Summer at IITK - Publisher Preview

8/9/2019 Summer at IITK - Publisher Preview

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THE FIRST PAGE

I am not a preface guy so trust me when I say this will

be short.

What is this book??

Entertainment!! This is a story about a group of

adolescent friends and their antics in the summer term

of their institute. It has love stories, hate stories,

betrayals, and redemption. You will like some

characters. You will hate some. But at the end of the

day all of them will do only one thing, entertain you.

What this book is not??

Run of the mill and preachy. If you expect this book to

make you learn any virtues, run back to book store and

get a Panchatantra.

In the coming lines I will be thanking my parents for

their immense support and solidarity in this project. I

will also thank my friends whose company and sharp

minds helped me gather ideas to write this book. And

finally you for giving me the opportunity to entertain

you. So in case you are not the read-the-author-thank-

his-parents-and-friends type you might want to skip

straight to the story.

-- Nikit Phadke


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mind it today though as things went pretty smoothly andshe was able to get to zee TV half an hour earlier. Geeta

picked her backpack in which she had carefully snuck inthe cellphone and ran towards her bus stop. All shecould think about was the second period when shewould sit in the back with Shaili, her best friend andshow her new toy. She didnt have to wait too long.Within the next hour she was chatting freely with Shailias they sat on the last bench of the class.

Hey Shaili, yeh dekh mere dad ne mere liye cellphone

liyageeta slowly took out her cellphone, making surethat the substitute teacher didnt see it and showed it toShaili whose eyes widened instantly.

Wow yaar geeta, bahut hi mast hai yeh to. You will letme use it na?Shaili asked when she was done admiringthe cellphone thoroughly and made a puppy face.

Ofcourse shaili kaisi baatein karti hai. But listen nathere is more. Yeh jo cellphone tha na I think yeh kisiAneesha naam ki ladki ka tha. Her messages somehowdidnt get deleted from the cellphone. It was reallyinteresting to read her messages. She seems to have aboyfriend named Prachit. Uski ek best friend hai Neha.Then there is Rohit, who looks to be Prachits best friend

and Nehas boyfriend. There are a few more people like

Yuvraaj Singh, Rahul etc who dont seem to be thatinteresting. Lekin overall messages bahut hi cool hai.We can practically map the major events in Aneesha andPrachits love story. Wait dikhati hoon

She instantly opened the SMS application of the phoneand a stream of messages appeared on the cellphone.

Geeta opened some interesting messages (Which shehad shortlisted during the time she had been sick) and

then got busy reading them with Shaili.


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Geeta and Shaili just couldnt help their giggles. The

messages had caught their imagination. Watching a real

life bollywood situation unfold in the cellphone waspretty exhilarating. Suddenly Shaili had an idea.

Oye. Lets read the messages sequentially and make anice story out of it. It would be just like making a picture

by connecting dots. It would be fun. Waise bhi aajhamare bahut free period hai

The idea struck a chord with Geeta instantly. Shortly

thereafter Geeta and Shaili started going through eachand every message and chalking out a storyline. As soon

as they began, the romantic in Shaili became active.She tilted her neck to a side, looked up towards the roof

and with a slight smirk said

His mint was Awesome and so were his

lips

Neha

Wht!! They Kissed!! When? Where? Detailsplease!!

Prachit

Where are you? d train is about to leave. Call

me or message me as soon as you get here

Neha

Hey hi it felt rly nice mtin u guys in the IITK

library today. Have a safe Lucknow trip

Prachit


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I wonder how this all began


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The Beginningnd

May 2003. That was the day it all began.After evading a fakka for two years, that wasthe day when Haddi was going to get his first.Inspite of all his efforts to accommodate hisgoof ups; here he was, walking towards aninevitable doom that awaited him. He wantedthe time to stop, even reverse but all he could

do was watch the pillars of the concrete pathway pass

by one after the other as he walked under it with hishead down. It was perhaps the hottest day of the year

so far. But none of it mattered for Haddi who walkedsilently towards the FacB under the concrete walkway.Even if the pathway providing the much needed shadewas absent, it wouldnt have mattered to him. Noamount of physical pain would have reduced theintensity of thoughts inside him. Inspite of Haddis

ignorance, the utility of the concrete pathway wasundeniable. It provided a safe path for the students tomove around within the academic area without exposing

themselves to the wrath of sun god. The one underwhich Haddi happened to be walking was part of the

network that connected the Lecture hall complex toFacB. Faculty Building or FacB as it used to be knownwas easily the tallest building of the campus and hostedmost of the deparmental offices. It also hosted anumber of classrooms, conference rooms andprofessors individual offices. Haddis stream ofthoughts was broken for a second as he moved his eyes

from the concrete floor towards the FacB.

Still a long way to goHe thought.

Even though the FacB looked really close, Haddi Knew

he still had to walk a long way in order to get there. Histhoughts overwhelmed him again. As he Watched thepillars pass by his desire to turn back time wasintensifying. He did not want a fakka. He knew he hadreplayed the entire exam in his brain a thousand times

2


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but he couldnt help but think of some obscure thing hehad written in his paper that might help him convince

the professor to increase the marks. He was trying tofind a ray of hope in darkness when some cheerfulvoices broke his thoughts. Two of his friends who hadbeen walking behind him had suddenly decided tobecome vocal. Moreover on a topic that Haddi was leastinterested in hearing about.

"Abe ikka aa jaye meri saat chheh lag jaegi

This was Mayur better known as Mariyal, a characterfrom Allahabad, a hardcore baniya, philanderer and andright now a person who was doing a great job makingHaddi feel miserable.

