Fighting for 10 marks : part II

Disclaimer: All the events and characters in this stories are real, but they are painted just to make the story a "story". No offence is intended (If any).

Next day, Sometime after lunch she approached me, smiled and said

"Rahul".

I Didn't knew my name sounds so sweet on female lips.

"can you please help me out in BEL. I just want an overview of the topics".

"Sure, I would love to" I wanted to say, "I have few other things to do, but I think I can manage" is what I said.

This girl, I was not even knowing her name by then, was the last girl to join our batch, having a bewitching photogenic appearance. Her voice cannot be stated sweet but rhythmic enough to ring the bells. And actually when you are in an engineering college where your book count is more than the girls in the class, everything related to a girl becomes rhythmic.

"So can we meet in Computer Lab after lunch". She said

"Sure" I said. "I will wait", she should have said, but these also were my words.

She disappeared leaving her presence in the air and I kept wondering how in the world she knew about my teaching skills. She must have heard about me only through my last night classes at hostel. In those days Airtel or some other vendor had started a plan where you can add some phone numbers in the plan and can talk 1 paisa per minute on that phone. This FNF plan was a bridge between girls hostel and out Naini boys hostel. Girls were able to get Live commentary right from boys hostel. "Anshu entered in the room, he switched on the light, he is wearing red shirt with pink stripes, now he is searching for some book" etc. And this live commentary must have aired the stories of my last night classes to her.

Anyways I finished my lunch early and was in Computer Lab well before time. Clock stops ticking when you wait for something. Just for the sake of spending time I had scanned all my mails (maximum 20 at that time), played solitaire (Pushpit was not caught yet for the same by Anurika and we used to play it without any fear), minesweeper and all. Just when I was about to sleep, she entered.

"I am late" in apologetic voice but still mind there was no "Sorry" word in the sentence.

"Well you are too late, I have to leave now, you better be on time now onwards. It was you who wanted the help not me" is what echoed back in my mind.

"No problem, I also just came" is what world and she heard me saying.
(Well let me tell you this was not her fault. Just think of being one of those 8 girls in a class of 128. Even simple math leads to the fact the tens of boys will want to talk to you and you cannot deny everyone. So in essence you are bound to get late. Poor girls !!!)

She sat just next to me. I till then was not very much acquainted with girls. So I for no reason was very happy. She in white suit with orange dots looked lovely. Every act of here was in rhythm. Opening the bag and taking our the notes everything was so in flow.

But seeing black version of my own notes in her hands broke this flow. I smiled and wondered how much my notebook had traveled last day. Here also, before starting I recited the rules I had decided last night to all hostelers. Generally I have seen girls having habit of swirling fingers with well polished nails in their hair, but she on the other hand was having a habbit of chewing those nails evey while. I started and finished everything in few minutes, preventing her from chewing her fingers after nails were off.

Now was the time when I should have extended the talk, if at all the hopes of friendship with her was to be saved. But I was too shy to do that and was out of words. So the story of my first meeting with a girl in IIIT-A ended with no outcome.

But to remind you all this story was not to tell my first encounter with a girl in IIIT-A, rather it was to depict our first encounter with exams in IIIT-A. Next day was the quiz day and at least I was taking is seriously. Everyone was doing the preparation in their own way, but the way of Pankaj Trivedi was different. He was the most studious guy I had seen till then. He wanted to make sure that no topic is unread and to make it even sure he read one para before and one para after every topics which was in course. Though he was a nice guy but study is a sin in IIIT-A and he was victim of this sin. And this was food of thought for Parag and other nitwits in the batch.

