(SPECIAL POST) LITTLE KIDS TAUGHT ME SOMETHING!

This is a narration of an incident which took place with me about 2-3 days back. I live in a 2BHK apartment with my friends and so we have hired a cook for us. On Monday I went with Vikas and Ankita to the foundry where we are doing our project and when I came back I saw that there was no food left as unexpected guests had arrived on flat, so I went out to find something to eat. There is a small shop just behind my college, rather exactly in front of my college's back gate where we get a food item named 'Machurian Paav'. It is a unique item in the whole area and it's quite good. I decided that I'll have this one and have a cold coffee. I ate my order and was waiting for my cold coffee just then a little kid came to me. He had shabby hair, dirty clothes and held a dirty Aluminium plate, ofcourse he was the kid of a beggar. He came to me and in a very cute voice said, "KAAPI!" I didn't get what he said at first and so asked him again that what he said and he replied with a grin. I understood that he wanted to say coffee. I asked him whether he will drink it himself and here only, and he agreed to it. I told the uncle that prepare one more cold coffee, just then my eyes fell on a cute little girl wearing a cute little white frock. She was his sister and she was going past us with their mother. I called that little girl and told her to sit and told the uncle to prepare one more in the first two cold coffees. They both sat quietly smiling. I checked in my wallet to see if I could find some more money so that I could add one more for their mother but to my sadness I only had Rs.50 with me and also there was no balance in my bank account that day. What happened next brought tears in my eyes. The order was ready, and the uncle kept 3 glasses on the counter. Both the kids tried to grab the glasses from the counter as soon as they were kept but the kids couldn't reach the counter so I asked them to wait and I served them myself. I finished my glass and then got up to remove my wallet to pay the uncle for the snack and drinks.

 Just then I saw that both the kids drank about 3/4th of glasses and gave the remaining of the coffee to their mother. I felt ashamed for not ordering a drink for her just due to lack of money. I could have given her my own but I don't know why I didn't do so. Even now tears roll down to my eyes whenever I think about that event. Even though the uncle thanked me for being kind and avoiding giving money as by giving money I would have only given Rs.10 (Yes, I give Rs.10 or Rs.20 to beggars and not Rs.1 or 2) to them and that would not have been enough for them to fill their stomachs or quench their thirst but still I feel bad for being a little bit selfish. 

Every afternoon I roam the area to find those kids again so that I could correct my mistake and may be even take them for a lunch.

Through this post I want to tell you all that instead of giving money to beggars especially when they are kids or old people buy them something to eat or drink. They don't have the capacity to work hard to earn money for living. They didn't choose that life by their own will, it were the conditions which made them turn towards begging. But if there is a woman perfectly healthy standing near and asking her little kid to beg GO AND SCOLD THE MOTHER and tell her not to ruin her child's life by forcing him/her to do this. Instead find some work where she can earn proper money everyday, which she can use it to feed her kids.

THE ONE WITH SUPRA 2015

First Let me tell you what is SUPRA. SUPRA is a competition arranged by Society of Automobile Engineers India (SAEINDIA) every year where the undergraduate students' teams participate. The competition's goal is to design and manufacture a formula grade race car by the students. The competition has one important rule and that is the designs should be made by the students only. This competition make a great base for the future engineers to show their skills and some even get placed as CEO's of many big automobile companies come to this event. The Volkswagen India's head Mr. Sirish Vissa is the head judge of the competition!

