Ek. Ek se bhale Do.
Okay, I guess it's time to let the cat out of the bag.
For this one thing, I have not been honest with anybody who's not family throughout my life. One thing? This gets ironic!
*clears throat* Here's the thing: Educationally, life has been a breeze for me simply because I have never had to do any of my stuff alone. Never.
(I say educationally because, till a year ago, education pretty much defined all goals and aspirations in life)
I'd like to introduce you to my fraternal twin brother: Arun.
These photographs were taken on our recent trip to Gujarat.
You see, throughout school, Arun and I would interchange.
When we began school, we already had one elder brother halfway through school. My parents could not afford to pay for schooling for the both of us. So Dad hit upon the plan of enrolling one brother (as it turned out, that was me) while allowing both of us to get educated.
It worked pretty well in my first school until a random home visit by the class teacher spoiled the party. A quick change of schools was made -- this time, we (sic, as only I, again, was enrolled to that school) were to go to a hostel in Andhra Pradesh. Things became slightly easier: We would switch at term breaks or whenever (thankfully) one of us fell sick. We were never found out there.
When "we" got out of that hostel, "we" attended another two years (by now, we had to do it all in my name) in another day school in Chennai. This time, Dad picked a school in faraway Adyar to ensure no random home visits from teachers. Here, we were found out only by a couple of classmates - who, luckily, swore themselves to secrecy. It's time to lighten their burden now, I guess. Anyways, to all the The Schoolers here - this is why I had chicken pox one day in school but was back free of boils the next (I had the pox, Arun attended in my stead). This is why I would sometimes ride a bike to school and sometimes took the bus (Arun can't ride a bike to save his life! Even now). Most importantly, this is why some days I'd be as blind as a bat without my spectacles and some days I (Arun) would do fine without them.
College was a super-breeze. Neither of us ever attended. Nobody even suspected. Yes, there was this day when both of us turned up at the same time. Thankfully, we saw each other before anybody who recognised "us" did. We did do a Sholay-type toss to see who would stay. Goddamned Arun always had luck when it came to gambling.
And then, the final and toughest journey of "our" education - the hallowed halls of a B-School. It was amusing that the management did not pick up on the fact that Karan Shah gave his interview in Mumbai on the same day on which he was giving his GD in Chennai. Anyways, one of us must have done a good job; since "Karan Shah" was admitted later that year.
Once we started, things were tough! I went fully prepared in the first term - with a mini digicam and all! I would have had about 4 snaps of each of the people present there: seniors, peers, faculty, security guards; you name it, I had a brief collection of headshots of all of them. I even went up to each and every person and got to know their name, their degree and where they were from. By the end of the term, I had a brief dossier on all the people Arun would have to interact with and a few lines on those he might never even talk to.
He was to attend the second term. I stayed back in Calicut for the term break, ostensibly to do some "Student Council work", while I coached Arun (at an aunt's house in the same city) on who was what. Studies-wise, well, Arun was always God there -- he didn't have to struggle much. The transition was pretty smooth.
He stayed there the last two terms of the first year. The first term of the second year, it was my turn to attend. This is one place where we were nearly found out -- because, by this time, I'd lost like 10kgs at a time when Arun had gained a little. Almost everybody was wonderstruck as to how "Karan" lost so much weight in the span of two months. This ribcage t-shirt I had at the time did not make things any easier.
Anyhow, the second year went without a hitch. The more confident Arun sat for campus placements and got "Karan" a decent job.
He continues at this job -- corporates never interested me. We are both currently in Bangalore. I am working on Dad's business here - we deal in granite consumables and Bangalore is a ripe market. I do visit Arun's office on and off in his stead to see how things are; never let him work at my job, though.
Given how our education has gone, we both have the same email ids and messenger ids and the same journal; all in my name. This is why email glitches (same message sent twice, two emails with conflicting messages being sent one after the other, etc.) happen a lot with emails coming from my ID. As for the journal, it's pretty much only me that updates. I do voice Arun's thoughts once in a while, though.
So why do I divulge this today? Well, let's just say that it's getting tiresome - hiding from everyone. We have both agreed that this is the best way to lead an open life; a life unlike that of Anne Frank.
So we'd like to apologise to all those people we have deceived; to all the people we burdened with our secrets and to all the people who are going to be furious with this deception. Sorry. Wont happen again.
