Year: September 2002
Place: Madras Institute of Technology Campus, Chennai
All the students are requested to please queue up as this is your last registration call for the next 5 events.
Ad-Zap, JAM, Ice Breaker, Off-Temper, Quiz…
Me, Samuel, Karthik, Dhanan, Malar and Rani registered our names as we were representing our college, Satyabhamma Engineering College. We tiresomely waited for our turns and I never stopped looking anxious.
After spending more than 1.5 years in Chennai and in Satyabhamma in particular, I was a changed person. I had lost 10 kilos, I didn’t have long hair as in school and most importantly I was patient enough to listen and approach people. I was indeed turning into a decent sober fellow. I followed a strict college and disciplined house culture, was studious enough to get 85% in the 1st year and God… that was so unlike me but it was still me who has changed forever.
“Raam and team from Satyabhamma Engineering College…”
“Ok… You topic for Ad-Zap is this…”
The chit read – “Flying Lungi”!
“What is God’s name is that and how could we even pull it off? Flying Lungi!!!”
“You have 10 minutes to regroup, prepare and present it to the audience and I hope you know the rules pretty much clearly…
Ad-Zap is a game that originated in the premier B-Schools of India like the Indian Institute of Management or IIMs which requires a team of 5 -6 people to endorse a fanatical product chosen and given to them by the organisers.
The product name is given to the participants in the form of chits just 10 minutes before the performance and we are required to be as innovative as possible to put it across and make people understand about it and see to that people are really impressed by our product selling capabilities. This event is seen a chance to show off your marketing capabilities and Satyabhamma students never used to participate in any of these programs other than Quiz as we used to suck at others. But not this time…
We prepared some amazing concepts and just about when we were about to get over with the final rehearsal, a girl came up to Malar and started to strike a conversation.
She looked exactly like someone whom I had seen somewhere. She wore a green chiffon sari and had a perky smile… Baloney! I don’t remember where this girl is from but Karthik already wanted to have his babies with her.
“Hi… These are my college mates”
“Hi guys…”
“This is Dhanan, Rani…”
“Can we have the introductions later? We have a situation here?” I said.
Her face turned pale and she said… “Sorry guys and bye Malar… Catch you sometime later… Next time, come around with friends who are genuinely good with others” and she left.
“What’s wrong with you da?” said Malar
“What’s wrong? We have a show to perform and you guys are busy checking out a chick!”
“Hey! Show her some respect… She is a girl! You got go and say sorry to her” said Karthik
I just couldn’t stop laughing and said, “Machan… Sorry da… I apologise and will apologise to that girl and hook her up with you by evening… Now, can you please help me perform?”
“Hook her up!” said Karthik with his eyes split wide open!
“Deal?”
“Hell! Yeah”
So we went ahead with our performance at the cultural fest.
Don’t ask me what we did there but we at least got the 2nd prize and that was bit of a history for our college and as usual, we got the first prize in quiz and JAM.
That was bit of an achievement and as promised to Karthik; I looked around for the girl in arena but couldn’t find her. So I decided to go to Malar and ask her whereabouts.
“Malar… Can you tell me where I can find the girl who came down to meet you in the morning?”
“I don’t know?”
“Can you find her and tell me where she is?”
“Do you want to know her name?”
“Why would I ever want to? I don’t want to know her name… Just tell her where I can find her?”
Malar was a super duper useless girl who didn’t know what it was for and she went straight to the girl to tell her that I am trying to hit on her and I wanted to meet her.
Now here, I was completely unaware of this situation or what Malar spoke to her earlier.
She walked straight towards me and said,
“I am not interested in what you are going to say but just tell me soon whatever you want to say!”
“Sorry?”
“I am not interested with what you trying to?”
“But I haven’t started yet”
“Alright… Shoot!”
“Whatever…” I said with a smirk
“Look… Mr… (She looked at my participant badge) Mr Raam. Can you see the person who is conducting the events there?
“Yeah the cultural secretary…”
“He’s my boy friend. So think twice before spilling the beans!”
I couldn’t stop laughing but still went on, “Ok then! I am sorry! Thank for letting me know…and started walking back.
“Don’t you want to be sorry for what you did??
“Sorry! For what”
“For what you did in the morning…”
“I was bit rude to you and I apologise. I am sorry”
“Your apology is accepted” she replied with a smile
I grinned and nodded… “Thanks…”
“See you then…”
“See you too…”
“Bye…”
“Bye”
Machan! You are genius da… What did she say?
“Karthik… I am sorry but you got to forget the girl. She already has a boy friend!”
“Yen da? Yen? (Why da? Why?) All the good looking girls are picked, sliced and diced and we still remain losers!”
“I don’t know whether she has been sliced and diced but you got to hold on… It just means we aren’t ready and above all… What’s it with girls?”
“Whatever da… I am going to Le Flame… Are you coming?”
“Sorry machi… got to go home!!!”
I started my bike and drove past the girl in the green chiffon sari.
She smiled at me and so did I…
Comments
💬 How to comment: Sign in with your GitHub account to join the discussion. Your comments are public and will appear in our GitHub Discussions.
🔒 Privacy: We use GitHub's secure OAuth for authentication. No passwords are stored on this site.