13 Reasons Why..

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, witches and wizards, you are about to read the last blog I post from NIFTEM's awesome internet facility.
Yes, this is finally happening. Today is my last night in this college as its student. I have been having mixed feelings for the past 6 months, but after yesterday's mass extinction of my batch, there's just pure sadness. No no no I'm not a gloomy kind of person. But as John Green says, some pains demand to be felt. It is also necessary to feel the heat of tears when it is required.

I am not too good at controlling emotions. It has been very tough for me to part ways with a bunch of people who had become a part of my family.
I know it's not the end. I know it's a small world. I know we will meet again. But I am human only. Bound to feel things. There is a reason and purpose these feelings emerge and I don't see anything bad in it.

All said and done, this post is not at all about me. Or my college experiences. It's too boring and who would want to read too much about a person?
Rather, this is about  all the people I met here who touched my life. Quoting my friend, these people have taught me more than the curriculum could. So this post is all about the people I love. Since I am short of time, and need to pack and go house hunting, I am going to keep it in bullet points. Please identify yourselves. No order is followed, everything is random including the pictures.
Hence the name:- 13 Reasons Why leaving NIFTEM is hard.

• 3 idiots:

I cannot write about them separately, as we consider us three as a single unit. I could write an entire book about them. But I won't. Since the beginning of time, I had always wanted to be a part of an exclusive group, have my "gang"
Not only did I find my "gang", it also got named as 3 Idiots by our professor. They carry two-thirds of me wherever they go. My openness with them changed from 30% to 100% in a matter of months.
The most accelerated response ever.

• The Poetic Heart

He who has been caring like a parent at times. I can always turn to him for completely honest advice.
He's ready to help without a second thought. So much that he is ready to spend his birthday house-hunting with me. We have a secret blog together. Some day it shall see the light of the day. I have had uncountable skype dancing sessions with this person. He has been the unbeatable person in wishing me for birthday before anyone else since November 28, 2013
He has made me start my tradition of giving surprise visits to home :D

• Flash

He is the person you see only glimpses of, vanishes like flash. However, our bond remains the same regardless of how much we talk. First two years have been very beautiful with him. He is also the person who irritates me the most. But I like getting irritated by him.
He always mystically appears only when I am low and gloomy and flips it, and then disappears again.

• Girl group

Being the misogynist that I am, it is hard to imagine me being the part of a girl group, but I had few girls I could gossip with at times, do mawkish girlish things with.
Hug bear-
You probably know the feeling you get at the end of the day when you're tired,  or angry, or hungry and you just long for to bone-crushingly hugging someone. I have a friend I do that to a lot of times. Reason or no reason, I simply like to cling to her stomach. She has been there since the start (plus or minus a fight or two :P ) She has the homely feeling in her.
Pleasant Talker-
She has been a pleasant person to be around. Most importantly, she has taught me topics of a subject a day before the exams. She gives sensible advise. She is the person I love watching Shakira the most with.
The girl with endless stories-
Another buddy, we have been inseparable for an entire year. Time and circumstances changed us, but somehow the hearts still remained connected through all these years. This girl had lots of stories to tell and I totally loved listening to each and every one of them. She was the girl I saw the first movie in my college with, which was Dil toh Pagal Hai, by the way.
Miss Fairy Dust-
Then there's another who has been a new acquaintance, but is a very talented and positive person, spreading fun sparkle wherever she walks.
I have enjoyed cribbing about people and things the most with them.

• Incessant Talker

Here is a person who can talk endlessly about anything, and I mean ANYTHING.
Soft-hearted and extremely ticklish, this guy will be missed.

• The illegitimate ex

There are no ex, y or z about this person. Unlike these variables, he has been a constant since first year. Been my partner in embarrassing dance on stage, we have a pact of marrying each other if both of us are single by the time we are 35! Kind of like Monica and Chandler.

• Chhote Meow

A handful of juniors who have been so loving all this time. Well, since I'll be working near my college I can see them a lot. I love the "elder sister" feeling. Loved being with each of them, whether it is Himachal Trips, VAP outings, or celebrating little little happiness together.

• Bade Meow :P

These people ceased to be a part of the college an year ago, but had the most significant effect on my learning curve. Each of them has given me wonderful life lessons and free-flowing love. We had less time together. But what can we say, time together is just never quite enough! I saw myself change the most during the time I was with them.

