Papa ki pari hun main ...

Atish and Laddu are the two people who have been my neighbours for most of time in the hostel. We came together in the first year itself, when all three of us were cooped up in that hell-hole, also known as ND. That parched piece of land where there was no water, only a hot Delhi sun beating upon the roof, making it impossible to sleep soundly even at night. It was a time when the net era had not yet dawned upon the campus, so cassette tapes reigned supreme for entertainment.

My roomie had beaten up emergency light cum fan, which also had a time-pass radio, with a fata hua speaker. Whenever that thing was switched on, it was pure torture. Lacking any kind of musical talent (unlike Atish) or cassette player (unlike Laddu), yours truly made do with whatever numbers were belted out from Laddu's old faithful, which I believe was with him in boarding school too. Raaz and Filhaal, alongwith a bit of Rehna hai Tere Dil Mein were L's favourite songs and were played again and again and again. Since L's room was right in front of mine, I bore the brunt of the music (which was any day much better than my roomie's radio!). After being conditioned for a few months by this music, I pretty much knew all the lyrics by heart by the end of the first year!

In second were all separated, with L being in one corner and me in the other. However, Atish's room was close by and with his new PC (which is still giving faithful service) a new source of music was opened. This was the time when the LAN in the hostel had started to make its presence felt and the PC opened doors to many new activities ;). So for most of the second year, I made do with the radio of my roomie :(.

In the third year, the three of us were reunited in D Parallel. Our rooms were in a row, Me, L and Atish in that order. The title of the post comes from a song that the L used to start up at some unearthly hour of the morning and face abuse left right and center. The Venkie and the Guptaji and the Maddu were also in this wing. If I remember correctly, Atish had bought a guitar in this sem and there was a lot of jamming in the wing. A particularly memorable incident was when a sleepy Chu came lurching into the wing, his beauty sleep broken by Venky's Metallica, flipping off all the switches in the wing!

In the fourth year I had the misfortune of getting a room wedged-in on all sides by people with very different music tastes. To my left was Venky, who would start playing at 3am, when I was just getting read to sleep. To my right was Talli, who would, with the aid of Babu, put on all kinds weird songs. In front were Das and Dhall, who would put their playlists on loop, lock the door and go away. L was usually busy on duty, so there was not much music from him ;).

In the final year, only two musicians were left - Atish and Suhas. Both spent a lot of time singing with their guitars and given the fact that they were pretty good at it, it was quite a treat.

Now only one musician is gracing me with his presence and he is still going strong!