An ode.
This blog was started by kapil and me sometime in college, when we were jobless and this seemed the best way to kill some time. Then more guys joined in. Unfortunately, the core member, Kapil, is no longer with us now. This is the first time i am giving vent to some of my feelings, bottled up inside.
Kapil died in march, when he had gone to bangalore to watch the iron maiden concert. It was uncanny. I was supposed to go along for the show, but couldnt because of work. Kapil kept pressurising me to come along till the last moment. It was saturday when we spoke, 2 days before his accident.
There were so many things left unsaid, it still hasnt sunk in.. I have known Kapil since my first year, infact he was one of the first few friends i made in college. Always a happy, go-lcuky chap, he was known to go into extreme fits of laughters sometimes. In fact that was one of his ways to screw somebody, laughing so much and cracking stupid jokes to make the other person opelessly uncomfortable. I would know, i bore the brunt once :)
In fact he taught me lots of things, by ridiculing them. My use of the single blade shaving machine, my use of the local shaving cream, his insightful knowledge into the anatomy of the female human species etc. We tried to study together lots of times, but it was impossible to study, and we ended up discussing everything other than acads. Kapil's room used to come on the way of my room, so I would eventually stop there 5-10 times a day, on variouos pretexts, just to pass time, to borrow his cycle, to crib about life, institute, friends. It was in his room that I met most of the other choms from Vyas hostel.
My second semester, I shifted to a neighbouring hostel. So my contact with Kapil decreased and kept decreasing. Where I kept screwing my acads and had lots of negative energy and frustration, Kapil also screwed his acads (albeit not that much), but used his energy in more positive ways; dedicating himself to computer science and the advancement of various philosophical and intellectual crap.
Same thing happened till our Second year, first sem. Although his room was in the downstairs wing, but out contact still was negligent. Particularly since he was trying to study and focus, and I was completely lost. Then Second year, second sem.
His wing was gone on a trip to Mussorie by road and met with an accident. His best friend Vikas and Rahul, both from his hometown and friends for some years, died and others suffered various injuries. That changed something in Kapil. It was in the summer of that year that he went for Vipasana and that alteast helped me a bit i think. Then our contact regained, through Sudhir and since I was going to leave my wing for the next year, Kapil suggested that we 3 stay together. Since Sudhir couldnt stnad my type of music [:D], it was Sudhir, then kapil and finally me in adjoining rooms. I introduced Kapil into the realm of rock music. Both Sudhir and Kapil became avid passive smokers. Although Kapil didnot waste as much time, Sudhir and me wasted our entire third year. That is a different story.
Whatever little grades I made in Economics, half the credit goes to Kapil for making me study. Still remember those nightouts in the summer, sitting in the veranda, bloody hot weather, no electricity in the rooms, trying to study; unfortunately we ended up chatting more than studying. But it was all worth it. Kapil, with his unique opinions, always had an argument. It was in third year that Kapil was initialited into the philosophy of Ayn Rand and he religiously read his fiction trilogy 'Altas Shrugged', 'The Fountainhead' and ' We The Living". In my opinion, it was disaster for Kapil :D. He became crazier since. In fact, he revereted to the above philosophy only when he was pissed off, but still it was quite a handful. His sudden embracement of entrepreneurship and avid membership of a silly organization 'Center for Entrepreneurial Leaderhship' always seemed to me to be an offshoot of Ayn Rand's philosophy. His committment to Computer science knew no bounds and he was ranked in the top 500 hackers in the world. It was then that his team won some big prize in compsci. His dedication to it was on the verge of craziness.
Before I forget, Kapil also got into disastrous love affairs. None of his love affairs went the cliched ways. I am not at too much of liberty to discuss these matters though, as I am not too fully aware. But our lenghy discussions on love and related topics would take references from his life.
Then came fourth year. It was like all events and energies culminated to lead us here. Kapil became an expert in all things he touched, got into another highly disastrous love affair (this one worse than others), he cracked his courses with ease, attended most classes, studied in the lobrary, watched movies, listened to same songs endlessly (learnt the lyrics by heart, sang them at the top of his voice, then got bored and promptly forgot them all). His almost maniacal laughter used to arouse me lots of times. That was also the time of Nescafe and plain maggie and his first booze session. Fourth year second semester was the last time we guys actually met.
Fifth year, first semester, he was on campus and I was in bangalore doing PS. He craxked everything, made a job in Microsoft, got PS in France, did theatre workshop etc, and I reclamied my life in bangalore. Next semester he went on to France and we stayed in touch over email and chat. He used to be very interested in my escapades :D.
With the end of college, our contact became a bit less, since we were both in different cities and I became very busy with my job. He seemed to do it effortlessly, made good friends, lived comfortably in almost luxury. Unfortunately I cannot ellusicate further on this part, since our talks rarely focussed on careers and problems. Instead I dont know what it was between us, but it happened 3-4 times that whenver I was very depressed, he would call up and cheer me up. Some psychic thinking, maybe.