"Abe yaar paper bahut cool aaya tha, tu to waise bhiikke pe hi chal raha tha.Chahe jitna tel machaya ho ikkato tera lag hi jaega. Bas mera bhi ikka lag jaye yaar cool

cool satti lag jaegi. Saala mittal satti ke neeche walo koproject nahi deta hai yaar"

Added Madhu, a guy from Bikaner and a very ablecribber. He had the capacity to crib in just about anysituation which made him a particularly annoyingaddition to anything. The only thing counteracting hisobnoxious cribbing was his capacity to hack computers.

He was an absolute gem when it came to hacking andhad consequently gained the nickname Axle which wasbasically the name of the worlds topmost hacker in themovie Swordfish. Regardless, he was probably the last

person Haddi wanted to listen talking at this time.

"Abe Axle, isne midterm jaisi grading kari to main 100%Bikke pe aa jaunga" Mariyal expressed his fear.

"Abe nahi be kahe tension le rahe ho bahut cool prof haiMariyal"


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"Haan be woh to hai. Yeh prof grading to bahut acchikarta hai. Is course main fakka laane wala bahut hi

chirkut hoga"

"Abe haane be.....jab Y0 batch ka deepak dikka la saktahai to......"

Their voices died down abruptly. They had been given anasty stare by Haddi who apparently was not happy with

the kind of insensitivity Mariyal and Axle were showingto his situation.

Are tum log Kaahe Pareshan kar raha hai isko

Commented Jagdeesh or Jaggu as he was popularlyknown. Jaggu was from Bihar and his only parameter ofconcern in life was his "sareer". He was obsessed withbody building. He had an extremely relaxed demeanor.Hearing him talk, No one would be able to say that both

Haddi and Jaggu were standing on a verge of fakka.Jaggu was cool and relaxed as anything. The onlydifference from his normal behavior was that he wasnt

laughing as much. It had nothing to do with theirattitudes though. Jaggu had been conditioned by foursemesters of getting Fakkas. It was a routine for him.But he clearly seemed to remember the feeling of beingon the verge of an Fakka for the first time and hence

seemed to empathize with Haddi. Haddis stare andJaggus insistence worked, Axle and Mariyal reducedtheir boisterious talks to mumbles which allowed Haddito get engulfed in his thoughts again. His mind mocked

him with the thought that his dimwit classmates likeAxle and Mariyal were talking about ikka and bikka and

here he was cojoling his mind into thinking he wasgoona get a Dikka. Tired of his trainwreck thoughts,

Haddi called out to Jaggu in order to divert his mind.Jaggu had been walking quietly with him right from Hall-2 and was busy chewing his nails.

"Jaldi chalo thoda Jaggu"


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"Tum already bahut tez chal raha hai Haddi

Replied jaggu as he watched Haddi ignore him and pickup his pace. Jaggu increased the size of his steps so asto catch up with Haddi. They soon reached thepavement that lead to the Undergraduate office andcould see a group of students standing outside staring ata notice board. This was the board where the list of

Fakkas was displayed. A relatively huge notice boardwhich was mostly empty and ignored most the year

used to become extremely important during end ofsemester. This was the place where doom confrontedthe best of India in black and white. The notice boardwas especially crowded during the time after the exams.However a majority of guys who came to see the boarddid not go there in order to see if they had failed thecourse. Most of them were people who knew they havecleared all their courses but were there to see who has

got fakka and how many of them. It provided goodgossip material for a few days and provided a chance forthe devious to mock people who had failed. A very

disgusting practice but hey, such is life.

For three semesters Haddi, Axle, Mariyal, Untees, kaka,

Chashmish and vodka used to be a part of the very

same group of guys. They used to hang out for hours infront of the notice board; sitting on the stairs, smokingcigarettes and mocking any poor soul who was

unfortunate enough to drop by at that time. Butsomehow the idea of being on the other side of the tablejust wasnt appealing to Haddi.

God I am sorry for what I used to do. Please forgive

me. It was all Mariyals idea

Prayed Haddi as he glanced towards the notice boardand recalled his deeds. Then suddenly out of nowhere

came a weak smile on his face. He realized that he hadrun to god and was apologizing for his mistakes just to


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pass the course. There was no way he would haveapologized for mocking people if he were not in this

situation.

Damn I am an hippocrite

Uttered Haddi under his breath, shook his head and keptwalking. This was when he realized that the office ofProf. V.S. Mao was on the 6th floor of FacB and they

were heading towards the stairs.

"Abe lift se chalna hai .yahan kahan jaa rahe haiapan.udhar jaana hai humein"Haddi shouted and signaled the others towards anotherwalkway parallel to the one on which they were walkingto which Jaggu responded.

"Are seedhiyon se chalega to sareer accha hoga"

Jaggus suggestion to go by the stairs However wascompletely ignored by Haddi and the others whocontinued on their bearing towards the lift. Although hehad ignored Jaggus comments, Haddi was still surprised

by it. It wouldnt have normally as He knew Jaggu wasobsessed about his body but the situation was far from

normal.

How could he be so calm about getting a Fakka?

Fakka, a word that represented the greatest fear in themind of any IITian was invented by Prachit. Prachit, onehell of a card player who had got his nick name Untees

from the card game he was great at, 29. Two semestersago he had gone to see the doom-board after a 10 hour

session of 29. When asked about his grade by the gangafter he had returned

"Abe fakka lag gaya be" was his reply

After having a good laugh about the word, they haddevised a whole new lingo for grades in the next few


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minutes. After a highly intellectual discussion, thefollowing lingo was settled on

Grade Name

A Ikka

B Bikka

C Cikka

D Dikka

F Fakka

After inventing the lingo, the stupendous seven madesure it reached each and every corner of the IITK

student community. They put up notices in each andevery Hall and tortured the juniors to make sure it

became an integral part of the immortal IITK lingo whichit successfully did.

