My roommate

What an asshole!
That is the phrase that comes to mind when I think of my first roommate. It's not like I hate him or any thing. I just resent him. That Bastard striped me of my mask and made me see my self and the world in a new light. And since that day I have not felt content.

I met him for the first time when we had come to the hostel to enroll ourselves. Both Father and son were inspecting the room when I showed up with my parents. They exchanged pleasantries and I noticed that his father was an extrovert, he had a kind of forced friendliness with nothing behind the eyes. I guess it helps him while he runs his practice (ophthalmologist). There were not locals like us. They lived at the opposite end of the country but it didn't seem to matter to them, it looked like they had done this before.

By the time I moved in he had made himself at home. Already he was on speaking terms with everyone on our floor. I was at the time in my introverted state and wanted as little to do with others as possible. But this guy started staging me around introducing me to everyone else saying " have you met Happycynic?" Or "this is my roommate Happycynic." I was at once embarrassed and on gaurd. I observed his face and saw the artifice, the controlled smile and raised eyebrows, the overly jovial behaviour all a mask to put everyone at ease. To manufacture an image for himself. I should know. I had done it frequently. Nothing wrong with trying to fit in after all. But I guess in the end we ended up having fun.

Looking back at myself I can safely say that I was undergoing some major mental stress. I was neurotic, my behavior characterised by sudden jerks and bursts of activity, an ever present and not the good kind of excitement and down right fanatical when it came to my code and cleanliness. A shrink might say that I was trying to regain control in my life by imposing it on myself and my surroundings. To such a person staying with a person like D ( " have you met D? He is my roommate" ) could and would be traumatic. The man was a slob. His idea of cleaning involved two sweeps of the room with the broom 1 cm in the air. His bed and table was always covered with a jumble of books while mine was in a neat stack. It drove me crazy. Two of my prime directives where in direct opposition.
D1 : a clean environment is essential.
D2 : live and let live.

He was tall, fair and handsome, easily one of the most noticeable guys in my batch. He talked easily to anyone. He excelled at making great first impressions on teachers. His first act when entering our first class in anatomy was to prostate himself before the HOD and touch his feet. The old man leered at us while blessing this asshole, his eyes assaulting us as if we were disrespectful. And to top it of he was a sportsman, a football player, so good that he was scouted for the university team.

He got along with everyone in spite of language issue and everybody liked him. As far as guys are concerned the man was the voice of every hormone charged boy in the hostel. When we were all together he was crass and incredibly funny. All of us were high on being young and he was something like our mascot.

He did have some traits that pointed at dysfunction though. He didn't seem to have any roots, no connections to his past. He never answered his phone even if his friends from Delhi called. The guy was ice. When I asked him about it he said, " There is no point and I was not very close to them either. "
We were roommates so of course we found out things about each other. We used to talk for a while about all kinds of abstract topics and about our pasts. He talked about his first girlfriend and what it was like, about the high he feels when he walks onto the ground and listens to the crowd cheering his name, an older friend a senior who took him under his wing and trained him in football among other things. I told him about my childhood, my feelings towards my father, my fear towards women kind in general, my first episode of social approach anxiety and how that changed me. He was the first person to know about my 'predisposition'. He kinda figured it out. He even came up with a theory for it. Said that it had something to do with my instinct to please others. I hotly refuted him at the time but.....

Anyway as far as memories go one does stand out....