that in my blog posts I use fictitious names for my friends. I do so for a reason – I don’t want them to feel embarrassed for the embarrassing situations we went through. In this post I will continue this trend, I hope it does not spoil the fun. As for the friends whose incidents I am going to narrate – I apologize if I offend you in any way, but come on! It was fun, right?

This incident relates to the time when I was staying in the hostel at Panjab University. We were a group of eight people, and we had three vehicles between us – a Bajaj Priya scooter, a Yamaha 350, and an Enfield Bullet. In addition I had a bicycle, but for obvious reasons I could not count it among the fleet we had.

Three vehicles, eight people. Which meant that typically two of those vehicles would be carrying three people. It also meant that transport could become a real problem if one of the owners decided to go home using their vehicle.

That was the situation we found ourselves in one November evening. Both the motorcycles had gone home and had taken four of the eight people with them. So the equation now was one scooter and four persons. The situation was going to the sector 17 market to hang out. Now if it was one of the motorcycles it may not have been a problem, but a scooter it was definitely a challenge. But you cannot stop four desperate men from getting their weekly dose of eye-candy, so we decided to four-person it to sector 17.

Getting on to the scooter was the first challenge. You see, unlike the motorcycles, the Priya had two distinct seats, and there was a spare wheel at the end of the second seat, held securely in a vertical position through a combination of nuts and bolts. It was meant for two people, not four. To compound the situation, the rear seat had these bulging body parts on either side, one of which would hide the engine and the other the boot. So seating became rather uncomfortable for the third person.

Somehow, Kamal (not his real name), Guppy (not his real name either), and King (DEFINITELY not his real name) managed to stash themselves on those three seats. That left me, and I managed to park myself on the spare wheel (I was quite thin back then) when we realized that we had missed out on one thing – Kamal had forgotten to start the scooter. After a round of curses to him and the scooter and the guys who had taken their motorcycles home (well they could have taken the bus, couldn’t they?) we got off. Kamal started the damn thing, Guppy sat behind him, behind him King, and behind him yours truly. The scooter protested as it began to lug its weight and the combined weight (must be over 200 kg) of four people on it, but it stayed on course.

It happened as we took the lane down the Maths department. Those of you who have studied there will know that the place is dotted with speed breakers which you need to watch out for, for two reasons – one, they are not marked, and two they are not designed to ensure that four people on a Bajaj Priya make it securely, leave alone comfortably.

And so as we crossed the Maths department, we saw this stunner of a girl. They say that Helen of Troy had the face to launch a thousand ships. Well, this one definitely had the face to turn four faces.

I don’t recall who said what, but I do remember some of what was said. Here is an edited version (flowery language omitted).

“O soniyo, makhan de doniyo!” (Hey beautiful, buttercup!)

“Tota, oye tota” (Literally – Piece , man piece. Actually – what a girl, man!)

A whistle. I don’t know which one it was.

What I do know is what went through my mind. Who is this girl, and how come I never saw her in my department?

While it may appear that these events took a long time to happen, actually all these expressions/thoughts came out in less than two seconds. A second later what happened seemed like ages – our scooter went over a speed breaker, which we were anyways not looking at.

Over the next 5 seconds, what happened and if my memory serves me right is as follows:

• I came down from the spare wheel and was on the seat.
• King moved forward one place.
• Guppy was on the driver’s seat.
• Kamal was on…oh wait, he had nowhere to go.

So Kamal was off his seat, the trouble was he was also driving the scooter. And when you are not on your seat and driving your scooter, let’s just say that it is not easy. In this case with three people screaming at him, and his foot nowhere near the brake, and his mind too confused between looking at the girl and salvaging the situation, for Kamal it was impossible.

CRASH!

The scooter struck the footpath, with the ferocity of a raging bull. Bear in mind, Kamal had cranked up the accelerator to compensate for the extra weight, and that force is mass times acceleration, but of course physics was the last thing on my mind as we were hurled in different directions.

Kamal got it the worse. The scooter tilted to the left as we fell and its sharp edge landed on his ankle. Guppy escaped with a few bruises, as did King. Me, well nothing happened to me physically, except for wounded pride; the thought of facing that girl in the department did not seem very appealing now.

As for her, she was nowhere to be seen. Trust me, I have not seen anyone pull off a disappearing act this fast.