Before telling next incident let me tell you all that Parag and Pankaj were good friends for some "Sangh" reason and had played some volleyball game togather in inter-school play which, like other stories of Parag, I had heard for countless times from Parag. Next day while lunch Parag stood just next to Pankaj and said to Uttam

"Have you read Zenitson Formula ? that was really tough man, But I was able to do it with help from Rahul"

"Yeah I read it, to me it looked OK, the Integration part was scary though",

Now Pankaj was having no Idea about this Zenitson formula, and he really wondered how he missed it.
"What is zenitson formula? Where is it in the book ?",

"C'mon Pankaj, you cannot make that mistake This was the most important topic according to VP sir and you don't even know it was not in the book. We read it from Rahul's notes. You missed it in your notes I guess",

"Ohh, Please tell me what it is",

"Sorry man, this is too hard to explain now in this little time. But I am sorry for you as this will be of 4/10 marks in exam.",

And Parag left Pankaj perplexed. Pankaj came to me to ask about this formula, but even I didn't had any idea about this formula, I even never had heard of this name. Well the same day later in evening exam started and ended. That Zenitson formula never came in the exam and later Parag revealed that this was just a prank for Pankaj.

Those were early days in IIIT-A and we all were in same school mode till then. As time passed we matured and came to know the vitality of life and how these exams are little tiny part in that vital experience. Later these exams were just matter of one night stand and still we excelled.

And I came across the fact that When you want the least from life, life gives you the most. And Vice Versa.

Who the Culprit was ?

This has been a quite popular incident among us. And every one of us was having a different story about the same. But in every story victim was the same guy while the culprits kept changing. So instead of beating around bushes, am coming directly to the main story.

IT all started with the knowledge of sending message using "netsend" command to some particular computer through command prompt (though this line looks technical, it was easy). When you know very less about networking and computers, this thing was not less than a miracle. So we all started experimenting around this. It was useful, but who the heck was there to learn useful things in IIIT-A. As being a normal human beings we too started to find something fishy in this technique. The beauty of this technique was, you can only know the IP of the comp from where the message was sent. You can easily send a message and calmly slip off from the computer, dodging everybody, without having a fear of getting traced. So this was the origin of our batch's first universally heard story.

Now before going ahead, let's know the leads of the story.

First welcome Ms. Vaniki Joshi. I have always been confused about from where she is. As her father was in some highly transferable job (as i came to know), she was used to tell a new address ,whenever asked ( or there may be a very slight possibility that she was hiding her address :P). But being a Joshi she was having her roots in north UP. She looks tough and dominating by her outlooks but most of the time you will find her smiling. Probably the most beautiful face in B2K4. Said to be a good actor. In most of the cases she has been a victim of bad choice, for example, sometimes she was most silly dressed among girls. A fantastic speaker, and in fact she has been known well among us and seniors and later among juniors also, for the same. Overall a very girly girl and good to be a batch mate.

Second was Mr. Rohit Singh Chauhan. Most of the people (almost everybody) know him by his short name RSC. With no doubt a fantastic basket ball player. In early days of our first semester he was very easy to find chatting with some girl of out batch. He was too much friendly by his nature but has been a hard victim of misunderstanding sometimes. And this story also is an example of the same. Always ready to help and more than that always ready to have a talk with you. So this was RSC.

The Third person is having a vital role in the story. But very unfortunately he doesn't has any name. He is the villain, main culprit, of the story but unfortunately nobody knows who he was. As described earlier, this culprit was very clever in sending the message then slipping off from the place.

From here I will tell the story from my point of view, and I will tell what I heard from others about the incident. And in fact in 8th semester I once again discussed the story with one of my close friend and he told me the actual story behind the same. He told me exactly who the culprit was and more the mastermind behind all this drama. But as disclosing their names may create controversies, I will name them Mr. A and Mr. B.

So A and B were sitting on different computer in one of the computer labs at NSC. And as we never had something substantial to do in our college days these two nitwits were sending crap messages to each other by netsend. Soon A got bored with this. He was very much keen into annoying others. But as being a new batch he was not very much familiar with all so he anyhow was controlling himself. While at the other end B was very much calm from outside but was having a deadly indecorous. So A got bored, left the comp and came to B. Now they started sending insane messages to unknown IP's. Meanwhile Vaniki came and sat on the same comp where A was sitting earlier. Here B came with the idea that why not to send some really shit messages to Vaniki. According to B it was going to be a real fun to see her reaction. And A was always ready for that (And also remember A was knowing the IP where Vaniki just sat, as he was just coming from there itself). They sent some crap messages like "hey moti, had your lunch" (in fact no body knows what the actual message was, since only Vaniki and AB knows it. Vaniki never told what the message was and nobody ever knew who the hell A and B were. So it had always been a mystery).

