An experience of a lifetime Part 1

I never expected my blog to become so very famous that people start demanding posts. Anyways, here it goes….
This is a series of articles based on my IIT experienced starting from the first year onwards. I shall put down all my memorable experiences of the last 5 years.

However before I begin, I would like to congratulate one of my closest pals Rahul Gupta. He got a terrific job yesterday in i2 technologies. This was the last company in the campus and he cracked it. In all probability he will be sent abroad. I wish him all the best and I am sure he is going to go places.

5 years ago, when I landed up in the campus, I was a starry eyed, simple innocent teenager. Coming from a background which had never boasted of an engg leave alone an iitian, I was simply overwhelmed by the fact that I got into the best engg college of India. In school and everywhere else I was a big fish in a very small pond. But here suddenly I was thrown into the ocean teeming with various varieties of fish, sharks and other species. Until I got into IIT ,I always considered iitians to be from a different planet, they were something extraordinary, God’s gift to mankind. They could do what many will not even dream of doing. Today, I have no hesitation in saying that I was afraid to come to IIT. I was afraid of the competition, afraid of the people I would meet, afraid of the profs, afraid of everything here.

My IIT sojourn started on a bad note. I was expecting to get into the Btech course In Energy Engg, however by sheer bad luck I missed it by just 11 AIR ranks and instead landed up in a dual degree course. I had never lived away from my parents barring a few odd cases. It was really tough mentally, to adjust to the fact that I might not see them for months. The day I left for Kgp, I was excited for I was going to a new place, but I had no idea that though my parents were keeping a happy countenance, they were actually crying inside. I am dead sure that it must have been very tough for them.

On reaching the Kharagpur Railway station, there was a bus waiting which took us to IIT Kharagpur which was going to be my second home for the next 5 years.

As we entered the imposing campus, I was awed by the magnificient red coloured main building. In italics “Dedicated to the service of the nation” was written on the building. We were then allocated our rooms. I was expecting to get a single room, but I was shocked when two of us were put into a single room meant for one. My roommate, though a Bengali by birth was as different from me as possible. He was a typical Bihari, with a bihari ascent an extrovert sort of guy while I was an introvert. The very thought that I would have to spend one entire year in the same room as this fellow was traumatizing. Anyways, adjustment was the necessity of the day and I tried to adjust as much as possible.

The first few days of a new semester at IIT is always very hectic. More so if it happens to be the first year of your stay and you don’t know how the system works. You have to run around and by the time you reach the actual office or counter, it is closed by then. The first week was very taxing. More so, as I did not have any cycle and had to walk around the entire campus. Anyways the classes started and each class had strength of around 120. The courses were too many, tough, the profs not very good (surprised??????, well that is a truth). All in all it was a nightmare to get used to the system. The pace of teaching too fast, I hardly used to understand anything in class….thus I gradually stopped attending classes. I was awed by the quality of students and their receptive power. Students were apparently being able to absorb what ever was being taught with ease whereas I was hardly being able to understand them. An inferiority complex did creep into my system. More so when I got a bad SGPA at the end of the first sem.

The second sem was as different from the first sem as possible. It started with the introduction of computers in our hostel rooms and this entirely changed the culture of IIT Kharagpur. The details of it are reserved for another post.

P.S. Had our dept farewell today. It was the last time we were going to have dinner together in our dept. Really feeling very nostalgic at this moment. These last five years have really flown by quickly. In one sentence, the IIT experience is “an experience of a lifetime” and I am privileged to have got it. Thank you God!!!!

A grand treat

Almost a year ago, in one of the numerous treats I had promised my wingmates that I shall give them a big treat if i get a job with a package of more than 5 lac. I had done this because of two reasons. That year the average salary was pretty low. Moreover, I was sure that getting a big salary job was way beyong my means. But things were very different this year, the salary increased in rapid coordination with the sensex, and thus my wingmates demanded their pound of flesh.
Being a gentleman as I am, I acceded to their request and give them a treat at Mainland China, the best Chinese restaurant of Kolkata.I had never gone their before but had heard a lot about it. And how it lived upto its reputation. We had a sumptuous lunch. The ambience was terrific, the chicken delicious and the deserts mind blowing. I still can not get over the taste of Chilli Prawn that we had. All in all it was a lunch, i am not going to forget in a long long time. We mwt a number of celibrities too. Susham Seth( of Dekh bahi dekh fame), Suhel Seth, Sumit Tandon,June maliyah and the present Indian Football Captain Baichung Bhutia.

However I am not going to bore with the detaisl of the lunch. I am goign to write about two serials i have become addicted to. When i was very small i lived serials like Dekh Bhai Dekh, Zabaan Samalke, Junoon etc etc. However since the KKK serials came up , i have stopped watching all serials. The abundance of free tiem to waste in kgp combined with the presence of a large number of serials on the lan propelled me to restart this bad habbit of watching serials. Not watching any serials in considered a sort of taboo in kgp. It was because of this that i decided to see the first episode of a serial called Twenty Four. Wow! That was the starting point of an addiction that started about two months ago. Till date i have watched around 104 episodes of this serial.

The concept is innovative, the action mindblowing, the ending unpredictable, all in all a thriller the like of which I am sure you have never seen before. I cant understand why our serial makers cant copy these ideas from abroad. If the movie directors can, why cant the serial writers do the same? There are 24 epsiodes in a season synonymous to the 24 hours in a day. The action is completed in a single day i.e. 24 hrs and hence the name od the serial. It is all about how the CTU(Counter Terrorist Organisation) acts in situations where the antional security has been compromised.Though some of the action shown is impossible....it keeps you always on the edge of the seat. For people who love action movies this serial is a must watch. Keifer Sutherland is a revelation in this serial. His movies have been flops but he surely rocks in 24.

The other serial i love is named Hustle. It's a British serial.
It is on the likes of the famous Ocean's Eleven. It's all about con men, and how they target their mark, fix them up and finally dupe them. This serial is pretty hilarious and there is not a single action or violent scene in this....for the rule of the con says that "the conned men should never realise that they have been conned." Each episode is discrete and one can start from any episode.
I am sure u must have been completely bored till now, but u see i did not have any other thing to write about. Next post onwards i shall write something meaningful, i promise. Till then follow the first rule of con which says " Find someone who wants something for nothing and give him nothing for something."