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.

First day at IIIT-A

It was just another day for other world, but for me it was more thrilling than it could be. 24th July 2004 (if I could collect it correctly) was the day when I Entered IIITA.

The bus took most of us from Jhalwa to Naini Hostel, and there I saw every head in hurry, don't know for what. A bit Later only I came to know that if one wanted a room, he just needed to dump his Material in an empty room of his liking and that will be your room. That's the simplest and coolest way to get a room according to great grand IIIT-A Administration. Well I found a room in corner of the hostel where hostel ends and jungle starts, which I used to say "Jungle ki taraf wala room" with Mahendra (Later well known by our cricket team's wicketkeeper), dumped my baggage and greeted bye to Papa. Being all alone I just started searching for some nuts.

Room Just next to mine looked a bit happening and there I found a boy with short shirt, probably of yellow color, blue jeans, smarty looks and welcoming smile. Meet Uttam Dwivedi from Kanpur Mr. D-15. Interesting in first meet and continue the rhythm in next ones also. Cool and practical.

I looked happy to find somebody belonging near to my place. Later I got introduced by Mr. Vijay Meena, roomy of Uttam. A bottle in his hand, sleeveless red T-shirt and a blue cap at head and a bottom dusting lower, this is typical version of Mr. Meena, some says he can easily get misleaded to be a mess worker at that time. At that time I didn’t have any idea that they both are going to be a part of my own in near future. 


In the evening I found some more morons at tea, no need to mention the names as a long list is there. After tea we were having our first interaction with high officials of institute along with the director at 7:30. Some of our goanna be friends got the discipline lesson there itself for being late at the meet. We then headed to Shukla’a canteen, had some cold drinks and started jokes. And the day ended with jokes itself starting from dull n simple ones and then turning to interesting, heavy mean and vulgar up-to some level. And that was the time when you can identify different vicinities from where students came in IIIT-A.


I didn’t learned much, didn’t made much friends but still the first days was really the first day. I was in Hostel life for first time in my life. Now I was responsible for me, my doings. Have nobody to care for me (I was not having friends there yet). But that was a very special day for me. One studious, shy, introvert, guy was going to be changed in some next few days.

I have been a very uninteresting, maggu kind of boy till my 12^th. I never bunked a class in my life ever. Sometime I was the only boy to sit in the class, never said a word which can be claimed abusive, was never out for any kind of party. Not having even one friend outside school, never got fancied in fancy dresses. Never got interested with T.V. and was having just DoorDarshan at my home. Never seen and played a video game, was never late for my school, always attended

assembly, always a frontbencher, was present at school even on 15^th August or 26^th Jan, and was never out of home after 8:00 PM alone. And, was not having even single female friend.

Last line is a bit confusing. It was not like that I never wanted to have one. But as my school was a boy’s school and I never gone for a coaching since I knew every bit in advance….I never got a chance to have one. I wasn’t having one even in my vicinity, where I was residing. And honestly saying even if I would have got a chance, I am sure it was not going to make much difference.

Well that’s the way I was, happy with my a rack full books, with my first rank, with my knowledge, with my intelligence (At that time I thought I was intelligent but after being in IIIT-A and watching the height of intelligence the students here were having, I changed my version of intelligence’s definition), with my achievements and with the happiness of my parents due to my being academically at top.

But as I mentioned this version was going to be just in above words after some 24X7s. At my first night at IIIT-A I slept with a hope of having even better day next morning.