The "Velagiri" and the decade it started..

We were talking to Subhash's cousin the other day, and she is in what I like to call the "prime" phase of life, academic or career wise;) She is in between EAMCET (That is the engineering entrance test in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India) and the beginning of Engineering. We were telling her, this is her time and place. This is what she should utilize to the best possible extent as she would never get such time to waste ever again;) Thoroughly discouraged her from going to those C classes she is taking (Hoping her mom doesn't read this;) )

That reminded me of my own phase between EAMCET and Engineering. And also that its been a decade since then already! Phew! Growing old I suppose;) So as a tribute to that period I decided to write this post as a commemoration at the end of a decade;)

Just a little background to begin with. We were always the lucky batch! When we were in X, the SSC papers were leaked. Not one or two but three. I remember, Biology, Social Studies Paper -1 and Paper -2. They kicked out the schedule for these three exams by a month, well into May. Thanks to which, I did miserably in my NTSE finals (after doing brilliantly in the prelims, please!) and to this day can't forgive the state board for it. INR 6000 was a fortune back then, sigh!

Then there was the Intermediate fiasco. If we thought SSC was bad, this came as a cruel reminder that we ain't seen the worst yet! This time around Math Paper-1 had leaked. And much to my agony, not only did they postpone the exams we hadn't yet given, they actually made us re-write the exams that we already gave!! Waaaaa! And it was French and English. French I didn't mind at all, I loved it. But English? What? You got to be kidding me! That day after I first wrote that exam, I went and hid my English text book in the farthest possible corner in the shelf, I loathed it so much. And when I heard this news, I had to dig back into that shelf to look for this textbook, actually hoping to find it. Couldn't believe my fate! Bah!!

And this time they went all out. Exams into June. We had to send out results to BITS by June 30, Naidu had to order the Math stream evaluation to be done ahead of the Biology stream, put up tents in Mahboob College in Abids and distribute memos like "palli wrappers". Gosh!! As if this was not enough, it was released the day of BITS' deadline, I remember that hurried auto trip we took from Abids to Secunderabad GPO (Of course the memos were given out after the GPO in Abids was closed, what do you expect!)

I guess that was the only year in which we wrote EAMCET before Intermediate and smashed all previous records of corruptions;)


Got into BITS I did, but didn't take it. Decided it wasn't worth leaving home for 4 years and missing all the food and fun. I knew those would be the last 4 years that i would be home properly being pampered. Rest is going to be one big slog all the way (I was kinda wrong, now I get pampered even more;) ). So anyway, decided not to go to BITS. Boy! I went off tangent here:)

So didn't go to BITS and convinced Vamshi to also not go;) We were five of us and had nothing to do till Engineering classes started. Heck! We didn't even know where we would be admitted. And counseling seemed to be slipping by the month. We were so restless after two years of slogging and working so hard, that we were almost hyperactive;)

And what did we do? Well, for starters I will just say we even watched a movie called "Mohabbat" which starred Madhuri Dixit and Anil Kapoor's brother (I don't remember his name, just remember that my Dad used to say he looked like someone who failed X standard;) ). And he wore really purple suits in this movie. This should be enough hint, really now! We watched every god-forsaken movie in town, got scolded by watchmen in movie theatres all over Hyderabad. We ate at every possible junk place in the city and in general made a lot of noise.

One really funny incident was when we went to Abhiruchi in Paradise and ordered 1 fried rice and shared it among 6 of us, because we sudden;y decided to have chat and we couldn't get out of Abhiruchi without looking foolish for having come in and gone out without eating anything. So we decided to look even more foolish by just ordering 1 dish. That notwithstanding, we ordered the waiters around to get extra spoons, forks, you name it! And after that we got all split up in groups while heading to Anand Chat (I hear its shut down now), so Teju and Shruti who went ahead, decided to look for us. Teju came back looking for us and Shruti decided to go ahead and order so that by the time we got there we could just eat so we didn't have to be late for "Raja Hindustani" (My god!!) So she goes:

Shruti: Che Bhelpuri (6 bhelpuris, and the bhels were mighty huge mind you;))
Waiter: (Giving her really weird looks) Leke jane ke liye? (To take with you?)
Shruti: (Nahi yaha hi khane ke liye.. (No, to east here, poor thing she was pretty serious)
Waiter faints;)


Another one was when Vamshi's landlady came running downstairs to provide assistance n the situation that everyone was wailing about, and was so enraged that it was a pack of useless girls laughing their heads off over "Dumb Charades" ;)

Its been a decade now but whenever we think of those days, we can't help laughing all over again! the lukhagiri was amazing, and never again to be had. Sigh!

Subhash's cousin has said that she will spend all her time with me so I am making an agenda to actively make her lukha too;)