"Abe vodka ka do fakka lag gaya hai na is baar"

This question from Jaggu brought an abrupt end to

Haddis extraneous thoughts and dragged him to sourreality.

Nahi ek hi haiSo farReplied Haddi with a sigh.

Haddis wing had performed exceptionally this semester.

They had probably broken the record for the most Fs ina wing ever. There was an average of two fakka in everyroom. Satish alias Vodka seemed to be doing quiet ok sofar. Considering his previous track just one fakka thissemester was truly exceptional. Having said that, his


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fakka in MTH101 however had made him the first guy inthe history of IIT Kanpur to fail three consecutive times

in a single course

Abe course pasand aa gaya hai be. Socha ek baar aurkar loon

Was what he vodka had replied when Kaka had askedhim about him what had happened. Vodka didnt mind

fakkas. They were just another reason for him to drinkvodka, his favorite alcoholic drink and the reason for his

infamous nickname. His drinking habit wasnt the onlything vodka was famous for. He was also famous for theamount of time he talked on cellphone. Theconversations were a must considering his distancerelationship. Vodka probably made up 40-50% of hiscellphone companys revenue stream considering theamount of time he talked on it.

It wasnt as if Vodka didnt have competition. Haddisroommate Bhola had tried equally hard this semesterand had ended up with three fakkas. If Haddi didntdisappoint, his room was probably gonna top thenumber of Fakkas.

The group had now reached the lift lobby which wasparticularly crowded because of the morning rush ofpeople trying to get to their offices. A lot of people werequeued up for the lifts while the rest were flowingtowards the stairs in front of it. Haddi saw a number offamiliar faces standing in front of the lift doors, butcouldnt put a name on them. All of them were from adifferent hall and definitely not a celebrity. They werenot regular visitors to the sports field. After scratching

his heaf for a while Haddi recognized one of the guysfrom last years Antaragni, IITK's cultural festival and put

everything together. These guys had been in theECO202 class which he attended. The guy whom Haddiidentified was Shailesh Shrivastava (or sissy). They hadparticipated together in rithambara, the fashion contestin antaragni. Rithambara was one of the most


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prestigious events of IITK. People on Rithambarasroster were the better looking lot of IITK and garnered a

lot of attention. Shailesh had been a participant in itwith Untees and Haddi.

"Kya be sissy kahan jaa rahe ho??"

" Are Haddi bas jara copy dekhne aaye hai" sissy repliedin his made up accent trying to sound sophisticated. Hisapproach worked pretty well on people who didnt know

him but for someone who had known him for quietsometime it created two conflicting images in Haddishead. Sophisticated sissy was not.

"Kis cheez ki??" Haddi asked.

"Are ECO202....VS Mao ki." sissy responded.

Are main bhi usi ki dekhne jaa raha hoon" Haddi added

"Tum is course main ho kyaa?? Tumhe class main kabhidekha nahi".

What a great time to hear those words. As if Haddisconfidence needed some more poison. Frustrated withthe allegation (Which as a matter of fact was true) Haddi

replied with all the rudeness he could muster

"Saale roj class aata tha, sabse aage baithta tha. Tumsaale 5-min late aake peeche baithte hoge. Isiliye nahi

dekha hoga kabhi"

Jaggu looked at Haddi and raised an eyebrow as heheard this. Haddi gave a slant look at him and slylyshrugged his shoulders as if to say

Ofcourse I am lying!


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Everyone else in his group who didnt see the shrug tooknew he was lying. The class was at 8 o clock in the

morning. There was no way Haddi could have attendedmore than 3 - 4 lectures. But nobody would dare opentheir mouth. Haddi was ballistic today and no onewanted to be in the firing lane by contradicting him.Unfortunately thats where Sissy had put himself. Allsissy could manage after that was

"Ohh. Ho sakta hai. Chalo cya

And boarded the lift alongwith the rest of his group.

Meanwhile Haddi and the others boarded the second liftalongwith a few other guys.

The lift was full of an assortment of people. There weresome professors, some office workers, security guards

and students. Jaggu and Haddi were probably thedirtiest of the lot. The reflection in the lifts door madethis evident even to them. All the professors were welldressed. Some of them were even in suites. The securityguards were in their uniforms. The office workers weredressed up in shirts and formal pants. And here Haddiwas, wearing shorts, a tshirt which probably wasnt

washed for a month, hair spread out in every possible

direction and slippers on his feet. Jaggu was no better.He too was in a similiar attire.While Haddi had brushedhis teeth Jaggu hadnt even bothered to do that.

"Are kal hi to manjan kiye the"

Were his words when his roommate Chashmish hadasked him about it. The lift was moving patheticallyslow.It kept stopping at each and every floor. Finally

after about 10 long minutes, lift reached the 6th floor ofthe bulding. All of them stepped out and started lookingfor room no 656, VS Mao's office. Mariyal saw a large

group of students standing in the lobby on the right side


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which was a pretty good indication that the office was onthat side.

Wahan dikh raha hai officeMariyal pointed in thedirection and started walking that way.

