we few, we happy few, we band of brothers

from shakespeare’s henry v, 1598:

this story shall the good man teach his son;and crispin crispian shall ne’er go by,from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remember’d; we few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition: and gentlemen in india now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon hicostians bangalore reunion day.

december, 17th 2011.

i have just returned from the hicostians bangalore reunion. what a fantastic evening it was.

the buildup -

on facebook i found this profile called hcst reunion. i added it as i knew it wasn’t from the college alumni group. yeah, i am one of the few who have no love for the college (the place or the faculty and administration), all i care for is the students who been there once for 4 years.

they had done a fantastic job in delhi by conducting ncr hicostian reunion in september and i was itching to attend one in bangalore after watching the pics on facebook and reading the content. i never knew that i would get my chance soon. even though, i have been in bangalore for last 6 years, i hardly have a group from hcst here, while there are a lot of guys from hcst in bangalore. perhaps, it’s lack of  frequent get togethers; given bangalores laid back cuture – not surprising. anyways.

soon, someone named amit singh contacted me. it was first time i interacted with him but at the first moment itself i knew that i had the respect inside me like he were my immediate senior, who i knew for those 3 years and after that. seems, we all had same values instilled. amit sir guided me to help him in organizing it. even though, he would later tell everyone including me that i helped him. honestly, i didn’t do anything which yielded results. he was only being generous for this kid(me).

i was feeling quite awkward to go there alone, i hardly knew someone from earlier times in the attendees list. so, i asked a few of my friends to accompany me and one of them gracefully agreed to accompany me with her elegant presence.

we reached to the venue on time and, to my surprise, there were hardly anyone i could identify with, actually, there were hardly anyone – just 5 guys to be precise. i was disappointed and then all of sudden a sweet voice hit  my palindrome – “vivek shankar”, now, not many people call me by this name. i looked upon and didn’t take too much to realize that it was a guy who i removed from my facebook few months ago because, i didn’t know him. hey, it was aakash sir, a very critical cog of this reunion drive.

slowly, few more chaps joined us, some with families others alone. some from senior batches some from junior batches. we checked if we had presence of each batch, if i remember correct – we missed 3 of them. we will catch them in next one. suddenly, i heard a name which caught my attention – someone said sachin tripathi was coming. i knew him from 2003, i met him then for 4 hours, 10 percent of which he punched me with affection because i pulled him a lot.

eventually, he sat beside me on a chair, i knew but i still asked his name – sachin tripathi, he said while not paying too much attention, he was quite keen to talk to rajat sir (some other day about him, he is an epic in himself guys), i reminded sachin sir of the incident – he was all taken aback by surprise. i later pulled him while sharing an anecdote with people. he was my role model for months in 2003, while he hardly knew me, because of the stories i heard about him. he moved to bangalore and i never got in touch with him until now.

it was quite interesting to see how sachin tripathi sir narrated his anecdotes of ragging period. trust me, everyone felt like, he was listening to their own story. now, obviously, there were family members so he didn’t dive too deep. the hilt was when he crossed his palms on his chest to indicate our regular dress code.

he reminded us that,

पुरुष क्या, श्रंखला को तोड़ करके, चले आगे नहीं जो जोर करके?

i later met raju agrawal sir, danish sir, dk sir (not dharmendra kumar yadav but dharmesh kishore) mohit chauhan, amit singh, aakash sir, neelesh, pankaj goel(an entrepreneur now) sir, siddharth, saurabh bhushan sir, aashish sir(reminded me of anil kumar singh – 2003) and a few more..

to give you a rundown, of all the stories told and untold there -

hicostians from first 3-4 batches – when i reached there to take admission, i realized that it was a mere shed of tin and nothing else in the name of a college. i called up my father and asked him if i should take admission in this piece of junk. surprisingly, dad said that i should deposit the money and than come back home to discuss it. i have seen phases of college – it hasn’t always been in some place near to some township called farah or raipura jat. from a shed of tin to a skeleton where when we gave exam – we couldn’t see our fellow buddy who sat next to us because there weren’t any coverage on windows and the fog came inside.

hicostians from batch 5-8 – we were a few who had a balanced ragging. not too much like initial batches, not too little like recent batches. eventually, it ended up in enabling us to connect super quickly to initial batches and recent batches. we could relate to a grand senior talking about staying hungry due to fear of ragging or having those fights in the name of honor. we could relate to the brat image of recent batches – spoiled kids who didn’t have to struggle much for anything much less important than ragging.

hicostians from recent batches (8-11) – it’s like a trend to block national highway 2. it’s no more a task than having ice-cream in night or going to aahar restaurant in agra. every 6 months, it so happens that we do it twice and the reason behind it varies. sometime, we are angry on something. other times, we don’t have anything better to do. sometimes, a senior would call for it. other times, we would call it in the name of a senior.

conclusion of hicostians – we are the ordinary people who lived through extraordinary situations. we became friends with tea-shop owner in college, we fought with the top most authorities. police came to shut down college and vacate hostel due to our aggression and we made it the safest place for anyone who came there for his 4 most important years with our love. we lost friends and we gained friends. we made enemies and we loved them, we made friends and we never hated them. we few, we happy few , we band of brothers.

we are the true symbol of the following lines,

it was an exciting evening with simple and brilliant people.

it was the night of knights. if there is someone called god, i ask him to give me euphoria of these nights of knights and i would tread all my days with him.