Well, the “hurly burly” was done and as we paused to pick up the pieces, each of us made a solemn vow that we would not mention a word of this to anyone. Thankfully, the scooter was okay, except for a broken mirror (!), and since I was the one with only the wounded pride, I got to take Kamal to the hospital. His ankle was fractured, and he came back with a cast. By the time we reached, the other two had taken out the liquor and waiting for us to get started. If you think that I escaped with only a wounded pride, you got it wrong. I don’t drink, and because I don’t drink I get to listen to ridiculous things people say when they are drunk, and because these were (ultimately) drunk people with wounded bodies and egos, it got only more ridiculous. Let’s not go into the details of what was said that night, suffice to say it was not studies that we discussed.

Kamal’s plaster took two months to take off, and we maintained that he had a nasty fall down the stairs, which most people did not take at face value. Kamal on the other hand, went and bragged how he fought three thugs who were being impolite to a girl. It won him a number of female admirers, and of course we kept it a secret, till today it is.

As for the girl, I only saw her once more, and that was at the university fete, but she did not seem to recall anything, and I was kind of reluctant to go to her and tell her that I was one of the four people who fell when we saw her. My take was it would not sound charming, given the circumstances.

I never saw her again, and because it would open a Pandora’s box, I kept quiet about seeing her.

OOPS!

“You know, I am really impressed with your command over computers”, she said.

“I must say I am flattered”, I replied.

“I must ask, how come you know so much about computers?”, she asked.

---

I was in college (and I attended quite a few of those in my life, so I am not telling you which one), and it was February. It is a time of the year when the cold of winter flirts with the pleasantness of spring, eventually giving in to the latter. It is also a time when a cup of hot coffee is just as welcome as a fruit juice without ice, or for that matter cold coffee without ice. It was exactly for that reason that I strode into the college canteen – a cold coffee without ice, when I happened to see them both. There was Yasmin (name changed), my classmate, next to this gorgeous female, and they were chatting away like long lost friends.

“Hi Yasmin!”, I said, as I walked up to them.

“One cold coffee for me, one dudh-patti(tea leaves and milk) for her (Yasmin), and what will you have?”, I asked her companion.

“Uh, I am not sure”, she replied.

“Perfect, let me help you decide”, I countered, “what do you like the most?”

“Actually, I am not sure if I want to order anything”, she said.

“Why not? It is a beautiful morning, and it may look bizarre me just butting into your conversation, but me and Yasmin are just good friends. So much so that I know what her favorite beverage is.”, I said.

“Turns out I just had my favorite beverage”. It was Yasmin’s turn to speak.

“Yes”, said she, “Also it is time for my class”.

And they left me at the canteen with a cold coffee and a dudh-patti. I am not telling you what I did with those.

---

I caught up with her a few days later in the computer lab. Those days, computers for me was just about one game: Digger. That and helping pretty ladies out with their problems, such as the one sitting with her head in her hand.

“Problem?”, I asked.

She just looked up. “You?”

Me: “Yeah! Problem?”

She: “I forgot my password.”

Now, there was a time when I was pretty good at cracking passwords and hacking into networks. But at one point I had to stop myself. There was a very thin line that separated right from wrong in these matters, and I did not want to be crossing it very often.

But, this was different. This was a woman, and she was in trouble. What kind of a coward would I be if I did not help her out? How would I look at myself in the mirror after that? No! there was a time for respecting rules, and there was a time for bending them. This was definitely not a time to be worrying about a stupid college protocol about misusing computer systems. Nor was it time to be remembering a ridiculous promise I made to myself. This was a time to help someone.

This was also a time to know her username, and possibly her name.

“What is your name?”, I asked.

“What?”, she asked, with a mix of ridicule, disgust, surprise, anger, grief, and shock.

“I mean, your username”, I asked.

“Why?”, she asked with all of the above feelings mixed with intrigue.

“Just tell me your username”, I persisted, “and I will see what I can do.”

“What can you do?”, she asked, back to her previous set of feelings.

I wanted to tell her a lot many things, how my computer teacher at school was always mad at me, how my principal (God bless his soul) threatened to throw me out of the school if I was found in the lab again, of how I managed to…never mind.

But this time I just said, “Just give me the username, please?!”

