friends are forever!!!

Whoever said DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER must have said FRIENDS ARE FOREVER. Its more apt. Even Diamonds can be set a value unlike FRIENDS. Any doubts? Friends are my greatest assets (psst....... this is an inside matter, keep it with you otherwise I will have the Income Tax authorities on my neck, all assets further mentioned are highly classified) and I rely a lot on them. Boy........... I have to write a lot in this page....... hmmm........... perhaps this is the only negative side of having too many friends.

Actually my assets are a lot but I will keep the list short.

(1984-90) Harish, Satish & Vikas were my classmates at Raja Jitendra Public School in Hyderabad through my 6 years of schooling there. Vikas was a crazy guy with loads of crazy stories which I used to believe (I was very gullible). And Satish was much like me. Harish was a cool guy. Not only this but all my previous days of education make me very nostalgic. We used to be at school much before time and used to play Football, Cricket and a game called King. Oh God!!! Where are those times lost? And recently I tracked down 3 of my chums - ANS, Ramesh and Uttam... and I felt really nice meeting them after a gap of 12 years.

(1990-91) Later we moved to Vizag, my 7th class was at Seventh Day Adventist High School. I had 3 close friends - Kishore, Vinod and Sudhakar. Me, Kishore and Vinod were benchmates - the top three ranks were kinda reserved for us. Sudhakar and me were bicycle buddies, we used to spend time together after school hours on our bicycles.

(1991-92) Me and Kishore later changed to Little Angels High School for our 8th class where we made some more friends -  Swaroop and Pradeep. The best part of my schooling was here. There used to be a stiff competition with the ranks changing for every half mark. But being bad in languages I had to be contended with a rank around 6th in class. We used to play cricket on our housetop (that was a terrific time) or visit a mountain top nearby. Mostly me and Swaroop used to spend a lot of time on our bicycles in the evenings,  we had the best of times together. The funny thing was, Naresh, one of my classmates became a good friend after I left the school. Later I got to know Srikanth Varma, he is a cool guy.

(1992-94) There were more changes in life as we were moving around before finally settling in Gajuwaka, where I finished my schooling at Vijnana Bharathi. The sad part is that I couldn't make more friends except one guy, Srinivas. Cricket was our regular chore and we spent a lot of time together playing and watching movies. Though we settled at this place I was moving around for my education.

(1994-96) My next stop was at Gangadhar Resi. Junior College (GRJC) where I spent an year in the hostle. Kishore, Praveens (better known as Peddha Peyya & Chinna Peyya) , Gautum, Raghavendra, Sarat, Anil,(these four were my room mates) Anand, Holani brothers, Abhiram, Kasi, Kiran (Pichayya), Srinivas (Gundu), Sridhar, Ramesh and others were my friends here. I have some sweet memories. We used to have a nice time at hostel playing cricket, and of course studying was a boring thing which we had to do. Recently I got in touch with some more mates, thanks to internet and thanks to YAHOO Groups..... Oops, I have to take a stick if I don't mention Prashanthi.... she is one of the rare close gal pals I have.

(1996-2000) After this, I secured a good rank in the state entrance examination to grab a seat at JNTU Anantapur for my Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering. Boy!!!...that was the best period in my life. I enjoyed a lot and learnt a lot too. Well, I have loads 'n' loads of friends from this place. I have pleasant memories of my hostel life at LEPAKSHI and OC hostels.

Let me start with my classmates:

Rajendra Prasad: The class topper (Raj in short), he is a sweet guy, calm going. Its nice to have him around, suddenly blasts jokes & keeps things going. And last but not the least he is very studious. Now he is working as a software engineer in InfoTech, Hyderabad.

Srikanth: I used to call him Cheeku. He is also a studious kind, but on the lighter side, he is fun, he was expert in mimicing the faculty. We used to enjoy that. I dont know where he is now.

Through out my stay at Anantapur, Raj, me and Cheeku were LABmates, so we spent quite a long time together.

Shiva Prasad: Serious yet funny. He is a typical guy. Now he is in Old Dominion University doing MS in Computers.

Ravi Kanth: Known as LADDU he is a quite boiling type, good at arguments, rather very talkative, if you are looking for an argument better not pick this guy, he can be nippy. On the lighter side he is a very funny guy full of jokes and satire. He too is good but lazy at studies like me. He completed his PG at NITIE, Mumbai and now he is placed with CAP Gemini, Mumbai as a consultant.

Rajvardhan: Also known as Raj, he is a serious guy, good at studies and mostly serious enough for a joke.

Chandrasekhar: Better known as Chandu, Boy, this guy is real cool, "Is he ever serious?" is the first question when u see him. If he is around you will have your hands on your stomach trying to control your laughs. He is a guy with good sense of humor. He was also my hostel mate, I know him inside out. He is now doing Masters in Mechanical at West Virginia University.

Ashok: Calm guy, very studious, mostly serious like Rajvardhan. Raj and Ashok are best pals, they are even room mates.

Samba Siva Reddy: Mimiced as SAMBARIDDLI, he is a very calm going guy, doesn't bother much about other things.

And last but not the least, Sambasiva Rao and Deepak have a special place.......

Will write about class gals later.

MORE TO COME LATER GUYS........................

And coming to my friends at hostel - Malli, Tandur, Srinu (a.k.a ABBAS), Rajesh, Naveens, CN Ramesh, Vamsi, Anil, Ghouse, Basha (Zilan & Karim), Sri Hari etc etc. Will write about them later and also about my other pals at JNTU. Not to forget Saradhi & Ramana Murthy.

(2000 and after) I made some good friends at University of Cincinnati. Uday and Shirdish are from Hyderabad and they were my roommates in Cincinnati. They both are currently pursuing Ph.Ds