• Kaem cho Buddies

A girl who appears mostly when my day is not good and never fails to make me happy, and who gently strokes my head like a puppy because I like it a lot.
And another guy  whom I misjudged a lot of times, but is quite good at heart. In the end I feel guilty for hating him so much in the beginning. Please don't hate me too. I am not that bad :D
Both of them have been sukh-dukh ke saathi for 4 months.

• The Red Velvet Ladoo Makers

This group is the BEST example of the situation where six bright minds come together, and still nothing gets done :P
Jokes apart, had fun each and every of the five days we worked for our semester project. :P I think all of us are going to cook Ragi Ladoo for our kids some day or the other.

• 17th October 2014

This is another adorably irritating and fun person I have had in my life. Enjoyed the limited time spent with him, he has grown to be a dear friend. Fro Ganesh Chowkdi, to Rawalwas, to Sending ugly voice messages before exams, he has always been there. Golden at heart, though sometimes not so golden in words :P
I have written an entire blog about him :P

• Gem 

She is the gem in my life because the love that she offers me is unconditional. I love her. My brother loves her. My whole family loves her. She's that good. She is brutally honest most of the times, which can sometimes put her as rude to people. But this is the quality about her that I admire the most.
She never says anything just because! We both love the same people and our hatred is concentrated on the same kinds of people.

• The perfect girl

She is the one I have interacted the least with out of all these. despite going on 2 trips together. But she personified the image of the perfect girl I had in mind. The qualities I like in her are many. She's a no-drama, no-nonsense girl, an avid reader, a good person at heart. Stays cool in tough times, unlike me. There's so much I have secretly learned from her while secretly admiring her.

• The longest live-in partner

Before getting the luxury called the single room, we used to have room partners, She is the non-family person I have lived the longest with. I really think I couldn't have lived with anyone else. Seeing her on the first day of college, my mother had a sigh of relief. My buddhu ladki is going to live with a nice girl. There are many things that my mother wanted me to learn from her. But I was too lazy to do it.

The night is young and so are we
Time to pack bags, it's almost three
Here are few photos, going to update more soon as I am short of photos and time right now.:D

I am going to miss your presence a lot. But this post is being written by a girl who is going to shamelessly prick you all for the rest of your lives. So yeeehaw:P
This is Agent Tikki FINALLY signing off. Keep the love going.
Ending one more post with Mohammad Rafi:

Ehsaan mere dil pe tumhara hai doston,
Yeh dil tumhaare pyaar ka maara hai doston! :')

Ek semester to guzariye Gujarat mein- 1

It’s really surprising that even though day by day nothing changes, when you stop at times and look back, a lot of difference is found.

This happened to me when today’s date made me realize that I had set my foot in this state exactly one month ago to spend away 40% of 2016. It really feels like I have been living here since God knows when. It was a remarkable experience living here where they have completely different ways, food (Sigh), people and routine. Also I had to live with someone I had not talked much with during college. But fortunately, we clicked and it has been good ever since.

They say those who both laugh together and cry together share great bonds. Same has been the case with us. We have survived together a drastic change in our routine: Having meals we never imagined having, having dinner when it’s still daylight outside, not allowed to have anything after that, starving most of the times because not able to find the food that we liked, living in an office room, trying to talk to most people in sign language, witness the worst driving skills we had seen ever, being stared at all the time like aliens, finding NO mobile network in the jungle we live so being able to get only 30% of what everyone tells us on the phone, eating paani puri in dinner :O incessant rains the entire time, also witnessed getting back to our room after a long, tiring day and on opening it, seeing people happily sleeping on our beds :O and also people who always talk and never eat, people being interested in the minute-by-minute activities we do, where we go, with whom and why and when and yada yada yada yada :D :O

So we have cried a lot together and at the same time tried to laugh it off, mock on our misery.
There is a separate list of ordeals we face happily in our company.
To be honest, internship like it’s going is nothing like what I had imagined, or wanted.

Having said all that, I would call off this month. It was a good one.

It was only due to the internship that I could have a father-daughter long train ride trip. Plus we saw a new town together. I really cannot remember if there was ever such a time before. Just the two of us.

It was quite scary when he left me there and went away. I was scared. Very nervous.  But that had to end soon. With the passage of time, I started liking the place. I always loathed life in big cities and preferred less crowded places having beauty in its pristine form. This is a beautiful place to live in.