As soon as Vaniki got this message she got her head off. She like a lioness started looking each comp's IP and to find the comp with the IP from where the message was sent. And here A and B left the computer watching Vaniki on a search trip. And as soon as they left, RSC sat on the computer. Now the story from now is clear. Vaniki came to RSC's comp and as the IP was the same from where the messages were sent, she thought it was sent by RSC. And in a splash lab was thrilled with thundering voice of Vaniki. She scolded RSC and scolded hard. "don't you have any manners how to behave with girls, how come you are here in such a reputed Institute, am gonna tell this incident to NSC coordinator. You never be in doubt that am any weak girl. I will make you into your shoe." And RSC was not challenging her words. This was a real strange behavior. He was knowing that he has not done anything and has been threatened for nothing. But he didn't replied Vaniki. And as in most of the cases silence means agreement, the class thought the culprit was RSC itself.

Now RSC was a topic of discussion for whole class. Girls were annoyed for how come he has been this rude for any girl, Boys were annoyed for How come he listened every spearing sentence from Vaniki and not said even one single word for his defense. This was a matter of "demolition of man's pride" for boys. They were not concerned about how he has been rude or whatever, but they were more concerned about the no counter attack from his side. True there is draught of girls, but it doesn't mean you put your pride on sale.

As this was a mysterious event, every body was curious about what actually happened. So the market of rumor was hot. Every chap was having a different version of the story about the event and everybody was so confident in telling the story as if he was sitting with Vaniki or RSC when the event happened. But Every body was agreed with one view that RSC itself sent the message to Vaniki.

While the real culprits A and B were enjoying all these stories standing in some corner and were acting of getting mesmerized with the knowledge of storyteller about the event. This was a hot topic for some days but as bigger events came in the way we forgot this tiny one. Probably A, B, RSC and Vaniki also forgot. But this was our first universal story in real sense. And in fact this story was founding the base for Mega Event (which we were used to say KAND) of First Sem.

And in 8th semester on some nostalgic night sitting with B, we one by one digged out every graved memories from our past college days and then B unveiled the real story of the event. I with B laughed a lot.

Fighting for 10 marks : part I

In his well known monotonous rhythmic flow he announced

"There will be five questions, out of which first two are compulsory and must be rightly answered".

Prof. Vinod Prakash, a well known personality of Allahabad University for Electronics and a guest faculty at IIIT-Allahabad, was telling us about our first quiz. I just recalled our first class when he had previously announced the marking scheme for the course.

"BEL- Basic Electronics, Credit hours-3, each credit hour will count one hour class per week and 50 marks in exams. So this course will be of total 150 marks."

Quite technical and mathematical explanation !!

"50% marks will be from end semester examination, 20% from mid semester examinations, 10% will be from your attendance, assignment and all".

50 + 10 + 20 = 80. 20% still remaining, what else could be there? Are they going to award the marks for our hair cuts, nail cuts, daily showering kind of things !!

"For rest 20 % I will take tests called quizzes".

How silly I am ! obviously quizzes are there. It was similar to what they do in IIT's. IIIT-A is good in at least copying of good practices.

"Thus 30 marks are there for quizzes, I 'll take 6 quizzes of 10 marks each and will take top three scores of any individual."

Are Wah! kya bat hai ! We felt happy for we will be given a chance to revive our scores if we don't do good in some. But what about six quizzes dude. At every fortnight we were going to have quiz and worst it was almost same for all courses. Well this was all what he said in first class of BEL.
Anyways the day came very soon. At a pacer speed to what we expected, or say we didn't even got a chance to expect.

I thought these all in a whim and then again I was mentally in class. Prof Vinod Prakash was announcing the rules.

"And to make easier I am going to tell you first two questions in advance."

Oh My God !! Such a Godlike professor. He thinks about us so deeply. We must have done some great work in our past lives and in reward we are under such a great professor.

