What's wrong?

It was a sunday morning with bright skies. I don't know how thats remotely relevant to this story. But lets just stick to traditions and start the post with a description of the weather situation.

As I was saying, it was a sunday morning with bright skies and I had been awake throughout the night. Doing nothing. Doing what? Doing nothing.

Yeah nothing.

What? Nothing.

When someone pings me with the most epic question mankind has ever come up with, the I-would-really-jump-down-6floors-to-show-my-concern-towards-finding-out-what-you're-doing,

What you doing?

I don't know, I was just poking my nose. Glad that you asked anyway.

I always had put up a fight with myself to make sure I don't type out 'nothing' or 'nothing much' or a lazy 'nm'. But this sunday morning had someone had attacked me with the epic question, I'd have lost my battle. Nothing.

So there I was, doing nothing. The sun came out around 6 am, when my mom walked by my room, stood there, gaping,

"Don't tell me you didn't sleep all night"

"I obviously slept. I just woke up." Such a liar.

She took a quick look at the bed, which still had the all rubbish I had thrown-on, the previous day.

"Coffee?"

"No I'm going to sleep. Going back to I sleep I meant." I'm bad at this.

Thats when she gave me a look from which it became obvious that the end of the world is drawing nearer. It was the day my sister's giving an important exam and I had totally forgot about it.

Being a honorary member of the Indian Education System since kindergarden, let me tell you what important really means. Any exam which is going to bother your future is termed important. Simply put, every exam you write in your grade 12 is important. Everything has a weightage. Even the physical training exam, which you've thought you're writing it simply because you're otherwise jobless at home, has some weightage. Just wait and watch. The Board would soon find ways to penetrate its way to your Facebook profile and give 5% weightage to all the quizes you take. Even Anita, the psychic can't help you.

As I was saying, she was about to write this superimportant exam, the final level of the Pre-Medical Pre-Dental. She had always wanted to be a doctor. Everyone in my family did. So naturally, the house had a very tense situation. We packed and left, 2 hours before the exam. My golly, TWO HOURS.

After much of pep talk, the bell rang and the fighters, heavily armed with hall tickets and pencilerasersharpnerscale entered the arena with roaring excitement as the crowd watched tensed. They disappeared into the walls of the exam halls and we were left alone, blinking. It was all amusing. It was just a year ago what I was one among the fighters, leaving behind the amused crowd. Now I'm a veteran.

I was day dreaming in this profound amusement, when my dad called me over,

"This is Dr Something Swaminathan. And he's my son, studying in IIT."

That 3 letter word forced me into a mini career guidance session which included finding responses to questions like

"Do which is better? Mechanical or Electrical?",

"Chemical Engineering? No no my son hates chemistry",

"D'you think Computer science at NIT is better than Aerospace at IIT?" (My personal favorite. Browny points for creativity)

Thats when I began to wonder. Fundamentally there's something seriously wrong. I know people who clear JEE and have not a single clue of what stream they want to put their rest of their life into. Whatever the rank they get, their choice is just the same as the choice of the crowd who get ranks close to theirs.

This strangely reminds me of this scene from Bug's Life where new born babies come rolling down the conveyor belt and the queen ant looks at the each baby and decides whether it could become a soldier or a worker. Just a look. Points to it and the queen mutters 'soldier', next, 'worker', next, 'soldier'...

This resemblance is just sad. Its all upto that rank you get, that exam you write, your performance at the conveyor belt. Smile. You're a worker. Act tough. You're a soldier. The baby does not even know what its putting its life into.

"Perform at the conveyor belt well and the rest is taken care of", they assure the baby.

"Wagawaga", it replies in Baby(UK) which translates to "Why don't you give me a break?" in English(UK).

"So tell me, which is better? Mechanical or Electrical?"

I had day dreamed a bit and this was parent#6 I was talking to. Same questions. Same mentality.

"I don't know ma'm. I belong to neither." I was polite.

Something's strangely wrong.

The First Night

My watch claimed it was 1:30 am. I had to believe it, since my eye lids felt heavy. REALLY heavy. I opened the door to find Vasant in his white bulging vest.

"Hey I skipped dinner and I'm damn hungry."

"Sexy. Lets hit Basera!"

It was way before my vocabulary had "put" replacing all the verbs known to mankind!

Well, let me explain the situation here. Remember the scene where Andy Dufresne enters the Shawshank Prison for his first time and the prison in-mates shouting from their cells? Fresh meat! Fresh meat! Fresh meat! That night, I was totally able to relate to it.

We gave our orders and waited at a table somewhere in the back of Basera. However hard I tried controlling my hunger, that computerised female voice announcing the bill numbers got on my nerves.

"Token number one zero eight","Token number one zero eight","Token number one zero eight".

Dear Computer female, now just SHUT UP! You've established what you wished to say. Thrice.

Urgh.. It didn't listen to me as it went on screaming more bill numbers..

Damnit!

I looked around and there were about 8 people sitting in the next table. I couldn't care less. Thats when one of them started eyeing on me. Had it been a girl, that would've made me feel good. Had it been some random guy, that would've made me uncomfortable. But the problem here, ladies and gentlemen, is that it was a guy and he looked like a senior. Fresh meat! That made me feel like one!

