Anshuman Shankar. The only friend from school who moved to the same god-forsaken location as me - Delhi. One of the only from school I am still in touch with. And yet, the majority of our camaraderie is by mail. Always has been... even in the days of yore when snail mail was still in popular use and we exchanged letters as I wrote to him in a place that makes the god-forsaken capital seem like the abode of the Gods - Allahabad. He is due to pass out of St.Stephen's College this year.
This document is an old one(as the days pass the age of this document increases, as does the need for updating it). I was going towrite one on Anshu, but I dug this out of my old computer and so here it is. Hence, please permit discrepancies owing to the time interval. I have finally made a few much necessary changes to this write-up. Hopefully, he'll acknowledge and treat me to a beer. Incidentally, drinking beer is about all we ever do when we meet with the rest of the gang in Bombay every 3 months or so. The reunion of the boozum buddies brings also brings together Jayant 'Gups' and Danny, in various stages of abdicating alcahol from time to time.
The quiet, suave Shanks is certainly more vociferous and open online. He is much chided by the rest of us for not making what we would term apt 'usage' of his appearance which has been known to inspire cute one-liners like"What's cooking, good looking?". That too coming to an ANGA (All Nutt G's Association) member. The less spoken of ANGA the better, esp. since to elaborate on it would be self-defamatory as I was induced as the first and only non-block(and non-college) member. Let's just say they're known to experiment. But that's all they do - be known to experiment that is. The experimentation itself is not much more than a threat during the Personality Development Programme some call ragging.
Anshuman's tribute to the school - Poetic memoirs of a true KVite