"First question is what's your name and the second is to write down your enrollment number".

Well Well guys!! This was a joke, don't mind it. We hold our heads in both hands. We were like disheveling and crying out. He said everything in same monotonous voice and in between, a joke has been cracked with no expression change. We once got fixed about was it a real joke or something else? But he smiled a little, indicating, guys it was a joke, laugh at it. We felt like blasting into laughters, obviously not for the jokes, but held our nerves and just smiled back. Our faces were like someone has just came out of some trauma.

"The rest three will be from what I have taught you guys until now. The last three questions will be of three marks each and first two will collectively carry one mark. I did this to assure a non-zero mark sheet, if you can manage to remember your name and enrollment number."

My name is Rahul Yadav and enrollment number is B2004059. I don't think it will be hard to remember it. What about you, do you remember it now?

Prof. Vinod Prakash was a professor from Allahabad University. He was having great experience of what he was dealing with. Knowing everything with the core and he was a master in explaining everything what he wanted to. He was one of the very rare good professors, we have been processed though our life in IIIT-A. When I'm writing these word, I am filled with honor.

As i stated earlier, I was a good student so I was well prepared with the notes. And if one has notes, it's more than what is required in IIIT-A to master in exams.

But It was not that good news for me having notes. Fickly I was the most wanted guy for my notes. There were still two days left for first test in IIIT-A. I agreed to learn and then teach others, whatever learnt from the notes. One class has been scheduled after dinner in some room, probably of Pushpit's or Vishal's.

In fact Up to this time guys had been divided in few groups in a broad manner. People of same taste and likings had found their kind of species. And few group had identified very soon, hard need of hostel classes to tackle these kind of quizzes and exams. So they also had chosen tutors, one supposed to be attentive in class among the group, for them. So I was expecting only few people for my class.

Well I tried to understand the electrons, their orbits, their behavior towards heat, the conductors, the charge, p-n-p and n-p-n transistors, doping effect and other concepts. I was striving to be a bit ready for the above mentioned class. After dinner I sat with my notes and one book written by Prof. Vinod Prakash itself and guys started gathering. Two, four, seven, twelve and on. "Are ye bhi ! probably they haven't analogized somebody yet for the classes in their group" I thought watching some unexpected faces. Well the room was packed and I started from first heading.

Now visualize, Me sitting at the center of top minds from India, trying to explain core concepts of Electronics; the questions were obvious. After all this was the never satisfying nature which made them to be at IIIT-A. How can some vague answer suffice their doubts. I was getting one questions after each sentence and most of the time I was having some confused answers.

I in fact, always have been like this. Whatever I do must be having some real time purpose. I try to learn only that which is beneficial in some way and also I always try to make my ball rolling with minimal effort. If I am to read from some file while writing some code, I will only learn the code of reading the file, Writing and other will have to wait for their need at some point. I always know what is the minimum effort to make the things going. And here also I have done the same, I have read just what I was going to write in test if some questions is asked. The core detail was not that important for me.

But this inquisitive breed was doing meteor showering on me. And I then figured out the most unsatisfied guy with my explanations.

Neerav Paliwal, from Udaypur, smart and intelligent. Skilled in dancing and many others which i figured out later on. For him everything should be crystal clear. He was not exam oriented guy like me, he was knowledge oriented. In broader sense he was a perfectionist. He will not satisfied with, to whom Sita married; and will dig out whole Ramayana to know the origin of Sita, why she married to Ram, who were her sisters and to whom they married and even more why? In the same manner when I say doping is the reason for n-type and p-type transistors he will ask for fermi level, band theory and others. And obviously I will not be having the answers so will try to give some vague answer. In return more questions.

Half hours have been killed and I was on second heading. I just got fed up. Time to be a rebel and fight. I just figured out this is not going to work. Then I and some others decided to make some rules for this class and all other classes in future. And in fact these rules has been adopted universally in the batch for all classes with a little bit of modification.

