Retro-Day in the Life of Engineer Prateek

| This guest post is written by Anita Menon who blogs at Slice of My Life. A heartfelt thank to her for such an "amazing" post.  

Disclaimer: This is entirely a work of fiction with resemblance to only one living person who is none other than Mr. Prateek Bagri. He invited me to do a guest post for his blog and wanted it to be funny/interesting. This is what I have got! I have used some twitter-related parlance such as tweets and mentions.

Guest Post- Retro-Day in the Life of Engineer Prateek

It was a typical summer day at the “Some Institute of Engineering and Technology” but the campus was exceptionally silent. The leaves rustled across the dust beaten cemented compound of the institute. The heat seemed to sizzle the institute's building and the peon checked his watch again. There was still an hour to go before he could ring the bell and announce the end of the examination. Through one of the windows, he noticed a student glance into his classmate’s answer sheet. He shook his head in repugnance. He had seen this year after year, the faces changed but the habits remained unchanged. Suddenly he heard shuffling of feet on the corridor and turned to look. He didn't expect any student to come out of the examination hall so early. He recognized the familiar face immediately. Thats the Bagri boy!! 

Prateek looked from his cell phone and found the peon staring at him. He just shrugged and started to climbed down the institute’s steps with his eyes still glued to his Sony Ericsson W705. He chuckled to himself while he scrolled down his twitter timeline. People can be unbelievably hilarious, he thought to himself. He tweeted,”Exam over. What a relief!" A second later,  ' Ping', he looked to check and found a mention 

Open Letter to a Classmate

Dear classmate,


How are you? I hope you are “doing” fine. I am writing this letter to convey my sincere regards to you. I find these days of summers as the most promising time to pen my mind down to you perhaps because it will satisfy my itch to thank you for everything. It gives me immense pleasure to write to you. Please bear with me.

You can make me go to sleep, anytime!

It has been a long time, precisely few months less in a couple of year that I’m watching your face everyday just for the sake of attendance. It wasn’t long that you suddenly drift away from me and started your own “Anti-Me Campaign”; it was really heartening to see how hard you tried to expand your “jihadi” group which started from two and ended up with only one; you.


I want to clear my doubts with you in this post. I like the way you every time try to flaunt how cool you are against me. It makes me believe that “I’m also cool”. Blasting a bomb in college campus is not a heroic act rather I call it "kiddish." I had stopped doing this since I was in 8th standard, now it is boring. You call yourself a “beer frenetic” but you always avoid visiting a bar, even the one with the cheapest rates. You promised to throw a big lavish birthday party for your “friends” but were absent for straight 7 days from the date of your birthday (excluding Sunday). On the 8th day you gave your birthday treat as a “free” Corneto to everyone, of course except me.

College isn't College Without Them

I dedicate this post to two people who supported me when I was in the middle of nowhere. Names are kept discreet and so are their faces.

It was my first day of college when They came up to me and asked firmly First year? I with a gently tone replied (which I shouldn't have) Yes. With a smile on their face They appreciated my modesty and said Chal ragging de, we're from second year. Considering that people might read my blog I won't mention what They made me do. PS: It still hurts. From the very first day I restrain myself, kept a very low profile when They were around, instead of taking the short way to canteen I use to travel the entire periphery of college, why? Because They were in my way to canteen. Screw Them, were the words which usually slips out of my tongue. Good morning Sir, good morning ma’am was the alloted greetings which I was asked to give them whenever They finds me. A semester passed away and still I had to show them my modesty. It was a perpetual question which I use to ask myself. My thoughts of uneven questions came to a halt soon during the End Terms examination for 2nd semester when sir and ma’am helped me with my bleak academics. My mind was perplexed after the latest helpful deed by Them. They not only provide me the notes but also cleared my concepts about the subject and marking scheme adapted by the university and freaking college. They’re good no They’re great as person. This was the first time I prejudiced someone and literally got wrong. Soon we started gelling up. We got perfectly blend into each other (I can see water in your mouth. I am not talking about samosa or bred pakoda).


My class is one heck of a place enriched with swine’s with a typical low mentality. Throwing a personal comment on me is their most enjoyable pass time. This vexes me, but someone (my Twitter Mom) once said to me “there is a limit to the number of dogs you can quiet... Let barking dogs bark at random....” Considering it as an apt philosophy for my college life I made a change into my attitude towards them, I call it—Ignorance a Bliss. Nice na!?!

