Unkempt

UNKEMPT

Unkempt was the word to describe him. He was all of 5 feet tall, was built like a wrestler i. e. muscular, stocky and thick necked; wore dirty, smelly clothes and had a thick mop of unruly hair, resembling an inverted wicker basket matted with grime and dirt. He had a thick moustache which completely covered his upper lip and often carried a giveaway evidence of his last meal. He had a loud, booming voice which was put to good use in the late night shouting matches we occasionally had with the hall next door, Lala Lajpatrai hall (Lallu in IIT Kharagpur parlance, no disrespect to the great man). He could yell the choicest Punjabi curse words with great gusto. He walked with a peculiar shuffle dragging his feet on the ground.

          Folklore has it that he was a really wild kid in his childhood. After his day’s romp with the other brats in the village, he used to often return home with so much dust and dirt in his hair that finally his parents decided to chop off his locks and make him mona i.e. a sikh who has decided to sport a shorter hair style. He was named Amrik Singh, as his parents like many others in rural Punjab those days, wanted their son to grow up and go to Amreeka, the Promised Land.

          He was a man of few words but he could shout “Shanta!” at the top of his voice every time he saw the buxom lass, who was the secret fantasy of all male iitkgpians,  passing by. (The word stalking had not entered the social parlance in that era and it was considered perfectly all right for hot blooded jocks to shout their appreciation of a girl’s beauty and the girls took it in good spirit). He was, however, a staunch supporter of the hall and always cheered the hall team lustily in whichever activity we participated including chess and bridge tournaments. When I won the chess tournament, in spite of being a foot shorter and at least 10 kgs lighter, he easily lifted me up and shouted “Oye Pande! You did it.”

          His sense of hygiene was wackier than that of Lalit Bhanot (of CWG fame). His room was full of dust and you could clearly see the foot marks made in the dust where he found his way to the bed from the door. There was a permanent pile of dirty shirts lying in one corner. Whenever I went to his room calling him to come to the mess, he would pick up shirts from that pile one by one, sniff them and chose the one that smelled the least. He had put up a poster of Katy Mirza on the roof just above his bed so that he could look at her as soon as he woke up. Despite his outward appearance of being an uncouth yokel, he happened to top his class in aeronautical engineering. When and how he studied remained a mystery to all of us.

          I met him 15 years later in a venture capitalists’ conference at ISB Hyderabad. Had it not been for his trademark shuffle, I could have easily missed him. He had lost some weight and gained some sophistication. He wore a black Armani suit and his hair was short and well groomed. He had got rid of the bush over his upper lip. He reeked of expensive French perfume. He looked the quintessential investment banker. I tapped him on the back; he turned back, politely extended his hand and said Hi! I am Mikey from JJM Capital. I said, “Oye Amreek, don’t you recognise me? I am Pande, your hallmate from VS?”

          He picked me up easily, although I had become 10 kgs heavier since we met last, and said “Oye Pande, b*&%$#d! How are you?