The Tale of Chappargandus

The other day i was just thinking about how chappargaandus as a group evolved!!!! I guess it all started when 20 odd freshly brew XII graduates were put in one single place called NITK.. or KREC to be precise. The process of moulding the chappargaandus as a group started at a slow pace in the first year. I think i can safely say it all started in the top floor rooms of first block.Room no 60 and Room no 71 to be particular. This was the time when Adi, Kesh, Gandhi(then he was still gandhi not paaapu :D), Deegay, Bhatta, Sinka, Kinley, Shiva, Dulla and of course myself started getting together slowly. I am sure there were parallel interactions among ISK, Jeelu, Gutlee, Matter, Dipsy and other at the same time but i cant comment on them since i am not aware of the actual interactions. At that time i was like Bhatta's tail blindly following bhatta wherever he goes and i dont repent having done that for i got the friends of my life!!!. Incidentally i tagged along with Bhatta for the next two years only to be parted bcos of the 1 person 1 room funda of final block. At this point of time, the group "chappargandus" as a whole had not yet started. It was just another case of people socialising with one another. The actual bonding started when the arrogant and ignorant "locos" tried barging in Matter's room and threatening him and stuff like that which i dont want to narrate here. I AM STILL ASHAMED TO BE THE PART OF THAT MOB WHICH HAD MARCHED ALONG THE CORRIDORS OF FIRST BLOCK SHOUTING SOME SHIT SLOGANS ON THAT FATEFUL DAY. I apologise from the bottom of my heart for my participation in that mob for i am sure everyone would agree i wasnt aware what i was doing at that point of time. I think people have forgiven me for that incident long back. If not, please forgive me now! I am proud to have broken the clutches of that party after the first year and have come to be assosciated with the "bangys" although i dont like us to be referred by that name. I prefer "chappargandus". Honestly i think that incident happened for a reason. Since that incident caused a sense of belongingness among the chappars of our group and made them come "back with a bang"!! :-) So i guess the roots of the chappargaandus goes back to this particular incident. After this there were lot of other memorable incidents like Gandhi growing on to become "paaapu", dulla and other chappars' stint with the ice cream tata, trivi baba's fundae on sexology, DK (he he) and other choolists' late night Surya TV fantasies to name a few.
Then came the time for pegging in for the best rooms of the II block. We used all tricks present in the NITK dictionary to get rooms for ourselves as close as possible. I think we were fairly successful in that. With many of the so called lucky guys landing up in nearby rooms of the top floor of the II Block. A few unlucky ones landed up in III Block( I guess matter was one of them). Back then i didnt knew Matter, Gutlee and others, and i still repent for having met them only in III year of the college :( People especially IT guys(not IT branch) started realising the necessity of PC once they started getting into the intricacies of the subjects. I think more than this it was more of a i-too-want-a-PC urge which made people start buying PCs and shops like Alpha Systems to prosper. I am sure some people would have surely attributed the reason for want of PC to the increasing amount of chappal thefts in CCC. Whatever it is, advent of PCs reduced the distance travelled by most people to satisfy their "basic instinct" which is common in their age of adolescence.To be specific, the distance decreased from 3.0kms from hostel to the nearest "video parlour" at the city bus stand of Surathkal to 0.1km to any of those rooms equipped with a PC containing such "hard-core" stuff. By my calculations, thats a whopping 96.67% decrease in the distance to be travelled. Financially too it saved 3.00 + 20.00 + 3.00 rupees. Semester Aggregates of most of the chappars which had touched their career best figures in the first two semesters started dropping exponentially. People started liking the taste of dal of bombay mess of second block mess which was evident from the apparent increase in their weights (minimum +5kgs) and the size of their tummies. By now the chappargandus group had moulded to somewhat good shape although it was not yet named so till then.
