Memoirs of a Kone - Part I
This piece has been in pending for quite some time now as its already been more than 2 months since I have (under) graduated from iitg. This is intended as a retrospection of my 4 year undergraduate life.
It all started on a mid-summer afternoon when I entered into the iit campus at guwahati along with my mom and bro (dad had been away on official trip n couldn't make it). Like all others starry eyed teenagers present there I was nervous and excited at the same time. Will iit education change our lives? Is our future set and on the track ? Is IIT a myth or truth ?....countless such questions dogged us as we went through our initiation ceremony. After setting up the essentials my folks had left for home and I was all alone in a new world or was I !?
I had 4 friends from my junior college and another 3 (who were our seniors in our college but joined iit along with us) and so it was not difficult to start. Also, there was Prasanth aka Pressy (as he was popularly known), my high school mate. Our initial trip was a trek up the famed hill spot inside the campus where one can have a wonderful view of the beautiful (ah! i have to admit it finally) campus. All the first years were stationed in Dihing hostel with no seniors present to curb ragging. But as fate had it, I was digging my own pit ! We had an intra-iitg mailing system called pine (one of my favs in my iit life) where we had an option of sending an email to an entire batch or all batches as we please. As my innocuous brain conjured up a brilliant idea, I sent an email to all batches, including seniors !, stating "I am a freshman and I want to make friends. Anybody interested pls contact me ....". Till date I wonder two things 1) Who the fuck told me the alias of sending mail to all batches 2) Was I insane. Anyway, the second yearites smelt bold and the bakra was summoned. Though I had a few ragging experiences by then, they were relatively mild compared to this. First I was given an eye-opening sermon by a senior, on the nature of true friends and importance of family friends which I had to endure for a good 60 minutes. Then from 10 pm to 3 am I had to bore the brunt of a bunch of seniors, esp kiki n homo, who made me do all silly things till (to quote from my cousin's book) ' I unleashed my weapon.... tears' . Apparently kiki was infuriated that I wasn't practicing TableTennis (guess i made an impression during the TT tournament held for freshmen in the initial days) and told me to resume practice. He also ordered me to do 2 things, to send an email to the entire batch saying that I only want girl friends and to write 10 points on why I think I was handsome. It goes without saying, that his wishes were not fulfilled :)
First yearites in our college were like a pack of wolves when it came to attending classes and having meals. They used to flock class rooms a good half an hour before the scheduled time to grab the coveted first seats (though in later years the back seats became coveted). The bland meals of the hostel meals were not to spared either. My room, 57, was a hub during the initial years for all sort of activities, mainly during exams. To my one side was Jaini and to the other was Nune (we both spoke to him only after 1 month !!). Jaini was laid back n easy going whereas Nune was a kind of tutor for us during exams (he studied undergrad an year before he re-attempted JEE). Computer games became an obsession among the students and we spent all our free time scouting for free PCs in our computer center to play AOE, Quake etc....n ofcourse the adult content passed down as a legacy by our seniors. We had a semester system which was interspersed with vacations. The first vacation of one month in december, made us to stay at home for longer and the second one of three months in summer had us yearning to get bak to college. After the first 2 semesters the inevitable happened...the realization that grades aren't easy to come by had dawned upon us and the entras (the students from AP were called so) began herding together most of the times as a band of brothers.
Second year is the strangest time in an undergrad life...u feel liberated coz u r no longer a freshman ducking at the site of a senior, u can have the revenge on ur seniors by taking it on ur juniors :) and yet ur confused to understand the system. We had one other thing to look forward to in our second year. During our first year, some of the seniors had the pleasure to share a hostel, Manas, with the gals (as we had verrrry less ratio of gals they didn't have a separate hostel !!!). Many if not all were secretly hoping to land in that hostel by hook or crook. But as are the ways of fate, a new hostel was built entirely for gals in our second year and they were shifted. Thus we were deprived of the company of non-males (as they were called here for obvs reasons) for better or worse. Again all of us, second yearites, were put in Manas without any seniors. The turning point of my life happened during the initial days of second year. Studs who are in top 10% of their branch had an opportunity for branch change. As we were the first batch of bio-tech students in iitg I was eager to change to either to ece or cs. But I was standing 5th in a class of 20 after the end of 2 sems and clearly didn't stand a chance to branch change..only students had a chance to branch change in our bio-tech class. But miracles do happen...the first and third rankers didn't want to change branch as they liked biotech. So the 2nd and 4th rankers opted for a change and got ece and cs respectively. Now there was this pal from mech who was enamored by bio-tech and decided to opt for branch change to bio-tech from mech (many of us didn't undstand why). Anyway, as one outsider came to bio-tech , I got the chance to change branch and got Computer Science !!!. Even now I feel I was lucky to get CS branch and will never regret that decision. I love CS :)
Unlike in first year, most of the classes of students of different branches were different. Core courses were started and I had the first touch of computer science. For whatever reason, I couldn't cope with the course load in the 3rd sem and my grade point average dipped. The 4th sem was a nightmare for the CS guys...we had this hardware lab where we were supposed to build a raw CPU.