My college never had participated in such competition before 2015. The first team was the one who participated in BAJA 2015 which is for Off-road vehicles but sadly they failed to qualify due to lack of guidance and misguidance by teams of our neighbouring colleges. Ours was the team participating in SUPRA and we were very happy as we were starting a trend of competition in the college. 20th September 2014 was the date we registered for the competition and it was the last date of registration. We were given a choice by our professor guide that whether we do it this time fail and go for higher scores next time or we do it on the first attempt. The whole team was very enthusiastic and everyone said to do it in first. There was also another reason for doing it in first time and it was that if we do not succeed in our first attempt then it will be a great danger for the second team to even form for next year and the dreams of making a Formula Grade Race would remain only a dream for us. We started working the day after the registrations ended as the Virtual round was scheduled to be in January 2015 and we had exams in between which would take around a month of our time and if decide to work after exams then we might fail to complete the task in time. We completed the design of the vehicle and it was looking magnificent. When it was 5 days for us to leave for Chennai to attend the virtual round our HOD turned on his words and said that we will not go for the round and stay and attend the college. We were sad and furious at the same time but did not lose hope and requested him a lot for 2 days and finally he agreed. The Chennai trip lasted for about a week as we had to go 2 days early to renew the memberships of Rujul and Priti as the competition needed a +1 year of membership. I was not in the virtual but went for experience the tensed weather and also helping in whatever way possible. My laptop was the only laptop in the team at that time which would run ANSYS properly and also I was the one who did the drafting of the designed model for printing. The day of the virtuals came and we were all tensed as we didn't have much sleep last night. We caught the train to go to the college where the Virtual Round was to be held. Sadly no one other than the 5 presentation members was allowed in the presentation room. We 4 extra people had to sit in the waiting room for them to come out. The results were to be announced at the end of the day as it was the last day of the virtual round. The guys came from presentation satisfied from their performance as they performed almost 10 times better than the way they did in the practice sessions last night. Saif Ansari was the one who was doubted the most of performing poorly he was the one who performed the best at the actual round. Right now I am literally feeling the same chills and tension as I am typing this experience. We sat in the waiting room which had a display which showed the score of the teams from presentation. I was staring at the screen continuously searching for our team name and score. After 10 minutes of continuous staring suddenly there came the name 'THE INTERCEPTORS' ranked 34th in 161 teams. I was dumbstruck and held hands of Akshat and Priti who sitting beside me and told them, "We are 34th!!!" They had a big aw on their faces and didn't believe. I told them to see it again as I had seen it twice already. We told the other guys and when everyone saw the rank we cheered with a little voice. The guy who was trying to entertain us in the waiting room noticed this and asked us what happened. He didn't knew we were there for the first time and when we told him why we cheered he gave a smile and just said Good! But still our rank wasn't the final rank as the scores from judge 4 and judge 5 were kept hidden. The final ranks were to be announced at the end of the day so I asked the guys to go back to the hotel and rest while I'll wait with here the professor. Our Captain was already feeling sick and still he was asking to stay but everyone took him back forcefully. Naval Sir and I dropped the guys at the bus stop and came back to the waiting room where we had to stay till the evening. The program started at 6.30pm an hour late than given. Every team was tensed as the the scores from Judge 4 & 5 can tilt the table drastically. There were small speeches and introductions before the listing. Then came Mr. Sirish Vissa who was going to release the final list. Everyone in the hall just went near the screens. Soon after he pressed the button I was searching for my team name. The names came one by one in an order. The moment it showed our named Rank Number 23 THE INTERCEPTORS!!!! I screamed in joy at Naval Sir that we qualified. We were so happy that we qualified we hugged and then ran with full strength to the College gate where we deposited our mobiles in morning to call the guys. Sir called his fiance who was also a professor at my college and I called the guys. When I told Yash Prajapati that we ranked 23rd he put the call on speaker and asked me to say it again. All the guys at the hotel screamed in joy and were celebrating. Soon I reached the hotel and we celebrated the success with a party at a hotel where we had decided to eat Chicken Tandoori last night but it was not available at that time and so we decided to go early today. We decided to keep the news as secret and tell the remaining team members when we go back but all our plan was gonna go in vain as Naval Sir was going a day earlier than us. We decided to make a video and send it over the WhatsApp group. We made a fake fight at the start the video was excellent but it was too big to be sent and our screaming due to joy made other hotel members to complain of our noise and hotel authorities had to call us to lower the noise. We made a second video with less screaming and also a short one to be sent to the group. Next Day we enjoyed it at the beach and other places. 

Naval Sir had reached a day before us which led to the HOD and a senior professor into thinking that we came back but weren't attending college. So we decided to do some drama. But since we didn't had tickets back to Pune directly we had to go till Solapur first from where we come by road. Solapur was the native place of Manish and we had a chance to meet his family too. His father was the SP of the Police force of Solapur and when he congratulated us and took a photo with us we were very happy. He also arranged us a car which would drop us directly at the college and this was a very good thing for us as it would help us in our drama. We reached our college and had already called the team members to be present at the college gate to celebrate. We kept our luggage at the gate and went directly to the HOD's office to tell him the result. He congratulated us halfheartedly and told us to concentrate on studies also.