Over time as we tried to understand the ways and system of this place, we have also transformed the office room into our ‘home’, started illegally keeping equipment that would prevent starvation, made few ‘addas’  - places to go in accordance with different moods and wants, learned few Garba moves as well :P There’s a lot of greenery,  a lot less pollution. Beautiful singing by roommate at night makes me sleep good (and jealous)

We are learning to manage things on our own as we are completely alien to this place and  it is pretty exciting that right now, we are neither at home, nor at college.
Thankfully, we have also been successful in finding the EXACT location where we get the blessing called ‘mobile network’. Moving even a centimeter from this spot makes it vanish away. It’s sad to tell those of you who have ever called me in this last month that I really understood just half of what you said :D
We have made friends with pretty interesting people and so we are getting fluent in Gujarati. We are even thinking we could get our own secret language to talk to each other in once we get back to college.  :D
We have discussed a variety of interesting topics at night and also had interesting pieces of conversations with our third colleague who, by the way lives in his own magnificent room and gets shahi paneer in his hostel which has no restrictions of any kind and has his fan-following of ‘dedicated lovers’ in the plant.

Getting friends over, going there, getting here, we have also had our share of 2 small trips till now. They have been such a relief from routine. I hate routine. 

But most of all
The last month has been special because I got above these (trivial, but true and haunting) fears I always had

• ·         The fear of getting into water.

Being born at the coastal region and seeing the sea since I was born I shouldn’t have had it. But I had it anyway. It was when we got to Diu and my friends took each of my hand and we rode the waves together, that the ‘water monster’ shrunk.

• ·         The fear of touching a scooty

I can ride the bicycle well. But there was a big phobia of driving. But then one of them made me drive one which was so scary in the beginning that I had my heart in my mouth. The level of trust was dangerous – with him risking his life and sitting behind me while I was learning. Dangerous because it was almost certain that I would fly our vehicle straight into the water along which we were driving. Luckily it glided gracefully (and very slowly :P ) on the empty road.

I DROVE A HONDA ACTIVA. YAYY!

Sir ghooming gol gol

• ·         The fear of crowded places

This does not mean I would want to go to a crowded location anyway. Recently I had to face a very crowded situation which tickles every time I think of it. People from all directions and half a foot window – what they all want. It was something I was saved from till now by the grace of my lovely friends and family. It was terrifying and hilarious at the same time that I made my way through that like nemo, and successfully did my job and that too- in record time (exceeding my partner’s expectations)
In the end I thought .. Hmmm.. Crowd doesn’t eat you. So I can think of going again if need comes. I’m not saying I’ll go. But I can think of going :P

• ·         The fear of dogs

Well this is not entirely eliminated. But having lots of biodiversity living in my hostel, I at least don’t freak out completely but calmly move along (With heart beat reaching 200)

• ·         In lesser detail, the fear of losing (not 'winning and losing’ losing but ‘letting go’ losing) and the fear of baring the emotions out to anyone.

Dear Internship Devta, keep blessing us with such nice days all throughout our stay here and remove the next set of fears please.
Staying so far away from everyone also made me appreciate my friends even more. I really miss them at times, and every day different situations remind me of each one of them. Really looking forward for 6 more months together.
Will come back with next monthly report of the project ‘Ek semester toh guzaariye Gujarat mein’
Jai Shri Krishna

New nazaara from new hostel window

Caves Part 2

Junagadh ke saathi

Scarecrow

Sunsaan nagar, anjaan dagar

Into the caves

Khaana milne ki khushiiiiiiiii

How I passed my Tax exam..

Let us start by learning a new word - 

Before starting.. you must be wondering what's so unusual about passing an exam that it is being written about? People do it every semester.. all the time! Why all this fuss? What's the big deal?

Good question!

Well, It's saturday, I am free, and there is 10am powercut in my college so I don't know what else to do XD

Once more before starting. Have a good look at this picture. These are my seniors- Gobby Sir and Dobby Sir- our heroes of the day. Notice them carefully for 5 seconds.

Okay. That's a lot. I think we should start our story now.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With burning eyes, when I woke up on Thursday evening was when I realized that the time had come- I can't escape any more now. It was time! Time for what? We'll know as we go on with the story.