She was confused, and she was on the verge of crying, but she did manage to utter, “JaskiratB” (not her real username).

Me: “Okay Jaskirat, just relax and give me some time”.

So saying, I disappeared behind the other row of computers.

Let’s just say that those were the days when password encryption was not very common, and I could retrieve an encrypted password in 15 minutes. What chance did an unencrypted password stand, then?

I was back in five minutes, only to find her with this scrawny dude with a twisted frown that seemed to come in the way of him giving a decent smile for the rest of his life. And he did not seem happy.

“How could you forget your password? I cannot expect that you of all people could forget her password! I am going to create a new account for you, but you will have to enter all your data again, yourself!”

So saying, he stormed out of the room.

She was literally in tears now. “All my dissertations, everything! I will have to do them again!”

“No you won’t!”, I replied, “not while I am here”. And I handed her a piece of paper.

“Your password”, I said.

“What?”, she said. Then she looked at the paper.

“How did you?”, she asked.

“Shhh”, I said, “try logging in again”.

It worked. It was supposed to work.

Scrawny was back again.

“What is your username?”, he asked.

“Don’t bother. I remember my password”, she shot back, and gave me the most beautiful smile I have ever seen.

---

“Lunch?”, I asked her, “I am going to the mess anyway. So figured I could skip that and we could go to the canteen?”

Every now and then we would meet in the computer lab. We would discuss things like programming, data structures, RDBMS, algorithms et al. She was obsessed with computers. I thought that knowledge of computers only enhanced the beauty of the beautiful.

“Well okay”, she said, “I guess I owe you one after the help you gave me the other day”.

The self-respecting, chivalrous side in me came alive.

“Oh come on, if that is the reason then I am better off having lunch in the mess”, I said.

“Excuse me?”, she asked.

The self-respecting, chivalrous side in me subsided.

“Let’s just go for lunch”, I said.

---

And so we were sitting in the canteen. She ordered idli-sambhar, I ordered an utthapam.

“You know, I am really impressed with your command over computers”, she said.

“I must say I am flattered”, I replied.

“I must ask, how come you know so much about computers?”, she asked.

“Well, as a matter of fact I AM studying computers”, I replied.

“Really, where?”, she asked.

“Here.”, I replied as I gulped another bite of the utthapam.

“Here?”, she asked.

“Here”, I answered.

“Where here?”, she asked.

“Here here”, I replied, and gave her the name of the course I was taking.

“Really? Then you should know who I am”, she said.

“Sweetheart, trust me, I have been trying to do that ever since I saw you with Yasmin here”, I replied.

“Hold on, Rupinder it is, right?”, she asked.

“Of course!”, I replied.

“There is a reason you should be knowing me. I am the one who takes your computer science classes. And I have not seen you even once in my class!”, she was literally screaming now, and the rest of the canteen was looking at us.

I was holding a fork in my hand, and at the tip of the fork was a piece of utthapam, awaiting its fate. At that moment, sitting there in the canteen, with Jaskirat looking down on me, as were a group of other people, and as was the canteen staff, I was wishing that the Earth would open up and swallow me whole!

Only if wishes were horses.

“Please finish your food”, she said, “and don’t bother paying”. And she got up.

She came back. The piece of utthapam was still in my hand.

“You better finish that food fast. You have a class at 3. And I want to see you there!”. So saying, she stormed out of the canteen.

Don’t bother knowing what happened to the piece of utthapam. And don’t even bother asking if I attended the 3 o’clock class, because I attended every one of them afterwards.

But to little avail. She was too pissed off at me to give me any marks in the practicals. In fact, I barely made it through computer science that semester.

I do remember cornering Yasmin almost immediately the 3 o’clock class.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”, I thundered.

“Tell you what?”, she asked innocently.

“That she is our teacher”, I was livid.

“Oh that! Well, I did not want to miss the fun. But hey! I did not tell her you were a student, either”, she replied, rather amused.

Let’s not get into how the rest of the conversation went.

---

How many of you had a crush on your teacher in school or in college? Well in my case, I almost asked mine out. I could not help it of course that she looked too young to be a teacher, and I looked too old to be a student.

PS: I did score a perfect 100 in the next semester. But as far as Jaskirat and me were concerned, let’s just say things did not work out.