So the rules were
1: I am just telling what I am going to write on the answer sheet. I don't care whether it's wrong or right. And in some matter even if you know I am wrong don't correct me. I really don't care.
2: If for any question I said "No". The topic should be buried there itself. No more questions on that topic.
3: If you know something extra than what I am telling, don't discuss it here. Spread you gyan somewhere else. I really don't need that shit. leave it at the door itself while entering.
4: Don't create bhasad*.

* there are many words which are not part of any dictionary and we came to be with them only in college. And thats what we say to be lingo of college. Most of the lingo words are college specific and some are universal. This bhasad is a universal lingo word which means creating chaos,mismanagement, cracking baseless jokes in humorous way. The other words from universal lingo are Tashan, mall, jhakkas, tanch, bhokali etc..

So with these rules I again started and finished the class. When everybody was gone, I felt like why I am being such a fool to spoil my time for this. I am not getting anything out of it. But in fact somewhere I was in process of making friends.

We in Jhalwa

Then the day crept in. We have been taken to jhalwa, our main campus by bus. The performers were given a room for their pre-stage preparations. Everybody was putting their costumes and abruptly I saw two faces in dilemma. Nobody knew how to put up the Gandhi dhoti. So here Mambo and Prabhash were standing in mere underwear, having Dhoti in their hand and looking at each face to get some help. I had to come in the scene. I recalled my Grandfather and anyhow managed the dhoti to our Gandhi, Mr. Mambo. I just came to knew I was good in this too. In fact I have to be good. After all B2K4 pride was going on the stage with these dhoties. I just prayed Dhoties not to dodge us on stage. Sharad artistically covered Mambo’s upper half in Multani mitti to give him a look of Gandhi Statute. Sharad was both in dance and skit; but as we found a fair gap between skit and dance, so it was not an issue. We were all set.

Somebody opened the door and came in. Gosh!! B2K4 girls. They more than smiled on us for our costumes. We just smiled imagining how they would have reacted for the embarrassing scene if they would have entered a bit earlier in between the topsy-turvy of Dhoti. Uhh!! How weird yet exciting imagination! Well even this costume was not that comfortable in front of them. We just asked what they were doing here and they replied that I have been called from the comparer of event. I crept out advising others to lock the door in order to avoid these kinds of female invaders.

Comparer was one of our senior he asked the title of play and suggested the title “Majboori Ka Nam Mahatma Gandhi” as I was having no title in my mind there. This title was really interesting so I agreed for this, what if the title was nowhere matching with the script. We have been given third slot on stage.

We have been called for stage, Mambo; the statue was placed on a table in between of the stage. Now each character was to enter from one side and exit from other steeling on of the articles from statue. I just could here the huge clapping and laugh form the auditions side after each entrance. The spectacles, the Gandhi watch, lathi, Janau, the dhoti and gamacha and at least the whole statute was stolen showing the low knowledge of common people about Gandhi ji and the poor behavior for the statues having historic importance. We passed message and laugh both in a compact mime and the huge applause after the finish was the proof of the same. We jumped in the air with joy at back stage. B2K4’s first presence and triumph in IIIT-A.

We helped Sharad and other dance performers to get ready for the performance. We were waiting and suddenly we got the news that probably they cannot put our dance on stage due to time constraints. We felt humiliated, we felt angry, we felt dishonored, we felt unlucky, and we felt every damn low feeling. Our faces turned red. Was this the damned result for which we practiced that hard? We had left with nothing but just to urge the reconsideration if possible as we needed mere 5 minutes of stage for performance.

Luckily we got the positive response; probably for the low time needed to perform. Our dancers performed and the performed well. Again the same cheers. Director Sir came onto the stage and praised ours performance. He also announced one thousand cash money prize for Mambo for his unstirred statue performance. I would like to quote here that later this skit had been repeated three time in IIIT-A for its compact humor and massage. We felt like conquering the world.

We moved on for the senior boy’s hostel for our lunch. In fact the main event was ragging instead of lunch. We have been queued in the middle of hostel ground. We have been ordered to honor nineties to all the seniors who were glaring furiously and thundering from their balconies. I think every one must have bowed around average half thousand nineties and had given around a ton intros that day. We have been ragged well enough but still would say lightly and assured that in turn we will get the previous year papers which are tend to be repeated year by year.