This semester I had become more than indifferent towards a triplet of subjects. One of which is the dreadful - Tax Planning and Management. I had never cared about the poor subject and skipped nearly all classes towards the end of the semester.

It was dinner time. I was sweating. With intuition of flunking the exam next day, I summoned bits of courage from here and there and marched over to the NKC like a brave soldier (read: trembling kitten).

It was 10pm And I had finally seen the syllabus, which looked so tiny and I was dreading every minute of studying it. So I did my best to complete my syllabus by taking big-eyed selfies. (First I thought of putting them here, but the eyes were horribly BIG)

That's when our heroes come into picture. Recall what were they doing in the picture? Of course they were studying! 

But what were they studying? Their exam is on Monday! Good people should not study for exam 3 days in advance :P 

These farishtas were studying FBM-321 - Tax Planning and Management!

What? Whyy? Both of them have already cleared the course last year?  I had never seen them studying so sincerely. They were more worried that I should write something tomorrow than I was.. which was bad... And I felt.. bad.

That's when our word -of-the-day comes:

Up went my startled eyes as if at some trick of thaumaturgy

My lovely seniors taught me for sometime, what they taught in the short duration came in my exam! :D

Such nicey-nessss :') Happiness tears flowing. I could feel their pain of first studying their part patiently. and explaining it all to me, that too very patiently. Not getting irritated when I could not understand things at the first time and not angry-ing when I stopped listening intermittently. They did a really nice job of stuffing a bunch of things in my tiny head in a limited time. Bravo! 

(There were a couple of more heroes who gave me NOTES) :D

I nervously looked at the question paper with one eye opened .. and I was chanting Thank you with most of the questions I attempted in the paper. God bless them with straight A's and peri peri chicken :D _/\_

So, how I cleared my exam was nothing less than a miracle. It was enjoyable. It was team effort. 

This was the nicest thing done to me in months.

Sadly, I'll miss being taken care of, like family after Dobby, Gobby, Bobby, Robby and Tobby go away :(

Blah blah blah... Other than this, my past week has been very normal other than the fact that:

• I had cooked spicy paneer
• I had the BEST authentic Bihari chicken cooked by my friends, Bobby Sir and Dobby sir.
• Torn my phone cover into pieces (after which my phone looks miserably naked and laachaar),
• I have had a minor heartbreak
• Finally shared my prized collection of Puraane  Taraane. (because sharing is caring :P)
• Made world record for consuming the largest quantity of Glucon-D in 10 days
• And evaporated slowly to the cruel Delhi Summer.

 Will come back with more blabber after exams. I plan to do A LOTTTTT till June 15 :D Tada!

PS:  Dear FBM 321,

Nahi, hum mein koi anban nahi hai

Lekin ab vo mann nahi hai

Main khud ko suljha rahi hun

Tumhe le kar koi uljhan nahi hai :P

You are not too bad, but seriously not my type :O

Yet Another :D

My laziness can be explained by the fact that I still have 3 incomplete posts in drafts, which will probably never see the light of the dawn :P

But today I'll write only this one.

There are scores of people and things I want to be grateful to today. Let me see if I can do this or not.. Let me start

*Everything is mentioned in chronological order*

Few times in a year I feel so fortunate and blessed that I'm moved beyond words. (And since a picture is worth thousand words, I've used more of those this time rather than writing long stories like last year.. 14.25 wishes :D ) God has been very kind on me to give me so many good people around me all the time, and always showering me with things more than I deserve.

Here I've tried to include all the "Arre waah" moments of the day.

• 

  You people were fortunate
  enough to find something
  my size :P

  How fortunate I am to have my birthday celebrations started a day earlier :D 
  Kavya didi and Harpreet Mam .. The intricately done, immaculately designed card made me very emotional. I am really out of words and don't know how to thank you people for all the love. And thanks Arpit, Amarendra, Arun bhaiya, Praveer and Himanshu sir for your lovely wishes. 
  What you people did was plain unexpected! Not to mention the cake being cut in a hurry at midnight on a stone platform under a tree :P

• "O teri" waali party... more lovely time full of dance and masti :D 
  Corridor mates Huddi, Anantaa, Sharma jih, Nikita, Reesa Roomie :* Sonakshi, Deepti, Priyanka, Shaista, Vidushi, Naema, Sera, :D 
  Special mention for Hari and Harpreet di's dance :D
  
  

BLINGGG!

