MRINAL

Mrinal

 

Disclaimer: whatever follows, is not my sole creation, thought. Abhipreet is as much to blame as I am. In fact it was he who came up with the juiciest ideas, funniest stories and forgotten incidents. Since I wanted to pay tribute to you, the mud-slinging is on me, but only partially.

 

There are very few things that can be made fun of when we talk about Mrinal. But as they say it’s better to be master of something than being a jack of all trades. Mrinal was the master of being semi-blind, of wearing inch thick glasses and carrying it with so much panache that all of us with perfectly normal vision envied him. All those who are reading this and wondering how much it could be, I want you to guess the power of his glasses. It was 9 when he was in vidyapith. He would sit in the same bench with two others who had powers of 5 and 7. Ask Mrinal who they were. I mean can you possibly beat it. It has been told to me, that one day this far sighted dude went to a lab in IIT and was doing some experiment, he complained to the lab attendant that he could not see something; the lab assistant humorously told him that if she could see it with a power of 8, how could he not? There is one in a million chances that she (the lab assistant), would hear the following “mera power 9 hai”. I guess we all have days when we embarrass ourselves and still laugh about it. It was the lab assistants turn that day.

Mrinal has had many “smacking” incidents in vidyapith. I do not think there is any which one which is more popular than the Nandy da “did you see the C” incident? I have always shared, heard, thought about it and found myself laughing or grinning. That day Mrinal was chased like a mouse and beaten till he turned red and blue. I don’t want to detail you on the incident; we all very well know what it was. One more incident that comes to my mind is as follows. It was perfectly clear day. Nandy da (again) was in the class distributing examination papers or teaching us something. Mrinal had somehow not scored well and was beaten with the duster and was asked to kneel down next to Nandy da himself. Someone else was called, only to be busted. Mrinal who had just had his share, and was kneeling, started to laugh, pitying the guy who was about to get it. Most of the days people show this kind of audacity and somehow get away with it. But when its not ones day, nothing wrong goes unnoticed. Nandy da saw Mrinal laughing and smacked him all the more harder this time. We could not stop laughing.

Mrinal’s relationship to calculus is what our relationship to an adult magazine is. It always excited him and he could never get enough of it. Maybe this why when the very irritating SSB da observed that in his calculus class (ya, we had lectures on calculus in class 9) that only Mrinal showed the potential and understanding to comprehend all of that at such a young age, we could imagine why. He also had this unique was of writing as the whole bench rocked when he scribbled his calculus in his notebooks. I remember when we were voting for our class captain in class 10, it was Mrinal that we wanted. When the results were announced, Mrinal was a clear winner. He was so lost in his calculus that he never knew that he had won. He had to be shaken from his calculus-fixation and appreciate what we had just done for him.

Mrinal was and always been a great sportsman. His bowling and football skills have been his forte. The flight of his bowl could bore a batsman to sleep. His enthusiasm and excitement after sighting a football was irrespective of the times he could actually put his foot to the ball. “Football dekh ke uska 90 ho jata tha” summarizes the emotion very well. The legendary Pele is his role model, Ronaldinho his favorite student.

In IIT Bombay he was also labeled as a gay. I am do not believe that, cause to mistake a guy for a girl one has to be completely blind, or that is what I think.

Mrinal used to also take singing lessons in school. Maybe he would see some calculus relationship to these melodies because otherwise it would be a complete waste of time for him. He sure must have had something in that always-working-brain of his.

Today this guy is teaching young aspiring IIT hopefuls to get into the prestigious college and doing a very good job. Dude there have been few that have always been fun and cool and still done wonders with their talents, you are one of those. “See” Ya.