Fast Draws and Top Drawers


Balakrishnan, Devdas, Ramdas and I were a group in college. Balakrishnan was Maths Main, the other two chaps were Chemistry Main and I was Physics main. We used to be together for Malayalam which was our second language. Except for me, the others did their schooling in Kerala and were transplanted to Madras for college studies. I was already a transplant to Madras during my schooling.

Balakrishnan

Balakrishnan (let me shorten it to Balak for convenience) it seems was a very good student till his school final which he completed in Kerala. Then came Devdas in his life in Pre-University in Madras and as per Balak, ruined his ‘life’!
You see, Devdas was one who believed in a different kind of life from what Balak was used to, till then. Go to school, study, and play a bit of football and come back home and study. That was Balak’s routine. Devdas had different ideas, it seems. They were staying close by in Madras, near Mount Road. One evening Balak found Devdas in his house to invite him to go for a walk. Since a new friend was calling, a surprised Balak who did not know anything about evening walks obediently went with him. Then it seems it became a regular routine! Balak lost his routine of evening studies due to this evening walk on Mount Road. These days if you see Mount Road, you will not be able to imagine how one could ever take a walk on its pavement. Those days in the mid 60’s too it was a busy area but more humane. And there were pavements, footpaths if you like, if you know what that means. That is conspicuous by its absence now-a-days. Balak’s performance in the exams went down! He blames Devdas, even now! If you cross question him he has no explanation. Funny.

Balak was and is quite a natty dresser. He could play good football in his full pants without spoiling the crease! Can you imagine? He worked in SBI later and there he won prizes for singing, a talent which we never knew he had as he never sang in college. His first prize was for a Hindi song, the lyrics, the pronunciation or the meanings of which he had no idea. He just belted it and nailed it. He had pedigree, as his mother was an AIR singer. In college he used to play Table Tennis (TT as we term it) alright, but in the bank, he became regular and a champion of sorts and after retirement became a Veteran Player of the State and goes around the country playing veteran tournaments! He had frozen his age at 58 till he crossed 65! He was an ardent follower of Perry Mason and tried to apply those principles in life! He was also an ardent fan of cowboys, KGB, 007 and PG Wodehouse, apart from Perry Mason. Fellow had a good sense of humour which got embellished over the years. He is now sitting on tons of money.

Devdas

One aspect of Devdas I already told you. The evening walks. In college, while Balak was a natty dresser, Devdas got into formal dress at the slightest excuse. A coat and a tie! He was the President of a Social Service Organisation of the college and was adept at public speaking and such stuff. He was meant to go places. He had, and still has a jerky walk and was far removed from sports. We all used to go for movies, only selected English ones, thank you. Our college was bang in the middle of Mount Road with cinema theatres surrounding it. We never cut classes for movies. Only holidays were used. So we all would assemble in the college on our own and from there, to go to the cinema halls, which were practically at walking distances, Devdas would hail a taxi, ignoring our protests. As we reached the theatre, Devdas would be out of the taxi in a jiffy, whip out his wallet and would pay the driver. We, the other three, felt bad about his beating us every time. In spite of our planning and strategy as to who among the rest three of us would pay the taxi on the next occasion, we never succeeded. Thus Balak called him “fast draw”, in cowboy vein.
Once we decided to go to Mahabalipuram. Mahabs is the modern term used by the corporate honchos for this tourist spot. How idiotic! So well, we had gone to Mahabalipuram. Such initiatives were always from Devdas. And he put a condition. That we all must wear ties! To be decent and dignified. The rest of us were not up to it to contradict him. I suppose that is leadership. So that’s how we went on a leisure trip as tourists, tie and all. If you seriously doubt this, I could post a photo to prove the point. But that is too embarrassing to post here.
Devdas went into pharmaceutical companies and retired as a big shot and now is staying on the 11th floor (higher the floor, the bigger the shot is what I understand) of a complex in Thrissur after ditching Bangalore which was his abode for years. Back to the roots, I suppose.

Ramdas

He joined college in Madras as a barely five foot eff all in shorts! Seniors fired him and so he had to make some full pants in a hurry. (There was no serious and ugly ragging in colleges those days). All he knew was text books, till Devdas came in to the horizon, introducing him to movies and Mahabalipuram and all. The marks he used to score in any subject were in the stratosphere, generally. With nary an effort. The fellow had a poetic sense of humour but only next to Balak, whose, though, was not poetic at all in our group. In one of my earlier blog I had mentioned about Ethiraj College and the girls thereof. Ramdas had made an instant poem about the locket of a girl and its positioning and things like that. Man! While in college someone had challenged him to talk to a girl waiting for the bus. He thought that Ramdas would shy away and hence there was a bet. Nonchalantly, Ramdas went upto that girl, made a small conversation and won the bet. Classic example of not to judge a book by the cover!
He completed his BSc and MSc in a breeze. In first class of course and that goes without saying. One of the then renowned textile companies called him over for an interview at Delhi by sending him the air ticket! Not a small thing then. He is supposed to have argued with the interview board about Benzene ring and he didn’t get the job! They send him back by aeroplane! He is that crazy about things. Then he qualified as a Probation Officer of IOB and was posted in Delhi, when I met him next. He stayed as a bachelor in Karol Bag, a place peopled by South Indian Brahmins and those benevolent ladies are supposed to have taught him how to cook. Once he invited me and my fiancée for lunch, which he cooked himself. The sambar was in three layers. Lower most was the lentils, next was some yellow coloured water and the top layer had some curry leaves floating. My fiancée was an acclaimed cook even then. She took it all with poise and grace I must say!

IOB made the mistake of posting him to Hong Kong and from there this comrade jumped a few banks and the office floors and is now at, again in stratosphere, in some French Bank in Hong Kong that deals with wealth! Ahem. His boss, an ex-Major( I like to mention this) of the French Army taught him running and this friend of ours, who had nothing to do with sports and games in college, if you discount his being a Senior Under Officer in NCC, ultimately ran an ultra marathon of 100 KMs! It makes me swoon just to think of it! And it seems, at one stage, when Ramdas was lying on his back, taking a break from the run, wondering why he was doing this madness and was about to become spiritual thinking about the futility of it all, the Major came up to him and by sticking his walking stick on the ground next to Ramdas’ head, told him “this is your grave and this is your cross” and walked off! Even as a septuagenarian, this Ramdas is working! Because he does not know how to relax! He is the tallest man amongst all our college mates, I am sure.

Me

As for me, perhaps having nothing to look forward to, my thoughts keep reflecting on the past and make me wonder what ticked then. I find that I lived my life at different levels and with different permutations and combinations of people. The above three form one example. Our differences are more than our commonality. And we are all thick as thieves, even now.

There is a pattern in each one’s life. Astrologers are not needed if you can understand the pattern. Each of us had to be where we are.

Why did I write this piece? I do not know. I just felt like it. Maybe in praise of our friendship of more than half a century. If you have read up to here, you will agree that this is not unique to me.

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