The number of people eying us began to increase exponentially as we finished eating and went back to the hostel. It was 2:30 am. The security guard, sound asleep with some really shitty song playing on his transistor. I reached for a glass of water at the dispenser when around 7 familiar faces walked down the entrance. "Follow me", was all that I heard. Vasant and I exchanged stares. We did as told, crossed the quadrangle and got shut into a room 10 by 7.

All 7 of them, as a display of superiority, sat on the bed cramped against each other. While we sat in 2 chairs. I couldn't control smirking. :P

Now, let me tell you this also. If two people meet for their first time they could say a lot of things. "Hi", "Hey !", or even the outdated "Hello". But in this place, things work a bit differently. There are 2 holy words. PUT INTRO. And you have to, with the right format and facial expression and hand gesture and eye ball movement and visible toe-nail length and million other things.

"Put intro". And so I began putting. Half way through and already exhausted, "Stop smiling! Start from first!". Whew! And I did, for a double digit number of times. Then I slumped. It was Vasant's turn to chant the mantras and my turn to mock at him!

Once got over with these formalities, they were very friendly. No more STAND AT EASE! ATTENTION! PUT INTRO! kinda handling. I started liking it. It became more fun as the discussions grew to involve more interesting and shady stuff. I totally loved it!

It was 3:45 and he opened the door ,"What happened now is called Personality Development Program, in short, POP. Hope you enjoyed it." in the same tone of an air hostess at the end of a flight.

And thats how it all began, my first night in a hostel!

Soon, I got addicted to getting ragged. I went from hostel to hostel, room to room for more POPs and putting the putted intros! Its a very simple process. Just walk up to a senior and ask him if he's a freshie. You're sure to be booked for that night! Fresh meat. ;)

P.S. If you were looking for something else as suggested by the title (or in short, if you're a desparate male IITian) , Well umm.. Get a life! :D

A kick start to insti life

Close to five months after I've promised to make my second post "shortly", I've come out on a decision. To keep my promise. (eventhough it's expired) Not because I really wanted to, but just that my blog is stinking of death, more than an average IITian's T-shirt, but much less than the root mean square of all the toilets in my hostel. Its okay Mr Warden. Chill it down. My blog cannot compete, I must agree!

Five months ago when I created my first post, it was purely made out of boredom and the fact that internet has its own boundaries to keep someone entertained when there is nothing else to do on earth (Yeah thats how screwed my life after jee was). But now, its made out of necessity. A growing necessity which kept growing all this time (redundant statement). Yeah! There's so much that has happened in my freshie life at IIT M!

The phone reminder read "August 1: First day in hostel". Now thats something I like about phone reminders. You do elaborate shopping for one whole week prior to that date, you think about that date all the time in your last week at home, you float away in your imagination about that date everytime people mention words like 'ragging' or 'mess food' or anything related to hostel life. And now, thanks to the reminder set at 9:00 August 1st, special thanks to the reminder set at 9:00 August 1st, very special thanks to the reminder set at 9:00 August 1st, I didn't miss out on checking into my hostel which, if not for the reminder, I would've totally forgotten to do!?!

The site mentioned that I was allotted a triple room, with two other guys, Gopi (Gopi from AP) and Sivakrishna, whose full names took me some time to memorise. Which means, whoever among the three of us who checks in first, gets the best spot in the room. This was my mum's logic to be there early. Me being a Tam, living 4 kms from insti will obviously be before them, living 400 kms from insti. This was my logic not to be there early. So I slept in peace.

And Mums are always right, by Murphy's law (wonder if Murphy ever had a mum !). I got the cot closest to the door, which means, I'm the priviledged one to shoo off monkeys and get bitten by all varieties of bugs in insti. The only good part is that, every morning at 7:55, my roommates wouldn't miss out noticing a guy still in bed as they go past my bed for the door. Alarms never work with me. Physical punching does.

So thats how my first insti day started. The rest of the day was spent sipping milkshakes in Guru with Chandra and Ashwin. I have more to tell you about the milkshakes in Guru. Not many had turned up right on the first day other than we loafers. A dull day I must say. All that hype gone busssss like Rajini films oflate. Just that this hype didn't involve creating new laws in Physics.

And then they came. Junta poured into campus from day 2. By afternoon, you could see families containing a 17-year-old kid each, strolling on the roads proud that they've got a family representative joining this campus, little realising that if the 'boast'er has a kid joining, the 'boast'ee also has one. Okay thats arbit. So by evening, things were settled down with parents leaving their 'wards' with goodbye messages, which eventually translate to sound something like,

"Study well, study well, and yeah almost forgot.. study well!".

They are Indian parents. Thats how they're supposed to be! And so, after long hours of chatting in the Himalaya lawns (a lawn in the Himalaya possible only in IITM :P!!) , the day ended as everyone packed off to their rooms to wake up next morning for the 'freshie orientation programs'.

Orientation programs. Waaw! I can go on about it. Like the way they went on. But I must admit, it was pure fun. We met lots of new people who later became batch-mates and bench-mates. As the speeches went on, it promoted more interaction between freshies. Now thats their logic! You collect all the people to one place. Turn on the bla-bla machine, and the only way they're gonna survive is by talking to each other. Nice to see the administration coming up with awesome ideas to promote interaction among freshies. Orientation programs!

So with every morning in the first week packed with orientation sessions or rather, 'interactive' sessions, the evening part and later is what makes insti life more exciting. Now thats where the enthu of being a freshie is derived from! More emphasis, on later posts! :)