On a sunny Sunday afternoon, bhOndOO arrived in Bangalore, after quite a while. Ever since he managed to graduate from IISc, he had never had the courage to come back to the deadly city where this deadly institute was located. The very thought of those horror days were enough to keep him as many kilometers away from it as he could.
But this occasion was special. After all, it was Gullu's wedding. With Shami, of course! Heck, no. Gullu is getting married to Aisha. Why would bhOndOO care? But wait, Shami would be attending the wedding too, so how can bhOndOO stay away? He has heard from BenJi that she is still single and searching.
At Yeshwantpur station, bhOndOO told the auto driver, "Bangalore Palace" As the auto found its way through the marketplace of Yeshwantpura, bhOndOO was thinking of what kind of a dude Gullu must have become, that he can afford a wedding at Bangalore Palace Ground! He wondered where he could afford to have his own wedding. Maybe in Nesara?? In case, that is, if he had some luck with Shami this time.
As the auto was speeding past IISc, bhOndOO was suddenly overcome with a wave of nostalgia. All the bad memories - of the scoldings by Prof. Krishnamurthy, of all dirty tricks by Gullu and co, his failures in pretty much every adventure he tried...came rushing back to his head. Yet, he had this irresistible desire to see all those places once more. Just once more.
bhOndOO gave up the auto at ATM gate. The security guard asked in highly accented Hindi, "Kisko milna h?" bhOndOO was taken aback. He did not know that visitors are no longer allowed just like that in the campus, as they were in his time. "Professor Krishnamurthy from CSA", he said impulsively, and immediately froze. What if the security guard now tries to call up the Prof to verify? To bhOndOO's relief, he didn't. But he asked, "Aj Sunday h, sir ayenge?" bhOndOO just nodded, knowing full well that Prof. Krishnamurthy never comes to office on weekends. But the guard took his photo, noted his phone number, and let him in without further questions.
With nervous steps, bhOndOO went inside. His first thought was to have a cup of tea in Prakruthi, so he walked there. Huh?? Where is Prakruthi?? Just some dilapidated ruins standing there. bhOndOO looked this way and that way, but found no sign of Prakruthi. Baffled, he trudged towards CSA.
On a sunday afternoon, the campus looked pretty much deserted. Hardly anyone was visible around. As bhOndOO reached the CSA main gate, he took a nervous look. Swadeshji was manning the desk, he knows every past, present and future student of CSA. He even knows how many papers bhOndOO managed to publish during his days, and how many times each paper got rejected before finally getting accepted. bhOndOO didn't want anyone to recognize him, so he avoided the main gate and entered through the unguarded back door on the Mechanical Engineering side.
For a while, bhOndOO walked around the empty corridors. He recalled every memory he had, of every corridor. "This was the place where Gullu had made fun of me, in presence of my classmates", he thought. At another corridor, he remembered that it was the place from which used to make desperate phone calls to Aisha every night, who never picked up. He walked to his old lab, and found it unlocked. Nervously, he peeped into it. On Sunday afternoon, there was just one student inside. That guy was busy with some coding, and had headphones on. He didn't seem to feel bhOndOO's presence. bhOndOO crept up to the place where he used to sit, and sat down there again. He tried to feel as if he had time-travelled to those days!
After a few minutes, he got up and came out of the lab. The corridor was empty and silent. He walked into the washroom and peed into his favourite urinal (yes, he had one) once again after several years. He peeped into the LITEC lab, where he used to watch movies on Sundays. One day, while watching a movie there..... bhOndOO quickly dropped that disturbing memory. He saw just one girl sitting inside LITEC with a book. Actually, she was sleeping on the chair with the book open. bhOndOO had a quick vision of himself walking in, and saying with a flourish, "Hi, I am bhOndOO. An alumnus of this department! And you?" But then he remembered the possible age difference between them, and quickly dropped the fancy.
He quietly walked towards the staircase. All faculty rooms, including that of Prof. Krishnamurthy, were closed, as they should be on Sundays. However, bhOndOO saw Prof. Bhimrao coming out of his room in the adjacent corridor. bhOndOO turned his head away, lest he be recognized, and pulled up his mask. Prof. Bhimrao may not even have known bhOndOO, but he didn't want to take a chance. For once, bhOndOO thanked Covid for providing everyone the option of masking up whenever in trouble.
bhOndOO came down the staircase and turned into the corridor to Computing Lab 2. Yes, this was the spot. His holy spot. Of course, this was the very spot where he had finally managed to propose to Shami. That night, as he managed to get those three words out with great difficulty, she had looked almost pitifully at him, and told him that she had no such feelings for him. bhOndOO cried silently as he remembered that incident.
As bhOndOO stood there sniffing and wiping the big fat tears, suddenly he felt a pat on his back. Startled, he turned back. And then, he leapt back three steps. Or so he thought. In reality, he just froze. His tears froze too on his cheek. It was Prof. Krishnamurthy! On a sunday afternoon, no less!
But Prof. Krishnamurthy was not surprised to see bhOndOO in the department. he did not even notice that bhOndOO was crying. Instead, he said "Hey bhOndOO, good that you are here. Please come over to my office, I have something to discuss."
bhOndOO followed Prof. Krishnamurthy to his office, like a robotic doll. He had no clue what to say. Upon reaching there, Prof. Krishnamurthy led him to the giant whiteboard on his wall. The board was full of block diagrams, algorithm complexity calculations, code snippets. Prof. Krishnamurthy said, "See bhOndOO, OOPSLA deadline is coming up. I was just thinking if we can put in a paper, based on this model." He pointed at a block diagram, "Can you code this up quickly, and run it on the benchmark datasets?"
Like an obedient little boy, bhOndOO sat down at his former advisor's laptop. As he struggled to remember the syntaxes he had not used in years, he forgot all about Gullu's wedding.
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