Victors....

“Dude…you quit smoking? Have you lost your mind? We are Victors…we always smoke…” This is how the reaction is when someone from my group says he quit smoking, it’s typical but that’s what made us Victors….Ravi Teja a.k.a King Teja, Arun a.k.a Juli, Hemanth a.k.a “thapraaa…” Chala & me (we had different names for different reasons)…occasionally Tapan would join us. The victors were born because of one same habit everyone had…and you must have guessed it by now. Except juli, the rest four of us were from the same college…anyways this blog isn’t about the college fun we had, this is about the no-sense talks we had at NR, the bashing up of a guy, etc.

Our usual day together would start either at NR, Necklace Road or Sherton Cafe in Paradise. The hangout place at NR was a MMTS Station; it had a large entrance at one end at the station at the other end, two partitions in between with grass patch on it, the usual sight was some kids playing cricket, a lorry sprinkling water on the plants and grass, some frustrated sales guys with their friends, some couple sitting and chatting , and that was mostly where we concentrated more on…even though everyone acted as if they were unaware of the couple. We usually parked our bikes to the right, where a tree and one or two victors would be waiting for us with a paper fold in his mouth or in his hand and one end would be orange in color. Then we would talk, sometimes about college, sometimes about where our country is heading (like we cared even a bit), and what it was doing wrong, about cars, phones, girls, and sometimes when there was nothing more to talk, we would count the bogies of a goods train that would be passing . In between, someone would go to the nearest “bandi” and continuously supply victories. When we all thought we have seen it all, we would head to Sherton or back home.

NR became our regular hangout spot when we were in our final year of graduation and even more regular during the final semester during the project. One fine day, we bashed up a guy. To be more precise, the six of us versus one already scared lean guy who was three years younger to us and who could be easily blown off by a fierce wind. The situation was like this, Hemanth was scaring of the brat with harsh talk and an occasional slap, Teja was furious as hell with a smoke in one hand and other hand holding the kid’s hair tightly (that was the first time I had seen him like that), Chala was trying to be the peace maker but it scared the kid even more, Tapan was watching all this, where as me and Arun who were initially fuming where now making jokes & laughing standing at the back and being total misfits in the intense situation.

All of us shared our good and bad here like Teja and my job at Wipro, Chala’s job at CMC. Arun’s CAT score & HCU admission and some bad things like Hemanth’s and my still not cleared backlog. All this fun was coming to an end with my MBA admission and I had to move to Pune, Hemanth was going back home to Vizag after Graduation, Teja was planning for his MS.

Finally, the day came, when I was moving, I thought I was going to miss Hyderabad but the truth was I was going to miss the people in Hyderabad, my parents, my friends, my brother, As I was sitting in the train we passed NR station, The spot, were we sat and talk and…. lets just say became victors.