The 26th of January, 2013, shall remain a day etched forever in my memory, and published forever in my blog.
The previous night, I stayed up till 4am, watching a wonderful movie called 17 Again. You know, reaping the benefits to the fullest when your parents are away for a night… Anyway, the movie was really moving: it was about a 40 year old aam aadmi, who becomes 17 again, and tries to correct his mistakes. It is indeed one of those movies which, despite being feel-good, is worth a watch. Yes, despite being feel-good.
The next morning, I had to get up at 7, all groggy… Our school had been given the privilege of hosting the Kolkata Quiz Festival this year, and Souptik and I were one of the numerous teams (more than a hundred teams, from thirty five schools) that were participating.
I never expected Souptik to come to my place in time. So, when I got out of the bathroom at 8, doing a Ranbir Kapoor in Saawariya, guess whose bewildered face greeted me?
We sat huddled over the morning newspaper, discussing everything that came to our minds. Did you know that tequila is made out of Agave cactus? A cactus?
And when we were done, I declared, “Boss. We are gonna WIN this thing!”
And the picture best describes how Souptik responded.
It is hard to believe, yes, but Souptik had a lot of money with him that day; and even harder to believe: He seemed willing to spend it on a Volvo ride to school! (Despite our school not being en route)
So we took a Volvo to Esplanade, and walked 1.9 kilometers back to school. All for the sake of riding an air-conditioned Volvo bus on a cold winter morning.
The event was supposed to be inaugurated at 12. It was a really big event, with bigshot sponsors like ITC, Indian Jute Association, The Telegraph and all. It was organized by an offshoot of Rotary Club, called XQUIZIT. The amazing quizzers: Aanton-Arijit-Samrat-Saurav are the members of the same, and wonderfully conducted six quizzes over two days.
When I reached school, I sat down and joked with some of my juniors: Agnibha, Rajarshi, Sayan, and all. And no, I cannot share the jokes here. Cbs were chilling out whereas other schools were eagerly poring over their phones, apparently updating their knowledge.
Suddenly, Sreyan comes up to me and says, “Shurjo. You have got to do the opening speech.”
All my chilled-out-ness went out of the window. Trust me, no matter how many debates you wn, speaking in public always makes any guy nervous, or so I like to feel. However, the inauguration went pretty well.
According to the pictorial evidence shared here(courtesy Agnibha), I was smiling. Either I was making a fool out of myself, or being really, really cool.
I remember something I quoted on stage about the Republic Day celebrations: “If even 3 out of 10 Indians knew the significance of the Day, it would have been a greater cause to celebrate.”
Out of the many teams who came, 8 qualified for the finals. Souptik and I was one of those. DPS was the only school which saw 2 of its teams qualify. A team from Lakshmipat Singhania Academy qualified, and it had a tremendously talented quizzer, as I had been warned earlier. Bosco, St. Thomas and Mahadevi Birla World Academy also made it.
The quiz began. Bosco was leading after the first two rounds. In the third round, we suddenly gained a lot of impetus and went way ahead of others and stayed there for till the last round, where we would have won anyway, even if we scored negative. This got so boring for us, that you can check Souptik’s undisguised emotion here:
We celebrated our victory over egg-chicken rolls outside!
Milind Ghosh, half of whose face you can see in the pic above, is a legendary MUNner of St. Thomas. He graciously gave me a lift to Kankurgachi. I decided to pay Bibek, one of my closest friends, a visit. It was not any casual visit; it was an emergency (if you know what I mean).
There, I met three wonderful girls, two of who were generous enough to pose for my lens, following a soft drinks treat.
This is Tanishi. She calls herself “awesome” and that automatically makes her awesome.
This is Shatabdi. She is more quiet, and plays badminton better than most girls do.
This is Santa, aka Santu. Some teachers call him Sayantan though. His hairstyle has been a source of inspiration for many.
And this, is Bibek. His email ID is “bibekrooney” and his gaming account name is “respect-aka-viv”. Our class teacher refers to him as the guy who gets 100 in Economics.
Baidu wanted himself to feature, so here you are. Didn’t have a picture of you. World, meet Baidurya Mukherjee: a gem of a guy, who I am forever indebted to, for loading my hard disk. With movies.
And then I went to my guru, Anirban Saha’s place. We chatted a bit, and went to Domino’s together. And had a lot of fun and pizzas!
It was a day, spent to the fullest. It felt even better when it came out that my bestie, Souryadeep, got recognized as the most promising delegate at IITKGP Mun. Which is a BIG deal, given he was a mere school student among college goers. CBS, CBS, everywhere…