Here i come!!

Loong layoff....but i am back. Have been struggling to deal with a transition in my life. My college life has come to an end and its time to face the big bad world now!...ha ha...am i making it sound more dramatic than it is?...hey...it is a big deal guys. For the last four years i have been living life on my own terms, no one to answer to and no one to question me, now i will have a boss to answer to, and landlord who'll question me...aaaargh!!....i am not ready!!!....

Right now as much as i am terrified at the prospect of moving on, it took me ages to get over the fact that i wont be going to college again. Those were the days...my dad rightly had said to me once..."Son, these are the golden days of your life...make the most of them because you will never live like this again"...well, i went about making sure that i wont be able to live like that again!!...not if i live by the law!!...seriously guys...the things that we did, those parties, those night-outs, they were unbelievable. I have made friends in college that i will have for my lifetime and will never have more friends like those in my life. Words do not do justice to kind off relationships we have shared in college. Seriously, the bar for friendships and friends has been set so far high that i doubt it will be matched in the future.

The last few days of college were really memorable for us. We could see the emotion in the eyes as everyone realised that the time for the final goodbye is near, i personally made an effort to register all the moments all the little occasions that came along and tried to spend as much time as possible with my friends. I am sure everyone made that effort...really, bryan adams' line "Those were the best days of my life...." never sounded more meaningful.

The hurt and pain of parting with close friends is now slowly evolving into a realisation that this is the end of a phase in life and the transition has to be made and we have to move on to a new one. The new life beckons now and i eagerly await the start of this new phase, i am not ready i said earlier...but then who is!!??...before we realise it we are tossed headlong into an ocean of uncertaintiess...we are supposed to fend for ourselves with no weapons at our disposal!!...i think to rightly sum up this transition period i remeber something that one of my friends said just after we had given our final B.E. project viva.... "Abey, ab tak college ke prof log ko bevakoof banate rahe, kuch nahi aata tha fir bhi fatta dekar paar ho gaye, now its time to fool the world!!"

What matters is how you travel....

Standing at a fork in the journey of my life, i wonder which path i should choose. This isnt the first time that i have had to make such a decision, a decision of choosing between two or more options that now seem to hold equivalent promise. Each one carries upsides and downturns of its own. All seem equally good decisions to make. The decision i make now will define the course and nature of the journey ahead. It isnt even a case of taking the "path less traversed" or the path where everyone is going. On previous such occasions i was immature and let others take such decisions for me and bindly proceeded in the direction they pointed. Some of those decisions i regret having followed, others i celebrate. All i know is i am here now and i cannot let anyone else make the choice...because no one knows me better than me myself. Then where should i go?

A great voice once murmured in my ear, " Ask for information not advice". I did that and still all the options hold their own. Each path offers breathtaking views, endless oppurtunities, and each path has a distinct charm of its own. Should i take the path that is easier now?...but then it may get difficult later...where will each one lead me?...What lies ahead in each?...Which direction will lead to more gains?...Which path will make me what i aspire to be? These questions haunt me and i am only putting them off till the last minute...waiting for some divine intervention to point me in the right direction.

As i give this dilemna more thought, i realise that the best way to tackling a fork in the journey of life is to listen to yourself. Your inner voice, listen hard, it will speak up...follow your gut instinct...because what should really matter to you is not where each path leads and which is more difficult....what matters is, how you travel, that you take in the beauty of journey, enjoy every moment of it, meet people, take inspiration from the slightest of things, give joy to fellow travellers...what matters is how you travel.

All Good Things End....

I am often asked by my juniors, as to why i joined the students placement committee and why should they join it when its their turn. I too was faced with these questions once and the most unanimous response i got was that placements are the best thing going on in our college, and one of the biggest factors for that was the functioning of our Training and Placement division. Being in the students placement committee would let me absorb the work culture in that great place and learn from the man responsible for that...Mr. B. B. Pant.

Ofcourse there were several other reasons provided to me for joining the team. Here, we can learn and interact with officials high up in the hierarchy of various companies, we can work for the good of the larger student community and gather some memories that will last with us for a lifetime in the process. Another reason, (suggested by my elder brother), in any case you will have nothing to do during the final year, there is nothing better to keep you busy!

I remember the first task we were given was to organise the farewell party for our outgoing placement committee. I still cant beleive how wonderful that party was. We all chipped in and coordinated so beautifully that it was hard to beleive that this was the first time this team was doing something collectively. All the right chords were hit and all the notes blended perfectly, to create a smooth symphony.