The four of them made their way towards the office andjoined a group of some 20 odd students who werewaiting outside Prof. Maos room. One of them was

kaka, another gem of their group. A great singer and anextremely well balanced person, kaka was a romantic at

heart. His favorite movie was DDLJ and as daysprogressed his ideas about love seemed to get mushier.After a short meet and greet Kaka told them that theprofessor was only allowing three students at a timeinside the room. Two guys named Ravi and sudeeshwere already in with some other guy. Haddi and Jaggumade themselves comfortable, sat on the floor andleaned against the wall just opposite to the office door.

A short, dark guy named Asit Das Gupta or Frankyjoined them after a minute. As Haddi waited outside thedoor waiting for the three students in the room to come

out, he only had one question in his mind:

How did I get here?

And he was instantly off on a flash back.

Haddi had taken up the course in a rush of blood afterreceiving the grade sheet of the previous semester. Hehad got two Dikkas and His SPI (Semester performanceindex) was at an all time low of 5.6. He had sulked for awhole week with vipul sharma nick Gdrive, Haddiswingmate thereafter. Gdrive too had gotten a SPI of 5.6

and his normally red cheeks had been reduced to a deepshade of yellow. After considerable deliberation, both of

them had decided to let the past be and get their firstDussa in the next semester with the most difficultcourse choice possible. Both had to take five coursesthis semester. While all the five courses for GDrive werealready fixed, Haddi had the option of choosing the HSS


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(Humanities and social sciences) course. He had tosubmit a preference sheet to select one from the six

available options. While filling the preference sheet,Haddi had asked around 5-6 seniors about the relativedifficulty of the courses. All of them had unanimouslyagreed to ECO202 to be the most difficult. Since Haddiwas hell bent on bringing a ten pointer with the mostdifficult course choice possible, he put it down as his oneand only preference. Obviously, he got the course as no

one else was stupid enough to put it down as a choice.The classes began on the first of Jan. Haddi attended the

first class as an example of the sincerity he was going todisplay throughout the semester. He had woken up ontime, gone and sat on the first row in the class and hada four colored pen to take down his notes with on a copythat he bought just the day before. The first wordswhich the professor had uttered in the class was thathe was gonna change the class timings to 8:00 am MWFfrom 10:00am MWF. Haddi could still remember the

sinking feeling in his heart on hearing the very words.But hey he was gonna get a ten pointer this sem.Nothing could have hampered his spirits. He was gonna

attend each and every class this sem irrespective of itstimings. There is no person in the world who is asoptimistic a person as the one whos got a 5.6 the lastsem and is aiming for a ten pointer in the next. Haddireached the Wednesdays class at 8:00 Am sharp.

Although he had to take a nite-out in order to do that itwas an achievement nonetheless. It was a step in theright direction and was nothing short of monumental. Itrepresented that Haddi was actually serious about his

goal. First week was going just about perfect. All Haddineeded to do was to attend the Fridays class and he

would have wrapped up week-1 successfully. He decidedto do attend the Fridays class no matter what it took.

Haddi did manage to attend the class on Friday.Unfortunately it was a Friday four weeks after the onehe had targeted. Things had fallen apart.


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I already know everything he is teaching. Dont worry. Iam getting a Dussa this sem

Was what Haddi had explained when asked by GDrivewhy he wasnt attending the classes.

Haddi was half asleep throughout the Fridays class. Hewas sitting on the last bench with no idea of what wasgoing on. He had regretted his decision to come to the

class the moment he had entered it. The only reason hewasnt running out was because the A/C in the class had

made him extremely comfortable. He did howeverregister a few words spoken in the class. They were:Midterm.............wednesday..........tough...........long.

After the class Haddi had asked someone If theprofessor had mentioned anything about any midtermand the person had replied in a stressed out tone thatthey were gonna have a midterm the next wednesday

and it was gonna be tough because a lot of personswere not attending any classes.

Damn those class bunkers

Haddi had added.

I dont wanna fail this course againThat person hadadded in a weak tone before melting away in oblivion.

This was when Haddi remembered his promise ofgetting a Dussa in the semester. The professor was justgonna grade on the basis of exams, so incase he solved

all the questions correctly he could still score an Ikka inthe course. This thought made him feel a bit better.

Its still possible. I can do this

Haddi spent the next ten minutes planning his entireschedule from satuday through Tuesday. After he was

done, Haddi was once again confident of getting adussa.


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Exam main marks hi to laana hai. I just need to mug upfor the next few days and vomit it in the exam. As

simple as thatremarked Haddi when Gdrive asked foran update as Haddi met him in the corridor on his wayback. He spent most of the afternoon catching up on thesleep he had lost in order to attend the class. In theevening while he was sitting in the hostel quaddaydreaming, all Haddi could think about was howthings would be when he got a dussa. He could

practically feel the exhilaration through his imagination.He would be respected all over, people will call him a

dassu. This is when he had suddenly heard somebodyshout

"Abe Haddi yahan baitha hai.tujhe kabse dhoondh rahahoon" this was Axle.

"Kyon be Axle. Mujhe kyon dhoondh rahe ho?"

"Abe jaldi se apne kamre jao aur thode kapde wagairahle lo. Hum log Goa chal rahe hai "

"Hehe...nice one"

"Abe seriously be, Goa main robotics workshop hai .5ladko ne jaana hai. 3 IT BHU ke hai. IITK se ek ladkaaur chahiye. Chalo saale bahut maja aayega."

"Mujhe robotics ka R bhi nahi aata hai"

"Abe train main seekh jaoge chalo abhi"

"paisa wagairah kitna lagega"

"Kuchh nahi lagega. Sab paid hai.upar se stipend bhi

milega".

