Everybody loves Kesavan

This post is about a fellow named Kesavan whose genius for wit is almost unparalleled. Kesavan visited me and Sree on 31 Dec 2004 at my Sister's home in Chicago. We were meeting after April 2000.

Kesavan refers himself as K7 after the Super-Spy 007. Very few people I have met or listened to, had his timing and ability to make a witty comment instantaneously. Though his detractors do not think he is that good and call him Kosavan. I am an unabashed admirer of his brand of comedy and it was refreshing to see that he has not changed one bit over the last 4 years.

There are many incidents which were hilarious but nothing tops the following incident with his unfortunate sidekick Hariharan. A word about Hari, he always had knack of wrong side of the practical jokes prepetrated by K7. To be fair, Hari was not as bad as the greatest scapegoat of all Gudi. Hopefully I will one day post a blog on Tiger Gudi.

This particular incident happened when Mama, Jagan, K7, Hari were going to an exhibition in the VOC Park. These four were the original Thunderboyz who lost the thunder as they expanded in the final year. I have not introduced Jagan and Mama yet. Jagan has become Jack Lee and he maintains a pretty interesting blog. Joseph Langton Naveen was called Mama because of his நாரதர் (Naradar) like mentality. He was interested in creating trouble and unlike Naradar he never ventured to solve them. So he was named மாமா (Mama).

On that fateful day, some of the girls from our class boarded the bus. Hari as usual wanted to put some படம் (padam) in front of girls. He wanted to show off his foot board skills to the girls. Since Mama was a rotund figure (at that time) he disappeared deep into the bus but not before being humiliated by Hari by the following immortal lines,

நிக்கிற பஸ்ல ஏற மாட்டோம்
நிக்கிற பஸ்ல இறங்க மாட்டோம்

which roughly translates to ``We won't get in or get out of a standing bus''. Fate as usual frowned upon Hari for this rude gesture and taught him a lesson in the next stop. The foot boarders usually start to get in as the bus starts moving, this time Hari couldn't get his timing right. K7 had got it right and extended his hand to Hari. Now a pure K7 magic moment.

As bus started gaining momentum he held Hari's hand tightly and made Hari run as fast as he could. Poor Hari who by now had realized that he is not going to make it to footboard starts begging K7 to let him go. Jagan who watched this says that Hari's eyes had the look of the man who had seen the ghost. K7 let him go after a few more agonizing moments. Few moments for us but an eternity for poor Hari. Jagan can help us filling in some of the missing details and what happened next to our poor Hari after they got back to the hostel

The other incident shows the little known facet of the multi-talented K7. K7 for all his comic genius was a real good student. He had misfortune of having Ghazanavi type reputation at the interviews. His legend spread so far and wide that most of the college knew his name though not his face. By attending so many interviews he attained proficiency in all the subjects we were supposed to learn but never did in our bachelors.

So proficient was he that our mutual friend Babu said he was the most complete Electrical Engineer he had seen in his life. Babu had been a colleague of K7 at his first company Dishnet.
K7 after 6 months got an interview call from CTS and he has been there ever since.

I met Babu once on a train and he told me that I must feel proud to to have known K7. True.
It is real privilege to have known this wonderful guy.

The title Everybody loves Kesavan was inspired by Everybody loves Raymond and it was suggested by Sree. Why did this title come up in the first place? Hopefully there will be an another post explaining that!

As a postscript, Mama has reduced his girth while Hari has compensated by increasing his!