When I said that I would be writing about my college days and friends, never for a moment did I realise that I would be writing something like this. I am sure most of you read that little piece in the papers about a month back, talking about a KSRTC bus accident. The bus was on its way from Bangalore to Pune carrying young Infy engineers. Five of the young techies were killed in the accident. One of them Kush Mishra.
I know it's kind of customary to say nice stuff about people once they aren't around anymore. But if there was one person in this world who everybody would have described in the same words, it would have to be Kush Mishra. He was my batchie in first year in VIT. Oh GOD, the amount of fun we had. Be it making life hell for the young research assistant Ms. Sona. (Kush had quite a talent for making paper planes.) Or the time when four of these guys; Luv (Kush's twin bro), Varun Jain (or Sharabi/Vodka as he came to be known after that trip, Akash (came to be known as 'Saaki' as a fallout of that trip) and Kush went for that Bangalore trip of theirs. That was a trip which I feel like I shouldn’t have missed. What did these guys not do, Sharabi drank for the first time in life and called up his dad, crying at the same time, or running across railway tracks with trains running at top speeds. Such was the kind of daring spirit you developed when you were around with Kush.
The kind of silly things that you always remember when you think about a person, it was Kush's room where I heard 'Summer of 69' the first time, the first episode that I watched of 'Friends'. The guy was a rockstar.
And when I think of Kush Mishra how can I forget the legendary "East UP-West UP" debates which were a huge hit. He was the one who started it off, initially just to make fun of Akash who hailed from Meerut, but it went on to become such an awesome Bakar topic.
Or the time when we guys went for Aero India 07. Man what fun it was. And not just looking at those awesome beauties in the air, or on the ground, but the journey back was such a thrill. That being the period when the Kaveri verdict had been announced, the bus service to Tamil Nadu from Bangalore had been halted, and somehow we managed to get ourselves seat on a AP bus to Chitoor and from there got ourselves a bus back to Vellore.
Those endless Raptor game sessions in his room , or his obsession with 'Mausiji' and her friends, nothing can be forgotten.
The guy knew how to bring life to any party. Never missed a chance to pull anyone's leg, but nobody minded it in the least bit. This was what hostel life was all about. Was simply crazy about girls from the junior batch. I can never forget how Gupta and I pulled a fast one on him by chatting with him through SMS pretending to be a girl from a new number that a friend had got himself, or the time when he and I pulled a fast one on one of the guards at VIT who thought it was their God sworn duty to prevent ragging.
And the best part about him was there was no other side to his personality, I mean whenever I (or everybody else for that matter) met him he was his usual self. Be it the day when the results were announced (and he got a couple of backs) or the day he got through Infy (everybody was pleasantly surprised, including him). Life for Kush Mishra was not to be taken too seriously and this was why everybody liked him so much.
I wouldn’t write here that he was the most understanding friend of mine, or the one I went to when I wanted a solution to my problems, absolutely not. He wouldn’t take any of that bullshit. He was the one I went to when I wanted to get away from my problems and forget about them, he was the one I went to when I wanted some fun.
Kush isn't with us today, but wherever he is, I am sure he is still making people laugh with his raunchy jokes or his antics.