Anyways, we never got to finish our discussion on love. I guess even if ten extremely radical people meet up and discuss this, they will not be able to entirely come up with a perfect answer. And alone, without my fellow partner, I would not even attempt it now.
Kapil died in march, when he had gone to bangalore to watch the iron maiden concert. It was uncanny. I was supposed to go along for the show, but couldnt because of work. Kapil kept pressurising me to come along till the last moment. It was saturday when we spoke, 2 days before his accident.
There were so many things left unsaid, it still hasnt sunk in.. I have known Kapil since my first year, infact he was one of the first few friends i made in college. Always a happy, go-lcuky chap, he was known to go into extreme fits of laughters sometimes. In fact that was one of his ways to screw somebody, laughing so much and cracking stupid jokes to make the other person opelessly uncomfortable. I would know, i bore the brunt once :)
In fact he taught me lots of things, by ridiculing them. My use of the single blade shaving machine, my use of the local shaving cream, his insightful knowledge into the anatomy of the female human species etc. We tried to study together lots of times, but it was impossible to study, and we ended up discussing everything other than acads. Kapil's room used to come on the way of my room, so I would eventually stop there 5-10 times a day, on variouos pretexts, just to pass time, to borrow his cycle, to crib about life, institute, friends. It was in his room that I met most of the other choms from Vyas hostel.
My second semester, I shifted to a neighbouring hostel. So my contact with Kapil decreased and kept decreasing. Where I kept screwing my acads and had lots of negative energy and frustration, Kapil also screwed his acads (albeit not that much), but used his energy in more positive ways; dedicating himself to computer science and the advancement of various philosophical and intellectual crap.
Same thing happened till our Second year, first sem. Although his room was in the downstairs wing, but out contact still was negligent. Particularly since he was trying to study and focus, and I was completely lost. Then Second year, second sem.
His wing was gone on a trip to Mussorie by road and met with an accident. His best friend Vikas and Rahul, both from his hometown and friends for some years, died and others suffered various injuries. That changed something in Kapil. It was in the summer of that year that he went for Vipasana and that alteast helped me a bit i think. Then our contact regained, through Sudhir and since I was going to leave my wing for the next year, Kapil suggested that we 3 stay together. Since Sudhir couldnt stnad my type of music [:D], it was Sudhir, then kapil and finally me in adjoining rooms. I introduced Kapil into the realm of rock music. Both Sudhir and Kapil became avid passive smokers. Although Kapil didnot waste as much time, Sudhir and me wasted our entire third year. That is a different story.
Whatever little grades I made in Economics, half the credit goes to Kapil for making me study. Still remember those nightouts in the summer, sitting in the veranda, bloody hot weather, no electricity in the rooms, trying to study; unfortunately we ended up chatting more than studying. But it was all worth it. Kapil, with his unique opinions, always had an argument. It was in third year that Kapil was initialited into the philosophy of Ayn Rand and he religiously read his fiction trilogy 'Altas Shrugged', 'The Fountainhead' and ' We The Living". In my opinion, it was disaster for Kapil :D. He became crazier since. In fact, he revereted to the above philosophy only when he was pissed off, but still it was quite a handful. His sudden embracement of entrepreneurship and avid membership of a silly organization 'Center for Entrepreneurial Leaderhship' always seemed to me to be an offshoot of Ayn Rand's philosophy. His committment to Computer science knew no bounds and he was ranked in the top 500 hackers in the world. It was then that his team won some big prize in compsci. His dedication to it was on the verge of craziness.
Before I forget, Kapil also got into disastrous love affairs. None of his love affairs went the cliched ways. I am not at too much of liberty to discuss these matters though, as I am not too fully aware. But our lenghy discussions on love and related topics would take references from his life.
Then came fourth year. It was like all events and energies culminated to lead us here. Kapil became an expert in all things he touched, got into another highly disastrous love affair (this one worse than others), he cracked his courses with ease, attended most classes, studied in the lobrary, watched movies, listened to same songs endlessly (learnt the lyrics by heart, sang them at the top of his voice, then got bored and promptly forgot them all). His almost maniacal laughter used to arouse me lots of times. That was also the time of Nescafe and plain maggie and his first booze session. Fourth year second semester was the last time we guys actually met.
Fifth year, first semester, he was on campus and I was in bangalore doing PS. He craxked everything, made a job in Microsoft, got PS in France, did theatre workshop etc, and I reclamied my life in bangalore. Next semester he went on to France and we stayed in touch over email and chat. He used to be very interested in my escapades :D.
With the end of college, our contact became a bit less, since we were both in different cities and I became very busy with my job. He seemed to do it effortlessly, made good friends, lived comfortably in almost luxury. Unfortunately I cannot ellusicate further on this part, since our talks rarely focussed on careers and problems. Instead I dont know what it was between us, but it happened 3-4 times that whenver I was very depressed, he would call up and cheer me up. Some psychic thinking, maybe.
Anyways, we never got to finish our discussion on love. I guess even if ten extremely radical people meet up and discuss this, they will not be able to entirely come up with a perfect answer. And alone, without my fellow partner, I would not even attempt it now.
posted by Raoul @ 11:22 PM
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