The Fatboys

I am about to describe to you what I find to be quite an unprecedented friendship of 6 dissimilar bros, one that has made my college life the best it could be, and one that promises to last a lifetime. 

We are: the FATBOYS, brothers from other mothers, the brothers of the nights watch (cause our favourite pastime was watching movies way into the night; ranging from Mathews’ collection of French movies, to soul- sucking, depressing-to-the-core movies like ‘Everest’ right before Prof which only Thejus’ spontaneity could push us to watch!)

An Andhra- born living in Chhattisgarh who has an eye for getting things (or mess boys) in order, a knack for big scale management projects, and a friend whose advice you can rely on.

A Kerala- born living in the Gulf with a tech-savvy mind, an eloquent pen; a habitual critic and your everyday cynic.

A Kerala- born who lived in Nagpur; a ‘typical’ pastors son with a talent for fitting in anywhere and with anyone, and can potentially sing your socks off.

A Kerala- born, who remained in Kerala with a talent for…practically everything, and who we deem our very own ‘nigga.’

An Orissa born, who also remained true to his state; known for his acts of random kindness, his limitless appetite, and a drab obsession for Bullets (the bike.)

And me.

Truth be told, this ensemble came together quite insidiously, we rapidly progressed to being good friends and neighbors, and were known cases of getting fatter by the day.

I remember talking to Manu first, waiting for our turn at the medical check- up prior to joining college; we had the most unlikely and uncomfortable of conversations to begin with, one I can’t share 😊 Perhaps it didn’t help that my mother had told him to ‘take care of me’ before he had a clue of who I was.

I remember meeting Thejus and Mathews on the bus while we were travelling as a batch to watch Harry Potter. I had asked Thejus what songs he listens to, hoping to find a common interest; to which he replied: ‘techno music’. Or was it disco music??!

I remember bumping into Nishant during systole (inter- batch fest) and somehow agreed to join him in a three- legged race, during which I literally bumped into his lateral malleolus and fractured it!

I remember meeting John everytime I took a break while studying for Anatomy stages. The ensemble had already gathered by then talking and whining mostly the day before the stage, and they’d somehow always choose to study just when I came down for my break!

I guess we started to really getting to know each other after we got single rooms and most of us ended up in ‘the lobby of the prodigies.’ Ground floor, just near the mess. In hindsight, that might have been a key contributing factor to maintaining our esteemed reputation.

Trust me none of us had much stage experience prior to college. But something about doings things together got us to try out for the Christmas play, and even the annual play ‘Harvey’ during which some of us found our niche! I may mention at this point that taking part in such things didn’t only expose us to the variety of skills we could attain by the end of college, no; but let us work with some of the best role models around whom we were fortunate of becoming friends with.

We would go for night walks; perhaps to amul or malik (not for exercise mind you!), morning walks after pulling an all- nighter during which we’d grab a snack at Bikaner. We used to sit in the lawn and talk for hours. We even have a tree in which we carved in our names (I know, cheesy). We used to have prayer in the terrace with a lone light and a guitar.

We used to make the same mistake of going out every Diwali to eventually realize that ‘obviously everything’s closed!’ and go to dunkin donuts because well, that’s always open.

We’d talk about life, people, ambitions, visions… our deepest secrets, our ridiculous fantasies. Our different ideologies, our different approaches to the same problem. Genuine bro talk.

We’d have fights, we’d shortly make up. We’d get our bro outta a 6 month depression by telling him there are more fish in the sea, or break into a bro’s room when he has a mental breakdown. We’d make a sincere effort at waking each other up in the morning to make up our low attendance, and eventually understand when a bro is not gonna get up even if a friends room caught on fire!

We’ve seen each other at our worst, and at our best. And we haven’t budged. Just like Thejus couldn’t after running into a pole on the terrace!

Together we put together what I believe to be the best musicals CMC has ever seen. John in production, Mathews and Thejus in sounds (though Thejus can act!!), Manu and I in the creative team, and Nishant being the backbone as he literally bends his back doing all essentials everyone else forgets. Hell we once thought we could start our own theatre company!

We used to gather in each other’s room just the night before an exam (because we didn’t feel like it any other night) and completely spoil each other’s preparation with the usual: “anyway you’re not going to study, lets talk man!!” And it lead up to some of the best conversations I’ve ever had.

In internship as was the custom, 80% of conversation should consist of which PG pissed you off, which we totally made use of 😊

As our days in CMC got shorter, our wallets opened up and without any hesitation we visited all the best eating joints in Ludhiana. We said our heartfelt goodbyes, and wished each other well.

We’re all at different places now. (Except Nishant and Thejus who are 4 hours apart!!!) 

Perhaps one thing we regret is not making time to go on a trip together. But as we turned each other’s gloomy days into sleepless nights of laughter and memories, we hope to accomplish that too in the near future.

Be it musicals, profs, failures, major life events, heartaches... We were in it together.

So cheers to a memorable start to what I know is going be a friendship that’s going to last!