Another ritual of lot picking and room blocking and chappars landed in the 10m radius of one another on the top floor of the IV block. I am sure this is one of the memorable years in the life of any one of us. People explored the feasibility of networking and so the PCs were networked (special thanks to Kiran & Kiran solutions for the effort for the initial configutation of networks) and then all those networking games started in full swing. Studies went for a toss. Sessional marks started competing for the least two figure numbers. Scientific calculators supposedly used for engineering calculations started calculating the attendence percentages in each subjects. People started realising the "need for speed" and then started the domination of Andy alias Anderson in each and every NFS knockouts. Some saddists (like me) after having knocked out of the initial rounds started scaring the hell out of the remaining capable ones by chasing them from opposite direction. Thanks to network NFS, lizzy got a few new names "Nasty ........." etc. :) Legends has it that lizzy went on to actually feel the taste of his own material!!! no offense lizzy! :D. Towards the fag end of the third year, Quake creeped in and as a result MSK became railmani, Anderson became Ramkumar(after the infamous "ambarish" nayi often seen around the IV block), Paapu became U235, Bhatta became paranoid. Paapu dominated the early days of quaking thanks to his earlier stint with Unreal. Then came the likes of railmani who started defying the rockets of U235 and established himself as the ultimate quaker by the end of the third year. KK continued to build Taj mahals in fond rememberence of his imaginary Mumtazs. The most memorable incidents of third year are those "encounters" with KBK. Each time he came to IV block, he made sure he visited the top floor and shout at the innocent residents of the left wing. i.e us. .I dont think there was a single instance where he came to IV block and has not scolded atleast one of us. Some of the encounters with him worth mentioning are the breaking tubelight with football, investigating the undy found lying on the corridor(which incidentally turned out to be KK's), magane threatening KBK with a knife(hehe). I still have one regret of not having completed the task of puncturing his rear tyre which Kinley and me had started :D. It was in this year that the "chappargandus" was officially formed on yahoogroups. Initially coined by two engineers paapu and myself, "chappargandus" has travelled a long way in becoming a PJ haven today!
And then came the final year in college. Quaking started in full swing and by now the innocent Matter who had now turned into the invincible Maverick started scaring the hell out of the innocent quakers of NITK. Some people opted to exit the moment Maverick entered the quake arena. This was misused by lizzy who used the name "Maverick" to mislead some innocent quaker who followed lizzy's bot all round the arena believing him to be the actual Maverick!!! Of course another incident worth mentioning is the free for all match of 20 frags in the Longest yard arena of quake played my Maverick, railmani, me and others. Maverick and railmani, the best two quakers undoubtedly both on 19 frags each were searching for an innocent quaker as their prey for the 20th frag and in the process win that match. Maverick on 19th, spotted me and started charging towards me in full force. Myself heeding to a few samaritans like kinley jumped out of the arena leaving Maverick dumbstuck and railmani winning the match eventually. I am sure Maverick can never forget this particular incident :D. By now chappargandus had became 1 group having periodic job treats and other miscelleneous treats in any of the hotels in Mangalore. Thanks to bhatta for arranging the treats and kinley for arranging the transport back to hostel! The chappars even had a stint at participating in a kannada skit and surprisingly winning the second prize :-). This made us repent our ignorance to participate in such skits in previous years considering the huge pool of talent present amongst us. Final year was full of DP and ISK, the mastermind behind the entire plot and Matter ensured that we went along with INCIDENT arrangements very well. Special thanks to Sinka for having gracefully accepted to become the ICon and handling it very well till the end. We made sure that the INCIDENT was conducted very well and a round of applause to everyone of us for having worked round the clock for achieving the same. One of the unforgettable incidents of the final year is the cooking sessions in the room of the two most cheerful hosts(paapu and kinley) thanks to Kinley's Cable PC for entertaining us from time to time :D. The final year ended so quickly that by the time the chappars realised what happened they found themselves out of college and working for some of the most reputed companies in the world. Some opted for higher education, some stuck around with quake. Others started earning their daily bread and butter. And here we are today lying thousands of kilometers apart always in the hope of sometime when all of us could meet and have the good old time which we had in college. There have been many gettogethers of the chappars but none have been successful in getting everyone of the chappars to meet at one single place. Distance may well seperate us but it cannot lessen the friendship and the spirit of chappargandus.
Cheers!