[ Next post ]: How one goes about trying to pull off one motherlode of an April Fools hoax.
For this one thing, I have not been honest with anybody who's not family throughout my life. One thing? This gets ironic!
*clears throat* Here's the thing: Educationally, life has been a breeze for me simply because I have never had to do any of my stuff alone. Never.
(I say educationally because, till a year ago, education pretty much defined all goals and aspirations in life)
I'd like to introduce you to my fraternal twin brother: Arun.
These photographs were taken on our recent trip to Gujarat.
You see, throughout school, Arun and I would interchange.
When we began school, we already had one elder brother halfway through school. My parents could not afford to pay for schooling for the both of us. So Dad hit upon the plan of enrolling one brother (as it turned out, that was me) while allowing both of us to get educated.
It worked pretty well in my first school until a random home visit by the class teacher spoiled the party. A quick change of schools was made -- this time, we (sic, as only I, again, was enrolled to that school) were to go to a hostel in Andhra Pradesh. Things became slightly easier: We would switch at term breaks or whenever (thankfully) one of us fell sick. We were never found out there.
When "we" got out of that hostel, "we" attended another two years (by now, we had to do it all in my name) in another day school in Chennai. This time, Dad picked a school in faraway Adyar to ensure no random home visits from teachers. Here, we were found out only by a couple of classmates - who, luckily, swore themselves to secrecy. It's time to lighten their burden now, I guess. Anyways, to all the The Schoolers here - this is why I had chicken pox one day in school but was back free of boils the next (I had the pox, Arun attended in my stead). This is why I would sometimes ride a bike to school and sometimes took the bus (Arun can't ride a bike to save his life! Even now). Most importantly, this is why some days I'd be as blind as a bat without my spectacles and some days I (Arun) would do fine without them.
College was a super-breeze. Neither of us ever attended. Nobody even suspected. Yes, there was this day when both of us turned up at the same time. Thankfully, we saw each other before anybody who recognised "us" did. We did do a Sholay-type toss to see who would stay. Goddamned Arun always had luck when it came to gambling.
And then, the final and toughest journey of "our" education - the hallowed halls of a B-School. It was amusing that the management did not pick up on the fact that Karan Shah gave his interview in Mumbai on the same day on which he was giving his GD in Chennai. Anyways, one of us must have done a good job; since "Karan Shah" was admitted later that year.
Once we started, things were tough! I went fully prepared in the first term - with a mini digicam and all! I would have had about 4 snaps of each of the people present there: seniors, peers, faculty, security guards; you name it, I had a brief collection of headshots of all of them. I even went up to each and every person and got to know their name, their degree and where they were from. By the end of the term, I had a brief dossier on all the people Arun would have to interact with and a few lines on those he might never even talk to.
He was to attend the second term. I stayed back in Calicut for the term break, ostensibly to do some "Student Council work", while I coached Arun (at an aunt's house in the same city) on who was what. Studies-wise, well, Arun was always God there -- he didn't have to struggle much. The transition was pretty smooth.
He stayed there the last two terms of the first year. The first term of the second year, it was my turn to attend. This is one place where we were nearly found out -- because, by this time, I'd lost like 10kgs at a time when Arun had gained a little. Almost everybody was wonderstruck as to how "Karan" lost so much weight in the span of two months. This ribcage t-shirt I had at the time did not make things any easier.
Anyhow, the second year went without a hitch. The more confident Arun sat for campus placements and got "Karan" a decent job.
He continues at this job -- corporates never interested me. We are both currently in Bangalore. I am working on Dad's business here - we deal in granite consumables and Bangalore is a ripe market. I do visit Arun's office on and off in his stead to see how things are; never let him work at my job, though.
Given how our education has gone, we both have the same email ids and messenger ids and the same journal; all in my name. This is why email glitches (same message sent twice, two emails with conflicting messages being sent one after the other, etc.) happen a lot with emails coming from my ID. As for the journal, it's pretty much only me that updates. I do voice Arun's thoughts once in a while, though.
So why do I divulge this today? Well, let's just say that it's getting tiresome - hiding from everyone. We have both agreed that this is the best way to lead an open life; a life unlike that of Anne Frank.
So we'd like to apologise to all those people we have deceived; to all the people we burdened with our secrets and to all the people who are going to be furious with this deception. Sorry. Wont happen again.
[ Next post ]: How one goes about trying to pull off one motherlode of an April Fools hoax.