Mein Freund (Part 1)

Biswajeet Guha has many virtues, a few vices and a weird nickname! He is one of my best friends (hence the title which says 'My Friend' in German ... the reason for using German will be explained later), a member of the quartet who frequented a rather seedy bar in a small town in eastern India usually on Friday evenings, a great trek partner, a nehli (the university lingo for a person with a GPA > 9.0), a romantic, a 'cool' researcher attending grad school in an Ivy League university (whose field of research is so complicated that it exceeded Skype's BW when he attempted to tell me its name during a call and hence the clipping which made the name inaudible... I later came to know about it through another member of the quartet ... its called Nano-photonics :P) and a wonderful person.
I met him for the first time in the D block of the HJB Hall in IIT. Back then, Bishu used to wear rather unfashionable glasses (as opposed to his current Versace or whatever) and used to address every new acquaintance as 'Tumi' (a polite form for 'you' in Bengali) which totally pissed me off (I associated this term with geeks but in those days Bishu did look like a quintessential geek). After the devastating flood that almost engulfed the ground floor of D, Bishu shifted to MS Hall. I didn't know him very well in those days and most of our conversation were confined to acads and Fredrick Forsyth. Then came 2nd year and the shift to RP Hall, where Bishu was one of the familiar faces and I came to know more about him and his 'thing' for Panda (Subrat Panda - his roomie. I still wonder how Sourav Padhy, the other guy sharing the room with them managed to score such high GPA inspite of the distraction of the times when Bishu and Panda went Brokeback!) As we became good friends, Bishu decided to go with us on a trip to the Himalayas but an untimely flu robbed him of a chance to enjoy a great trip and some wonderful sights. But it was not until 3rd year that we became really good friends. That happened when we moved to the DTE (D Block, Top East wing of the hostel).
It is worth noting that during his first year, Bishu was a student reporter for the campus newspaper and stayed away from alcohol till we 'spoiled' him. It was a memorable evening. The 'we' consisted of Shamik, Samantak and yours truly and the location was Park - Bar cum Restaurant near the IIT campus. It took us a long time to convince him that its good to try out new things in life and thus dragged another 'innocent' soul into the dark world. Finally he agreed, "Only a small vodka and promise me that you won't force me after that". But he didn't realise that he was treading into dangerous territory from which there is no coming back. When the drink arrived, Shamik carefully added a cube of ice and a general dose of Sprite and forwarded the glass to him. Bishu carefully inspected the glass, twirled the ice cubes, took a sip and closed his eyes. We stared at him, awaiting his 'judgement' but Bishu won't open his eyes. And then it came ... a smile appeared on his face, very subtle at first and growing gradually like a new dawn. Bishu opened his eyes and looked at us but his gaze fixed a million miles away. "Its nice, not what I expected .... quite different from anything I have tasted earlier". There has been a few times when I have regretted me not having a camera at that moment but none of them compared to that evening in Park. The look on his face was almost spiritual, which was accentuated by the dim light of the bar. The smile was so unique that I have promised not to use the words "blissful" and "content" to describe anything else in this world! And I believe that the others who were lucky enough to witness this spectacle will also agree with me.
During the final year in Kgp, Bishu developed a keen interest in being what is popularly called "Metrosexual". A major part of this consisted of using a large number of male grooming products like specialised face washes, skin creams, perfumes etc. Perhaps he got his inspiration from a friend who takes great care at being 'sophisticated'. This particular friend who is renowned for his philanthropy, had an impressive collection of male grooming products in his room. Throughout the day, Bishu would make a number of trips to this room to generously sample these products. Thus as the cold arid air of the Himalayas and the fierce sun took its toll on my appearance, Bishu remained fresh as a daisy! At the same time Bishu learned the art of smelling good all the time, thanks to a perfume which had a horse logo on it. Perhaps it would interest the reader to know that the perfume has almost mythical abilities to mask bad odor (which was the result of frequent abstinence from trips to the shower and the maximal use of both sides of a certain clothing article with floral prints).
Towards the end of the final year when the workload for B.Tech thesis reached its apogee, Bishu resorted to a number of means to show off that he was not at all serious about his project (it is sad that working hard on a project is considered 'uncool' in Kgp and I have great respect for Bishu for being able to balance the tremendous expectations that his thesis advisor and the 'social norms' till the sensational revelation one night). Vaibhav (aka Loadu aka Baba) had some doubts regarding a certain circuit and hence went to Bishu for explanation, only to find the door closed and lights turned off. To heighten the effect of what happened next, lets look at the reconstruction of the scene that night from eyewitness accounts.
V: "Abe, Biswa, darwaza kholiyo ... doubt hai"
B(in a sleepy voice): "Sone de na"
V: "Please yaar, urgent hai ... chota sa hi doubt hai"
Silence from Bishu but Vaibhav is persistence and starts swearing in Kgp lingo (which has been deemed unfit for civilized society by the censor board).
Still no response from B. V is desperate now and decides to go medieval and starts ramming the door.
B(once again in a sleepy voice): "Kya kar raha hai, frust mat kar, soooone deee naaa yaaaar"
The pleas are useless and a few well aimed kicks later the bolts give away and the door swings open ... and behold ...
Bishu is wide awake, sitting in front of his computer multitasking between a few pdfs of IEEE Transactions, simulating a circuit for an ingenious drug delivery system and a draft of his thesis.
V: "Oh, B#%$* ...... " (damn the censor board!)
Later, recounting this incident V said that at that time the expression on Bishu's face was as if he was getting a BJ from someone and his wife walks in unannounced!
Anyway, the net effect was that for the rest of the time in Kgp, Bishu had to live with a broken door. The line "Sone de na yaar" went on to become a part of Kgp folklore. But the door was not the only interesting thing about Bishu's room. He had a drying line running across his room where he used to hang most of his clothing. But this was no ordinary drying line - it had a particular clothing article that had acquired toxic properties through repeated use of both of its surfaces. It may have been an ingenious trick to get rid of mosquitoes and other undesirable creatures from his room, for a single contact with it proved to be fatal for mosquitoes, bees, bugs and lizards (which were attracted to its floral design). There has been unconfirmed reports that a pigeon once dropped dead trying to peck the printed flowers (it must me noted that rats have a keen sense of smell and hence they stayed away from it). And then there was the bed. It had support only at the extremities and so if a sufficiently heavy load was applied at the center, the bed arched. Once during a cricket match, bed was overloaded and gave away. It was saved from collapse by a trunk that was place under the bed. Thus the bed acquired a V shape - a perfect addition to an interesting room with an equally interesting occupant.
Normally Bishu never gets angry or looses his calm - be it after the above incident or when he is at the receiving end of some caustic humor (which was the trademark way of showing affection in our wing, though it was on very rare occasions that Bishu was on the receiving end). I think it was only once that he really got angry and its ramifications were terrible. Winston Churchill once said that, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few". Had Churchill been alive today, he would have said, "Never before in the struggle against the malpractices of American financial institutions was so much owed by so many to one man". Yes, it was on the 3rd of December 2007 (Day 0 of placement season at IIT Kgp) that the American financial giant Lehman Brothers scripted the start of its own doom. Bishu made it through 4 rounds of gruelling interview session but was surprisingly rejected in the end. Perhaps the interview panel realised that it Bishu was too intelligent to just 'follow orders' and they feared that their way of conducting business would go against Bishu's 'values'. Less than a year later, on 15th September 2008, Lehman Brothers officially went bankrupt.
But Bishu is not just about bringing corrupt behemoths to its knees, he has another side to his persona as well. Its the romantic, poetic side - the person who gets misty eyed atop the Eiffel Tower looking at down at the City of Lights (though it was not Paris itself that made him emotional), the person who appreciates the lyrics of old bengali songs, the person who enjoys the silence of a remote Himalayan village on a full moon night, the person who plans to run a marathon to help poor people in Honduras even though he finds it difficult to run a few laps of a stadium (unfortunately a vice that he acquired because of us, prevented him from running the marathon and we take full responsibility for the hangover!)