The effort put was no match for the low credits allotted to it. Finally our group couldn't make the CPU working on time, and we borrowed the CPU of another group and showed it to the instructor (yeah...it was total fraud). Surprisingly we got 10/10 in that course where as the group from which we borrowed the CPU got 9/10 !! But again logic takes a back seat sometimes in iit.
Forgot to mention about the festivals in our iit. The cultural fest Alcheringa and the technical fest Techniche were quite famous in the north-east region. Alcheringa became a hunting ground for the desperadoes among us. As the chics from the NE region flocked the campus, the iit guys bored with the chics inside the campus preyed upon them. Many of the liaisons were abruptly cut short after the end of the festival, which was held for 3 days but some them gingerly clinged upon their catch. The good thing was, it brought out the talents of the studs as it was totally organized by the students right from getting the sponsors, publicizing the event in local colleges and organizing events. The best Alcher we had was in the first year where we had a rock show by Brahma and an eastern music show by Euphoria. Though Techniche was not held at as big a scale as Alcher, nonetheless it had its share of followers who were determined to show their technical skills. We also had an intra-iit festival called Manthan where all the batches used to compete with each other (which later was competed among hostels) in various cultural and sport events. This list would be incomplete, if I don't mention the two sporting events we had Inter-IIT sports meet and Spirit - NE sports meet. It was a welcome relief from the mundane routine of the college and all the pupils looked forward to it enthusiastically (though the enthu slowly died with years).
I would cut this blog here before it becomes any longer......I will be writing another blog about our effervescent third year and happy-go-lucky fourth year...So long
It all started on a mid-summer afternoon when I entered into the iit campus at guwahati along with my mom and bro (dad had been away on official trip n couldn't make it). Like all others starry eyed teenagers present there I was nervous and excited at the same time. Will iit education change our lives? Is our future set and on the track ? Is IIT a myth or truth ?....countless such questions dogged us as we went through our initiation ceremony. After setting up the essentials my folks had left for home and I was all alone in a new world or was I !?
I had 4 friends from my junior college and another 3 (who were our seniors in our college but joined iit along with us) and so it was not difficult to start. Also, there was Prasanth aka Pressy (as he was popularly known), my high school mate. Our initial trip was a trek up the famed hill spot inside the campus where one can have a wonderful view of the beautiful (ah! i have to admit it finally) campus. All the first years were stationed in Dihing hostel with no seniors present to curb ragging. But as fate had it, I was digging my own pit ! We had an intra-iitg mailing system called pine (one of my favs in my iit life) where we had an option of sending an email to an entire batch or all batches as we please. As my innocuous brain conjured up a brilliant idea, I sent an email to all batches, including seniors !, stating "I am a freshman and I want to make friends. Anybody interested pls contact me ....". Till date I wonder two things 1) Who the fuck told me the alias of sending mail to all batches 2) Was I insane. Anyway, the second yearites smelt bold and the bakra was summoned. Though I had a few ragging experiences by then, they were relatively mild compared to this. First I was given an eye-opening sermon by a senior, on the nature of true friends and importance of family friends which I had to endure for a good 60 minutes. Then from 10 pm to 3 am I had to bore the brunt of a bunch of seniors, esp kiki n homo, who made me do all silly things till (to quote from my cousin's book) ' I unleashed my weapon.... tears' . Apparently kiki was infuriated that I wasn't practicing TableTennis (guess i made an impression during the TT tournament held for freshmen in the initial days) and told me to resume practice. He also ordered me to do 2 things, to send an email to the entire batch saying that I only want girl friends and to write 10 points on why I think I was handsome. It goes without saying, that his wishes were not fulfilled :)
First yearites in our college were like a pack of wolves when it came to attending classes and having meals. They used to flock class rooms a good half an hour before the scheduled time to grab the coveted first seats (though in later years the back seats became coveted). The bland meals of the hostel meals were not to spared either. My room, 57, was a hub during the initial years for all sort of activities, mainly during exams. To my one side was Jaini and to the other was Nune (we both spoke to him only after 1 month !!). Jaini was laid back n easy going whereas Nune was a kind of tutor for us during exams (he studied undergrad an year before he re-attempted JEE). Computer games became an obsession among the students and we spent all our free time scouting for free PCs in our computer center to play AOE, Quake etc....n ofcourse the adult content passed down as a legacy by our seniors. We had a semester system which was interspersed with vacations. The first vacation of one month in december, made us to stay at home for longer and the second one of three months in summer had us yearning to get bak to college. After the first 2 semesters the inevitable happened...the realization that grades aren't easy to come by had dawned upon us and the entras (the students from AP were called so) began herding together most of the times as a band of brothers.
