(From L to R: Khaitan, Anutosh, Me, Bhaskar, Nisheeth, Vikash, Dilip)
"Best Friend" is a loosely used term. Technically, there should be only person that you can refer as best friend. However, when asked about their best friend, almost everyone comes up with more than one name. Anyways, I am not here to discuss the technicalities. I have written all that gyaan as even I have more than one best friend :P
Let me introduce you to Mr. Vikas Khaitan. This guy is one of his kind. He is gem of a person. And he is quite a character. We are good friends even though we are poles apart. Probably thats what makes our friendship so interesting. In the last 8 years, we have had several great moments together. I thought it will be a good idea to jot down some of those moments and record them in my blog. The post will remind me of the great time Khaitan and I have spent together. My readers (if any) can also get to know this interesting character. Here are are the some of the interesting moments we have shared.
Jab We Met
Khaitan and me were in the same section in the MBA institute. But we did not hit off immediately. It was a class of around 60-70 students. I have always been an introvert and it takes time for me to mix up with new people. It was only at the end of the first semester when I first talked to Khaitan. I can clearly remember the day as it was the day on which the first semester CGPAs were going to be announced. I had to score at least 7 CGPA to save my scholarship. I was pretty nervous as I had not done too well (like always). A class was going on and suddenly someone shouted that the CGPAs are out!!! Everyone ran out to find out their result....I did not. I was too nervous to move from my chair. I must have been sitting over there for 4-5 minutes when I noticed that there is someone else in the class as well!!! So, there was someone else who was not too excited to know the result!!! It was Khaitan. His body language was suggesting that he is equally nervous. I went to him and asked him if he has nervous and he said yes. I sat with him. We spent the next few minutes comparing our scores in various subjects (individual subject results were already out and we were waiting for the final CGPA for the semester). After comparing the scores, I started feeling slightly better as my scores were much better!!! I wont disclose the CGPAs but this moment introduced us to each other and brought us closer (strictly in an unromantic manner). In a class, where most were academically superior, we had found our match!!!
Freshers Party
I am not much of a party animal; I feel out of place in parties. And....Khaitan loves to party. We used to...and still have so many arguments over this issue. No points for guessing that the incident that I want to share involves a party. It was the freshers party that my batch had organized for the juniors. Like every party, Khaitan was all gung-ho and .....I did not want to go!! Till the day of the party, I had not told him that I wont be coming as that would have caused the world war III. On the day of the party, Khaitan called me in the morning and told me that he will be coming to pick me up in the evening. I did not want to give him a last minute surprise so I broke the news to him. As expected, he got furious and asked me the reason. I could not think of anything else so I told him that I do not have anything to wear (which was not entirely incorrect). He just said "okay" and put down the phone.
In the evening, all my flatmates got ready and left for the party. I was alone at our flat and was getting bored. Then Khaitan arrived with three shirts and couple of trousers!!! I was surprised...and overwhelmed. I was thinking that why does it matter to him so much; Why do I matter to him so much? Thats Khaitan. I went to the party...but in my own clothes.
Cheating in Class Test
I have mentioned earlier that me and Khaitan were not too great in studies. I used to study only for the mid-semester and end-semester exams....and I cannot comment about Khaitan (as he would kill me). To make our lives miserable, we used to have a class test every other day.
Once there was a class test and Khaitan and I were totally depending on Khaitan's room mate, Vikram Tiwary. In the test, Vikram sat in one corner, next to him was Khaitan and then me. I was not too comfortable with this seating arrangement as I had to depend on Khaitan's writing speed!!! Anyways, the test started. Vikram raced away from his pole position. I was anxiously looking at Khaitan....and there he was......drawing "borders" on his answer sheet. I was shocked!!! Then finally he started writing. He wrote one line....and then stopped. Then he reached out to his bag. Took out a "pink highlighter"!!!! He highlighted the only sentence he had written so far and then looked towards Vikram's paper. By then Vikram had finished one page and was looking at Khaitan with frustration. So was I. But thats the way the entire test went. I learnt an important lesson that day. Dont think I started studying for class tests!! Its just that from the next test onwards, I used to sit next to a studious guy!!
Hawai-Chappal
It was World Cup 2003. I was watching a match at my flat. I was wearing a trouser and a round neck t-shirt. I had written a few slogans on the t-shirt and painted a tricolor on it (please pay attention as this information is important). Suddenly I heard someone honking from the parking on the ground floor.....continously. I looked from the window and it was Khaitan. Well...who else? I told him that I will be down there in a few seconds. I started looking for my shoes but was unable to find it. He kept honking so I wore my bathroom slippers and rushed for the parking. Now, let me tell you that I never step out of the house in my bathroom slippers...something which is pretty common for others. Since I was just going to the ground floor and Khaitan was continously honking....I wore the slippers.