Next day we had a meeting with the Principle. Our principle Dr. R. K. Jain was very happy at our success as this had led to recognition of the college at a national level. He was the only person who visited the lab where we worked before the virtual round to see how is the work going. He also called our HOD, our Guide, our SAE Collegiate Club handler to the meeting. When they said that they were helping during the virtual preparation Principle Sir scolded them by saying that he never saw them come and they should not lie. Sir made us a surprise promise that all our manufacturing expenses will be handled by the college and we don't need to go for sponsorship. The second phase was filled with more tension as we had to arrange an engine and material for the vehicle. The welding machine was the toughest to get and to our surprise we got it as sponsorship from ADOR Welding due to their MOU with our college. Dr. Vikram Singh one of our senior professor got us the Wheels in sponsorship from Neo Wheels with his contacts in the company. He is a very respectful person. The office people were delaying us a lot in giving the money saying college is in debt and even asked us to collect the remaining fees. We were like WTF! Are they crazy and we again had to go to the Registrar of college and tell him and also Ameya Patil Sir who was a relative to the Director of the College and he sorted our problem. As I told in my last post we had luckily got a guide for manufacturing of the vehicle and this helped in the making the car a reality. Then came July 2015, the time for second round of the competition. We shipped the vehicle and even this time we arrived 2 days prior to actual competition as some work was still remaining on the vehicle. I was handling the electrical department of the vehicle and during transportation some of the switched went missing. I had to roam in Chennai for finding the right battery and the and switched for the car and it was hectic in all that humidity and heat. Our car was called the best car by  the first timers by the 12 judges present at the competition but sadly were didn't qualify till the last stage due to improper time management and some safety issues. 

SAEINDIA SUPRA 2015 was the best experience of my life and I will remember it till the end!!!

THE ONE WHERE I MEET ANKITA

The start of year 2014 was a very hard time for me. I was thrown out of the same friends' circle which I created. Lost my concentration on studies and dropped my grade significantly. But midst everything I met Ankita. During our 4th semester the department authorities shuffled our classes and many new faces came in class. I met a guy named Vikas Kamble who's an excellent friend. Met some strange people who came from Diploma to direct second year whom I hated at first. Ankita and I were just acquaintance till the end of the year. In September 2014 I had a huge fight with Fatema and we almost stopped all of our contact. The reason of the fight was nothing but the fight became huge due to my silliness. I also became the Team Member of the first ever team from our college to participate  in SAEINDIA SUPRA competition. I became busy in the competition and had not time to go online. No one from the people outside the team used to contact us as they thought we gained a lot of attitude on cracking the virtual round in first attempt which was not at all true. Only Ankita was the one who used to have chats with me during this time. We soon became good friends in January 2015. Now as I told that we cracked the virtual round our next target was to prepare the car for next round and it was quite a big challenge for us as we didn't had any past team to guide us but we had a good luck that one of teammates' brother was the captain of the VIT, Pune team and he agreed to help us and so the current team of VIT agreed to work in collaboration which was a great news for us as we now had guides to help us. Well enough with the off-topic thing I'll tell more about my SUPRA experience in my next post. I am using her real name here as we are very good friends and everyone from our contacts and even our families know about our friendship. I used to spend the free time I got with Ankita only as no other person stayed with me. Soon our friendship went from good friends to very close friends in 2015 after my SUPRA event. We started spending a lot of time together. Our days started with first good morning to each other and ended with good night (NOTE: This is what I did.) and also used to sit together sometimes in lectures. I had very less attendance in my 7th semester i.e. the one I just had as most of the attendance wasn't considered by our HOD due to SUPRA even after promising full attendance for we had to work day and night to complete the vehicles. So Ankita and I used to atleast meet once in a day and I felt unfinished whenever I failed to meet her as I had become habitual of her. It's now the Vacation time after the end of our 7th semester but due to the Final Year project I have stay in Pune. We are in the same project group, moreover we made this project group with Vaibhav and Vikas. We spend the whole day together when bored and on off days of project.

