We are all grown up!

I had this thought when we, a group of friends were buying formal clothing for a friend destined to start his job on next Monday. After all the shopping was done, we started the usual chitchat session and I congratulated him for entering into the corporate world. It was then we pondered over what lay next. Hanging those loose ever-sagging jeans and stepping into nice trousers, giving up sandals to wear those black leather shoes, waking up early in the morning and not to mention the daily bath and shave… 

To make the above changes go down a little easily, we fetched our beer bottles and felt better once the chilled effervescence inside us. But then the reality struck us again and I don’t know but for whatever reasons, reality hits you really hard when you are light. I guess this is its way of minimizing the damage. Someone said about the grueling work-hours, other was drinking to how little his job was going to way and I on the other hand was still waiting for my offer-letter. It was unanimously decided that my problem was the most serious one and called for a toast. 

The average workday was calculated to last for 12 hrs, leaving aside little time for other things. This really worried us because 4 years in college had made us really lazy and working for 12 hrs a day looked almost impossible. But then one of us assured that if our seniors can work then we could work too. This was a relief as we knew how screwed up our seniors were. With this in mind, we all started making plans of how we were going to spend our money and how are we gonna make a life out of the hectic work-hours. But the discussion was cut short when a friend got a call from his dad telling him it was time he came back home. So we decided to call it a night and raised our bottles as kids for one last time.. It is time that Raju becomes a Gentelman and Yes we are all grown up..

 

Below is a video of my Comp. Science batch at IIT-Guwahati.. It sums up our journey from Raju to Gentelman. Njoy.

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Goodbye - not so good after all.

Sitting on a hard-bound copy of his BTP thesis, drinking the cheap “Old Smuggler”, Deewaker took a deep kash and said “Goodbye”. Goodbye to 4 years of refugee life. Goodbye to frustapa for a girlfriend (like he stood a chance in the outside world), goodbye to messy mess food and goodbye to sleep-hating lectures, goodbye to 4 years of pain.

Then he said something that smuggled the Old Smuggler out of our system. To quote him: “As some of the best brains of India, we have spend the best time of our lives in the worst possible place.” Somehow none of us could muster the strength to fight back against his bold statement. He went on to explain how his friends in other colleges have got good financial jobs, how they all have 2 girlfriends (keeping just one meant there was something wrong with you. No girlfriends simply meant you were gay) and how they laughed at his decision, each time he goes home.  He asked for a round of cold pizza (no chance of getting a hot one while sitting 20kms from civilzation) and continued to explain ‘life’ to us.

It felt as if Deewaker was saying something we had felt all along. May it was the booze talking or maybe it was just a downpour of emotions but all of it seemed true. Had we really donated our life in exchange of an IIT degree? Just as we were digesting the reality, along came another emotional avalanche, this time it was Prabhu. He gulped down his shot and said f*@# you Deewaker, I have enjoyed every second of my life here. Yes the classes sucked, the no gf thing was cruel, no doubt the food yucked but my life with you guys simply rocked. “What about the Rubel walks, the class bunks, the SOFing, the canteen bakars, the DPs , the Alchers, the Manthans, the night-outs, the shillong trips and what about all the time spent together.“ ranted Prabhu. Then it all came back, the good times, the bad times, and the ugly ones too. Being there for each other, trying to hide your frustration to help somebody else, lending an ear whenever someone was down.

A sudden flash and electricity was back. From where I could see, Deewaker had wet cheeks and red eyes. He stood up, crushed the cigarette bud and said “Prabhu you @#@#*$ you have ruined my life. I wanted this to end tonight so that the pain maybe less. But as always you have to ruin everything. Now get up and give me a hug.” We all huddled together and held on to each other. Another loud noise and Deewaker said “Goodbye my foot. My heart, my soul, my love will still be with IITg”

 

Career Choice

While discussing the career options of my cousin, who is in 10th standard right now, it was deja vu for me. 6 years ago it was me who was in the middle of such great dilemma.ˇAt that point of time my knowledge about different career paths was bonkers. I had no idea what to do and I didn’t hate any subject more than the other. So what I did was see the trend of children in our family so it was either Medical or Non-medical. To choose between Medical and Non-medical was simpler now. I had seen my sis slog hard even after she got through MBBS entrance. No I didn’t have the courage to slog like that, I wanted my college life to be fun. So it was non-medical.
Now after my graduation, when I lived the life, learnt a lot about other streams I regret to have entered something where I had no original passion or interest. After 4 years of fun college life am I happy? No, I am not. Do I love my job? No I don’t. So have I done something that interests me? And alas the answer is NO.
So I don’t want my cousin to make the same mistake again. I don’t want him to jump into engineering just because I did it or his parents want it or he is good at mathematics.
We all are in a position to help our younger ones and guide them through this phase so that they can get into a career that they enjoy. Don?t do what the world tells you to do, just listen to your heart. And in this way we might be able to see a lot more writers, painters, artists, filmmakers etc.

what have i learnt from IIT

IITs may be among the most coveted colleges in India but is it really the mecca of education? Is the best research centre in the country? What do students in IITs really learn, why are they seen as some of the best brains in the world? Well to the common man the answers to these question may be immaterial because after all you want is a good job after graduation which come as a guarantee with IIT admission. But are IITs really worth it.