In the parking, Khaitan and I started talking. There was no particular discussion topic and we were discussing anything and everything. He was sitting on his bike and I was standing. We must have talked for around 45 minutes when I started feeling tired. So I went and sat behind him on his bike. Thats when he struck; he pounced on his prey!!! As soon as I sat on the bike, Khaitan pressed the electric start and off we went!!! I kept asking, shouting, begging him to stop but he did not. He took me to the house of one of our batchmates. Thats where I came to know that Khaitan was taking the other guy and his girl friend for a dinner!!! Everyone was dressed-up for the dinner. And there I was, standing in a funny looking t-shirt, a faded trouser and bathroom slippers!!! I told them that that I wont go but nobody listened to me. In any case, I was standing in the middle of a posh residential area without my wallet so I had no choice. I went to the restaurant with them.
In the restaurant, I tried to make a quiet entry. I was walking quietly to our table, hoping that nobody notices me. Suddenly Khaitan, who was walking infront me, turned back.....pointed towards my feet and SHOUTED....."arre, tu chappal pahan kar aaya hai!!!". Everyone started looking at me, my slippers and my tshirt. I felt like I should dig a hole in the floor and bury myself.
Snacks & Treats
Back in MBA days, I used to have very little money with me. I used to ask for only a little sum (something that I changed in the last two semesters and I still feel ashamed of that) from my father. But I had many expenses. It takes a lot of fuel to keep this large engine running. But I do not think that I ever paid any food bill when Khaitan was around. I do not know why he used to do that but he never let me pay any food bill. I owe him for all the emotional as well as financial support that he has provided over the years.
One night on the streets of Howrah
During my summer internship, I took a leave and went to Kolkata. My father was posted near Kolkata and there were other attractions as well. That time, Khaitan was also in Kolkata (Howrah, to be precise) as he was doing his internship with HLL, Kolkata. One night before I was supposed to start back for Hyderabad, me and my parents came to Khaitan's place. There, I decided that I will spend the night over there and catch the train in the morning from the Howrah Station (Like many decisions in my life, I regret that decision as I hurt my parents a lot. They wanted to spend time with me. I wish I could change all that). The primary driver behind that decision was that there was no phone in the army guest house in which we were staying. And I needed a phone for the entire night. Not that Khaitan's flat had a phone but I could have atleast gone to a phone booth.
My parents left after dinner. But then I realised that all the phone booths had closed down for the night!!! Seeing that I am desperate, Khaitan got into action. We went to a nearby STD shop. It was closed. There was someone sleeping outside it. Khaitan woke the poor guy up and asked where does the owner of the STD booth stay. The poor guy did not know about the owner but he told us that one of the staffs stays in the nearby muslim colony.
It was about 1:30 am. We went to the muslim colony and woke up several annoyed people to find out the house of "Salim". People in the colony were thinking that we have come to rough-up Salim and a lot of them started following us. It was damn scary. My presence over there can still be justified but why Mr. Khaitan was there.......is inexplicable!!! We finally found the messiah sleeping on the second floor of an under-construction building. The guy was shocked to hear the reason behind our visit...quite naturally so. We wanted him to open up the booth, put a phone in Khaitan's flat and connect it with the line in the booth....all that at around 2:30 am!!! You think thats surprising? It is but wait for more!!! Whats more surprising is that Salim agreed!!! He came with us, opened his booth and tried all he could......but some technicalities failed us!!! After that, we thanked Salim for his kindness and left for Howrah station...assuming that the station will definitely have a booth. Forget about the booth, the entire station was locked!!! But we found a booth in one of the zillion bylanes around the station. I spent the remaining part of the night on the phone.....Khaitan spent the remaining part of the night in trying to sleep on an uncomfortable chair!!! I cannot think of any other person who could have been with me in that madness.
Finance Courses
Before elaboraing this, let me give some background. Khaitan's family has a "distribution empire" in Asansol (West Bengal) . They have the distributorship of Hindustan Lever, Airtel, Piaggio, Phillips....a chemical business, a detergent factory, an ice factory etc etc. He could have chosen to run his family business but he chose to do MBA and prove himself (did he succeed in doing that? That will be a different blog post). He went against his father, ran away from home and came to Hyderabad to do MBA. He wanted to learn as much as he can and as many different things as possible before returning back to his hometown and family business!!! (the outcome of this endeavour will also be discussed in the same "different" blog post that was mentioned a short while back).
Both of us had opted for hardcore marketing specialization. But some smartass suggested that he should also take-up a few finance courses. Now Khaitan is a guy, who gets easily convinced by people he "admires". I tried to convince him a lot but he had made up his mind (I was not a guy that he admired!!!) He opted for two finance papers in the last semester. His logic was that the knowledge would help him in his family business. Yeah right.....the day his father starts dealing in derivatives, he would look towards Khaitan to run the show!!!