THE ONE WITH THE FRIENDSHIP AND CRUSH

The start of 2013 also marked my first crush since 2011. The girl was my classmate indeed and also she was very close to me. We used to hang out literally everyday and we were a trio- Me, My Crush, and our Mutual friend whom I also called my sister. The everyday schedule was like a fixed one where after college we used to go and have some of our favorite snacks and used to have talks about the day at the college. Though I've called her my crush from the start of this post but it wasn't so till April. We were very good friends and like many girls she considered me one of her closest friends. As it was our first year at college we didn't had many contacts or friends so most of the times it was only her and me as the third member of the group was a local and she couldn't stay for long after college hours. 

Then came the semester exam times and they were one of the happy days for me as we used to spend whole day together studying and chatting. We became so close that after my 2nd semester result when my percentage dropped by 11% she literally scolded me for what happened to me and why my grades went down so much. Feeling ashamed at my grades I decided to study hard and touch the higher grades again. I never told her I had a crush on her but told my sister, the 3rd member, and asked her to keep this thing between us and should not let it reach Her. I know I am avoiding to use the name but it's just for their safety and also to save embarrassment to her for writing a story on a public website. Where was I? Oh Yeah! The telling part. But as it's like a universal rule for girls and woman to gossip about things, my secret was spilled among the girls of class. The secret soon reached Her ears which I never knew when. After our 3rd semester exam we went home for vacations and during one fine evening when I was whiling away my time on Facebook I received a text from her saying she came to know about my feelings for her and that she never expected this from and all the usual stuff of I considered you as my best friend and how can you do like this. I wanted to call her at that moment but since she was at home she asked not to call her. When asked how and from whom she got to know about this I only got the answer that it was just a few days before my birthday that she came to know about this but decided to let it be like a secret till today. I was dumbstruck after reading her replies as I never had a clue that she knew about and even after knowing about me she was acting the regular way. I was watching the famous sitcom 'FRIENDS' at that time and as a habit I tried to adopt the rules from the sitcom that never have a crush on a friend. I told her that I will try my best to finish these feelings by myself and will not make things awkward when we meet in person. But I knew this was not going to be the same. December 16, 2013 was the start of our 4th semester and I wanted to meet her and apologise in person but also avoided it to not to make the topic come again. Soon the news of my crush on her spread to the guys too and it was becoming very hard for us to be together normally. Since 2012 there had been many rumours about me being in a relationship with a girl named 'K' (not her actual name it's just what I call her) just because we were frank with each other and I was the first guy in the college she talked with and that too suddenly one day she waits for me after college while I came out with the guys and then I went on with her till her hostel which was near my PG room. This had led many guys into asking me about my crush and I had to say NO to everyone for her Safety. The crush thing was becoming a cause for me apoligising to her repeatedly and constantly asking her for one more chance of being a good friend as she wanted to break the friendship. Till 2014 our little group of 3 had expanded into a huge group made of guys and girls. When we were in 4th semester she wanted to do an energy contraption project but I never knew about this and one day suddenly she calls me says, "I want you in the contraption project group with me." An instant yes came from me as this was a great opportunity for me to get back as a good friend. Everything went well till the contraption project lasted and it lasted for almost 3 months as went to 2 other colleges after we were done in our college. I was happy as things were becoming normal but I was wrong soon after the project ended she showed nothing but ignorance. This enraged me as it felt like using me for something on interest to her as she used to ignore me in front of everyone. I am a short tempered person that time and decided to have my revenge and do the same to her. 'K' noticed me acting and used to taunt me for doing such things and called me a devil. But soon I apologised to her for acting in such a way and told her the truth regarding me giving her taste of her own medicine.

THE ONE WHERE I FOUND A SPECIAL FRIEND

This part of the story includes the start of a new friendship with a totally unknown person. This friend was Fatema Khan. Yes, she is a real person as all the other people in my story. We met each other through the same page I told you all last time. I still remember the exact date and time when I read her message for the first time and then replied to it immediately. It was 15th March, 2013 at 9.14am and I was asked by other admins of the page to reply her and to know what exactly did she wanted to help us with as I was one of the most senior (LOL!) admins on the page. So, I acted professionally with her and asked her what she wanted to help us with. But we were disturbed continuously by my friends Harshit Jaiman who was trying to reply her as I did and which confused her whether she was chatting with the same person she started with. I asked her to send me request so we discuss the page roles in a private chat, which obviously mad others mad at me and they started calling me a pervert just for chatting in private (NOTE: I AM NOT A PERVERT!). I had my University Exam that day so had to end the chat quickly with her and go for the exam.