The temptation was just too much. An all paid vacationin Goa. What else could one ask for! Haddi somehowresisted the temptation and went back to his room. He


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seemed very serious about his goal of spending theentire weekend studying and getting a cool cool ikka.

Even the temptation of an all expense paid trip to Goadidnt seem to break his resolve.

An hour later however Haddi was sitting in a Toyota

qualis with 4 other people listening to Babuji zaradheere chalo and sipping on a bottle of kingfisher while

shouting

Goa!!! Yuhoo!!! Here we come!!!

He had caved in. He was now heading towards goa withAxle. He wasnt being a complete jackass though. Hehad packed his ECO202 notebook and class notes with

him.

I just have to study. Doesnt matter whether I do it inKanpur or GoaHe had thought.

4 days, 8 bottles of feni, 4 bottles of whiskey and 15bottles of beer later Haddi was back at IITK at 6am onWednesday morning. He had lost his ECO202 notes in

some bar in goa, his head was throbbing and he had hismidterms at 8:00AM. In other words he gave the

1st midterm with zero preparation and a blood-alcohollevel ten times higher than normal. "Disaster", yes thatsthe word Prof Mao had used to describe his performancewhile giving him his answer sheet. He had got 3/30 inthe midterm while the class average was close to 21.

I wonder; if I can get 3 marks with absolutely zero prepin such a course, I definitely am a dussa material. Justgotta be a little more focused the next sem. I will dothis. I will get a Dussa the next semHaddi rememberedexplaining GDrive who had blasted Haddi for his

performance.

The next few weeks however removed the word Dussafrom Haddis dictionary as his entire focus shiftedtowards saving a fakka. His second midterm had again


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been a disaster. He got a 2/30. It had all came down tothe endsem as always. Additionally he got to know from

someone that the professor was gonna fail people with anet total of 39 and below. So accordingly Haddi had toscore a total of 34 to pass the course. Haddi mugged upall he could for the endterm. On the day of the examHaddi convinced Karnav mishra, a maggu by heart to sitwith him and let him copy some of his answers. As hewalked towards L-7, IITks largest lecture halls, Haddi

was pretty cool. He knew that by doing some questionshimself and by copying a few from Karnav he will pass

this course. However as he reached L-7 Haddi realizedthat there was a predetermined seating arrangement forthe exam. It was a bad omen for the things to come.And what a bad omen it was. People sitting on eitherside of him were in a similiar situation as Haddi andknew nothing of Economics. Haddi was on his own.Haddi mustered all the confidence he could manage andcalmed himself down.

Its just 34 marks. I can do this

As soon as the question paper touched Haddis hand,that calmness vaporized. At that very moment Haddiknew he would be standing in front of the professorsoffice within the next few days dreading about getting aFakka. The question paper was 16 pages long. The

questions were so long that by the time Haddi finishedreading it he had already forgotten how it started.Moreover the questions were so outlandish that Haddiwasnt getting any wind of any of them. Haddi shifted in

his chair uncomfortably and looked around at hisneighbours to see if there was any scope of copying

there and found them staring at him as if asking

Do you know anything?

Throughout the paper Haddi was looking here and thereso as to get atleast a mild hint about the answers. Hegot up to drink water 5 times just to see what peoplewere doing in their copies. He wondered what all those


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people were scribbling so ferociously while he was justsitting looking here and there. To make things worse,

Haddis seat got changed in the middle of the exam asthe professor thought he was cheating. The stupidSanket (or Bakra) sitting besides him was talking somecrap to himself during the exam which made no sense atall to Haddi. But to Professor Mao who was watchingover them, it must have appeared that they werecheating. Within seconds Professor Mao had sprinted

across to Haddis seat and grabbed his arm. BeforeHaddi could retaliate the professor had pulled him up

and transferred him over to the first row. Haddisomehow wrote a few lines on his answersheet andsubmitted it at the end of the exam. For the next fourdays Haddi spent his time drinking beer with Vodka andgiving a hard time to bakra. He made bakras lifemiserable and drove him to the brink of tears atleastfour-five times. In addition to taking out his frustration,Haddi had made sure he had saved a number of people

in future from Bakras stupidity as he made Bakra sworenot to talk in exams ever again.

Apart from giving a hard time to Bakra, Haddi spent histime recalculating his possible total. There was no wayhe was reaching 39. The maximum he was gonna getwas around 30. Even if the professor decided to be a bit

lenient which he wouldnt be with Haddi, thanks to

bakra, he wouldnt drop his bar so low. So Haddi hadkinda accepted that he was gonna get a Fakka. ButAcceptance was not enough. He had to wait four days to

get it. Getting a fakka is better than waiting for it. Butfinally Haddis wait was gonna get over. Within a fewminutes he was gonna get a Fakka. The first in hisacademic career. The school topper from Indore was

gonna touch the abyss. Haddi wondered what all the

reporters who had wrote articles on him after he had gotselected in IITK without any coaching would say if they

got the wind of his current state.Suddenly the door opened and Haddi was snatched back

by the present. He saw Three guys come out it, two of


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whom Haddi knew pretty well, Ravi and Sudeesh. Ravi'sface looked as if he was gonna choke concealing the 64

teeth smile which was just about to burst out of his face.Clearly he had scored pretty well and must know he wasgonna get an Ikka. But he dare not blurt it because heknew if he blabbered anything related to any ikka he willget his ass kicked by the people standing outside.Sudeesh also looked very happy with his performance.The third guy however seemed very depressed; he

seemed as if he was almost going to cry. Haddi felt likeasking how much his score was so that he can

guesstimate the fakka threshold but decided against it.He didnt feel like bothering the guy more than healready was. The guy seemed to have enough problemsof his own. After a few more batches of three that wentit, it was clear that most of the people had performedwell. Kaka also came out happy which implied he toowas not gonna get an F. Finally came Haddis turn.Without further much ado he went inside the door

followed by Franky and Alok mittal. The room was atypical professors office with a few file cabinets, a desk,and a comfortable leather chair for the professor and

three not so comfortable wooden chairs for thevisitors.On the leather chair sat Professo Mao, a skinnyfellow in his late fifties. He was one of the few guysHaddi had seen in his life who werent bald even so latein age. His head was covered with hair as white as

cotton. He was wearing a formal shirt and had classyspectacles on his eyes. He signaled Franky to close thedoor behind them and asked everyone to take a seat.The three of them sat down with Haddi in the middle,

Franky on his left and Alok on his right.