According to me IITs are the toughest colleges to get in but the easiest to get out (of course wid a degree) of. All the hard work, determination, number crunching stops when you enter IIT. People here have a laid back attitude in general and will do everything and anything to avoid an assignment. Copying assignment, getting profs to postpone deadlines is everyday affair. The real education starts a week before exam but that is forgotten once the exams are over. After three years of studying in a branch of the so called best engineering colleges in India I now wonder what really have i learnt. I am certainly not the master of any subject and not even a jack of most. What really have i learnt????

The only thing that I can safely say about my college is that it makes you an all-round personality. Interacting with people who have such unique talents teaches a lot. Its the people, my friends, my classmates that have taught me the best lessons of life. Everybody here is skillful in one or the other thing and gyaan-dhara never stops. Everybody is always bubbling with new ideas, new information that is how we learn what we learn. From politics to cultural fest, from technical quest to daaru-party, from night-outs to complete bunks, from four-star to dhaba, from pub to hostel terrace, from campus lake to brahmaputra, from hostel field to hilltop, IIT has taught me all.

I thank my friends, my seniors, my juniors and everybody else for teaching me all the important things in life. No matter how much I hate our college for its shortcoming but my Heart, my Soul, my Love will still be with IITG.

luv u all.......

iitians who we really are...

Iitians in India are a famous and respected breed. Wherever you go and tell people that you are in IIT or u are an iitian, there will surely be some moms and dads coming upto you asking some advice for their children. Common perception is that we are complete nerds who are really good at understanding things and studying hard. We are seen as descendants of goddess Saraswati (the goddess of knowledge). but little do the people know that beneath this aura of geekdom we are people with very rare and mostly unacceptable qualities.

let me tell the world what we really are. Every iitian has two sides to him, the one he maintains at home and with other non-iitian (no hard-feelings) friends and one tht he has in college. They say that things come into their best when they are in congenial surroundings. And iit campus is the best place for us to come into our own and live the real insane side of our life.
Every iitian loves pink-floyd coz it is the best music that has ever been played. We call it the psychedelic music and as the saying goes:

To fathom Hell or soar angelic,

just take a pinch of psychedelic.

But we being from the Satan side need a little more than that so its elixir of Satan (usually rum, vodka, whiskey, smoke n sometimes dope) combined with Pink Floyd that takes us higher. Almost all the discoveries (there aren't many to boast about) are made in this phase and this is the time that we actually do something other than watching movie, tv-soaps or playing games.

About the movies and tv-soaps thing, you will always find an iitian who has seen whtever movie u think off and who knows every episode of FRIENDS by heart. The gaming (SOF n AOE in my campus) is another religion here. Late nite gaming is just another chore that most of the iitians have to do. Its the only way to get you frustration out, u cant kill a prof, atleast kill another player who plays by your prof's name.

Even though what I am going to say is a well-kown national fact but for the records i have to repeat it. "Iitians are sex-starved." Yes it is as true as any other theorem in the world and is perhaps the easiest to prove. We people will approach anything which even remotely resembles the female side of human life. Even though we may maintain a high taste amongst ourselves but the truth is that we are always looking for a glimpse of some female counterpart. We might be the most eligible bachelor education wise, money-wise but beware of the wild side.

Lastly I may have degraded my fellow mates by my harsh comments so to even out things let me enlighten some good things about us. Yes we are workaholic but only when its a day or two before the deadline. We can work for 4 days in a row and yet show no signs of tiredness of sleep. And the very next day we can sit in an exam and still perform better than most people on earth. Yes we are geeks, but geeks who know how to study and how much to study and most importantly when to study. Yes we can work like an ass but only when it comes to organising cult-fest, rock-nites and tech-fest.

The most important thing is that we don't live our lives as the world wants us to do, we just live it the way we want to. We dont care if people idolize us our despise us, we don't care for any dams thing on earth coz thts the way we are.

IIT SUCKS but I LOVE it STILL.........