In the afternoon when I came back and started checking my Facebook notifications *ping!* went my phone and there was this message from this girl with whom I had chat in the morning asking me how was my exam. I was still acting like a professional and replied her in that way. She asked me throw away the professional way of chatting and chat as a friend and I followed it like an instruction given to a robot. We had a good chat the whole afternoon and during this chat we found out that most of our choices matched. In evening she told me that she had to shut down her system and go offline from Facebook and gave me her contact number and asked to ping her on Whatsapp (which was very unexpected as this never happened with me before). Instead of texting her on Whatsapp now I gave her my number as I still felt awkward to send her a text directly and within a minute of sending her my number ,came a message from an unknown number and it was from Fatema! 

We again had a long chat till midnight and this time we found out that 'the most of our choices' went to about 90% of the choices and the only one's which differed were the one's which included genders. And new started friendship went on to become a very close friendship in just about a week

THE ONE WITH NEW FRIENDS AND FRIEND CIRCLES...

So, the first day was one of the days where there was happiness along with sadness. The First Semester was a very quick one for me actually and I had been into many different friend circles which I knew was going to become a difficulty for me in future. The first birthday celebrated among new friends was my birthday as far as I remember. I remember meeting Chetan, Vaibhav, Akshay, Yogesh and 2-3 other guys in the evening unexpectedly and just going to ice-cream parlor to celebrate it. Then came the time of exams and results. I was actually scared of failing in engineering in the first semester and that fear made me study in a way only I could imagine doing it now and to my surprise I was in the top 10 of my class actually. The group party which included boys and girls came on Chetan's and Pooja's birthday. I haven't told you about Pooja, right? Well Pooja Arude was my sister from college (I seriously don't know what was the thing which made me call her sister). Anyways, the party was a very enjoyable where the first big group selfie was taken.

The second semester was a very busy semester with the college technical event, sports event and cultural event which affected my studies a lot. And that effect on studies reflected into an unexpected scolding from my girl friend (look again girl friend not girlfriend) Pooja D. asking me and Vaibhav what the reason that our grades fell by almost 11%!!!

The start of 2013 was the period when I met some crazy guys and guys like them were never to be found in my college and they were the administrator crew of the Facebook page 'GAMING AND SCIENCE'

THE END OF AN ERA AND NEW BEGINNINGS

It was May 2012, yes, the end of my school life. Our exams ended in April and the summer of 2012 was the different summer from all other summers I had in my childhood. It was without any studies and without any worries of getting scolded by parents for not completing the summer vacation homework. But at this same time we had a totally different tension and that was of the results of the competitive exams and 12th results. Then came the month of June when all the results were announced and I got busy in searching for a suitable college which I can find to take admission based on my score in CET. I had a very poor score which made my dad worry about good colleges which I can get admitted to but after doing a research we found a college.

("I know I know I am rushing this part but this part has very little relation to the further story.")

Then came the time of waiting for the college to be allotted which was one of the most tiring times for me as I was too eager to know my college. The day came I celebrated with my best friend Pratik. The time for buying all the new stuff required for college life. I knew very little about this but to my awesome-st luck  I had a brother who was a final year student and had a great choice and he helped me in buying my stuff.

Then came the FIRST DAY OF COLLEGE, 6th August 2012. I was a bit scared as it was going to be my first time to be living away from my parents and I knew it was going to be a bit difficult for a guy who has lived all of his life till now with his parents. The first day went quite well as we were introduced to our professors and everything seemed fast (may be due to the excitement). In the evening when my parents were leaving there were small tear drops in my eyes as wells my parents' as now both of their sons won't be living with them for a part of their life. I already made some friends on the first day itself and thought of having a great bonding with the first day friends (which didn't turn out the way I figured) but let's leave this for later...