It is with the greatest delight that we bring to you the wildest animal in btech96, the Mankee! The only good thing about Mankee is that he co-founded M&D with Dumir. Mayank Sharma, affectionately called Mankee or Manku, is about to get a taste of his own medicine.
This balding, starved and miserable Somalian has the appetite of a pig but nothing to show for it. He is right now visiting AIIMS in the hope that some doctor will be able to add something to his bones, otherwise he will not last longer than two months – he has been advised to eat well and sleep well for atleast the next 2-3 months (you will see a flurry of activity on the part of M&D to be able to complete the caricatures before Mankee is no more). But we must go back to be able to explain the appearance of this animal in our batch.
Earliest memory of Mankee is when he was doubled over after he got a gentle tap in his belly from Dumir (actually the number of times this has happened over the years is too large to narrate individual incidents). This miserable bag of bones would fly away if it weren’t for the clothes he wears. Unfortunately to add to his health problems is the fact that he is everyone’s favourite punching bag – just about anybody can come and slap Mankee any number of times (including Kailashites!!).
One of the most decent Maddu’s in the batch he cancels that off by also being a Kumaonite (the slightest mention of which gets him more senti than even a gentle tap in his stomach). He is in the same league as the Pseud when it comes to taking things in his stride – except that in his case the number of times he is the butt of jokes or gets taken for a ride is far too many.
Mankee’s presence always leads to some jokes – especially when Vaish starts picking on him. The Parantha [TM] Server got booted out of the server room when the SysAds removed X-Windows from bahar (Mankee believes it was a conspiracy to chuck him out because he had stopped processing their (parantha) requests). There was a suggestion to install a Biscuit Server in place of the obsolete, worthless and defunct Parantha Server. The fear of losing The Mankee earlier than the 2 months lead Dumir to veto the proposal (The Mankee is still good as a typist and CEO of M&D
even though his contributions in recent times have been declining rather sharply – come to think of it one can’t remember any contribution except the M&D History and the Homepage).
Think of a homepage and one immediately thinks of Mankee – for if he has done one thing in IIT it is make the most obscene, worthless and downright disgusting homepages and being Mankee he never got paid for it except once (and that led to the “Bakra #1 Munish Singla” incident). Despite the amount of time he spends on his homepages he can’t even get the spelling of most things right (just last week Dumir pointed out nearly a dozen spelling errors in Mankee’s own page which is over a year old!!).
When it comes to acads Mankee is even worse than his homepages. He does everything but get marks in exams. His attempts at becoming a fighter and doing well all seem to fall flat on his face. Perhaps he is the opposite of the Pseud in this matter – a genuine fighter, who does all his assignments, tries to avoid copying and generally sticks to the truth (no matter what Dumir wants to write Mankee always steps in when things go too far!). It is ironical that whoever Mankee partners with he generally ends up doing all the assignments and work and even then ends up a lesser grade than his partner (we remind our readers of the Pseud-Qabutar-ADA incident in which Mankee did the assignment, the Pseud gave the demo and so Mankee got the 8.5 marks he needed to pass – if he had given the demo himself then he would have told Qabutar what all he hasn’t done and might have spent atleast the summer here).
Actually come to think of it the Pseud and the Mankee are opposites in every sense. While one is polished and smooth the other is crude, unkempt and generally dirty. While the Pseud impresses everyone he meets the Mankee would have had a tough time getting recos (if he hadn’t gotten a miserable 2070 (GRE) in true Mankee tradition, he would have applied). Mankee points out that Khan got 2060 – imagine the audacity of this creature, comparing himself with the great Khan. While the Pseud is a success at whatever he does, our poor little Mankee is going to join Aditi
and write manuals for Microsoft (hopefully they’ll be better than his homepages). Interestingly however the Pseud and the Mankee resemble each other enormously (please look at some interesting batch photographs on the Yearbook where both are performing their best tricks).
Well that brings us back to the fact that Mankee is always at the receiving end – whether it be bumps or brickbats, he takes them all like a kid takes a spanking (with a silent whimper but shuts up so that he doesn’t get more). There is always something amiss in Mankee’s life – from acads to homepages (without payment of course) to girls, Mankee has it tough. Unfortunately Mankee meets the women in his life either on chat or through crank calls (just for clarity Mankee doesn’t have the guts to make crank calls).
The first lady Mankee would have liked to run into but only talked to was Shilpi, when the lady made a crank call to his hostel and Mankee happened to pick up the phone. She called up off and on for about a couple of months (by which time Mankee was totally in love with her voice). Alas she soon found something better to do in her free time and stopped calling our Hero (hiralal).
The second lady, Renu was someone Mankee met while chatting (she picked him up – Mankee s**la gadha itna bhi nahin kar sakta). She was a Mumbaite so Mankee just happened to choose Pune over B’lore for his summer training (the things people do for bandis!). He actually went to Mumbai to meet her and got the bandi scolded by Harshal’s (fellow Kumaonite) mom who greets him with the taunt that even before you came your “girlfriends” have started calling (auntiji aap ke mun main ghee shakar – but alas Mankee is Mankee). Mankee did manage to meet the lady twice (the second time she came over to Pune!). But then again Mankee showed his true colors and our Hero (hiralal) never heard from her again.
But if you thought that was bad Mankee outdid himself on the “Blind Date”. This time it was Shivani (which Mankee remembers by the song – “Aiee Shivani” from Khubsoorat) whom he met while chatting (when will he grow up?). This time Mankee took only one day to impress the girl. She took his phone number but Mankee knew she wouldn’t call (the experienced fellow that he is, he can feel these things). But Mankee’s experience proved wrong (not once but twice), she did call up and fixed a rendezvous at PVR the next day (how romantic (sic)). She was to recognize him by a Reebok cap (that Mankee went searching through the hostel to get) but of course the intelligent chap that he is he knew nothing by which he could recognize her. So the next day Mankee was on cloud nine (with dreams in his heart (sic)) loafing around PVR waiting for his princess to come (into his arms?). As you must have guessed by now she didn’t turn up (or if she did she took one look at our poor little Hero (hiralal) (looking rather silly in his borrowed cap) and decided to watch the movie alone).
To do Mankee a favour we will now write a little about Mankee as a person and a friend but if Mankee were a person then he wouldn’t be Mankee. So maybe we can still write about Mankee as a friend. Mankee is one of those poor lost souls who believes the world is a nice place and a friend is a friend. Little does he realise that in this cut-throat world the only definition of friendship that has meaning is – you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours (which in Mankee’s case usually means he ends up doing all the scratching). But jokes apart Mankee is truly a nice guy (and we mean that with all the sarcasm possible). If you don’t believe us – imagine who else could possible sit through and help write his own character sketch especially one which mocks him through and through. That then dear friends is our dear (soon to be departed) Mankee. (Mankee sheds a few crocodile tears after having forced this para out of Dumir).
M&D sees Mankee sitting alone and lonely somewhere in the MS headquarters debugging as he continues chatting with the latest lady-love in his life. Mankee will continue to try to be friendly and nice where no one gives a damn (about him or his niceties) and will remain one heck of a jerk (albeit a bald one).
M&D