"Ok ...so lets start with you" said Prof Mao lookingtowards Franky.

"whats your roll no"

"why whone jhero jhero phiphty free"


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This was Franky telling his roll number to the professorin his natural voice.This was the way he talked and

Haddi was pretty sure the professor hadnt got it.Nobody could have, not in the first iteration. Frankykinda ate half the words before they came out of hismouth.

"Whats that??"

"Shar itsh Y10053" The voice much clearer this time.

"Ok ....lets see where your copy is......here yougo.......and heres the question paper alongwith modelanswers"

with that the professor handed over the copy to Franky.Since Haddi had nothing to do, He decided to peep in

Frankys answersheet. He was reading the cover of acopy which had a lot of red colored ink scribbled over it.

On top were probably marks from individual questions.Below that was the total for the endsem. Written futherbelow were marks from the two midterms and in thevery bottom was a number encircled in red which wasthe grand total. It was at this moment Haddi realisedFranky's face go all wierd. It was very difficult to guesswhat he was trying to express. He didnt look angry, he

looked partly sad and he definitely wasnt happy. It was

after a few moments that Haddi realised that he wasabout to cry. Curious, Haddi looked around for a reasonand saw it written within the red circle on his copy, the

number 39. By this time the professor too had gottencurious enough to enquire

"What is it my child"

Franky did seem to utter something but neither Haddinor Professor Mao heard anything

"Just calm down son, tell me whats wrong?"

"Shar whill i pash the coursh"


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Said Franky very slowly as he moved his answersheettowards Professor Mao.

Professor Mao took his anwersheet and gave a quickglance towards the red circle.

"Oh no no no!! You need not worry dear. With a case asclose as yours I dont think i will fail you.You can restassured about that. Now just check your answersheet

see if there are any correction or totalling errors"

Franky's face blossomed instantly. He took theanwersheet back from Professor Mao, gave it a cursoryglance and gave it back. He had got what he wanted.

The professor now turned his attention towards Haddi.

"Ok.....so whats your roll number"

"Y10231 sir"

The professor hunted for his answersheet in the stack.After sometime he pulled out one, gave it a quick glanceand handed it over to Haddi.The first thing Haddi lookedfor was the red circle on the cover. Written inside thecircle was a number. And the number was 33.

So it had finally happened. Haddi had been

doomed.However inspite of feeling frustrated anddisappointed Haddis mind behaved in a way that makesevery IITian an IITian. He was filled up with a lot ofoptimism and he thought

So what if I have gotten a Fakka, lot of successfulpeople have failed at some point in their life. I will workhard. I will not give up.

Haddi felt all his anxiety, nervousness floating away andhe started feeling better as if a huge load was off of him.

Rather than thinking that He had got 33 marks Haddistarted thinking that he was just 6 short of thethreshold.


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What if there was totalling error or some answer hadnot been checked correctly? I might still paas the

course

Haddi thought and decided to ask for the modelanswers.

Sir can I have the question paper and the modelanswers??"

After Prof Rao handed him the model answers, Haddi

decided to check each and every page, each and everyline of his answersheet. He started cross checking hisanswers with the model ones very slowly. There was noscope of any increment in question 1 and 2.

Disappointed, Haddi turned the page. Question 3 was nobetter, ha had messed up the whole concept. He was

lucky to get 3 marks in that. He thought he deservedzero for the kind of stupidity he had done. Page after

page Haddi kept turning, but there just wasnt anycorrection error or anything close to that. Finally aftercoming to page ten he realised that there were no morepages to go. Heck even the pagecount of hisanswersheet was smaller than the question paper.

May be I do deserve a Fakka

Haddi thought but decided to give it one more try. He

opened up the front page and started going through theanswers once again. But it was of no use. Haddi justculdnt see any place where he could have requested foran increment of marks. Haddi didnt know how long hewas pondering over his answerbook. It may have been 5min, 10 min or an hour Haddi just didnt know. He justdidnt wanna get up from his chair. He was deep into histhoughts when he heard a creaking noise; it was from

Prof Mao's chair. When Haddi looked up he saw Prof Maostaring at him unblinkedly. Apparently he was gettingvery restless and rightly so, Haddi was taking a lot of

time going through his answer sheet. But he didnt care,he wanted to be sure about his answers. Haddi was


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The Fakka

Axle and Mariyal rushed back to hall-2. They were prettyhappy with the way things had gone for them today atProf Maos office. Their score was pretty good and theywere going to end up getting the grades they wereexpecting. It was almost 12 oclock but Axle and Mariyalknew most of the people would still be sleeping. As soon

as they entered the hall they saw Haddi and vodkatalking to each other.

"Kya be Haddi wapas aa gaya. Kya hua??"