The first company on campus was TCS, and i would be lying if i said that i was'nt scared stiff at the prospect of co-ordinating a process involving almost 400 people (all curious and worried) sitting for an exam that could decide the course of their lives. I am also sure that the rest of the team felt the same. But that morning when we all got down to our job, we drew confidence from each other and with a few minor hitches, the job was done. After handling the TCS campus visit, we knew we were ready for any situation. Bring on the heavy artillery!!

Other companies were a breeze mostly. One incident stands out though. Tata Motors was on campus, and the interviews were on when Maruti arrived for selecting its candidates. Now the Tata Motors interviews got prolonged and before Maruti started its G.D. phase the results werent announced yet. Now this was a sticky situation because the same set of people were sitting for both companies and we couldnt allow guys selected for Tata Motors to sit again for Maruti! To make it worse, Maruti had brought a long an HR guy who was so touchy, he got twitchy and started screaming even if there was no rough paper in the interview room! Amazingly, somehow we managed to whisper into in the ears of the selected candidates and stealthily pull them out of the line for the Maruti G.D.!

It was incidents like this and other occurences that leave me amazed as to how we managed to survive the placement season. Also, astonishlingly this turned out to be the most hectic placement season in terms of the number of candidates appearing, number of final offers, and also number of companies on campus! I speak for the team and the placement office when i say that we never felt stretched for a bit throughout the gruelling period.

All of us were so different yet we almost always were thinking along the same lines. Ofcourse there are differences in every team, but thats the beauty of it all, differences were ironed out in such a way as to arrive at the best solution, and this solution was always better than that we would have arrived at had there been a single train of thought. Everyone shared a common goal and worked to achieve it, it was never an issue as to who worked more or who did the better job, the end result mattered.

The 2k3 Students placement coordinators' committee consisted of:

1. Aditya Devurkar : The brains of the team. Any technical problem was almost always deflected to this guy, and he was more than happy to tackle it.

2. Dhruv Bhardwaj : He should be christened Dhruv 'creativity' Bhardwaj, not only for his talent of designing but also for coming up with the most innovative solutions for any situation.

3. Mohit : The life of the team, he was the heart that pumped energy and freshness into us whatever the occasion.

4.Narayan : He was literally the big brother in our team. He has such a big heart that he gave emotional support to atleast half the batch as they waited for their interview.

5.Pritpal : The jolly sardar, always cool, always calm, always bearing a smile. I call him Sunshine Singh.

6.Rahul sharma : Sharma as we all call him, brought a great sense of humour to the team, nobody else can take a joke as well as him.....hats off. It was his personal agenda to ensure that EEE core companies come to the campus.

7.Rajiv : Our Man Friday, he was the go-to guy whatever the task at hand. Hardworking and the epitome of a perfect gentleman.

8.Saloni : The soft-spoken, miss charming, whenever at the tnp, things seemed just so much easier for everyone!

9.Sohini : Bubbly, she is not just endowed with the soothing voice of a nightingale, but her presence is soothing, just like her voice.

10.Swapnil : Mr. Perfect. His demeanour and his attitude rubbed off on all of us, the confidence he exudes is just so contagious.

11.Tanya : Good things come in small packages. She is a bundle of energy, enthusiasm and joy. Capable of sindle handedly controlling an entire horde of students, we are still amazed at how she did it.

12.Vani : She is always in command of a situation. Whenever something used to go wrong, we instinctively knew that it was because vani was'nt around to stop it from happening. It is people like vani that make a team work. I dont know where she gets the drive from to work this hard.

13.Varun : Have you heard this guy speak? He can rattle of one-liners at speed that would put Najot Singh Sidhu to shame! A gentleman to the core, and one of the coolest guys i have ever met.

14. Vineet : He can mimick anyone on the face of this earth to perfection, but he himself is inimitable. Extremely friendly, it is hard to cross him or be cross with him.

15. Saurabh : A guy who is too humble to praise himself.

Priyank Sir, Prabhat Sir, Pratyush Sir were all our bosses, our friends, our support structures.


