Bittu... Part 3 - The first conversation

An auditorium styled class-room with the class-well being dominated by eccentric characters, who often had names patterned as AK-47, Golu or just Baba, meant that you were extremely lucky if you had being assigned a seat in one of the rows at the back. Of course your luck was also dependent on how much foresight your parents had by not naming you as Abhishek or my personal favorite -Aaditya. An alphabetical order among other things meant that Zuhaib would be perennially safeguarded from the fierce stares that the occupants of the front benches often were subject to. Of course cold-calling was a great leveler and something which the front benches swore by as the only proof  of existence of God & justice.

Shekhar's grand parents, more specifically his grand father was to be thanked for having christened him strategically in the later half of the curve. Shekhar would never be a part of either the front benches or the back benches, he was safe in the middle to back bench zone. Safe from the vicious stares and taunts as well as the cold-calls which would generally be targeted at Abhisheks, Aadityas, Vinayaks and Zuhaibs. He was like an Indian cricketer who came at five or six down. One was assigned this number only if either you were not good enough to open the batting or not a good enough bowler to allow you the luxury to come out last. He was expected to just fill the seat, not much else was expected. Though the logic seems nonsensical but if you were a Indian cricket fan you would implicitly understand. Another implicit implication is associated with this assertion - if you don't agree with the logic then you are not a fan of Indian cricket - blasphemy!


Lovely Cyra on the other hand had Bal Thackeray & Co. to thank for her fortunate location in the middle-to-back rows. If you still haven't guessed it by now then let me put it simply - this story is of Shekhar & Cyra, and it is not a love story, at least not with a happy ending. Coming back to the seating arrangements, it was not that Cyra was some political kid who bullied the PGP office into getting a seat of her choice. The Maharashtra system of nomenclature, devised by some nut belonging to the aforementioned political clan, was to blame - a simple name like Cyra became Sahukar Cyra Bahaman.

But then again, it was not all bad. It put Cyra & Bittu in adjacent seats. And it also gave yours truly an opportunity to script this tale, which is a work of pure fiction by the way.

The initial euphoria of being an IIM-wallah was wearing thin and so did the usual "oh-we-have-adjacent-seats-how-nice" routine, they were two weeks into the system and surprise tests were looming. To top that the committees would soon be having another review for the potential recruits where half-baked lame ideas would be given as much consideration as world peace. Life was not all that it seemed to be.

THWACK!

Shekhar suddenly breaking out of his self-loathing reverie looked at the source of the interruption - Cyra. His look expressed an what-the-hell-why-did-you-kick-me look. Cyra merely motioned with her big black eyes towards the piece of paper next to his notebook. He adjusted himself from his reclining position to a more studious and attentive position while all the time maintaining a good eye contact with the professor in front. Having attained this position he glanced down to see two words written in a sleepy sort of scribble - Whats up? He thought for a second and his best response to that was  - ??. Which though not much in terms of volume but was a definite conversation starter. What followed was an alternate exchange of scribbles which not much in volume but seen in the right way would amount to a profound conversation. It looked something like this:

C (Cyra) - what's up?

S (Shekhar) - ??

C - bored. sleepy.

S - ??

C - ass!! bored, sleepy!

S - ??

C - talk?

S - ??

(pause for a few secs)

S - cool, quiz?

C - ?? nah!

S - ??

C - gossip?

S - :) ohk? who?

C - you :)

(no response as Shekhar goes back to looking attentive)

C - gf?

(no response as Shekhar glances down at the new scribble and goes back to looking attentive)

C - are all dilliwallahs like this? boring?

S - ??

C - Partha! same as you. all nsit ppl same... boring!

S - am dce, not nsit! and delhi rocks! not like bombay ahem... mumbai. jai maharashtra

C - ha ha, very funny.

S - what abt partha though?

C - he claims to be some stud from dce, met him in the index meet. you know him?

S - kind of, CL. nsit is sad, dce rules!

C - like i care! so gf?

S - :(

C - who do you think is the hottest girl in the batch?

S - (shekhar surprised by the question) why?

C - aisey hi... some girls were talking.... so i thought ki lets do primary research

Why don't you please include the remaining mortals in your conversation um.... Mr. Bharadwaj is it? and Mr. Sahukar .... Ms. I mean. What is your name actually? Bahaman? Sahukar?.... 

CYRA... Cyra added loudly.

Well, thank you Mr & Mrs. Cyra. I think the class can thank both of you for a surprise quiz. Everybody please take out a sheet, calculators are allowed but you will not need them, it's a ten minute quiz with two questions, it will be graded out of ten marks and will carry a weight of ten percent in your final score. The first question is of seven marks and the second one of three. Is everybody ready to write down the question now?

15 minutes later... the class ended and students started moving out from the class.

THWACK!

A not-important-enough-a-character-to-be-named character went - Nice going Mr. Cyra... beta teri toh aaj haapy birthday hai.

Bittu was now Shekhar a. k. a. Bittu a. k. a. Mr. Cyra

the stage was set - for the heartbreak
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