50. My 50th post : The First first

My name is Anthony Gonzalves...no(hiccup)...its(bah its the rum talking now)....Abhay krishna.



Yea, I look like a villain dont I. I've always aspired to be a Bollywood villain, a Gulshan grover types(Bad man)....Alrite. 50th post. Applause applause. And I thought this post should be about 'me'. So here goes.

Being first feels good. No two ways about it.You work hard, earn your top position in this competitive world and that certainly does give you an achievement to cherish and get a high. But what if you get to the first/top place in the list without doing anything yourself. No, I am not talking about the intelligent snobs who get the grades, the top positions at work and say that they never studied or did any work to get there. Such snobs are just scared to admit that they did work(in many cases, worked a lot) to get to where they have got. May be their ego gets in the way, they are afraid that their image will go for a toss. Or may be they have plans to patao-fy some dumb blondes,who want brainy guys by their side to get them through all their tough times(read : learn for exams or complete project tasks or baby-sit the neighbour's kid or buy under-garments for the boyfriend).

I ain't talking about the existing reservation system either,although it has, and will keep putting ordinary performers on top of merit lists for a long time to come. No, this is a different issue. When it comes to having an order in a large list of names to be stored , in many such cases, they are ordered lexicographically. Which is where the problem begins. Yours truly has a name that beats most (in many cases all) names when it comes to alphabetical ordering. I mean, unless you have an Aakashwani or an Aakash(generally spelled Akash, but watever) or an Aashirwad or an Aadimaanav in your list, my name generally comes first. This is true for your mobile phones or even your messengers(google, yahoo when arranged alphabetically) or your MS outlook search finder or on social networking sites(orkut, facebook and the likes).

This 'being the first on a list' curse has been haunting me since childhood. In school, I was always roll number 1 in class. And having the roll number 1 meant many rituals used to start with me. Be it a homework check or an assignment submission check or the teacher giving a unit test paper's answer sheet (and whacking me for helping another fella) or a 'shoe polish and clean nails' check. I used to be the scapegoat when the teachers would'nt find targets to shoot at. The computer madam used to sit near the entrance of the computer lab and me being number 1, used to sit on a comp right next to her. I used to dread the moments when there would be a lot of ruckus in the lab. She'd be so lazy that she'd never get up and very conveniently would hit me with the stick as only I was within her hittable range. And in the Hindi language class, it was always - "Roll number 1, tu dusht baalak, sadha badmaashi kartha hai. Class se tumhe barkhaasth kar doongi main".The maths prof would go like - "Number 1, character is very important. You may study well, but improve your character first."(And all this lecturing because i stole all the chalk pieces from the chalk-box and our group played 'maar-an-peeti' with the chalks during lunch hour).

Note : 'maar-an-peeti' is a brutal game where the one with the chalk in his/her hand tries hitting the ppl in the opposite team with all force, so much so that some have dislocated shoulders after hurling the chalks :)

The school principal would come to each class to give the grade cards after each test. He'd give lengthy monologues to the first 10-15 and then realize that he's wasted a lot of time and so quickly give away the rest of the cards and walk off. I used to bear the brunt of so much of his verbal diarrhoea, bahh, real painful it used to be. One eccentric lazy prof, so lazy that he'd always find excuses for not having corrected our homeworks and assignments. He'd just look at mine, and if I had'nt done well, he'd go like -"Roll number 1 has done so badly, that i dint even feel like looking at the rest of the papers", and then he'd gimme a thwack on the head with my own pencil box.


That was school, and once it got over, I thought the curse would fade away. But no. Every other day, I get a stray sms on my mobile. Messages not intended for me, and some which are definitely not intended for anyone other than the intended person coz of the censored content. People forget to lock their phone keypads and keep the cell in their pockets. The result of this small error is that I get called or I get blank messages or the message which they would have composed for the previous sender. Lemme tell you how this happens. Take a standard nokia phone. Unlock ur keypad, press the top left button once, u get the 'main menu', press again and u goto 'messages', then press it again, u goto 'create message' and press it once more and u get to the address list where my name is inevitably the first one on the list. The record is 64. Yea, have received 64 blank STD sms's from one guy at one go. Some have hit the 35 mark, some used to stop after 20.

I get so cheesed off that I call them up and tell them that their keypads are unlocked and that their phones are clinging close to their butts. Have got very many supposedly 'private' content containing msgs(intended not for me: just a clarification) , sometimes feels like I am a secret agent or a TV 9 channel reporter looking out for sleaze. And they don't even realize that I have this info, which makes the situation all the more weird. I'd get msgs like "I love you lots. Got a gift for you. Lets meet at 'coffee day' at 7 today love." And when I'd ask this same guy who sent the msg to a certain 'her' and to me(accidentally) about where he was the last evening, he'd say that he had to visit his relatives for some pooja. I would just chuckle quietly, not knowing what else to do(coz i certainly cant tell him that i knew). And its not just the guys, even the girls are just as careless. They've made me peek into places where they dare not allow even the bestest of frens(and blv me, those places are so so...... secret heh)

Its the 'pursuing the girl during the break-up' and the 'make-up after a break-up' messages that piss me off the most.
"Ohh i like you so much. I will do anything for you. I will never smoke ever again. God promise. Can we talk. Please pick up my calls".
"I am so glad its all over. Its so nice to be with my darlo again. Sweetie, i know god is there, because we are back together."
"Without you, life seems so empty...so empty, that if I fill it with water, I can have a nice swimming pool."(Ok , I made this one up :P)

Ok, these messages are supposed to be mushy and nice and all that un-understandable crap, but why am i getting them? why me :( Now, you may wonder how do I get misdirected unwanted calls? The top-left button and the one right below it, when kept pressed, in some permutation/combination will lead to me receiving a call coz of my 'first' curse. I've heard some really interesting conversations, ppl flirting with their girl friends, fighting with their parents, buying contraceptives at the medical store and the works. Its almost like having a secret power, like Mel Gibson had in 'What women want' or Jim Carey in 'Bruce Almighty'. But I dont want this power. Please take it away. Because with great power comes great responsibility(spidey style) and i am not good at being responsible in any sense of the word.

A friend, I call him langa-man, always bugs me. "Whenever I open my phone book, you're there. Even when I search for a friend on orkut, your profile pic is right there on the top left of the screen. Have to read your name whether I like it or not. Abhay...why dont you change your name to langa ? or how about 'gareeb khan' ?". I tell him "rather than asking me to go for a name change, why don't you add a garbage entry in your phone before mine. That'll save you the trouble of looking at my name and even I will be at peace without the accidental calls and msgs from you."

*NEW ADDITION*

In the b-school that i am currently studying(or rather whiling away my time)in, my roll number is again #1. And because of this, no one is ready to give a proxy attendance in a lecture for me. They say that every professor would recognize the first roll number and so giving a proxy for me would be very risky. But they expect me to give proxies for them ! Why me ? :(

ps : whoosh, this 50th post surely was long, but was not the 'first' to be so :)