A word for our mentor, guide, and driving force.
Many times when you are working, you stop and wonder at the usefullness of it all and wonder wether you should chuck it all and have a good rest. At such times when you see a man twice your age, up till 2 a.m. for a cause that should'nt really concern him as much as does to you, the meaning of the words inspiration becomes evident. All good things come to an end, and the only things you can take with you as you leave, are the memories and the things you've learnt. I will have a handfull of these things to take with me and a majority of both of these i owe to Mr. B. B. Pant.

Hooked Up....!!!!

I was one of the unlucky ones in hostel 3 who got access to the BIT LAN quite some time after the rest had. Almost two months later. All this while i was cursing the administration and the various departments involved for denying me this facility. My joy obviosly knew no bounds when they finally got it working. So what if it was bang in the middle of the mid-sems?...who cares?....i've given 7 mid sems and it wont matter if i screw up the 8th one. I remember i footed it all the way to techno-point from the inners to get a piece of lan wire crimped (hope thats the right spelling) and 'Hook' my comp onto the LAN.

Little did i know what effect this would have on my life....i would be 'Hooked' onto something i cant give up easily. Sleeping hours would shorten from a lazy 9 hours to merely 4 hours. I would be chatting for hours with people i just barely knew. Share some of my deepest emotions with closer ones. I would barely have time to see my best friends who lived in the nearby hostel. I would talk to another who lived in the next room through dc++. I would browse this forum for hours on end until my eyes hurt. I would play games on the LAN and sulk the entire day if i lost one, and paste a smile on my face if i won.

In short, this LAN thingy now determines my interactions with friends, oher people, it uses up all my time, it controls my moods, hell, it controls
my life. Other colleges have had LAN since ages, and we can see our future if we look at these colleges. People don't go home in the holidays to visit their parents coz there's no LAN there...they miss classes... flunk... they don't even know the name of the person who lives two rooms away from them. I mean people calling me by my nick is cool...but after a while it starts to bug me. It's not like there are no good points about having a LAN...we can network....share ideas...get to know new people (virtually ofcourse)...and other stuff. But at the cost of becoming socially defunct?...is this worth it?

I dont like what this LAN is doing to my life...but you know what? I cant
live without it...!! Seriously i am HOOKED !!

I am grateful....

That day is vividly etched in my memory. I remember clearly the ride in the auto that brought us (me and my parents) to BIT. It was a bright sunny afternoon, and after a two day train journey I should have been exhausted but somehow I wasn’t. I was too excited for trifles like that. I watched amazed as we passed the long hostels. The perfect facade of the BIT institute building emerged out of nowhere and offered a sudden breath-taking view. I hadn’t experienced anything so imposing before. Whoever says that he wasn’t awestruck when he first entered BIT is lying. I was astounded too, and though I acted cool about it all, I saw being here as a culmination of my efforts of the last few years.

Somewhere in between the pride in their glances to me, my parents must have harbored a deep concern for me. As such, amid the sense of achievement there was a silent under-current of apprehension. It was then that I decided, I will belittle all the sorrows this place gives me and herald all the joy I am afforded. "That should be easy", I said to myself. I couldn’t have imagined how hard it would be.

The first rude shock was that I was to share a small, nay, tiny room with my roommate. (Looking back it wasn’t that bad). The ordeal of the admission process, complicated further by the gutkha eating, incompetent babus and peons in the offices. One of the first things to strike me about this place was that security guards were all over the place, and were getting things done...they were more helpful then the officials. “There goes meritocracy out of the window”, I thought. I reconciled myself by saying that this is probably the case with most colleges...chalta hain...little did I realize now how often I have to say that in my stay here. It was the same with the food, the way classes were conducted, the labs, the curriculum...hey wait a minute...I couldn’t name one thing that this college offered that was better than the others...everything was either as bad or worse.

I hate to look back and say “If only…”, but sometimes we have to and learn to admit our mistakes. So I think sometimes, was it a mistake to come here? Had my dreams been shattered mercilessly? I got the answer eventually. Education is not only the gain of knowledge and a tool to win a livelihood...no, it is much more than that...this place gave me amazing friends, I came in contact with great seniors and juniors, I learnt from them, I learnt from great men like Mr. B.B. Pant, this was what this college had given me. It has taught me how to live, amid chaos and confusion, how to carve a niche for myself; it showed me who I really was. These things people say, are achievable in other institutions too, but I don’t know and I don’t want to find out. All I know is that I wouldn’t be the same had I been elsewhere. I am what I am today because of these years in college and I am grateful for that.