• My midnight postman Aarushi, bringing me Vedangi di's gift was completely out of the blue. Lovely bangles and rings, and anklet and bling. :') I am seriously waiting for you all to come back and have more great time together.
• Skype (LATE) wishers Adarsh, Atmajith and Pulkit and their Chanda mama wala song  :')  :P The Skype call was very entertaining :P

  

  LATE WISHERS :P

• Joshi ke suspense ki koshish flop due to her whatsapp DP (laughing more than I should here)
  Also the unexplained circumstances under which she called me over where everyone was waiting with yet another cake, and also her excitement, "Hua ki nahi?" :P 
  
  
• This day will be permanently engraved in the books of history as it is today that I got the tightest bone-crushing hug in my life.It took me so much time to straighten my bones again.
  
  
• And now for the biggest surprise of my life - rather shock! 
  There's a girl who has been my friend since the time I started talking. Unfortunately we had not been able to meet and talk properly since 2 years. To get a call from her saying "I've reached your college gate" gave me a minor HEART ATTACK. Crazy girl drove for 3 hours to come and hug me and went back in 5 minutes because she had important college work to do. 
  My dear Ashna, you more than made up for missing all those birthdays after your 10th grade :')
  After you drove away I cried. :'(
  Thanks Ashna and Kunal
  
  

• 

  Peacock surprise

  A lovely purple  Kurti, which I saw in Joshi's DP - Packed. :P ... Jisko cake se kharab karne mein Pulkit ne koi kasar nahi chhodi -_-
  I'm not even finished admiring this lovely gift and out of nowhere.. a LOVELY peacock pendant appears in my neck. Thanks a lot Adhithiyan for this horcrux! 
  Thanks to my batchmates for coming and making my evening memorable..
  Joshi, Sharma, Dhingra, Hrudya, Urvashi, Tiwari, Ishita, Adhithiyan, Atma, Anurag Golu, Adarsh
  And of course, Pulkit was there to click nice pictures with his new HAIRCUT WALA CAMERA. Also clicking another picture similar to our first photo together taken a year back :D

KAHANI GHAR GHAR KI 

Peacock

• And if all of this was not enough, I got handmade THEKUA along with a magical mysterious powder to sprinkle on it, jiska composition unhone clearly nahi bataya. Now what's very interesting about this is that this consignment has been transferred by him illegally to me so I cannot reveal his name at the moment :P And I cannot imagine this gentleman entering the kitchen to boil water. To understand that this man made thekuas himself painstakingly took few seconds.. and that he saved some of it for me despite its demand made it a very prized possession of mine.
  
  
• My lovely family :'(  Celebrating my birthday akele akele and sending me pictures :'(
  Chandigarh friends : Divya, Smriti, Kanupriya, Aur tum dono ke saath conference call pe national importance ke issues discuss kiye jaana.
  School friends: Manal, Aanchal, Heena, Prerna, Vidisha, Modita, SWATIKA DEVI JEE :P (Jinhone mujhe wish karne se pehle kisi korean TV show ke English subtitles mail karne ko kaha :P)
  A really LONG and lovely wish by an old friend movie man :P 
  Juniors, Seniors, friends, romans, countrymen!
• 
  

  

• Anshul Agarwal... Aapko maafi punishment ke baad milegi 
• And Anurag. Sab khoon maaf. Tumhare kandho pe bahot badi responsibilities aa gayi hain ab. Tumhe bahot important kaam ki zimmedari di hai ab.

All this makes me wonder what I have EVER done to get all this - love and kindness and such nice friendships!

Many beautiful moments were experienced. Hard to explain.

And after all this love.. some sad things.. I have turned 21 today. I'm getting old... but have not grown up yet :P

As this semester and subsequently, college is coming to an end, I am only realizing that I am not ready for the real world yet.

Oh I'm just a girl.. Trying to find a place in this world!

PS- I'm currently writing a letter to 30-year old Apoorva Tikku: COMING SOON, Stay tuned for more :D
Sorry for this uninteresting piece of information :P

Filhaal I have semester exams coming up. I'll see you all after December 10. YO! :D

 Signing off, with more pictures

ANGRY FACES :P

 

Yeh photo ulti hai, ghoom nahi rahi 

Mental Note: Never get clicked with Pulkit again