The first few days of the first semester were filled with both fun and embarrassment alike. All credits to our senior batch and their ragging. How come both fun and embarrassment you ask? Its fun when you see someone else getting ragged. And now you know why the other component is. :) Anyways, I think we were put in Physics cycle first and to our luck, me, Puttu and Samya were all in the same E division. That meant, the plan we followed on the first day of college was to continue for the next one year to come. I still remember the roll numbers. 520 - Puttu, 547 - Samya and 556 - me. 

Our classes used to start at 8 in the morning and go on up to 12:30 or 1:30 at times. Technically, 8:15 to 12:30 for us as we were very dedicated to being late for the first class in the morning. Unlike other freshers who spent a lot of time near the bakery or at the sports room in college, we three used to run home the moment our classes got over. Why? Cricket! We were a crazy bunch of guys who had to play cricket every single day. We three, along with Shiku (Samya's brother i.e. "Low keep aato!"), mama (Samya's dad, the best player of the lot), Varish and Veeresh (Shiku's classmates). Not even a single day went by with we not fighting over cricket. Every evening used to end with someone or the other cheating to win the match. It was great fun though.

At college, we had all sorts of subjects like MES, Graphics, Physics, Civil, Electrical and the good old Math. The only misfit in this lot was the Kannada class. :D Started specifically for the Northees to learn some bits and pieces of the local language, the best part of the Kannada class was that we got to talk and curse everyone in Kannada. And in case you didn't know, Puttu, who has studied in CBSE for like lifelong, was as confused as ever whether he came under the Northee group or the Local group when it came to Kannada class,simply because he had finished his 12th from Noida and not learnt Kannada in past 4-5 years. Nevertheless, it was fun to see Puttu asking doubts in the Kannada class. I recollect one of the lessons from our syllabus which was something like " Ane halla dalli hudugiyaru". As soon as the professor started with this name, we were all giving 90mm grins to each other. I specifically recollect one thing that happened at one of our Kannada internals. Yes. They had internals for Kannada as well.! Puttu, who is as fluent as TV anchor Aparna in talking and cursing in Kannada, was not that familiar with the Kannada script and hence for him, writing his Internals in Kannada was a wee-bit difficult. So, right in the middle of the test, he got up and asked the Professor " Saar.. Kannada nyaga dhodda Pha henga baritaara?? ". The moment he said this, he knew that he was going to remember that Internal for the rest of his life. :)

Graphics class was a different world altogether. While most of us struggled to spot the teeny weeny dark figure moving around in the class, students playing in the college field could almost hear the high pitched voice of DRR yelling at a student for not sharpening his pencil or not getting his own drafter to class. Graphics classes normally started at 2:15 in the afternoon which meant 90% of the class was on the brink of dozing off. Most classes had a lecture for the first half an hour or so and then, we were supposed to solve some problems. There were two incidents from the graphics class that we laughed at all the time, one involving Samya and the other one, Puttu. 

One afternoon in the class, we were solving some problems given by DRR while Gadad sir and DRR were having a look at each of our drawing sheets. Sameer on that day, had forgotten to bring his eraser and finally had to resort to a stray piece of rubber that was lying on the floor in the class. From its looks, it appeared that the eraser was run over by at least two to three batches of students who had attended the graphics class that day. So Samya picked it up and used it during the course of the classwork.The moment DRR came to Samya's desk, he let out a shriek and shouted -- "En ri idu? Nimagenu baralla! Your drawing is so shabbby!". Every student in the class sat up with a jolt hearing the scream thinking that Sameer had just put a HB pencil through DRR's stomach. At that moment, Samya replied back to DRR with a wide grin -- "Sir.. My drawing is not shabby. Its the drawing sheet that is shabby.." :D

The same day, DRR was handing over roll number-wise our drawing sheets that contained our homework that we had submitted the previous week. We always looked forward to hearing 520 from DRR's mouth for two reasons. One, to laugh at the way he called out 520. The other, because it was Puttu's roll number! DRR always had a complaint to accompany Puttu's drawing sheet. It always took Puttu a while to realize that 520 was his roll number and he was being called, given the forgetting type fellow he was. The Ghajini of our class you can say.The moment Puttu went forward to collect his sheet, DRR's BP hit 200/140 and he started screaming like a puppy run over by a scooter --" En ri neevu.. Ond sheet alli Onde drawing na moor sarti maadiddera? Henge ri correction maadodu??". The moment me and Samya were waiting for had come. We were waiting for the showdown between Puttu and DRR. For a moment, we thought Puttu was going to catch hold of DRR and give him a choke slam on the drawing table. But then, we heard Puttu calmly telling DRR -- "Saar.. Naan front page alli aa diagram maadirodanna martbittidde!".. :D