Not just a room number but an identity...

The Legend of 2223

        Dedicated to the awesome bunch of 2223

It was a strange city, I had never been here, used to read in my high school geography book that it was the capital of Madhya Pradesh. Four years before I didn’t know shit about this place. I had done all my registration formalities in the college I got admitted in with my father. Now the only thing left was to check into my hostel room. Now as I walked down to the front desk of the hostel, I was wondering who might be my roommates, how would they be, would they be spoilt like me, a lot of questions were spinning my head. The big moustached BOPEE (security guard) handed me the register and asked me to sign on it. 2223 – my room number, I was thinking to myself, so this is my room although I thought 2222 would be a cooler room number. But little did I know that 2223 wouldn’t just remain a room in the coming days, it would become a legend, an identity for all the 18 members. Well, the room was allotted to just four guys but how did it turn into eighteen? Well it’s quite a story and all my 2223 friends know it very well I guess.

            I signed on the register, filled up the basic details, looked into the room and then left for New Market to buy some stuff with my father. While I was shopping I got a call from an unknown number. I picked up the phone and said, “Hello?” and I heard a very feeble and weak voice from the other side which said, “Ji, main aapka roommate bol raha hun. Mera naam Akash hai. Kya aap room keys leke aa sakte hai, hume room dekhna hai.” So I had to go back to the room to show him the room and that’s how I met Akash – short, looked weak, pale fair and a notorious smile. By the evening, we both met Akhil. Now when I saw Akhil’s photograph on the register I thought he was a short guy but to my utter shock he was tall, like really very tall. He might have been a little more than 6 feet but from where I saw him he seems like 10 feet guy. Akhil, well, his eyes looked cunning, very shrewd – what we call 'chalak' in Hindi. His voice, ofcourse, was kind of irritating but luckily his stories were pretty interesting so we had to bear his voice. The fourth guy, Devanshu, arrived into the room with his father and he looked pretty studious and serious type to me but I had no clue that I made a wrong assumption during that time. The next day during the noon, there was a knock on the door. It was a Bengali guy from Siliguri with his parents. Apparently his parents had stayed in Guwahati so they came to meet me. Till today I don’t know how Abhinaba – ohh yeah that was his name - came to know I was from Guwahati. In the afternoon there was another knock, I opened the door and when I saw the person at the door I was like who’s this Nepali. But then when he introduced himself I came to know he was Gobinda, an Assamese (atlast) and was from Lakhimpur. He was quite quiet and formal but that was impossible since he was from Assam but as time passed he started opening that mask of formality he wore over his face. The next day we went to visit the other rooms and went to this Noida guy’s room. He always had a smile on his face whether he was angry or happy. I always imagined Noida was a place with big factories and chimneys but from Mr. Noida a.k.a. Sachin, I came to know it was much more than that. But then in Sachin’s room what grabbed my attention even more was this fat Falguni Pathak looking guy who was talking to a South Indian guy in Telegu and then talking to Sachin in a perfect Bihari accent of Hindi. That was quite a skill. This guy, Ankur Bharadwaj, laughed a lot.

            After a few days, Akhil took me to a fat guy’s room. He was a look alike of a girl from our class, he was a Bengali from Jabalpur but he asked us not to tell that to anyone in the fear of getting ragged. Now, Premanshu, which was his name, I thought was a fun loving guy but he never ever used to compromise with his studies. I met Premanshu’s He – Man roommate, Rohit Kachhawaha on the day he got ragged by some badass seniors. That was the day I told him about the tragic story of how the Archi seniors used to slap us and rag us right after the class and I always used to miss lunch. That lightened up his mood a bit, he might have thought that there’s someone else who suffers more than me. By the way I still call him Kachhua (Tortoise). Pranjal, I met him in the NE ragging calls. Though he was from Shillong, his family also resided in Bongaigaon so I used to tease him by speaking in that Nalbariya accent of Assamese. But I must say never before have I seen a fairer Assamese than Pranjal. Bhaskar is the quietest one in the group so he escaped my eyes for most part of the 1^st year although we all Assamese had quite a few journeys homewards and back where we enjoyed a lot. I remember playing table tennis with Tarun in first year, he was quite a simpleton and that’s the only memory I have of him from first year.

            Rohit Shrivastava’s fame was actually over shadowed by Rohit Kachhua’s (spelling mistake intentional) popularity but nevertheless he made quite a name for himself through his sincerity. Mithilesh came to study in our room during the first year to study. Since he wasn’t the typical Maharashtrian, so he was good. Paritosh – well, of what little I have heard of him, it’s this that he’s infact very little but still packs a punch when need be. Now Puneet, well everyone says he’s a very rich guy and the only experience I had with him was having tea near his home. He’s quite the bouncer of the group. I mean we need guys like him in case guys like Paritosh get into a fight. Ankur Upadhyay, well, he ­looks shrewd and he’s shrewd. But infact that’s good as we also need a diplomat in our group, u know where power fails, words can come in handy.

            With time the room members grew in number and the room number had more and more significance. It gradually became an identity and no doubt it was the most famous room in first year. Now after four years it is a big wolf pack but unfortunately we all will go our different ways in a few days but I hope the legend of 2223 remains forever.