We return back to naini with lots of stories of seniors and ragging.

Foundation day thrills

9^th Aug. Seniors from dramatics club and dance club arrived at NSC by bus for audition in the evening. Performers gathered in the class. I too anyhow managed to be there.

She entered and our eyes stopped blinking. We witnessed real beauty. A bit curly middle sized hairs, big enticing eyes, rosy cheeks and magnetizing coral lips. A perfect girl. If you are an atheist; just see her and start believing in God. Only God could create that kind of wonderful and beautiful stuff.

She was a member of drama club and unfortunately our senior. Welcoming with a ninety and then dazing our third red button, this only we could do in her honor.

Anyways audition started and in next few minutes our hopes doomed. The characters of the skit were engaged somewhere else so skit couldn’t auditioned. And a senior from dance club crushed the toil of dance group burgerly.

“I have not expected this kind of low quality stuff from you guys. You must go through the recordings of previous performances staged in other events. You are not in a school and now we expect some matured stuff from your side.” He said.

And then humiliating us and facing towards HER, he said

“I don’t know how these guys managed to be in IIIT-A. I wonder if they will be able to cope up with the grand tradition of IIIT-A”.

Every word was spearing all of us deep and we were just imagining the height of the quality in the performances of IIIT-A (later when we have gone through the recordings, we came to know that our stuff was good enough to get a stage and we have paid just for being juniors. In fact in future B2K4 was going to place milestones in these areas.)

Well both dance and drama were scrapped there itself and we were given two more days to prepare something up to IIIT-A standard.

Sujeet left for his home instantly and animesh gave up in order to avoid harsh comments again and also due to irresponsibility of his characters. And here was the chance to show my presence. I came forward with my idea of a small skit to her (drama club member) and she agreed with the script.

I started with the drama that night itself. It was a mime on Mahatma Gandhi. For Mahatma Gandhi Mambo was the most appropriate person. And being a mime no need for good dialogue deliverers. A simple, small yet impressive skit. I got other characters easily. But still two were lacking. I wanted somebody to perform the character of a poor person and suddenly I saw Rohit aka Kranti.

Well he was real a Kranti (revolution). Looked more active than me in drama, supporting me without knowing me. At IIIT-A getting all characters of your skit at one place, one time was harder than getting a Girl in IIIT-A campus. And Rohit was helping in this. I asked him for the role and he agreed. I wanted one more guy for last role.

Three other faces were practicing for a new dance. Sudhanshu, Pushpit and ..who this guy is. Tall, smart, big yellowish eyes, a bit blooded also giving a feel of waking nights. Here was Sharad, a Casanova, lover boy, with a bright record of having girl friends. Having a goody-goody character among girls. Dancing first time for stage so was calm and just obeying the steps of others two. I asked him for the role in my skit and he agreed.

We practiced hard enough to create good stage stuff and we got success to some extent in that. This time president from dramatics club came for the audition and he approved my skit. Even the dance got selected for performance. Now we were to buy costumes for the same.

Those days the “chanda funda” was the easiest way to collect money. Have a copy and pen and start collecting a fix amount of money from every room in hostel. We did the same and collected Rs. 10 from each room. We bought some costumes and arranged others. Dhoti and gamachha from mambo and sharad, one torn lungi from vinay singh, one lathi from guard bhaiya and one watch from ronal.

Now things were going in my way. I was turning to a known one in the batch, even among seniors. The skit maker, the director of B2K4. I had never been that happy before, for this skill of mine.

We were going to be in Jhalwa, our main campus where our seniors resides, for very first time after being interacted with them. Ragging..srry PDP will be at its peek. A golden chance to make contact with seniors, which obviously was going to help us in future.

We all were set for foundation day.

to be an IIITian

We were sitting in the library after lunch and searching something interesting in news paper. All of sudden a loud voice cracked into my ears “Eyes Down”.

