Life in the fast lane

I am not going to repeat another Chetan Bhagat kind of story. This blog is meant to recollect the four beautiful years which I spent in IT-BHU’s lush green campus and I am confident that it will remind your college days. I also had a small mischievous coterie but that will form another story which will be told later.

When you qualify the JEE, everything surrounding you seems to change.
People who doesn’t even know you properly start linking

“arre woh mera chota bhai hai…”
“I have known him since he started peeing!!”
“He was a very good student…I taught him in second standard…”

One of my neighbors whose window’s glass I broke from ball was caught saying
“Arre bada achcha ladka tha”..though he was pissed off from me everytime I sneaked past him.

A kind of prejudice subsides inside you and at the same time you start doubting yourself that how you will cope up in all elite company only. With these known fears, I entered into the hostel along with my father. After parents left us in this new world ,ragging was on full flow and it’s inappropriate to discuss all the nuisances of it here. You got to smoke at least once….just to show the seniors….you had to remember Institute chorus (pretty distorted song) and if you miss a single line, you got to repeat that. Once ,I was about to break when one of ‘em asked me to smell a whitish thing which he called “cocaine”, which turned out to be Nycil powder ….Ragging continued even in class to make Mama’s boys and Pop’s girls(Sadly only two) smarter….even teachers encouraged that!

Those days were nightmares as we were supposed to sleep with shoes on .And few smart guys were caught by damn smart seniors at 3 AM and alongwith them, all of us were punished…and those blokes who hesitated to get naked inside bathroom became so frank within few days that one call from seniors was enough to make a bogey…with no piece of cloth on body. All kind of weirdest things were mandatory to be performed and in true sense, ragging got some of the guys I know pretty close
forever, for whatsoever reasons. I am sure most of you have gone through this phase. Please refer Chetan Bhagat’s novel ….

Once ragging phase was over, guys from all over India started mingling with each other. They were all kinds of chaps….some were simply geeks, few were work horses while most of them were above average….but each one of them had some talent.

We used to dance and sing together during evening and it used to be first year guys only who had the maximum fun. I wondered why only first year…only to get answer in the next year. Room mates who shared same interests came closer and they are now friends for the lifetime. Luckily my mate was also a big fan of Jagjeet Singh…and after 12, we used to switch off lights, close the door and listen his soothing voice till we sleep…”sadly..now gone are those days…”

Coming to the studies , nothing was striking in first year. Courses were good but professors were too old to handle. Every subject was screwed up and nothing innovative was there. Those who were good at making notes were GOD’s for the rest and those who could learn everything by heart were amongst toppers. It was not the place which I thought that a famous institute like this would be…only to be discovered soon that I was wrong.

Second year started with Electronics core coming in picture and by then we were very much used to VT (Vishwanath temple)hangouts,Limbdi corner’s chai-samosewaala, Shuklajee’s juice ,BBC(Basketball court),Piya Milan Chauraha(PMC) and Pahalwaan’s Lassi.PMC was in front of non engineering Women’s college and was mostly clustered with guys from IT ,since the population of fairer sex was really thin in Institute.

Also few new things like overnight software contest …overnight treasure hunt (where usually, treasure was found in the filthiest bathroom of the campus!)…lots of cultural festivals and gaming contests added spice in our lives.....

All kinds of naughty things like proxy attendance , bunking classes or taking shots on teacher were very common. Sometimes, few were caught as they requested multiple guys for their proxy registration and three of them calling at the same time for same guy!!

Not so common was daring to leave the class once teacher took attendance at the beginning. This illegal activity was performed by jumping from a big window which was accessible from the topmost stair of auditorium and you got jump from a height of 8 feet from the ground. There were blokes who used to do it
with immaculate perfection unless one of them jumped from the class over our math teacher who was passing by….poor teacher got injured badly………And the window is now closed forever!!!

The most courageous activity we performed in second year was a raid on professor of Electrical motors at 11PM!! Prof was really furious when he saw 44 guys in front of his house demanding the test scheduled on next day ,to be cancelled ,as it was a public holiday. When he came out of his house along with big German Shepherd, each one of the protestors were looking for places to hide. Most of the guys were found inside a bush while those who had bicycle just ran away. Only two had the managed to talk with him … He badly scolded them and test remained scheduled…..and everyone got marks in single digit.

The booze party given by seniors at the very end of this year was as peculiar one could ever imagine. One room was full with all kinds of alcoholic drinks….beers, whiskeys and rum…with unlimited availability and interesting part was nothing to eat.That night was only to drink and get wet from the somehow disconnected water hose of garden water supply. Youthful madness was at it’s pinnacle and you could see all hundreds of drunkards completely wet….smoking cigarettes…going for their 9th peg. And next day we had an exam……….

Third year was serious ….damn serious. It was the toughest and teacher of microprocessors was one hell of a prof. He knew everything, was renowned in his area of expertise. I used to talk to him after class hours to clarify doubts. Apart from studies, we used to talk on few other issues and I came to know that he was not satisfied from himself but somehow he carried on with the burden of genius.

Few more profs who taught us were really knowledgeable and some guys got flunked in the toughest courses of our lives. Everybody use to be very studious and that’s why we are famous.. when you needed to study, we all studied. Till now boozing, smoking, spending late nights at Dhaba for chicken was common. To come back from the feast, you have to jump from a 7 ft high wall as university gates were essentially closed at 10PM.

Within first five days of campus season started almost all of us got placed in some of the biggest names and each one who got job….had to go through the ritual of taking job bumps….lots and lots of them. It is a very famous saying in IT “If you don’t get the job bumps, you will repent for it!”. Ultimately, everyone got bums minimum twice!!

Getting a job was again U-turn for some of us. It meant end of their aims and then started endless nights playing cards…or AOE(Age of empires) .The morning started at 12 and AOE starts at the same time. and till the next day 4AM, it used to be played. Same with cards…there were some clash of titans in AOE where whole hostel used to watch few geeks battling it out for as long as 5 hours! needless to say…Who cared about the studies

Two lobbies in our hostel were named India and Pakistan and there used to lot of funny fights across nations…and it started with either “India ki ………………”or “Pakistan………….”.But it reached to the height at Diwali when rockets and crackers were fired in enemy’s territory. Luckily no one got injured.

The end of this life was full of treats.. parties and promises that we will never forget each other. After these four years, boys were now converted into fully grown men and girls were more mature. The people who either became your friend under a set of circumstances or naturally were now leaving and along with them, some of your part was also going…forever. The news that all of them are doing really well in their respective profession somehow fills your heart with puff of proudness.

Gone are those days of madness to do anything….of daydreams and achieving them …of friendship and rivalry…..of many unmentionables extracurricular activities…..of dancing during cultural fests…of nightouts and ofcourse most beautiful and largest university campus in Asia.

Just recalled a verse from Jagjit Singh Ghazal...

वक़्त की शाख से, लम्हे नहीं तोड़ा करते
हाथ छूटे भी तो, रिश्ते नही छोड़ा करते....

For BHU and ECE-2005…..missing you