Chilling out at Ice House

Chilling out at Ice House

In the quest for professional success and the responsibility of running a family one tends to forget the good times one had as a college student and the strong bonding with class mates.

As students in Mysore, twelve of us from varying family backgrounds would congregate in a small cafe called Gayathri Ice House. Every morning we met there and again from 5 pm till it was time to go home for dinner.

The cafe owner felt flattered when we told him that he looked like R D Burman. He invariably used to play the latest Hindi film songs. None of us had much money so we spent hours there on a three by five or six by ten coffee. Probably, the owner indulged us because we brought in some ‘class’ to the place being potential engineers (or so we presumed).During the first week of the month we would treat ourselves to a cutlet as we were flush with funds with pocket money. One of the regulars during our time, Ambarish, though not in our immediate gang later became a well known Sandalwood hero, referred to by some as the Rebel Star.

Each member of our group had a nickname, which in today’s context would be termed politically incorrect. A leading member was Meesay Shyama thanks to the hirsute foliage on his upper lip. We had Pinga whose name originated from his prowess in Ping Pong. One guy spoke through the side of his mouth so we named him Westwood, inspired from Clint Eastwood’s style of dialogue delivery in the popular spaghetti westerns. Seshadri became Jackpot for his obsession with horse racing. We had two Chandrasekhars, one was Dappa Chandri and the other Kulla Chandri based on their respective physiques. An integral member was nicknamed Tube (from Tubelight) because of his slowness in understanding a point. My nickname was the two syllable abbreviation of my community.

A team member later became quite prominent as a Professor in Mysore. He used to suffer from corns while in college. Some quack told him that stamping fresh elephant dung was a sure cure. For two weeks he and I religiously went to the Mysore zoo early in the morning and made our way to the pachyderm enclosure just after the animals’ meal time. It did not cure him but he tells me he can still recall that odour.

A few years back we celebrated our friendship with a program in Mysore. Many gang members came with family all the way from the US.Physically we all had changed.Many of looked "healthy" and some didn't require the services of a barber We had lots of fun and it was great recalling the old days but the family members were not exactly amused by the origin of some of the nicknames.