“Eyes Down” again.

And all of ours eyes started dazing our foot wears wondering what wrong we did now and who he was to order us like that.

“Come with me.” He thundered.

We were taken into one of our classrooms with other classmates and seniors were all around us. This was formal Start of our ragging which was given a name “PDP” aka Personality Development Program.

Fairly saying it was the same. Ragging was light enough. We have to follow a dress code, which was humiliating, but we really enjoyed this dress code. White full sleeves shirt with third button red (we were to watch it continuously while facing any senior), black double plated pant short enough to show white socks, white shoe with black laces. No articles like belt, watch, ring etc. short hairs with oil. We learnt how to bow for a ninety.

After First PDP session we are told that we will be having Institute’s foundation day on 12^th August and we need to prepare some skit, dance or like to perform on stage for that day. They told us that they will come on 9^th for audition.

Once it got announced artists hidden in everybody started jumping. Everybody was at the same stage yet and everybody wanted to be centre of attraction elevating themselves from group of common people, everybody wanted to be a star. And this was the opportunity they were waiting for.

Our classmate Animesh started for a skit. He started audition for his characters. Candidates were endless but poor fellow was facing crisis of the mimics. No doubt he was a good mimic but he wanted the same for his skit and here was the problem. Well they started practicing at night with whatever they got.

And at the other corner you could hear “O O Jane Jana” song with choreographer Sujeet, our classmate, having his students selected from classmates for group dance and teaching them how and when to lift the hand in what manner, how much the co-ordination is needed and above all when all are needed to stop giving space for him to come out from back and perform a thrilling solo. I could see Parag, Pushpit and Uttam too in the dance group.

I tried for skit considering myself to be a good actor holding my acting past, but I can’t mimic even myself, so was kept side. Not tried for dance as I simply can’t. So I was at last in the audiences. 

Naini looked really happening.

From next morning we started arranging our dress code. We anyhow arranged shirts for just Rs. 40 and pant for 90. And with third button red and black laces on white shoes one can point us even in a crowd of thousands. And that’s why we enjoyed this dress code. We don’t need to say that we are from IIIT-A. People can identify us for this dress code and we could up our nose for being a part of this reputed Institute.

Some more girls joined B2K4 and we got some more topics to hang our chats.

I met Vishal same day (Or if I met him before; I can’t collect). I found people have started calling him mambo, which was name of a character from movie “Ishq Vishq”, with no reason. Or even if there was any reason, I wasn’t aware of. In fact his real name “Vishal” was a true antonym of his 5’6” pencil like frame, so I liked his nick; better to call him mambo.

While sitting with Pushpit and Vishal in library we saw her at very first time or at least I saw her for very first time. Instantly pushpit said

“mambo tumhari kamala aa gayi (mambo your kamala came)”.

Vishal smiled (probably since he liked someone else!!), I smiled wider (probably since I liked her itself) and pushpit laughed (probably since he liked both!! ………..or none of them?? ).

Well in that “Parrot” dress every girl of our batch was looking like some kamala kind of girl. Fair and beautiful but bad dressed. She was looking cute and innocent! enough. With twinkling eyes and a charming smile on her face she looked like a child. She was 8^th and unfortunately the last girl of our batch.

120 boys and just 8 girls, and you say enjoy the college life at fullest. Well that is the fate of every top engineering Institute in India. B2K4 found one more reason to get frustrated.

In between “that kind of” jokes were on hype. We were finishing our stocks of them. And in fact it helped us to find our kind of friends in some ways.

Naini Meetings became more firing and topic loaded due to Foundation Day performance practices. We had a poll to have our batch representative and the nominees were given a chance to prove their sides. Somebody given the reason of being close to seniors, somebody given then reason of knowing all three major languages for communication in our batch; Hindi, English and Telugu (We were having around 40 guys from A.P., so telugu was a major language for communication). I was again in voters. At last we found our leader to represent B2K4. But in fact he itself needed somebody to represent himself due to his plexed word-voice effect.