"Are bhokali ho gayi. Dikka aa gaya"

"Sahi. Chalo isi khushi main IITK gate chalte hai"

Translation:

"Lets go and get Vodka".

By this time Axle and Mariyal had also joined them. Theprospect of going to the gate was appreciated by all anda trip was planned instantly. They were just about to

leave when it struck to Mariyal that vodka had to go andmeet a professor about revoking one of his Fakkas. Hedecided to remind him.

"Abe Vodka, Saale tumhe professor se baat karne jaana

hai shayad. tera fakka revoke kar dega woh keh rahatha tu."

"Jaana hai nahi jaana tha Mariyal. Usne subah subahemail kar ke bola ki grade revocation ki koi possibilitynahi hai. Its done. Ab mere do fakke confirm hai. So all

that remains now is to go get drunk. Gaadi le ke aayamain"

Vodka quickened towards his bike while waving his keyleft and right. The parking lot was in front of the wing. It


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housed bicycles and the occasional bikes like that ofVodka. As always there were a lot of Bicycles standing

haphazardly around Vodkas bike which needed to becleared before vodka could take out the Bike. Vodkaknew this would be the case and starting working on itas soon as he got in the parking lot. He tried for a bitbut when he realized that the situation was too complexto be resolved amicably; he decided to take the triedand tested route.

Bang

Bang

He kicked cycles on either side of the bike which then

fell like dominos clearing the way for his bike. As hetook his bike out, a very sleepy guy appeared in the

wing corridor and called out to Haddi.

"Kya be Haddi kidhar jaa rahe ho"

This was Chashmish, a really "shareef" banda from

Allahabad. He was a phenomenal sleeper. He had onceslept for 18 hours straight and that too without theinfluence of alcohol. Apparently he had woken up earlytoday.

"Are Chashmish paas ho gaye launde. Jaa rahe hai gate.

Chalna hai?"

"Subah subah...Saale tum log pagal ho gaye ho kyaa.But ab tum log jaa hi rahe ho to mana kaise kar saktehai. Do minute ruko manjan kar ke aate hai. Waise raatko bhi jaoge kyaa??"

"Haan haan raat ko bhi chale chalenge"

"Haddi saale maarenge mar jaoge. Chalo jaldi"


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Vodka had apparently been successful in taking out thebike and was now standing on the alleyway with a

yamaha settled beneath him. It was time to leave.

Chasmish, tu Axle aur Mariyal ke saath aa jaana

Haddi shouted and ran towards the bike to sit on theback. He settled on the back while Vodka pushed thebike to a high speed. They reached IIT gate in no time

and parked the bike outside the beer shop. Being 12:30in the afternoon the shopkeeper was just relaxing in a

chair outside the shop.Wondering if the shop was openVodka asked him

"Kyon bhaiya dukaan chalu hai kyaa"

"Haan haan chalu hai"

"Do kingfisher strong, do thunderbolt aur ek vodka"

They took the drinks and came back to the hostel. Onreaching close to the hostel they could make out Jaggu

and Franky standing outside. On reaching closer Haddiasked him what his score was in ECO202.

"Are saala Fakka lag gaya! 29 total hai hamara"

"fakka bol diya kyaa woh??" asked Vodka

"Haan be sab copy dekh ke chala gaya tha tab hum ussebaat karne gaya.Humne poocha ki sir 29 total pe kyaa

milega. To woh bola ki I cant give you a D, I will givethe last D to a guy named Rohit who came just before

you. He looked to be a very sincere student to me. Saalausne jaise hi yeh bola humne socha Haddi aur saala

sincere. Hum to almost has diye the. Badi mushkil secontrol kiya"

After hearing these words, Vodka gave out a hystericallaughter. He was joined by Jaggu and Franky. Jaggu

then saw the backpacks with bottles in them and


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grasped that Vodka and Haddi were going for a drink.His laughter died down abruptly and he said in a very

serious tone

Alcohol sareer ke liye accha nahi hai. Yeh sareer kodehydrate karta hai

Saale Jaggu, pata hai sareer ke liye sabse kharaabcheez kyaa hai??asked Vodka

Kya hai??

FakkaReplied Vodka and started walking towards hisroom. He was in no mood to argue the health influences

of alcohol with Jaggu. He just wanted to get the alcohollevel in his body up.

By 2 in the afternoon, vodka, Axle, Mariyal, Haddi andChashmish had gulped all the alcohol they had and werewell drunk. Vodka cursed around for a while on hisprofessors and by three o clock all of them were in deepsleep.

Haddi was dreaming about winning a gold medal in

InterIIT sports meet when it was interrupted by somevoices around him.

"Ae Haddi utho be, bahut so liye"

"Saala kaisi kumbhakaran ki neend soya hai. Pee ke

soya hai lagta hai"

"Are utho bhaiya. UG office chalna hai. Fakke ki listdekhne jaana hai. Kaka saale tumhe bole the yeh nahi

uthega"

"Are ruko uthate hai abhi Untees. Are utho Haddi kahe

gaali dilwa rahe ho"


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"ayre aybbhi soonee do beee" Haddi said in a sleepyvoice.He didnt wanna get up.He wanted to finish his

dream.

Then suddenly he felt a leg hit his body and with that hissleep started vanishing. With a considerable amount ofeffort he opened his eyes to see two guys standingbesides his bed. The taller one was Untees who haddevoted most of his mental resources towards Cards,

AOE and bakwaas.The shorter one was Kaka.

"Kya hai be" Haddi said yawning.

