I just realized that it is 2012... time flies... really flies... 10 years ago, at this time i was screwing myself in a bid to pass my 12th board exams... my schoolmates were all in the hunt for the 'competitive exams' that would follow the board exams... and i was least bothered about any exam apart from my boards... all i knew that it would be the last exam at school, after which i would be a free bird (remember the Red Bull ad)
2002 it was!!!
i didn't have any aspirations to study in a great college like the IITs or the NITs... i was interested in colleges in Pune or Nagpur which would admit students on the basis of 12th marks... i gave my best for the boards and scored a decent percentage. And i was then pretty sure about my Jai Maharashtra aspirations.
But fate had other plans... i landed on an unknown land, southern India, somewhere i had never been to, in my life till then!
It was a college in Vellore, a place that is well known for the country's best medical college and hospital... but engineering???
Unaware of what was in store for me, i blindly put a 'kabar' on my Jai Maharashtra' dreams and joined this college...
But then i realized, be it any college (ok, not any college, somewhere you can get placed, atleast), those 4 years are the best years in your life. Something that one can never forget, perhaps not even in his/her death bed.
August 2012, for the first time in life, i was going to be away from home, some 1000 kms away, atleast. It was suicidal... thank God i didn't commit suicide... my first lesson in life, to always look ahead... something much better might be in store.. and better; no my best moments followed... i developed my friend circles... i was allotted a room at the hostel, but i never used to stay in my allotted room, just used to roam here and there, either in college or hostel... people would say 'yeh kaha paaya jaata hai?' :D
but it was fun... i befriended as many people possible... something that used to be in my mind, ki kandhe se kandhaa milaate chalo... :)
The college was midst a barren land... a small town with limited amenities... but the atmosphere inside my college was completely different... it had the general characteristics such as bunking classes, proxies, couples roaming around, guys (say prospective FOSLAs) hanging around, watching girls (bird watching) etc etc etc...
But all this made the 4 years go like a breeze... Few activities made those years extra special:
1) Weekend movie at a decrepit cinema theater called Raghavendra, a place with wooden seats, no reservation of seat on a ticket and very dingy, but excellent screen and sound quality... and certainly, my all time most favorite movies got released during this 4 year period, perhaps, mainly because of the company i had, while watching them... :)
2) Even a small town like Vellore had good eateries... there was a China town, a Rajasthani meal centre and an Irani restaurant, places where we used to frequent...
3) The best moments however were when we used to head home after the exams... 2 major trains from Vellore would be the Brindavan express to Chennai and Dhanbad-Alleppy Express (Dhanno)...Spending time with friends in our journeys have been very memorable...
i used to break at Nagpur... i had a friend who would travel to Chhattisgarh (CG) with me... the break time would normally be 5 to 6 hours... we would use that time to roam on the streets of Nagpur... at times we would catch a movie as well, at a Janki theater :P
Even exams would be great moments... those were the first times when we would touch... no, not books, but xerox of only relevant pages... those were the one night stands, mugging up everything that we could do, humanly possible... :P
There were other moments like our second Diwali... what started from an uncontrolled Diwali celebration in hostels, ended up as a midnight protest against our college principal (he had rusticated on of our batchmates for stupid reasons)... the protest started with chants of "principal MC principal MC" and ended up with someone firing a rocket towards him when he was running away, the rocket went with just few centimeters from him...
And the Holi celebrations, it rained the previous evening... and we were at it, mixing colors in mud... the college was not closed, and there was this particular eccentric guy who was going to college in a white shirt (when all of us had planned a mass bunk)... he was dragged and thrown in the pool of mud...
Since then, Holi and Diwali were declared holidays, with the entire campus being cordoned off, as if a curfew being imposed... :P
College life can certainly be the most memorable time of your life... it is here where you get your first friends, you drink and smoke for the first time, you fall in love for the first time, you develop your passions, interests, disinterests and an outlook towards life...
It is the last time where you can stay carefree and get geared up for the remaining 75% of your life... it definitely shapes up your life!!!
2002 it was!!!
i didn't have any aspirations to study in a great college like the IITs or the NITs... i was interested in colleges in Pune or Nagpur which would admit students on the basis of 12th marks... i gave my best for the boards and scored a decent percentage. And i was then pretty sure about my Jai Maharashtra aspirations.
But fate had other plans... i landed on an unknown land, southern India, somewhere i had never been to, in my life till then!
It was a college in Vellore, a place that is well known for the country's best medical college and hospital... but engineering???
Unaware of what was in store for me, i blindly put a 'kabar' on my Jai Maharashtra' dreams and joined this college...
But then i realized, be it any college (ok, not any college, somewhere you can get placed, atleast), those 4 years are the best years in your life. Something that one can never forget, perhaps not even in his/her death bed.
August 2012, for the first time in life, i was going to be away from home, some 1000 kms away, atleast. It was suicidal... thank God i didn't commit suicide... my first lesson in life, to always look ahead... something much better might be in store.. and better; no my best moments followed... i developed my friend circles... i was allotted a room at the hostel, but i never used to stay in my allotted room, just used to roam here and there, either in college or hostel... people would say 'yeh kaha paaya jaata hai?' :D
but it was fun... i befriended as many people possible... something that used to be in my mind, ki kandhe se kandhaa milaate chalo... :)
The college was midst a barren land... a small town with limited amenities... but the atmosphere inside my college was completely different... it had the general characteristics such as bunking classes, proxies, couples roaming around, guys (say prospective FOSLAs) hanging around, watching girls (bird watching) etc etc etc...
But all this made the 4 years go like a breeze... Few activities made those years extra special:
1) Weekend movie at a decrepit cinema theater called Raghavendra, a place with wooden seats, no reservation of seat on a ticket and very dingy, but excellent screen and sound quality... and certainly, my all time most favorite movies got released during this 4 year period, perhaps, mainly because of the company i had, while watching them... :)
2) Even a small town like Vellore had good eateries... there was a China town, a Rajasthani meal centre and an Irani restaurant, places where we used to frequent...
3) The best moments however were when we used to head home after the exams... 2 major trains from Vellore would be the Brindavan express to Chennai and Dhanbad-Alleppy Express (Dhanno)...Spending time with friends in our journeys have been very memorable...
i used to break at Nagpur... i had a friend who would travel to Chhattisgarh (CG) with me... the break time would normally be 5 to 6 hours... we would use that time to roam on the streets of Nagpur... at times we would catch a movie as well, at a Janki theater :P
Even exams would be great moments... those were the first times when we would touch... no, not books, but xerox of only relevant pages... those were the one night stands, mugging up everything that we could do, humanly possible... :P
There were other moments like our second Diwali... what started from an uncontrolled Diwali celebration in hostels, ended up as a midnight protest against our college principal (he had rusticated on of our batchmates for stupid reasons)... the protest started with chants of "principal MC principal MC" and ended up with someone firing a rocket towards him when he was running away, the rocket went with just few centimeters from him...
And the Holi celebrations, it rained the previous evening... and we were at it, mixing colors in mud... the college was not closed, and there was this particular eccentric guy who was going to college in a white shirt (when all of us had planned a mass bunk)... he was dragged and thrown in the pool of mud...
Since then, Holi and Diwali were declared holidays, with the entire campus being cordoned off, as if a curfew being imposed... :P
College life can certainly be the most memorable time of your life... it is here where you get your first friends, you drink and smoke for the first time, you fall in love for the first time, you develop your passions, interests, disinterests and an outlook towards life...
It is the last time where you can stay carefree and get geared up for the remaining 75% of your life... it definitely shapes up your life!!!
