Rajan Kapoor's Ejaculation 6: Ranjan Bhattacharya: A Visit to Past.

Ranjan Bhattacharya is dead. He died by lung cancer in 1987. The following is a remembrance I wrote weeping after his death for the Company newsletter, though not as uncensored as this version, where both us then worked. I didn’t want to write a hypocritical obituary; it should be as it was. Today as I go through it I am awestruck by, in the words of Steve Jobs, the connection of dots looking back.

WE MEET

Five years ago (1982) I had been to the Company A’s interview at The Great Eastern Hotel, Calcutta. I had been shortlisted as a Officer Trainee, through a national level Entrance Test (very similar to CAT) conducted by IIM Calcutta on behalf of the Company A. Here was a leading company of India, with an American Multinational past and still enduring culture, a blue-chip Company as a career prospect for a graduating Chemical Engineer like me.

All the prospective Officer Trainees had come nervous and ready for a cut-throat 30 minutes Group Discussion (GD) followed by a Interview. The panel came in and explained the ground rules of the GD. The topic given was: Presidential System Vs Prime Ministerial System of Governance in India. I silently swore at the staid topic and decided to play a smart game! I would grab the delivery of opening the discussion, keep rambling for a couple of minutes and then let others handle the baby. I was sure none of us would come up with a fruitful discussion on this boring topic. So I planned to spend the remaining time nodding and smiling energetically (pretending to be thoroughly involved and understanding) and then pick up the lead in the last few minutes and sum up with a flourish all the points which others would come out with!

The discussion started aggressively. The lead from me was followed by a raucous medley before Number 5 - a plump, fair guy, with an unruly mop of hair, having as many pimples on his handsome face as I had on my ugly one. In impeccable English he began methodically listing the points in favour of the Presidential System.

Immediately I sensed ‘danger’. My confidence (which tends to be in excess) took a jolt. In a few minutes this articulate speaker was stage-managing the whole show. I decided to play safe and avoided a direct confrontation with Number 5 – to stay in the run for selection, Others tried to match him. Number 5 demolished them with his speech, content and a most disarmingly charming smile!

In the last few minutes I was desperately seeking to sum up the discussion to show  “Leadership Qualities” to the Selectors watching us. I somehow grabbed the lead, murmured something about time running out and the need to sum up – and then I realized I did not know what to sum up!  Panic engulfed me. My God I am caught in my over-smartness. And then I played a dirty trick in desperation. With a flourish of a dramatic act I said: “… though I favour the present system of Government, I request Number 5 to sum up today’s discussion for us. Thank You!”.  Number 5 blinked for a while, realized I was passing the buck to him; He recovered and flashing the same disarmingly charming smile went on to make a superb summary of our discussion. That was my First Meeting with Ranjan Bhattacharya. A smart Chemical Engineer from the Jadavpur University.

WE MEET AGAIN, RANJAN

Some months later I was surprised to get a joining letter from Company A! In the days, when jobs (mostly IT) in the 3rd year like today's engineering colleges was not a norm and we all had to mostly job hunt on our own. I packed and got ready for the City of Gold. Initially we were put up at the St Xavier's College Hostel, Bombay where the Xavier Institute of Management was to coordinate our 2-month residential Company Induction Programme. As we stumbled into one another in the balcony of the conference room, the first thing I got to hear was some curious juxtaposition of English, Hindi and Bengali gaalis for the dirty trick I had played on him during the GD time! Then we became friends. I asked him what or who the heck was a “ croak” or something like that he had kept talking in the GD that day. Ranjan showed a grimace of a superior intellect-possessed Entity, then went on to correct me with a condescending smile- “ arrey Baba, not a croak…. Howard Roark!”. I still had no idea what he was talking about but the embarrassment of admitting my ignorance, even though I thought I was a “well-read” person, I changed the topic.