"Saale tum to paas ho liye. lekin hamari life main abhi

bhi tension hai. MOS ke fakko ki list aa gayi hai .chalodekhne"

MOS was mechanics of solids. One the most dangerous

courses offered in IITk. It was taken by a professor whoalmost always failed students with low attendance andlousy performance. Which automatically meant Untees

was at risk.

Kaka tum ise uthao. Main doosron ko utha ke aatahoon.Untees said to kaka and went to other rooms to

wake up the rest of the gang.

Haddi saale uth jao. Hum log bhi ek baar dekh aate hainotice board. Kyaa pata kisi sarfire professor ne hamarafakka laga diya ho

"Abe nahi be Hum log ab safe hai. Ab kauno fakka nahilagne waala hum logo kaHaddi yawned and thencontinued

Do min zara fresh ho leta hoon

With that he got up, freshened and after five minutesthe seven of them were walking towards UG office.

Although the sun was about to set and the street lamps


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were coming on, it was still sweltering hot. The sun hadbeamed quiet a lot of photons on IITK today.

"Abe koi sutta rakha hai kyaa" asked Mariyal to thegroup

"Navy cut hai mere paas" replied Untees

"Do zara"

Untees gave the cigarette to Mariyal who lit it up. To

save money and smoke only one cigarette was lit whichwas passed around in turns between everyone in thegroup except kaka.

"Kaka loge be" asked Chashmish and gestured him totake a drag.

"Nahi be main passive smoking main hi theek hoon"

Kaka did not smoke or drink.But he was there in almostall of the daaaru parties that were organized.

As soon as all of them ventured close to the lecture hallcomplex they saw sissy coming from the other directionwith two of his friends.

"Aur sissy kyaa chal raha hai" asked Haddisissy didnt reply but instead kept staring at the groupwith the others as if looking at seven ghosts and kept onwalking.

What the hell was that aboutenquired Untees

Haddi shrugged his shoulders and took another drag. Hehad already attributed sissys misbehavior to his

weirdness and was busy with his cigarette. They werenow walking through the same walkway in which Haddihad walked in the morning. However at this time he was

very relieved. Soon they were on the pathway that ledto the UG office. There were around 7-8 guys standing


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and staring at the notice board. By the time they got tothe notice board some of they had left so the

stupendous seven had the board all to themselves.Vodka was extremely chilled out. He knew he hadalready gotten two Fakkas. Kaka, Chashmish, Haddi,Axle and Mariyal were all pretty much through. It wasonly the question of Untees who was at risk in atleastone of the courses. Vodka went and sat down on thestairs. He lit up a cigarette and started smoking. He was

not at all interested in peering at the notice board. Hewas just here to accompany the rest of his buddies.

Everyone else was on the notice board looking forUnteess name. MOS had been a disaster for him. Hewas pretty sure that he was gonna get a fakka. He had atotal of 25/100. The fakka list was arranged according toyear. First up was the 98 Batch. They saw some 8- 10roll numbers there.Then there was the 99 batch. Againsome 20 odd students had gotten a Fakka. They thenmoved to the Y0 batch. Here a guy named sandeep

gupta had scored 4 fakkas.

"Now thats incredible" Haddi said out loud

Then came the Y1 batch. It was a long list. They couldsee some 100 names in the list.

"Are bhaiya bahut lambi list hai be, mera naam to zaroor

hoga" said Untees in a concerned voice.

"Are aisa koi zaroori nahi. Thodi thand rakho tumkakaattempted to console him.They started going over the list with each of themscanning a different portion. ShortIy thereafterChashmish suddenly started shouting

Iski aisi ki taisi. Mera fakka lag gaya!!!Everyone

stopped what they were doing and started looking athim. Chashmish looked back with a sad expression onhis face and his hands on his head.

Kya


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Kaise

Kisme

Batao be

Kuchh bolo

But Chashmish wouldnt answer. He went and sat on thestairs with Vodka who just looked at Chashmish with ablank face for sometime, smirked and then offered him

the cigarette he was smoking. Chashmish took itinstantly and took a long drag. Unable to gain anyinsights from Chashmish everyone went back to the

notice board and started scrutinizing it with double thespeed. If Chashmish had failed, many others were alsoat risk.

They were looking for Unteess roll number: Y10823.Haddi was the first to reach the relevant portion of thelist and started scanning it. His eyes stopped at afamiliar number: Y10823.

F listRoll Number Course

Y10746 Mechanics of Solids

Y10567 Principles of chemistry






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So Untees had indeed gotten a Fakka. Haddi lookedtowards Kaka to tell him that he had got Unteess name

but instead he saw kaka staring at a different portion.Curious, Haddi looked towards the notice board to seewhat kaka was reading and instantly grasped the reasonfor his blank looks.

F ListRoll Number Course

Y10726 Mechanics of Solids







The roll number Y10382 was Kakas!!

This development was totally unexpected. Haddi just

didnt know how to react. He now turned towards Unteesjust to find him looking towards him while his fingerplaced on a certain point on the notice board. Haddismind was just too overcome to understand what he wastrying to show. After a moment or two when he got agrasp of things, Haddi moved over to see what Unteeswas pointing at. And what he saw there was somethinghe hadnt expected in a million years


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F List

Roll Number Course

Y10231 Principles of Chemistry




After a few moments of shock and shouting whence Axleand Mariyal also realized that they had also been thevictims of principles of chemistry, all five of them lookedat each other with a blank face in a moment of silence.They then turned around to see Vodka staring at them

with a smirk and Chashmish spewing smoke from hismouth. Then out of nowhere all of them started

laughing hysterically. When the laughter died down,vodka looked at Haddi with a smile, put one hand on his

shoulder and said

Welcome to the club.

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