Second year is the strangest time in an undergrad life...u feel liberated coz u r no longer a freshman ducking at the site of a senior, u can have the revenge on ur seniors by taking it on ur juniors :) and yet ur confused to understand the system. We had one other thing to look forward to in our second year. During our first year, some of the seniors had the pleasure to share a hostel, Manas, with the gals (as we had verrrry less ratio of gals they didn't have a separate hostel !!!). Many if not all were secretly hoping to land in that hostel by hook or crook. But as are the ways of fate, a new hostel was built entirely for gals in our second year and they were shifted. Thus we were deprived of the company of non-males (as they were called here for obvs reasons) for better or worse. Again all of us, second yearites, were put in Manas without any seniors. The turning point of my life happened during the initial days of second year. Studs who are in top 10% of their branch had an opportunity for branch change. As we were the first batch of bio-tech students in iitg I was eager to change to either to ece or cs. But I was standing 5th in a class of 20 after the end of 2 sems and clearly didn't stand a chance to branch change..only students had a chance to branch change in our bio-tech class. But miracles do happen...the first and third rankers didn't want to change branch as they liked biotech. So the 2nd and 4th rankers opted for a change and got ece and cs respectively. Now there was this pal from mech who was enamored by bio-tech and decided to opt for branch change to bio-tech from mech (many of us didn't undstand why). Anyway, as one outsider came to bio-tech , I got the chance to change branch and got Computer Science !!!. Even now I feel I was lucky to get CS branch and will never regret that decision. I love CS :)
Unlike in first year, most of the classes of students of different branches were different. Core courses were started and I had the first touch of computer science. For whatever reason, I couldn't cope with the course load in the 3rd sem and my grade point average dipped. The 4th sem was a nightmare for the CS guys...we had this hardware lab where we were supposed to build a raw CPU.
The effort put was no match for the low credits allotted to it. Finally our group couldn't make the CPU working on time, and we borrowed the CPU of another group and showed it to the instructor (yeah...it was total fraud). Surprisingly we got 10/10 in that course where as the group from which we borrowed the CPU got 9/10 !! But again logic takes a back seat sometimes in iit.
Forgot to mention about the festivals in our iit. The cultural fest Alcheringa and the technical fest Techniche were quite famous in the north-east region. Alcheringa became a hunting ground for the desperadoes among us. As the chics from the NE region flocked the campus, the iit guys bored with the chics inside the campus preyed upon them. Many of the liaisons were abruptly cut short after the end of the festival, which was held for 3 days but some them gingerly clinged upon their catch. The good thing was, it brought out the talents of the studs as it was totally organized by the students right from getting the sponsors, publicizing the event in local colleges and organizing events. The best Alcher we had was in the first year where we had a rock show by Brahma and an eastern music show by Euphoria. Though Techniche was not held at as big a scale as Alcher, nonetheless it had its share of followers who were determined to show their technical skills. We also had an intra-iit festival called Manthan where all the batches used to compete with each other (which later was competed among hostels) in various cultural and sport events. This list would be incomplete, if I don't mention the two sporting events we had Inter-IIT sports meet and Spirit - NE sports meet. It was a welcome relief from the mundane routine of the college and all the pupils looked forward to it enthusiastically (though the enthu slowly died with years).
I would cut this blog here before it becomes any longer......I will be writing another blog about our effervescent third year and happy-go-lucky fourth year...So long