Bishu is a phenomena and it is impossible to write everything about him in a single blog entry. To keep this entry to a reasonable length, I will stop here. Bishu and his antics are a fascinating subject of study and in a few years many univerisities will have what might be called "The Faculty of Bishu Studies". I would encourage the readers to contribute their own perception of Bishu thus enriching this subject. The result of my observations would continue in future entries. For the time being, as Bishu prepares to go home I wish him and his a$$ all the best (for the 15hr flight) and a great new year. I feel sad for not being able to come to India and be a part of the reunion.Ladies, gentlemen and children (beware of him and his fascination for the use of furniture and water bottles), here is the man himself!


And topless over here!

... to be continued
Credits

Shamik Ganguly
Billa Nishanth (for the cosmetics and the filling in the round off errors)
Vaibhav Singh (for breaking down his door and revealing the truth about "Sone de na")
Pawan Lunia (for generously helping us give Zzz's bed its distinctive shape)
Sudarshan Shashadri M ... (oops, can't recall his full name - for coining the name 'Pot')
Subrat Panda ( ... the comment has been removed in compliance with this website's regulation against obscene references)
The Eiffel Tower (for creating the right atmosphere for a confession)
Alcohol (for reducing Zzz's resistance to questioning and that wonderful smile)

P.S. - The author would like to thank the anonymous contributors from South Africa, Albania, Germany, Kolkata and Assam, who provided useful information under conditions of strict confidentiality.