Anyways, finally the mid-semester exams arrived. On the day of the exam of one of the finance courses that Khaitan had taken up, I called him in the morning. I told him that he would anyways fail so its better to skip the exam and watch a movie instead. He refused saying that he has prepared well. I wished him luck and put down the phone. 40 minutes after the scheduled start of the test (first 30 minutes for objective type questions and the remaining for the main test), I got a call. It was Khaitan!!! I do not remember whether we went for the movie or not but we did hang-out somewhere. Thanks to relative grading and Vikas Khaitan, a lot of people got high grades even after scoring low!!!
Relative's Marriage
For the exams in the fourth semester, Khaitan asked me to come and stay at his place. I do not like group studies or combined studies so I initially refused. But then it is difficult to convince Khaitan. So I agreed, packed my bag and moved to his place. On the very evening that I moved over there, Khaitan told me that there is a marriage of one of his distant relatives in the city and we have to go to attend it. For that, I put my foot down and said no. Exams are the only times when I used to get serious about studies. So he went to attend the marriage along with 4-5 other guys from the institute, who did not want to miss lavish and more importantly, free dinner.
Now let me tell you about Marwari marriages. I have been told by Khaitan that a marwari marriage is usually a 4-5 days affair. Everyday there is a dinner. And in the end, they serve hot milk as the dessert!!! Khaitan was invited for the entire ceremony and that means great and free dinner for 4-5 consecutive days!!!
On the first day, Khaitan returned at around 2 am. I opened the door for him and went back to sleep. At around 3 am, strange noises in the room woke me up. I looked around and saw Khaitan rolling on the floor!!! He was holding his tummy and was violently rolling on the floor!!! When asked, he told me that he had way too much food at the party!!! It seems that he and his friend hogged like crazy at the dinner. And just when they thought that now they cannot have absolutely anything more, a good-looking girl came and offered sweets. They somehow managed to fit the sweets in their system....and then each of them had a glass of hot milk!!!! No wonder he was rolling on the floor like that. But Khaitan was not worried about the pain at all. Between all the rolling and shouting in pain, he asked me how will he manage to go for the dinner on the next day!!!!
They went for dinner on all 4-5 days, I studied alone at his place.
ERP
I do not exactly remember the semester but we had a course on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) in one of the semesters. Its not that I mastered all other courses in MBA, but this was one subject which was absolutely latin and greek to me....and most others. As most people were clueless about this subject throughout the semester, it was decided that in the exam people will be allowed to sit infront of a computer. All that students had to do was to search the right answer in the ERP library and write that in the answer sheet!!! Wait.....it was not as easy at it sounds. Since most people did not understand the question, identifying the right answer was pretty difficult. However, I somehow managed to get pretty good score in the mid-semester as well as class tests/assignments. Now, all I had to do was to score decent marks in the finals to get an A. For some reason, Khaitan was not liking this at all. He used to tell me that in the finals he will score more than me.
In the final exams, there was a shortage of computers and so it was decided that two people will share each computer. I was sitting with Abhishek Mehta, one of the most studious guys in my class. On next computer, Khaitan was sitting with Pooja Wadhera (when it comes to academics, Pooja is also in the same league as me and Khaitan). I was totally relying on Mehta's ability to search the answers. I must tell you...it was a mistake. All through the exam, Mehta kept getting confused again and again....and again. And all this while, Khaitan and Pooja were giggling and shouting "mil gaya hamein...mil gaya hamein"!!! By the time they finished one answer sheet, I had not even finished a single page!!! And their answers were full of colorful diagrams and all. When only 40-45 minutes were left, I requested them to give their sheet to me to copy. They refused. I told them that now not much time is left so I will be able to write only the text and they will score more as they have also made all those diagrams. That sounded logical to them. They gave the sheets to me. I copied their answers word by word. After the exam, Khaitan and Pooja were dancing in the parking lot and teasing me that now they will score more as they have the advantage of the "diagrams"
Few days later, the scores were out. Khaitan and Pooja, who had identical answer sheets, got 60 out of 100. I got 84 out of 100!!!! One has to understand the diagrams and draw them at the correct places!!!
IQ Test
Though there are several interesting incidents, but for now this is the last incident that I will be sharing. Once Khaitan and I were sitting in the IT lab of our institute. We were checking mails, chatting and all. Suddenly Khaitan became very excited and told me that he has received a link of an IQ test. One had to answer a few questions and the website would give the IQ score. Khaitan suggested that we give the test at the same time but on different computers. I do not like such tests and I was occupied with something else. So I refused. Like Khaitan always does in such situations, he challenged me and commented that I am scared of losing. I agreed to give the test and we started. Khaitan finished a few seconds before me and he submitted his test. He got a score of 139. Now, I am not sure how the IQ scores work and whether 139 is a good score or not but the result mentioned that 95% people score 140 or less. Then I submitted my test. And I got a score of 141!!! Till this date I tease him that he is part of the "masses" and I am among the select few!!!
Those are some of the interesting moments that Khaitan and I have shared together. As the incidents suggest, Khaitan is a great friend and a great companion to hang-out with. But for me, he is more than that. He has always been there for me and I owe him a lot.
