Anand Baitule

John. These days whenever this word comes to our mind, we instantly tend to relate it to John Abraham; the bollywood hunk. But, it is not the case with the Friend Circle. Whenever we hear the word John, there is only one person that comes to our minds. Ladies and Gentlemen, it is none other than Anand (a.k.a) John Baitule. Now if you ask me why Anand got this name, I would probably give you a terribly sarcastic look or maybe just laugh at your foolishness and maybe even slap you (unless you are an absolutely stunning girl, that is). So if you are a girl and I haven’t slapped you on this question, you can thank me for the compliment.

Throughout the Friend Circle you might have found a plethora of adjectives that I have used while describing my friends. But the personality in concern is way too complicated to be described by mere adjectives. I wish English could be as complex as some of John’s ideologies. (Guys I might refer to Anand as John, Sarkar, Ghalib and Jonny according to my wish with the first 2 being christened by my dear Asu and the last 2 terms coined by the author of this blog ;))

Jonny was the first real friend that I remember to have had in my life. I was introduced to him much much before the other guys in the circle. He was my bench partner through the most part of my schooling days. I remember we clicked as friends instantly with similar likings like Cricket and sports in general. We have shared some unforgettable days in school and played quite a lot of pranks ourselves. Of course our mediocre pranks would invariably be overshadowed by the big daddy of all pranksters Piyush. Still I remember some distinctly, like the Black Magic prank we played with Padmanabh Kullarvar. I won’t write about it much but would like to mention that this prank might be the reason he left Somalwar School.

I also remember how we made a lot of money in the Annual fete that was organized in our school in the 8th standard by creating a game that had, well, a healthy 10% chance of winning (for the players of course). I believe we had both earned some 60 Rs. per head and trust me, we felt rich.

Coming back to the present tense, John is still a Best Friend and always will be.

This person can be called as the Rule Creator. The only person authorized to break his rules (well no prizes for guessing) is himself. He has this habit of saying “Aisa Nai Raita” and then after he has to break his rules, he simply says “Kabhi Kabhi Aisa karna padta”.

He is a self proclaimed fitness freak and claims to be healthier than most of us (me included). He always has this condescending tone whenever we discuss physical fitness. Now what reality speaks is already known to the people who have reached this far in reading this post. The growing size of his tummy seems to be a concern for all his well wishers, but he claims to shed it off in a month or two as usual. Maybe he is just referring to some 2 months in the past or the ones coming after 30 years. I wish they come a bit earlier.

He has this knack of using one liners wherever possible (If the situation is unsuitable then he would not change his line, but change the situation to suit his one liner and then blurt it out). I’ve recently heard that he wanted to use a one liner “Mai bhi yahi chahta hu” (taken from his bible – The script of the movie - Sarkar) so desperately that he had to break off from a friendly relation with a girl so that he could use this line.

Since the time we have seen the movie Sarkar, we have started calling John, well, Sarkar. Only some of us are lucky enough to find this gem in his one Liner delivering mood and trust me nothing could be funnier. He gets an adrenaline rush as soon as he hears a single word of praise, more precisely – “Ek Number Sarkar”.

Some of Sarkar’s hobbies (I mean apart from intense physical fitness) include home maintenance, cooking, watching Sarkar, chatting on the phone with his buddies(only in Airtel happy hours ;)), sleeping, changing careers, meeting accidents on his bike, going on multiple first dates, etc… the list goes on and on.

One of his important idiosyncrasies is the use of the Urdu language when you least expect it. He must have used some high funda urdu shers even while taking milk from his Doodhwalla in the morning.I can bet my money on this. He has a sincere feeling that all females are smitten by Urdu Shayari and they tend to be attracted towards the Shayar. Whether this is a truth or just his wish is a matter of speculation. By the way I don’t see myself indulging in Shayari while talking to any good looking female anytime soon, but that’s entirely my opinion. I won’t mind using this technique of our desi Ghalib if it’s proved to be successful.

All I can say is that come what may, I will always stand by my dearest friend Jonny in all his good and bad times and I wish there are none of the latter type.

I would like to sum up this post with one of John’s favorite Shers-

Tujhko dariya dil ki kasam,
Sakiya mushakkil daur par daur chalta rahe,
Mehfile maikeda rang yunhi sajta rahe,
Ek girta rahe ek sambhalta rahe,
Ashq chashme purnab se behta rahe,
Aur dil se dhua yuhi nikalta rahe,
Tere chehre par ye zulfe bikhri rahe,
Aur neend ki god me subah yuhi nikharti rahe,
Aur ye teri sitam aadaye…………hai,
Ye dil hai dil, kabtak sambhalta rahe.