9^th Aug was approaching and performers were ready with their performance. IIIT-A has given us the energy to win the world and foundation day has given the platform. We will rock IIIT-A and B2K4 will be well known if we perform well.

But I was not feeling this aura. I have been topper at my school. Everybody knew me for obviously good reasons. Even the teachers praised me. But here I am nothing. I was Just another boy in class. Was I not that talented? I have never been in such situations before. And I was just trying to get one opportunity to show at least my presence in the batch.

How tough it is to be an IIITian!!

rolling on in IIIT-A

We carried on into the routine of IIIT-A by the next morning itself and I formulated my own routine to cope with the it. Getting up at 7:00 AM, having/skipping shower, putting clothes and running towards mess for breakfast. And then a flying journey in Subi bhaiya’s bus for NSC, where we have our classes.


And at the end of the day we used to return back by the same Subi Shumaker’s drive.

Professors introduced themselves along with their courses. I was happy not to have Chemistry in curriculum. We got into labs given computers and to write our name along with rollno and some other things. It was our first assignment given by Mr. KK (to whom we later started calling Khuni Budha!!), our lab instructor.

The same day we saw tow of our girls (“our” means B2K4) in very interesting “Popat” dress. Green and Red traditional salwar dress, with plenty of oil in hair and two chotis with red feetas. Later on we came to know this was their ragging dress code and we too will be having funnier version of same to follow in a matter of one or two days.

Well the next day something happened very unusual. We saw a girl in our hostel. Hold on!! what’s happening here. Had someone forgotten its a boys hostel ? She was in jeans and top, holding first floor’s railing, giving just her side look to D-block and looked very pretty with her specs. But who she was? Sister of some classmate? She turned her face and….well I have seen her before. She turned out to be our classmate, one of the same girls in the morning. Stated to be sister-friend of Sudhanshu, again our classmate and came with him itself. This was the first, and in my knowledge the last time when we saw any girl at Naini.

Some ticks later on the same day I met Parag. Chirping his Kanpur coaching experience and his school’s stories with Uttam and others. At that time we didn’t had any clue that we have given our head in a honeycomb and we have to hear endless stories related to his 69 roommates, his unique friends, Shyam ji and Mohan ji (warden of Parag’s school hostel). And even worse each story repeatedly for endless counts. He was just giving a glimpse of these that day. He later turned to be our event manager for all the parties; deciding budget, day, venue, time, hosts and even menu sometimes.

Don’t know when but one day very soon; in the way to D-block of hostel, I saw one of my classmate entertaining some of others belonging to same species. Wearing up-collared red shirt, he was depicting about how beautiful the girls of his school have been to crown the beauty contests and listeners were having no options to agree him. After all he was from Bareilly, city of Miss World for year 2000. Whimsically in a bit later conversation he connected himself with her. How she has been in the same coaching, obviously in batch of higher standard, how she had been the backbencher, flirting the boys and how pleasant it was to see her in the same place you study in. And even more whimsically listeners were totally agreed with him asking more about the beauty lady.

Well yes! I just met pushpit above. You have to believe even if he claimed himself to be president of U.S. He could influence any one. Anyone mean any one. Smart, Intelligent, fun loving, understating, always ready to help in his own way, innocent at heart and attention seeker. Always wants to be superior form his vicinity and honestly speaking, in most of the cases he has been.

And even deadly he was sharing a room with Parag. Now come and challenge them. Parag’s extreme examples will perish your challenges in a splash.

The days were going well. I was feeling College life and in turn college was feeling me. I have been started changing. Got converted to middle bencher from front one, started hitting abuses in between the talks, cracked heavy jokes, wandered nearby places with friends and bunked the class of Probability and Statistics for first time (what if that was unintentionally due to unavailability of timetable).

We started frustrating for different reasons. Early morning notices and then late night meetings for the same at hostel lawn were in flow. We had meetings for every damn weird topic. Even for “why there are too cobwebs in the bathroom” (as if spiders were going to change their mind after B2K4 meeting). We were felling the breeze of IIIT-A. We all were making friends with no clue how many of them will remain intact in the end.

We started knowing what it means to be called an IIITian.