First Impressions - Episode 2

Next on the list is M Vasish Narayan (hereafter referred to as Laddu), the second inmate of Room 40. You know how there are some guys who can have people in splits with minimal effort? Well he is one of them. It wouldn't be fair to him, for what he has done for all of us, if I wrote this article with seriousness or sentimentality. Hence everything that follows below is a hyperbole of sorts, intended to make it less serious, and in no way intended to detract from that person, or the awesome guy he is. So here goes.

This guy joined college late, after turning up his nose at other lesser institutes, not knowing what he was getting into when he signed up here. One fine day, he ran out of something, let's say toothpaste. So, feeling too lazy to go out of the campus to buy more, he went around looking for toothpaste and bumped into his friend Siva (same school, PS-shites). To cut a long story short, Siva in turn brought him to our room, Agate 22 (clever way to name hostels, after precious stones, very meaningful indeed), thinking it would be, as the English say, 'good sport'.

So I'd gone out somewhere and when I entered the room, I found myself getting introduced to this guy. Now, let me describe him as I first beheld him. Stereotypes exist for a reason – people like him. He was a shockingly fair, pudgy (or he was two feet too short) Tamil, with a religious joint family, no less, and consequently a name capable of more strongly repelling girls than if he were a homeless bum (some people would say they sound exotic. Well those are the guys with such names). Fit the bill so far? But stereotypes again do not always hold true – case in point? The very same Vasish Narayan.

Apparently, he had been in the midst of his inquiries when I barged in. A cursory 'hi' later, he was back to business. It struck me as intriguing. People with families like his and mine are trained from birth to be polite, not dismissive. It was like he wanted his business done and to get out. Well, we would be having none of that. Amidst raucous peals of laughter, as Kartick V named him a 'thairsaadam', someone thought it would be a good idea to give him bums. And as we set about implementing it, but his cavalier attitude never changed, and after the deed, he questioned, “Idan unga agate adiya?” (Translated, it means “Is that it?”) with no small amount of derision.

We were insulted. The pride of the hostel was at stake. Here was an outsider, making fun of the glorious bond of brotherhood and associated bravado we had cultivated (Amazing how reflecting on the past can give one so much perspective). Well, we did prove him wrong, thanks to the ministrations of NJ Udaya Bharati. And after cracking down on the lot of us, he went away, miffed that he didn't get what he was looking for, and because of a pain in the ass, literally.

It was later he came to know more about him. His exploits in his first hostel, Coral, are quite frankly not for public consumption, if they even happened. But of course we thought it was all true and hilarious. There are kids who get friends easily because they have stuff others want to use but don't own. Such a qualification enabled him to move in with the Nungambaks (students of PSBB Nungambakkam, try to keep up) and I would meet him from time to time.

What struck me most later on was how contrasting he was. Combine a Type B personality, with sarcasm, 'know-it-all-ism', and 'US return' effect, along with a mentality that an aristocrat socialising with a commoner has, load it up into a typical south Indian body and remove the filter which controls what the mouth says and you have Laddu's outer personality in a nutshell. But, as an adopted roommate of Diamond 42 in our second year, despite occasional relapses into that mode, I found him to be just as 'normal' as the rest of our group (he'd seen reruns on KTV of awful Tamil movies I didn't even know of) , and a gamer to boot. Well, that was enough to convince me, especially when brought a new laptop, along with 'scenic' games, and we spent many hours on such geeky stuff and discussions and we became good friends over the course of time.

So this story just goes to show how bad first impressions can be. At the same time, you can never really be completely off, unless you're drunk or something. Eventually, Laddu as I met at that time and the guy he is now are a lot different, at least as far as I am concerned. He actually is in the US right now, so I am waiting to see how far gone from the Thuvakudi resident he will be when he comes back. Whatever changes, I hope he doesn't call a Coke a 'Soda'. Indians doing that pisses me off to no end for some reason.

TO BE CONTINUED...