I can't NOT Give a fuck.

Today, a friend doing his MBA, sent me an application form- some summer internship application form that he has applied for as a part of his MBA Syllabus.
There was a portion which had to be filled by a close friend of the applicant and I being one, was sent the form. There were three questions
1) Applicant should start doing…
2) Applicant should stop doing…
3) Applicant should continue doing…
The friend had to answer these questions based on his knowledge of habits of the applicant.
So as you know… when you speak about a friend you don’t talk with respect. My first impulse was to trash my way through- to give silly immature answers to everything that was being asked.
Being foulmouth and cracking stupid jokes is what we- the people of NIT Jsr enjoy the most.( OK maybe foulmouth part I like a little more than others :P). We laughed away everything. Never ever paying seriousness to absolutely anything- it was a way of life our dear friend Kunwar Akhilesh Singh, being the only sensible guy amongst us, never approved of. He would get irritated if we created a ruckus shouting at novelty while having the Friday night dinner. He would shout at me if started my abuse chalisa at a public palce. We found a way to even make fun of this seriousness of KAS- christening him chacha for his sobriety against our extravaganza of “I- don’t and won’t- give –a- fuck”.
We were not being wrong- we were being our age, enjoying the autonomy from the supervision of our family, doing as our heart pleased. He was not wrong- he conducted and still conducts himself with the typical responsibility of a middle class Indian Child.( Or Maybe he was also behaving his age? :P Sorry Akhislesh couldn't resist the joke- it was on. :P)
Anyways, so my first impulse was to ridicule each and every question of the form with all the skill that I had gathered in those four years of learning. An impulse which was more of a hangover of the perpetual inebriation of NIT JSR in which the sole moto of everything that you do is “Not- a-fuck-shall-be-given”.
In fact till now I have done that- these MBA Guys keep giving you link for their online surveys- Sachin, Sahu, Auddy and Prabal- if you have read the reults of your online surveys you gave me to fill- I have done serious fuckjob with answers given the anonymity online surveys offer :P
But just as I was about to act on that first impulse- I read the complete form. The part of the form other than the 3 questions I was supposed to fill. It was an actual form. Something serious from the real life that we are all part of. If I fucked with it, he would just have filled something sensible in it and sent it on his own and not been a part of the joke. He would probably not even have laughed- maybe he’d have been frustrated if I did that.
As soon as I realised that it was a responsibility of behaving like a grown man that I was trusted with- that I am supposed to give real life serious meaningful and truthful answers to the questions, I had a sinking feeling. Like some ball had been dropped in my stomach.
I have had this sinking feeling earlier too- when Rajath got married. Then also, I had felt the ball dropping in my stomach. The feeling of finally having grown up. But that was a happy occasion. There was another emotion of being firecly happy for him which probably overtook the sinking feeling. Whatever small intensity of sinking feeling remained- I drwoned it in Rum and Whiskey with Prashant and Rajath.
But today the magnitude of the sinking feeling is much higher. The mass of the ball dropped in the stomach is multiple times more than that time. And I am sitting here alone- We can’t drown anything in Rum and Whiskey on our own. We need the comforting company of friends to crack all those sex jokes that only we laughed at and to let that river of profanities flow.
As I realise that I can’t even drown anything in ethanol on my own… the feeling worsens.
I slowly accept that I have grown up and I have to be responsible.
When one said “Abe pyas lagi hai bohot”, a dear friend’s favorite response used to be “ Haan Muh Khol abhi pilata hoon pani”. I have come to realise that such jokes can’t be craked now. They are history.
If today I go to the very same dear friend and say “abe pyaas lagi hai bahut”, he’d probably qietly go to fridge and give me a bottle of water.
Maybe once in a year or two when few of us Get us and rivers of Ethanol flow… we’ll help ourselves to a few of these- feasting hungrily on the small Joys that these Jokes give. Laughing on punches that none on planet earth other than we people will laugh on.
This sinking feeling is an acceptance of the three and half year long denial of the fact that the days of perpetual inebriation on “i-don’t-give-a-fuck” have ended. ‘A fuck’ has to be given as many times as it is asked for… Maybe it’s for good that I have finally realised this.