7 kind of people you find in the PGI library reading room.
MD exam is done. All the sleepless nights, nightmare interrupted sleep, everything is done with. Finally it turned out to be a battle which was won or lost in the mind. The buildup was the worst part, like everybody predicted. Unlike predictions, for me, the library experience was the best part- only because of the people involved. The absolute characters....
Sleeping beauty
Now, everyone knows who this is, so no prizes for guessing. Yes, Everybody do takes naps in between their studies, but what makes our rosy lipped beauty different is that each day he sleeps 12 hours in the lib. That's right.... 12 hours!! each day.... He starts dozing off by
7 pm and dozes away till
7am. At around 10 he starts snoring, not rhythmic, but with a very bad tone similar to the stuck gear box of a jeep trying to climb a steep hill. Once Tonsil tried to wake him up. SB got angry as to why he was woken. ENT softly tried to point out he was making too much of a noise. "Me!!! Snore??? Don't lie to me, you evil fellow!!!", was the response he got. Tonsil quietly returned to his seat and was seen with huge ear-covering headphones from the next day. Pics of SB sleeping in the most awkward positions, saliva drooling, keeps circulating occasionally in whatsapp groups. Nobody's amused anymore. What's even more irritating are his gyrations. Well, SB has this unique method of preventing himself from falling asleep which is successful for initial 15 mins. He starts moving back and forth sitting in a chair. The chair doesn't move, only his torso. Like a pendulum. God knows how one can focus on ur laptop screen when u r moving back and forth with a speed of 40 to 60 cycles per min. But SB started loving it to the extent that he started doing it when he's not sleepy also, during the day, whenever he feels he needs some exercise or entertainment. That was the last straw for the angry-Young-man J, who once gave him a piece of his mind, with absolutely no effect. Thus we were stuck with a swinging pendulum in one corner of our visual field all throughout the day. Till
7pm only, luckily, after that the sound show starts..
That brings us to the second character I met, the angry-Young-man or J. This handsome heart throb of all girls in the library, is however more known for his pure unadultered emotion, anger. Anger in his looks, those round staring eyes, moustache flaring, thin lipped look, which scares the sh@t out of everybody. You as much make a loud sneeze or turn pages of ur book noisily in his presence and You'll disturb him of his concentration, and be subject to his infamous moustache flaring glare. Once by accident one of the girls had her mobile vibrate near J. How she dint get killed, and how she dint start crying seeing 'The Glare', is a miracle to date. She literally ran out of the lib with her phone and when she returned an hour later, she kept her phone outside and her eyes were red and cheeks puffed. That's the effect 'The Glare' has on you. However J is a real sweet person deep inside. Very deep inside, that is. If you can tolerate the 10 mins of hardcore 'gaali', about how his time is being wasted, that he throws at you every time you ask him a doubt, then he will teach you in detail and leave no doubt left, by the end of the session. Btw he also bought tea and samosas for the girl he scared off also as a gesture of making up, although not many people know that. <now they do :-D>
Venkatesh Prasad
Well, I still don't know what his real name is. VP is a name given by J. He is a tall well built fellow who's known in the lib for his snoring. Better tune than that of Sleeping beauty, but real LOUD. People won't believe me when I say this, but the glass panes of the windows shake when he's at his loudest. Another characteristic of the big guy is that he makes his entry to the library felt. He barges in, dumps his books at his place noisily, runs to the next empty chair, picks it up above his head, slams it in his position. More than enough noise to irritate the hell out of J. About 10 mins later, 'The SNORE' begins. Why call him VP, I asked J. "Have you seen Venkatesh Prasad bowl?", he asked me. "Boundary se bhag bhag ke aate hai, finally jab ball dalte hai, Kumble se bhi slow dalte hein". Apparently the actions of our hero reminds him of the bowling of Venkatesh Prasad, so VP, Venkatesh, Venki....the name got stuck.
Smarty and Tonsil.
These are two cool chums from surgery and ENT. The smart ass is tall, fair and handsome, who knows his subject well. He gives the sweetest of smiles to the females and runs his fingers through those well shampooed wavy hair, necessarily and unnecessarily, just for the fun of it. At the same time, Tonsil is a simple, straight forward guy . No fooling around, just come, sit, study and go. Smarty somehow can't stand this. So everytime he takes a break, for loo or tea or food or whatever, he stoops near Tonsil, looks at what he's reading, and says.... "This is nothing, just do a tonsillectomy" or something like, "why do you learn so much, do you know how to do a tonsillectomy, that's more than enough for you". Everyday, for every break. Tonsillectomy. Tonsillectomy. Tonsil however just smiles everytime, no response was ever given. One day however, J lost it. He told Smarty, quite loudly, "if you dare utter tonsillectomy in front of me once more, I'll have your orchidectomy done, bc!! A@& H&₹@!!!" The whole table was in fits of laughter for about 5 mins and that suppressed Smarty, at least for a couple of days.
Bill Gates
Nothing special about him, other than he spends time in front of his lap. Every single moment he is the lib, for the last three months. Doesn't look up, doesn't smile, doesn't take tea / coffee/loo breaks or anything. Zombie mode. No, he is not doing his thesis. No, he is not studying articles. He is studying text books from his laptop. No iPad, no tabs or phone, no paper contact whatsoever. Just him and his lap. And the incessant clicking of his mouse / space bar which makes us all mad. But we got tone deaf to it, even J. So it's ok. Just give him the seat near the plug point and shut your ears off and all is cool.
Biscuit / Barcelona
The eye doctor who's is very different. Mallus' call her Biscuit, as her long traditional name is the same which Mohanlal coined for his Biscuit company (in memory of his mom!!) in the cult/classic movie 'Midhunam'. Mallus can't associate that name with anything else. She still thinks it is a name of a real biscuit company in Kerala of which Mohanlal is a brand ambassador off and nobody has bothered to correct that. The rest of the world knows her as being the only female football fan that they know off. Huge supporter of Barcelona FC, Iniesta and Puyol. Original Barcelona Fc keychain and original blazer. When I told all my guy friends about this batchmate girl I met at the library, half of them wouldn't believe me at any cost. The first thing that the other half (whom I could convince with difficulty and evidence) asked me was, "Is she married??" :-D. Not a question about looks/family/money/education/nationality/job. Not even one word about age/religion/character. I guess this proves that the heart of a man knows what the mind does not. Football is religion and football is life.
That's the main 7 but there are a few honourable mentions too. The "stock broker" - who's phone always keeps ringing, "vibrate" - who has a cell phone vibration so loud that the whole table shakes (once the water bottle fell off the table but it was later attributed not to the phone vibration but because of the actual earthquake, actually we couldn't differentiate :-D), "stalker" (yeah that might be me...before you say it...) - who somehow notices anything and everything that happens in the lib, who all come, who all doesn't, who's absent etc. etc, "Romeo & Juliet" - who come to the lib for their romancing and PDAs.
What did 3 months in the library give me?? I made the awesomest of friends that anyone can ever have, a number of books that requires a truck every time I change places, a terrible sense of humour, an unhealthy addiction for coffee n iced tea and a collection of fun filled stories of different residents from all parts of the country.
I wouldn’t have missed this ride for all the money in the world.
