India is a huge country, the seventh largest in size and with 1.2 billion people living in it. It's not new to hear about the cultural diversity and all that spans all across the nation, while most of us go for holidays for a few days to certain parts, living in different regions of the country does help you appreciate the place even more, this post is not about me , its about my best friend Chintoo Lee Aka Rohit Sarkar.
Now Chintoo had been living in Calcutta all his life and when he came second in our school in the ISC and as usual doing well in all em crazy entrance exams, he was hell bound to leave the city, he was not going to spend another 4 years studying in Calcutta, he wanted to see other places, get away from it all as it were. So one of the best colleges , recently the bugger came and showed me an online site which rated his college as a top 10 college for engineering, NITK Suratkal is where he applied and got through as well.
Now this is a foreign land for him, I believe it is in Karnataka, pardon me but its just mallu land for me, so Chintoo got a new name for the next 4 years, "Mallu", even saved his contact info as Rohit Mallu. As usual he tried to explain how Suratkal is nowhere near Kerala and all but as usual it was in vain and all of the close bunch of friends would call him mallu. Don't go calling me all racist and all but he would get so affected by being in south India it was untrue, he would start and end every sentence with "dude" but this dude was not a normal dude but one spoken with a southie accent, I have nothing against it, used to but not now, but that was never his normal speaking tone and the first few days of him coming for his holidays in calcutta were spent trying to get that southerness out of him and returning him into a bong.
Suratkal as a place was always nice as he showed his endless pictures, the private beach and all but it was in the middle of nowhere and to reach town it would take a hour or two hour bus ride either to Bangalore or Mangalore. Again in the campus there would be no non veg items available barring egg, so Mallu would have to travel to the city in the weekend to get a taste of chicken, mutton etc, the bong that he is , he must have missed his fried fish and prawn/shrimp curry, bengali style.
Being away from the family does have its perks though, not much in chintoo's case, doesn't do drugs, doesn't drink [a lot ], does not smoke, but he did explore a lot of other avenues, became a kick ass musician, picked up a new language, would not bathe for classes, the good old hostel life. While coming back to Calcutta was something he always looked forward to and meeting up with us, he would not be upset about going back to college as he had a kick ass time.
College is also about getting chicks, now Chintoo was never that crazy assed maagibaaz that float around everywhere they go, but he did get his girl in college, the true hallmark of being a grown up and getting into college, while all this was fine, the new language and people played havoc with this bloke and now with the "dude" and southie accent , he now also abuses, yes I know everyone would be saying
"That is typical for a STB student"
While we would say, Chutia, Randi, Harami, etc etc etc, he says "Bitch"
"Shut up Bitch", "Lose some weight Bitch", "Exercise Bitch", guess he has been watching those BDSM videos I keep in my HD.
His other "thing" was coming for a holiday during the puja every year and telling us all "I doubt If I can make it next year, will probably stay back and do some stuff for extra credit". He said this, but never meant it, he would be back no matter what every year during the Puja, the lure of the bangalee is strong I guess.
4 years down the line, he gets a job, with Reliance, he did something in metallurgy, never was good at remembering anything related to education, so he now shifts from south India to Gujarat, from south to west, although originally from the east the state is called West Bengal, though it is in the east.
He was supposed to be at a place called Baruch, Babla made it sound like some random place where criminals are overflowing and shouting out the name "BAROOOOOOOOOCH" in a loud crazy tone. The place is located like 60 kms from Ahmedabad, and the train was to stop at that station for 60 seconds only, we told Chintoo to practice getting off the station as he had around 2 bags, a suitcase and his guitar to carry.
So off he goes for another adventure, he calls me a few days after reaching the phone and is absolutely pissed, he is now staying in a place called "Dahej", which means Dowry in english, while I crack the normal dowry related jokes that everyone would, he tells me the entire place is deserted, only dogs and cows roam about, its a "friggin village". The city is located quite a bit away although he does get to eat chicken there, one good thing, oh I told him to tell people he is not staying in Dahej but rather The Hague,Switzerland, as long as people don't know the difference it wont hurt them.
Before chintoo left we made sure he learned a lot of Gujju words so as to make communication easier, so it meant that every hindi phrase was to end with "che", simple and easy for him, he says he will work there for at least a year and then see what he will do, apart from going to multiplexes which were showing "Harry Potter aur Mauth ka saugadar", yes all movies are dubbed in hindi or gujurati.
I know the next time I meet him in Jan he will have a new Gujju accent, just will try to make sure he does not forget his south Indian heritage, or the bengali one.
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