Ranjan, I liked your sense of humour more wacky even by my standards. You would out-match my feeble attempts at witticisms. You had a full-throat laughter that went on non-stop for at least 2 minutes and sounded something between a thundering cloud and a screeching automobile. But it was infectious!  I was awed by your well-read intelligence. You finally explained about Howard Roark in Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead, which I had to read 5 times before I understood it and it went to become a gospel for me. What You found in me, God only knows; but we soon became inseparable friends.

(Author's Note: It is remarkable how many instances of The Fountainhead  have repeated in my life till today  as I look back albeit in a more real-life versions. Do we start copying our gospels or is it a beyond-our-understanding happenings?)

 
We would go to restaurants, and while others sipped bottles of beer on getting the first salary, we gulped glasses of ‘lassi’ competing to finish the largest number of ‘Lassis’.

We were a “Unity in Extremity”. You spent the time impressing the visiting faculty at the Xavier’s classes, I spent the time impressing (or trying to) the girls in the class. When I fell head over heels in infatuation for a girl, I thought I was great; You called me a fool. You were right. Where she went I have no idea!

Suffering your “I told you so”s after that, I took my revenge  by winning the 2^nd prize in Public Speaking in the finals at the Taj Hotel, Bombay ballroom where You lost. In the evening we went to the Leopold Café and drank beer for the first time the whole night, and then walked drunk on the deserted streets of Bombay till dawn, when it dawned on us that we had not informed the Xavier’s Hostel of our night-out and we will have to pay a severe penalty for the same.

Skinny Dipping!

The Induction over, we were happy to know that we were getting the company accommodation in the Officer’s colony, in a 8-room Chummery, two in each room. Walking daily to the Officer’s club which was a bachelor’s den mostly, we would ogle at the Aunties and their daughters and whisper about our fantasies! Every evening after work we would go to the Chembur Station Area and ogle at many more girls and drink our mandatory Lassis. Naturally, to attract women we had to make a ‘body’ to attract them. So we joined the local Talwalkar’s Gym. I joined first. You left first.

We would dream of making a Writer-Cartoonist team which would generate comics better than Goscinny- Uderzo’s Asterix comics. My great idea was about a hero  HanuMAN - the Original Superman! It never materialised because we could never decide which one of us was a better writer or a cartoonist. (and today people have cartoon series on Bal Ganesha, Bal Hanuman, etc!!) We decided to break our ‘virginity’ of drinking hard drinks in the coming Officer’s Party. We lost it totally that night and spent the next day trying to prove each other more drunk than self. Till the next Officer’s party when it would start again.

Cheers. Typically I am 'down' and Ranjan, formally dressed even for a party, busy eating!

Even for the following 8-month around-the-departments training we were together in the same sub group. During the day we would try to out-smart each other in influencing the department manager who among us was the more intelligent one; the evenings we would rip apart the concerned manager in the most irreverent terms. In 1983 after the training we got posted in different departments. You in Operations and I in Technical Services. Typically, we wanted each other’s department!

WE QUARREL

Then something unbelievable happened. We fought. We stopped talking. We did not talk for weeks. Abused each other behind each other’s back. It looked we would never talk again. And then one evening as I alighted from a car lift back home I saw You waiting near the gate. I pretended not to have seen you and was surprised as I crossed you that You called out my name. I turned and then seeing your face I knew something major was up. You asked me to help You.  When I heard the problem I was shocked and also pained that You of all people would have done it. But it was not time to talk about morality. You were scared of the symptoms and feared the worst. We quietly slinked out of the colony and caught a cab to the nearest Government hospital. I chose a government hospital for anonymity versus if we went to a private doctor. As I sat near you I grimaced and trying to not let you know I had shifted away from your touch. Who knows if it was infectious. 

In the cab You confessed that during your visit to Kolkata on holidays You had gone out to drink with your friends and got badly drunk and landed up in a ‘coloured’ area. On waking up You realized what You had ended up doing. And now you were afraid if you were infected. I was flabbergasted. Ranjan not You. Man not only we are virgins, we with all the pretences were supposed to remain so….. well at least not lose it with such a person! You looked so crestfallen and made me swear that I will not tell anybody. I said I won’t but shifted a few more inches away from you as discreetly as I could.

