James Bong - The Spy who Scrapped me

It was the summer of 03 when Jishnu banerjee aka JB first saw American Pie on his friend’s new PC . He had lied to his parents about going to Debashish’s house for studying. Debashish had lied to his parents about his stomach ache so as not to go on his parent’s trip to Digha. They were home alone and that only meant one thing, watching forbidden American movies. There were too afraid to ask the CD Rental guy for the real good stuff and no fun in Schwarzenegger movies now so they settled for the movie which would change his life, American Pie. While Debashish could only care about Shannon Elizabeth’s bare breasts JB saw the deeper meaning in the movie. It was not a teen – comedy, or love story or social commentary. It was but a Rallying cry for ‘every man who should be getting laid but isn’t’. It was a message for the involuntary celibates of the world to unite and fight for their right, that is sex. Of course it required some modifications for Indian Culture. Most kids around him didn’t even know what second base was, let alone been to it. Indian high schools were nothing like American high schools, there were no cheerleaders, everybody wore uniform, and only high point was when Mrs. Das looked down to correct the papers. But hope was around the corner. Across the corner lay short skirts, songs in the canteen, dances in basketball court, freedom or in other words College.

JB got into Jadavpur University, his dad’s dream or rather second dream, first was IIT Kharagpur. Though his dad was a little disappointed of him getting into Mechanical Engineering; according to him the real action lied in IT, he would soon realize that, but not in the sense his dad meant.

After 6 months of short hair, formals, dancing on ‘atariya pe lotan kaburtar’ and running around in his underwear finally he got to step into fabled hallows of the canteen. And it was nothing like he imagined, no girls in short skirts, no guys dancing on table tops, nobody sharing a cold drink with two straws. Instead there were girls with hairy arms, guys fighting over a piece of samosa and the fat canteen owner scratching his belly. This is not what he had hoped for, after finding out there was only 1 girl in all the 4 years of mechanical and she was a girl by a long stretch of imagination, all his hopes laid on the canteen and girls in the IT departments. All his dreams came crashing down, this seemed even worse than school, at least no one came to school in bathroom slippers. At that he moment he realized that there was no strip poker, no beer funnel, and no frat parties in store for him. And all the few girls that were there lay way out of his league and his social circles. Most of his time would be spent attending soporific lectures, drooling over Jenna Jameson and the company of his left hand. The world was a very dark place now.

But then came light in his dark world, the shining beacon in the place devoid of any hope, joy or coitus. Orkut. The story was that the guy created this site to meet his ex girl friend who was lost for 8 years. JB didn’t give a rat’s ass for whom and why, all he heard that there is where the hot girls of Calcutta were, posing in provocative poses and waiting for the right guy to seduce them. On Orkut you didn’t need a car, not even a bike to pick up a girl, money didn’t make your profile better and girls would never get to know if you stammer or spit when you talk. It was a level playing field; he was sure that god was out there somewhere, for nothing less divine could have made such a site. It was time to dig out his old e-mail address JB_007@hotmail.com which he had formed to ask his cousin studying in Texas to get him a cowboy hat, apparently the mail got lost before reaching him, as he never replied to him.

Project Orkut was initiated. He realized that his normal persona was not going to help him pick chicks, not in the real world, not online or alien. He needed a new personality, a character that was smooth yet restrained, cool yet sophisticated, someone who got all the women but wasn’t trying too hard. In short someone exact opposite to him. And this only meant one man, the legendary agent from MI- 6 with his numbers as 007. In his excitement he didn’t even notice the typo when he named his profile as JáMěs BōnG. It was now time to flesh out the rest of the profile. Of course he wasn’t actually in horse breeding and fast race cars but he would have been if he had the money. And of course he didn’t play polo and squash or was in body building but he would surely like to and he hadn’t read, War and Peace and all the 16 sonnets of Shakespeare but he would someday. Orkut was the place where you weren’t bogged down by your current circumstances and could be all that you aspired to be. The real tricky part was the ‘About Me’, this was like the heat tempered, 108° drill bit of the drill which would penetrate the material. So he decided to extra research on that finally he came with his masterpiece. If Mrs. Sequiera had seen this she would have surely kissed him, he mentally made a note of looking up for Mrs Sequiera or her even hotter daughter on Orkut. Here it was – 

Hello there cute and charming gals and girls

i would to u make new friend and im introducing about my self ..
Im a positively possessive attitude that fuels the undying zeal to work for broader prospects puts me where I am today. A young lad hailing from Asansol who has seen the dark side of the life only to light up the future. A man with proven track in intelligenze (I study in Jadavpur University, 1^st year B.E.) and dreaming of one day to have one my own software company. I like guns and fast cars and my Martini shaken not stirred.

By the bye my name is "Jishnu banerjee" with 18 ears of experience on the earth. I would like to make friendship with u if u are interested please add me or feel free to call..
Awaiting for your reply

P.S. - I wrote this 4 years back when Orkut was cooling down and the star of Facebook was rising. But today I thought what the hell and posted this. Coz I wanted to post something on my blog just for the heck of it. I had a whole series of these planned earlier ,  next one was - James Bong : From Calcutta with love.Might still do it if enough people 'Like' this.

And of course there was no intention of making fun of Bengalis (this time), but just James Bong rhymed with James Bond, so I'm sorry for doing this.

P.P.S - I plan to continue my 'Murder She Thought' Trilogy (ooh I love this word - Trilogy) but I'm stuck up on one plot point here and not able to resolve it. I will get back to it as soon as I do. Mental note to self - Get all these ready before you start writing a story and don't get ideas mid-way.