Hari Ananthasesha Krishna Kumar Iyengar aka HAKKI, popularly known as Hucky, is from Delhi, studied B.Sc degree in botany from Hans Raj College, Delhi University. After graduating, he is footloose and fancy free, much to the consternation of his parents and the extended Tam-Brahm community who are pressuring him to join Defcoms.

Hucky joins Defcom in Bangalore, as it is the only “co-ed college of its kind. Allahabad and Calcutta only absorbed male candidates. Who’d like monasteries, dude?” After all it is possible to easily get “some stupid degree”, but he is more intent on looking for “the three F’s — Fun, Frolic, Freedom... but it was pretty difficult to add the world-famous fourth F to the list”. He is joined by a passing acquaintance from North Campus days, Sushil Solanki aka Solly. Within a few days, they decide to expand the “sphere of influence” to rope in five more guys into the fold—Mangy from Chandigarh, Rammy and Chopsy from Delhi, Dusty from 24 Paraganas and Shaky from Nainital. Naturally they require a hep name for the gang. Of the options being considered were Mad Maxers, Funky Towners, Seven Samurais, Brave Shaves, Gold Diggers, Lady Stylers, Lady Killers, and Style Gurus, finally settling on the Maniacs — a far cry from the Enid Blytonish name, Secret Seven, that was the first option.
The seven are ragged, including being told to “simulate a medical chair. You had to pretend you were sitting erect on an imaginary chair, making an exact right angle at your knees, with your arms stretched out in front of you for balance. Your thighs would be parallel to the floor; your erect spine would be perpendicular to the floor; and your mind would be wishing that your body were somewhere else.” Their motto is “Tora! Tora! Tora!” but like D’Artganan and his band of musketeers, the Maniacs firmly believe in “one for all, all for one”. They are sporting when it comes to being ragged, but they will not stand for any injustice. For instance with the arrival of the new dean, Maj. Gen. Yogesh Chandra Raheja, whose DNA seemed to have “percolated from illustrious ancestors like Hitler and Mussolini”, and his team, the new training officer, Lt. Col. Satyapaul Mishra and the new warden, Lt. Col. Rakesh Gupta, who seemed to be reincarnations of Himmler and Goebbels, the medical college was converted into a military garrison. The first fallout of this was the detention of Dusty as the authorities misinterpreted an incident with a girl. The injustice of the punishment prompts Dusty to take his own life and horrifies Rammy and Hukky that they take it up with the management — and get the required justice.
Campus Cola is a medical college campus novel with the classic plotlines of adjusting to a new institution, developing new relationships/friendships or their deterioration, including the trials and tribulations of Boy trying to meet a Girl — tough when the sex ratio on campus is askew, with the boys far outnumbering the girls. The Maniacs have sub-divided girls’ faces into four types: the Ecstasy (an ultra-beautiful girl you’d like to die for), the Happiness (beauty you’d like to meet often), the OK (the average babe you’d like to do pass-time with), and the Sadness (a girl you’d like to introduce to your worst enemy). N. Sampath Kumar has sharply, crisply and deftly defined insights into a young man’s world. It may have a veneer of false bravado, carefree existence and the young men are courageous about experimenting, whether it is in love, or with religion and even at the extreme, drugs as Solly did. Hucky meets his girlfriend and future wife, Ranjana, on campus, but not before he has also met Zeno, who runs a religious commune on the outskirts of the city, whose sane advice is that “learn to accept who you are” and “use your intelligence. If what I say doesn’t suit you, then drop what I said, but don’t drop your feelings. Remember always; Zeno could be wrong, but your intelligence and your heart can never be wrong.”
Campus Cola is comic, witty and laced with wry humour, but at the same time, sobering and reflective. Though this is not the author’s first novel, it seems as if there are autobiographical elements, judging by Hakki’s character, who like the author is a student of medicine and it is etched the best. Although Kumar genuflects in acknowledgment of the fact that “no book is ever complete without a physical description of the main characters,” it remains just there as most of the characters remain flat. A talented and perceptive writer like him could have done with good editorial support. For instance, editing the unnecessarily long sentences that make the reader breathless or the overuse of metaphors that mar an otherwise delightful story.

The writer is a publishing consultant and critic