In a queer way having listened to you, Ranjan, I felt proud it was I you thought of to take help from even when we were not talking. I took it as a endorsement of my trustworthiness.

I didn’t know which dept. to take you to. So using my bookish GK I sneak to a matronly looking nurse sitting nearby and whisper – “Ma’am where is the STD dept.?”. That bitch screams and say “… Kya bolto…. STD dept. pahije?”. Hundreds of heads in a crowded government hospital  turned towards ME and then jumped back!!!! Ranjan had already melted into the crowd. And I felt like a idiot standing there as sniggers abounded around me making fun of me and commenting on the wayward youth. WTF!!  In horror I leaned further towards the matron trying to gesticulate to her to tone down. It only spurred her to continue in loud shrieks giving me the directions and then as I tried to bolt she came out with the lightning…..” Kya kiya hai tumne, eh?”. I must have run my fastest 100 metres of my life from her to try and melt into the crowd and then finding in horror the crowd running faster away from me.

Finally the STD department is reached. Another bulldog-looking matron is sitting there. Wiser, I go and whisper to her that, “ I have come for my FRIEND’s problem; please take care of us by not speaking loud”. Her logic was impeccable. “ Kay ko Sharmane ka…. Sab yahi bolte hai!  Aur tum yeh STD department mein aaya hain toh sab ko waise hi maloom ho gaya!!! Just bolo kya hain?”.  I turned back with a murderous look to find Ranjan hiding behind a pillar and asked him curtly to come over and tell her. A doctor was due so we were asked to wait. The doctor came accompanied by a dozen of medical students, young men and women, and went into the chamber. We both looked at each other with white faces and were on the verge of getting up and running, when the bulldog matron called Ranjan in.

After a long interval Ranjan came out looking totally devastated. I was gearing up for the worst. He caught my arm and we both sprinted out of the hospital. In the midst of the run I realized  he was holding me!!!!! Vision of having the worst sufferings of my friend’s indiscretions flooded my brain. But was it too late anyway? As we stood under the shade of some thick trees outside, He told me there was nothing to fear. It was a minor temporary thing and it would be all ok soon. Gosh. Then I asked him why was he looking so crestfallen coming out of the doctor’s room. He hesitated and wanted to change the topic. On my persistence that I’m there to help him and I should know all….Ranjan confessed. He would have been happy after the check-up if it had not been done in front of all the dozen interns, with his pants down, and having to wait till a long academic lecture to students ended on his affliction!

The good news and the now hilarious once-in-a-life experience coupled with the pride I felt that he came to me for critical help was exhilarating. I thought we will never fight again. We did a few months later. May be it was because of some doubts about secrecy or may be our great friendship was too much in glare. Ever since from 1984 we have never talked to each other (though we did make some feeble indirect attempts). AND NOW FROM 1987 onwards WE CAN NEVER TALK.

Over the next 3 years from 1984, You went on picking  new friends with your varied activities and zest for life. I went on picking up new enemies with my active tongue and rigid mind.  I talked about trekking, You went to trek. I talked about adventure sports. You went mountaineering and skiing. I dreamed about becoming a glamour photographer. You actually clicked!  I became a laughing stock with my Bullet motor bike accidents. You beat me in it by having the largest number of scooter falls in the shortest period of time.

Yes Ranjan. Whether we talked or not, it was always a game of One-upmanship between us. You one-upped me on the first day we met in the GD; You one-upped me in all types of adventures; Ranjan you were one-up even in our bloody names! (and to rub it in Bengal they always wrote my name a Ranjan!)

And now You are ONE-UP by leaving this god-forsaken world.

With You no more around, Friendship will never be the same word to me again. I envied You when I saw the photographs clicked by you. I envied you when I read and published your diary extracts & sketches on trekking in the Officers’ Colony Magazine. And I envy You right now sitting UP there, with a smug look, in Heaven while I fret and frown through life in this wilderness of world.

You have WON, my friend; as usual as you have won. Heads You win, the Tale is of my loss.

Au Revoir!
 © Rajan Kapoor 2012