Warm welcome by the Seniors!!

Day 2...i was just back from class and for a change that day |Trichy was not HOT..there was a slight breeze which prompted me to come outside the hostel where there were hazaars of freshers acquainting each other. This guy almost as tall as me..though on the thinner side with specs walks up to me and introduces himself as Ashwin Menon - NRI - basically mallu!!He asked me if iwas an NRI and i said YES!!He said then i will have to go for the ragging today itself and this was a one time thing..!!he told me he was providing me a soft cushion for gettin least possible raggin!!and that if i voluntarily went along for raggin today..i wud get the minimum and i could be a fre bird henceforth!!and if i chose not to go for raggin today..then i would be caught someday or the other by seniors and thulped to a squishy-shquashy white pulp (picked from "the mark of Vishnu";-))..and i decideed..then and there...i am grabbin this opportunity of "Soft cushion" provided to me and finish it off..once and for all....!!
and i was waiting then for some sign from Ashwin to go to the senior hostels. He had asked me to hold on for sometime...!!!
In the meanwhile...this dude comes up to me..!!he had a sort of arrogant look on his face..i mean a guy with attitude!!He was as tall as me..maybe a niche shorter;-)(i hope he doesnt see this) with rectangular specs...hair centre split and slightly curly and build pretty much like mine...!!we shook hands...i told him i am Vineesh, NRI from qatar, basically mallu. And he introduced himself to me..."Hi, I am Kartik Krishnan, NRI from Delhi - the 'i' here being pronounced as in "I" and not as "e" - i too am basically mallu" and i was taken aback for a moment...the accent..the superiority in him..hmmm..i decided then and there that this guy would be someone whom i would not interact much with (how wrong first impressions can be:-)...he turened out to be my best pal till date...anyway all that will come up in the later chapters:-))). Anyway by then Ashwin came back and pointed at this huge figure who was walkin about 100 mteres ahead of me and told me...just follow that guy to the senior hostel.
I was shit scared man..!!This guy walkin in front of me was huge. He was abt 6' tall..double my size...lookin at his forearms i got the creeps in me...imagine gettin thulped by him..!!hmmm..anyway pissin in my pants..i followed him..heads down..not daring to look anywhere else...and justlookin at this huge figure and followin him like a good disciple of his!!anyway suddenly this dude in front of me disappeared and i could see a hoard of seniors, hungry lions, waiting for me in front of 2nd year hostel - DIAMOND.one by one they caught me and asked me who i was...where i was from etc..and when they heard NRI n mallu..al lof them just left me..sort of sympathizin with me...now this frightened me even more..!!it looked as if i belonged to a diffrent class altogether...!!!and this senior guy then came..a proper hairy guy..and he was sweatin profusely and he takes me away...from all these seniors..explainin to me the norms and conditions of ragging etc..etc..!!
I was taken into this room...and there was this guy sleeping there. This senior who had brought me to this room asked me to wake him up...and i tried wakin him up..but no use...i tugged at him and shook him and finally he woke up..!!man this guy had a cold stare in him...i was like..oops..i have woken a sleeping lion from its sleep..!!!he took me to the corner of the room..and started talkin to me...it turned out he was a mallu too and started talkin in mallu..!!
i sort of eased down as soon as he started talkin in mallu...but from the corner of my eyes i suddenly saw the big guy whom i had followed enroute to the senior hostel..was kneelin down and gettin whacked left n right...!!wow...i realised then..the huge guy whom i was scared of was indeed a guy from my batch only..!!hmmm..that was one relief!!
anyway continued talkin to this senior in mallu and i started smiling and laughin too at somethin he said...and he asked me not to smile..but i just could not hold back the smile..till...................................
till...i got SLAP number 1 from him...and voila...the very smile i was finding it hard to stop automatically disappeared from my face..i realised my raggin had begun...This guy who started my raggin was none other than Yeda (Anand P. - ICE mallu - 1 yr senior) who turned out to be one of my closest association amongst seniors!!!and the guy who took me to the room givin me all the fundas was Krur singh aka Anil Kumar Kuruganthi - NRI ece !!!
Then suddnely someone rushes into the rooom...and says Gururaj was in the hostel. This was the first year warden and he kept frequentin the senior hostels to catch someone who was involved in ragging and save the pitiful souls like myself...!!I thought my saviour had come and i would be left back to my hostel..but behold..we were asked to run..thru the back gate of diamond and we entered a bigger hostel with even more seniors awaiting us there!!!
We entered hostel LAPIS - 3rd yr hostel then..and myself and the huge guy were waiting for some 2nd yr seniors to guide us where to go..they were comin to lapis thru some other way..!!And here i had another experience..!!This group of seniors came to me and asked me who i was and to give my intro. I did that and then followin conversation took place:

X : Kaunse branch ka hain?
me: Electronic and communication Engineering

X: Quota?
me: Non-resident Indian

X: kahan se ho?
me: Kerala

X: oh NRI mallu ( and the entire group laughs out loud)
me: (silent and looking down)

X: Baap kaun hain tumhara?
me: Mathew Oommen

X: kaun?
me: Mr. Mathew Oommen , sir (thought they were demanding respect!!!)

X: kaun sa branch?? ( a bit perplexed all of them)
me: Electrical and Electronics Engineering

Y: magar tumne bola tumhara branch ECE hain na??
me: (nod my head in agreement - y shold my dad n me be in the same branch i wondered)

X: kaun se batch ka hain Mathew Oommen
me: 1971 REC-calicut

X: (gives me one tight slap o nmy face) tumhe tumhara REC baap ka naam poocha saale
me:(SHOCK OF HAVIN got a slap and not able to make head or tails of the conversation...i had told them the truth and nothin but the truth)
suddenly out of no where another guy comes up and says that this is my first day of ragging and i didnt know the funda of baap and dada and all that!!and i was spared.
For those who didnt follow y i was slapped..well baap, dada, pardada..are all RECTIAN terms of your immediate senior, 3rd year senior, and final yr senior and these guys are supposed to be your mentors kind..!!!and i a novice in getting ragged had told them details of my DAD (father) who was also a REC product and that had pissed them off and i got slapped!!!
anyway X here was gy called SIKKIM. and Y was Saurabh Ghosh. and the guy who saved me from further thulping from them was my Baap to-be - Rajgopal Bodapati - NRI ECE - basically from Hyd...the most loved senior for all the firts years in the time to come...
amazing guy...!!!
anyway he took me to lapis hostel room - a small one..in which there was hardly space for 2, there were about 15 seniors and myself and the other huge guy - my batchmate!!
and there started our actual ragging...we were hit by seniors left n right...me and the huge guy were made to hit each other...and both of us showed what potential seniors we could be by slappin each other as hard as possible..!!met a lot of seniors that day...to name a few Gotti (Madhav), Vishal (my pardada), tintin , pip (who turned out to be a distant relative of mine),premlal (3rd yr mallu senior - the terror aka BASHEER) and cant remember the rest...!!all of them ragged us proper...made us massage vishal's legs...and dance and jump and sing and what not..!!
another fresh memory was when my batchmate was asked his favourite song and the dude replied "Britney spears - Kiss me baby one more time2 and he was asked to sing that and when he sang "Hit me baby one more time" a round of slaps fell on his face..and i was lke...if ever they ask me any song that i would want to sing..i would make sure tat it had no violence in it...!!
anyway they got fed up ragging us both!!and took us to Juicy which was forbidden area for the first years unless they were accompanied by seniors. the risk of going to juicy those days were that even though u would have finished a raggin session and would be with a senior having something..and this other senior would come n pick u up and rag u for somemore time.>!
neway on the way back to the hostel after havin juice RAJ AND GOTTI gave us fundas in ragging..how to behave..how not to behave...the DO's and DONT's..and left us at our hostel gate!!!
oh!i forgot to introduce my batchmate who accompanied me on my first day of ragging...none other than K.V.S. Vithal..who was to be another one of my closest pals esp in eating n drinking;), in the years to come...!!!
After we got back to hostel...there was a crowd of NRI's who were waiting for us to relate our story of ragging to them...!!and we told them everything..obviosuly puttin it in a light manner..so that none would complain against the seniors...!!!
it was so very funny comin to think of it..!!the very guys who had thulped u..who had crushed your ego.your self esteem..now we were tryin to safe guard them from being caught by faculty when normally it should have been the other way round..!!anyway thats college..and thats ragging i guess..!!!
Lookin back now..the first year was the best year of colege life...though there was a lot of ragging...it was fun..and there were no tensions!!:-)