College on Sunday. WTH

It was a fine Friday when we discovered that college's notice board being updated. This phenomenon was new to us, usually there is a fest update but what we read was simply What the Heck (Words manipulated). "Practical classes  on Sunday?". This news was fretting the majority of lads around me and was actually a blessing for nerds. Deepak's actual words after reading this notice was "Ah! Now I can perform my previous practicals and can get my notebook checked now. Hope he bestows me with his alpha+ grade". Ignoring him (like we always do. Nothing new) soon most kicked off their end of the day with their so obvious comments which I cannot lay down here considering the decency of my blog. Hailing the administration for taking away their day was the center of condemn. Most of them were furious since they had very important tasks in-stored for this particular Sunday (to be precise - their plan with their Secret Lovers was ruined). I too was not willing to show up but it doesn't means that I owe a Secret Lover too (committed's ones thinks I am fortunate and singles thinks We are alike, so they don't give a damn). Since a cheap blackmail trick (no attendance on Sunday = no marks in internals) pulled out by the teachers compelled us to show our sparkling teeth's on Sunday too. ''Can't they procrastinate this practical class to next Sunday" a trembling voice from behind managed to get enough decibels to strike our ears. It was Abhishek. His voice was embedded with the element of shock, surprise and what should I do. Seems he was long awaiting for this Sunday to happen. My thoughts straight away said to me "there is the presence of a Secret Lover dude!" I was quite and left college with others for Metro.

Do you even know about this sport

18th October, the unused special CWG off finally came to an end. A new excitement filled me up soon as I entered in my classroom. Like a usual morning a topic was jumping among the nerds and the studs—CWG. India’s 0-8 loss against the Australia. Man this was something not expected, they raped us brutally – A fellow nerd standing by my side dropped his point into the discussion with a calculated angle and force to make an impact. He was supported by a stud (not me). Soon the topic caught fire and a process of hailing ignited. Momentarily I took myself into my solitude space of thoughts and discovered that the impression by them (studs and nerds) was totally reflecting their own frustration hidden beneath their hockey condemns. I couldn’t stand with this inappropriate discussion and tried to make them realize that instead of loosing Gold, cherish the Silver. Those who could decipher my words brought their trivial allegations to a halt. Unfortunately everyone is not endowed with common sense. Those who weren’t were still nowhere to retreat their words, frenetically defending their feeble innocuous statements against me. I questioned myself ‘was I even more complex than Inception and Digital Fortress or their I.Q is in the negative side according to the I.Q measuring machine (though impossible but I was amidst so many Paris Hilton or Rakhi Sawant)?’

Rohit suddenly burst his theory – Dude, they lost 8 to nil in their own country. “How many football matches you’ve won on your terrace against me. I remember 3 out of 17”, I said sarcastically (thanks to my witty mind). Rohit on his humiliation left the class with disgust.

Now it was my turn – I questioned them. Who was Dhyanchand? The one who dared to answer called him a social reformer who worked with Raja Ram Mohan Roy (name defines only 1 person, not 4) to abolish child marriage. I was totally flattered with his limitless knowledge and called him the Class Guru, to my surprise he was Ankush, studs lifted him up and gave me a boo expression. Showing their triumph over me. Soon after he puffed his chest with pride I sarcastically remarked him a Jerk in a colony of morons. He understood he was wrong (thank God!). Quickly after an internet search for the word Dhyanchand, exactly after 5 seconds he thwacked the ground and left the class with a contemptuous expression. I smiled at him to take his frenzy up to the limit.

Pritam was in front of me and yet again I got my subject to blow. I asked him the name of tours and cups/trophies which hockey has. Not surprisingly he was seeing my face, dumb (I wonder why didn't he answerd Netwest Series or Border-Gavaskar Cup. Hence proved Nerd = Dumb). He was dejected and left like two before. I copied my previous smile and flashed it to the dejected nerd dumb.

I questioned Himanshu (not a stud, neither a nerd, not even useless) to name of 5 hockey players playing India vs. Australia. After mulling for a while and witnessing the sarcasm peak, he deliberately answered Rajpal Singh, Sardar Singh, Chetr…….. I purposely cut him in between (yeah, I'm devilish) and flipped the question to "how many teams play hockey, don’t count those who played at Commonwealth Games 2010?". Baffled, smitten within his own incomplete knowledge. Like others he too left with fireballs in his eyes and I too reciprocated my act of smile, leaving no stone unturned.

The bitter truth is that Indian sports were never being emphasized. It was never a subject of interest for the government. Facilitating the sportsperson is not even the last thing that government could think of. I wonder how’d present medal tally for CWG 2010 appear if they were being properly provided with all what  they need. Everyone cannot be Abhinav Bindra who can build their own personal practice grounds. (Duh!!)

I reprieved and my sarcasm spree came to a halt after I convincingly introduced their prejudice to the reality. Like I said my day was channelized with new excitement and now a sense of winning an argument also filled me up. Ah! accomplishment was notched. Soon my lecture for Numerical Analysis and Programming (boring…) begun and everything settled down like it use to be but I still cherish morning of 18th October after all it was my day.