Poly Times

On the way to Kottayam with my dad, I saw the Nattakom polytechnic for the first time. It was a great campus with road climbing up the hill towards the principal’s room. The building was painted with usual yellow and brick color as all the government buildings. I was too scared in the first day. A pool of strangers all elder to me. I never made out who is senior and who my classmate is? From the first day onwards going for lunch and the morning and evening walk thru the corridor to the bus stop was a horror. Any time u might end up in front of the bunch of seniors.
I was caught up by the seniors on the third day. They made me sing national anthem in front of my class under an open umbrella. But the scene was very funny and they didn’t scare me. I was staying with my father for the first six months and then alone in the same quarter room as he got transferred back home.
Then loneliness had an effect on me. For the first time in life I had to walk through a cemetery in night to reach my quarter. I stayed in the third floor of the civil station directly under the water tank. Some times u can see water drops dripping from the ceiling at night. The scariest part was a peculiar sound which was repeated every night around 2 O’clock. Many days it left me parying at midnight hearing the noice.One day I had the courage to get out of my room in the deserted civil station and look for the source of sound. It left me laughing hard to find out an overflow tap and its lid causing the noise. The tank overflowed in the same fashion at the same time everyday making the noise :)
There was a time in my life when I was afraid of drunken people and now I'm living as one among them. I didn't feel much difference other than these guys when boozed talks a lot and they hardly think when they got the 'Kick'. Every weekend I travelled back home and the four hour train journey from kottayam to Trivandrum was another experience. I had friends from different railway stations as we see each other every week. I was taken aback from one incident in Trivandrum railways station when I was waiting for my Train 'Venad' on one cold monday early morning around 4:30. One guy approached me and he requested me some thing unnatural. I realised that the folks called' Homosexual" existed in Kerala also. I was horrified and I ran from that place without thinking again or looking back.

I shifted to the famous ‘Geethayalam’ after first year at polytechnic ( Poly)."Geethalayam" is my house name. There I had my distance cousin and six other room mates. The days at “geethalayam” are really memorable. From there onwards I started to see a new world. The class ended up more boring as they were deep inside chemistry searching for new names for carbon structures. One of the funniest moments was when my class mate suggested the name ‘SABU’ when our teacher was struggling to find the name of a big stereo specific olygomer.
From geethalayam, my first visit to bar, to adult movie, to toddy shop, to the famous Karibinakala( A famous toddy shop were the food is so tasty even family used to visit this place, on the MC road bank between Kottayam and Changnashery) shaap all happened. I have never tasted hot drinks but I tried “madhura kallu” from one of the toddy shop. It was really good. But things were going worst. I had my first supplementary ( Back paper)when my first year results came. It was mathematics. My tution teacher who taught me until 10th would never believe as her best student some how managed to get 32 out of hundred in mathematics.
I have hardly seen movies at theatre when I was at home in Trivandrum. There will be one or two in a year when my mom or dad finds some movie very interesting. But once I got into geethalayam, it was all a different world. Ended up in at least two movies every week. There the language and the cast didn’t matter. Also I started to learn cooking. Managed to end up on curry which was supposed to be a solid dish :). Thanks for the guidance from my roommates.
It was a horrible experience when one of my roomie vomited after having a mix of vine+ Hard drinks+ toddy. But my room mates were all cool saying “it’s a part of the game’.
But the trips from the toddy shop to home after the usual meals were not funny for me. All the other guys are boozed up and I’m the only one left out. So these guys never feel ashamed to do anything they wish and I end up in getting bashed up. Some of the things happened r way beyond writing it here.
There were peculiar characters and names in our college as it would be in everyone’s college. One was Augestus alias Jiju. He is 5’9”, strong built and a pair of sharp eyes. He was of 23 but he looked atleast 26. He always smokes and the big drinker( Pambu according our dictionary) in our room. He can drink six bottle of toddy and still go with a steady head and drive his bike home. Then next one was Shankaran who will skip his dinner through out a week to see the Friday release film .
There were some other fellows from which I learned money doesn’t come that easily to everyone. There were people who have to go for rubber taping to get his bus fare everyday. They were always very serious with their studies but the whole geethalayam gang never took anything serious.
We were always late to the classes, always bunked Friday afternoon lab hours. Some how or the other manged to bribe the attendance clerk to keep minimum attendance . Our house owner had a good looking grant daughter who was centre of attraction at Geethalayam.
Every alternate day ended in booz parties, learning and assingments happened only on year ends.It was heaven. We were never tensed about where we are headed or what will happen to our career. But in exams some how all managed to get a pass mark. In practicals it will be the backbenchers who always scored. There were only six girls in the class of total strengh of 44. So a friendship with them seemed too far away. Second year went with out much events. Third year started of with our ragging episode where we manged to rag even the passout guys :(

Our weekends where filled with trips to different toddy shops, beaches, wild life sanctories and all. The aim was only one things, to get boozed and enjoy. We tried things like gymkhana which ended after two weeks, dance preparation which lasted for two weeks before arts day. Our roommate 'Kalyan Kumar' was humiliated in the arts day as our vice principal pulled the curtain the momentum Kalyan started singing. I never had the courage to be on stage. My Kttappan ( original name cannot be disclosed) manged to begin and countinue 6 lovers from different year across the branches. He is talented guy to have six lovers and to tackle everyone in the same campus without any intervention with each other. The best part waht he maintained the same tempo until the final day in three years.
There was lines building up as our superjunior batch had a lot of good looking gals. But luck never struck me or I was rather not on the look out. Our class mate Sunitha got engaged and the reason for booz uprty that day was heart break of my friend and room mate Pamman ( original name cannot be dislosed).
In the third year we had our arts day and our class rep was suspened on that day for getting into "uncultural activites" on stage. He was half drunk and he showed too much on the stage. The same guy was again suspened as he wrote a story for our story writing competetion where our organic xhemistry miss was the heroine and Augestus the hero.

After the third year results I havn't met anyone other than my cosuin. Those were the golden days where no limits for fun ....