Thursday, September 3, 2009

Its 20 Year since I joined IT-BHU(The best years of my life)

From BOYS to MEN
Our batch of '93 joined the institute late because the JEE results were declared late .Our joining date was 4th september and I landed in varanasi on 3rd night with a cousin of mine and stayed at his friends place .There I met another futcha ,Lovien Khullar(Electrical),who was also staying at there place and luckily we got in the same hostel (DG). In the morning I got up and walked to G-11 with the certificates . Believe me I was scared ,SHIT scared . There were a tons of cries Murge ,O' Murge ,Every senior was a Sakshaat awtaar of yamraaj . They came on some pretext to G-11 and used to scare us . Belive me ,99% of my batchmates were scared in that room and than those 15 days of ragging period started . 4th sept. night was spent in my Local guardian's house and I wanted to stay there for ever because of fear of ragging . But my cousin forced me to move to the hostel and I reluctantly moved in room no. 170 Dhanrajgiri Hostel(DG). I had a room mate in the form of Mr Vishal Mehrotra (CS ) of kanpur .somebody knocked on the door in the night and both of us jumped out of our cot and hid our self beneath the cot . We were very scared and somehow slept after much deliberation . Every moment was filled with fear of getting mauled by seniors . We used to move in heard .I had walked to lanka (about 3 km from my hostel)a couple of times from DG just to run away from this creature called 'SENIOR' . I also went to sarnath during this period and that was the only time I went to sarnath during my stay in varanasi . I hardly attended any classes during ragging period ,It was not that I did not got ready to attend them but after the breakfast when we used to get out of the hostel either we used to ran away or we got caught by the SENIORS .If got caught than you were taken to some hostel and used to do all those regular stuff and some irregular stuff . Regular stuff use to be like writing notes, I wrote more notes during ragging time than I wrote in my whole life , telling jokes ,IT anthem ,proposing dogs,cows ,trees ,basically any living creature .and irregular stuff meant playing fudda-fuddi , Bat-man,phantom , and lot of other fun stuff. I enjoyed the irregular stuff after fear factor subsided because after the irregular stuff one was usually treated by a healthy dose of samosas ,Cold coffee ,laung lataa etc etc . There were certain senior who became the master demon and the most prominent among them was 'BHALLA' .He was notorious for stripping the chicken and checking there stuff ;-). Slowly and steadily the freshers had started grouping and were found huddled in one room sharing there experiences . There was this one incident where some seniors from the 4th year was ragging one of my hostel/batch mate (Pritvi Raj banerjee) and something happened and those senior ran away from the hostel and all of us junior just got agitated as this was our chance to take the revenge from our DEMONS(read seniors) All of our hostel mates got charged up and collected in the hostel premise and thought of taking revenge from the seniors ,We even started to walk toward the Vish .Just imagine around 100 odd murge ,just out of their eggs,out to take the FOX's of Vish . When we walked out of the hostel some sensible seniors talked in sense in our head and we walked inside with everybody having a feeling of a winner . Everybody thought as if we have spared the seniors otherwise we would have beaten the shit out of them .For most of us this would have been our first big fight ,if it would have ever happened . I just imagine if we would have actually reached Vish than we would have been beaten to pulp and our ragging would have lasted atleast for one year .
After around 15 days of joining IT,the ragging period ended officially and in the meanwhile the relationship with the senior had started developing . After the freshers nite all shoes were kept in the cupboard and chappals were out , Pants and F/S shirts were tucked in the trunks and jeans and T-shirts were out . Everybody started buying cycle and were exchanging notes about various fundas in buying cycle .I bought a black avon cycle from a cycle store in Lanka . Everybody use to buy Casio Fx 82 calculator and so did I but the most famous one was the one with a plastic case for obvious reason of its double utility as exams assisting aid.
And than the baptization started , It started with going to "yelchiko" for beer and a smoke at DG corner . 1st year was spent making rounds @ Mandir for Cold coffee and Burgers in the evening and cribbing about the mess food . Spent a lot of time discussing Bofors/Ram Mandir and other issue because this was the year when VP Singh became the PM .This was the year when we saw Maine Pyar Kiya and almost every body was in love w/ bhagyashri or were aping Salman Khan . Music was also a big passion during 1st year and was also initiated in Rock Music . Somehow this passion ended in IT only .
Saturday used to be real active day as lunch used to be a feast and dinner was out usually complimented w/ a movie .It was real fun driving cycle to lanka and than hoping in an auto . The favorite restaurants usually were the one which were near a movie theater for eg. Sindhi, kerala cafe ,Punjabi Dhaba and Labela @ Lanka .Labela holds a special place because of the chinese owner and her Zoombie daughter who use to stand at the counter . There was this one particular restaurant named Host @ Hotel Jai ganges which was my favorite because of its food .
Going back home were also quite fun because initially we used to be quite excited to reserve our seats beforehand and getting the concession forms etc but later the Rs 30 reservation fees and another 10 bucks ,to go to station for reservation , started to pinch as one could always buy a quater of whiskey for that amount and than it did'nt matter whether you are sleeping on a berth or in a b/r ;-).
Boys started to become men !
We went for camping to lakhandari and Rajdhari falls and it was one hell off of a time .We trekked almost 3-4 KM to these beautiful falls .There was a tragic incident with another group of campers from our batch in which two of our batchmates drowned . This was really tragic and emotionally very nerve wrecking for me as they had gone on the same weekend as we had gone but to a different location.
first year was the most active year as I met people from different parts of the country and most of them from very diverse backgrounds . At the end of the first year I know each and every student of my batch by name and branch .
1989-90, the year I completed my 1st year was also very historic because VP Singh became PM during this time on the issue of corruption and sachin got initiated in the world cricket during this time only ,Also the ayodhya Ram mandir issue was also a major point of discussion . I had a lot to say on these topics and was always part of any discussion on them .
One integral part of 1st year was the gaali competition during Electricity shut down in night ,where I was the UNCROWNED KING .Once our started abusing the 3rd Meta Lobby and they initially responded but when they could not match us they came running after us and we just vanished .
Pondies were also a major source of entertainment beside the TV room . watching cricket on a 21" screen w/ 200 students was one helluva experience and oogling @ pondies in private was another .I don't know which gave more pleasure ;-)

I have'nt had better memories of any other year in my life other than This year