"You have nothing to lose, nothing to gain...the journey has no end nor any beginning...it's a perpetual circle"
PS: Self-explanatory; I'll share whatever comes to my mind, and which I consider as worth sharing, and is original (not copied from anywhere), obviously!
Showing posts with label nostalgic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nostalgic. Show all posts
Yearnings of Yore- Life Goes on!
This article was originally published in
"Yearnings of Yore"(Volume-VII) given as a souvenir to the alumni present on the occasion of "Seventh Annual Alumni Meet", January 8-10, 2010.
Life Goes on!
It was a day that changed your life once and forever, from just a mere mortal oblivious about this world to a community for which people used to spend half a decade to be in. It was the day your forefathers would attain salvation after getting the big news.
However, you were calm and sleeping in your not-so-cozy but homely bed when your mother wakes you up. You brushed your teeth as you were a mother’s child and had to abide by her morning rules. Wow! You are selected at IIT KGP.
Congrats now you are a KGPian!
The news of your selection spread like wildfire, soon phone calls started coming in if you happen to be selected after the telecom-revolution.
This is the celebrity phase of life every IITian never forgets throughout his/her life.
Life gives you choices and sometimes plays with your fate and gives you surprises. IIT welcomes you with surprises, few bad ones and pleasant ones too. You transform from a teenager to a young adult. It is “Goosebumps-giving” to say that the change IIT did to you still reflects in your personality and you have never changed that much over a span of 4 years other than in KGP. When you put your footsteps here you might be with your dad or mom but in the subsequent 4 years you start doing things on your own. Your first all-alone journey back to home, your first visit to the stationary shop for purchasing stuffs that was previously bought by your parents or elder brothers and sisters, gradual loss of interest in studies, involvement in hall activities and orientation program, etc. all carve out a change in you successively, obviously not in the above order . Here I’m tempted to quote a cliché
“Your hall is your identity. Your hall is bigger than your year, bigger than your department, bigger than your CG, bigger than YOU.”
This is learnt by you and you are made to learn things which leave transcendental changes in you. Hall seniors and the stationary shop owner of your hall are the people you have to be subservient to for obvious benefits!
Within 6 months, you have loads of activities to do and you get a hang of the less happening life outside KGP campus. Cheddis, Tikka and other eateries give you relief from the mess food and excuse to do “Bhaat”!
“Bhaat” is really an activity which forms an indispensible part of every KGPian throughout his stay here, be it the personal problem, IIT issue or national and international issues, a KGPian has a point of view on every topic under the sun what he refers to as his “funda” or “fundae”.
Every KGPian subconsciously believes that he/she gets paid not for his/her technical expertise rather the “fundae” giving capability he/she inherits from his/her seniors. The explicit mention of photocopying centers deserves a mention as it is the prime reason for making you an IIT graduate. People say getting in to IIT is tough, try getting out! (another cliché). Academics take a backseat in most of the KGPians’ priority list. Life goes on, you graduate and after 5 years or 10 years or whatever may in your case, you feel like returning once again to this mother of all the IITs. The students of KGP also wish to welcome their seniors again and relive the moments again. Being an alumnus of IIT KGP you might get nostalgic but the feeling of nostalgia is also quite serene and surreal.
"Yearnings of Yore"(Volume-VII) given as a souvenir to the alumni present on the occasion of "Seventh Annual Alumni Meet", January 8-10, 2010.
Life Goes on!
It was a day that changed your life once and forever, from just a mere mortal oblivious about this world to a community for which people used to spend half a decade to be in. It was the day your forefathers would attain salvation after getting the big news.
However, you were calm and sleeping in your not-so-cozy but homely bed when your mother wakes you up. You brushed your teeth as you were a mother’s child and had to abide by her morning rules. Wow! You are selected at IIT KGP.
Congrats now you are a KGPian!
The news of your selection spread like wildfire, soon phone calls started coming in if you happen to be selected after the telecom-revolution.
This is the celebrity phase of life every IITian never forgets throughout his/her life.
Life gives you choices and sometimes plays with your fate and gives you surprises. IIT welcomes you with surprises, few bad ones and pleasant ones too. You transform from a teenager to a young adult. It is “Goosebumps-giving” to say that the change IIT did to you still reflects in your personality and you have never changed that much over a span of 4 years other than in KGP. When you put your footsteps here you might be with your dad or mom but in the subsequent 4 years you start doing things on your own. Your first all-alone journey back to home, your first visit to the stationary shop for purchasing stuffs that was previously bought by your parents or elder brothers and sisters, gradual loss of interest in studies, involvement in hall activities and orientation program, etc. all carve out a change in you successively, obviously not in the above order . Here I’m tempted to quote a cliché
“Your hall is your identity. Your hall is bigger than your year, bigger than your department, bigger than your CG, bigger than YOU.”
This is learnt by you and you are made to learn things which leave transcendental changes in you. Hall seniors and the stationary shop owner of your hall are the people you have to be subservient to for obvious benefits!
Within 6 months, you have loads of activities to do and you get a hang of the less happening life outside KGP campus. Cheddis, Tikka and other eateries give you relief from the mess food and excuse to do “Bhaat”!
“Bhaat” is really an activity which forms an indispensible part of every KGPian throughout his stay here, be it the personal problem, IIT issue or national and international issues, a KGPian has a point of view on every topic under the sun what he refers to as his “funda” or “fundae”.
Every KGPian subconsciously believes that he/she gets paid not for his/her technical expertise rather the “fundae” giving capability he/she inherits from his/her seniors. The explicit mention of photocopying centers deserves a mention as it is the prime reason for making you an IIT graduate. People say getting in to IIT is tough, try getting out! (another cliché). Academics take a backseat in most of the KGPians’ priority list. Life goes on, you graduate and after 5 years or 10 years or whatever may in your case, you feel like returning once again to this mother of all the IITs. The students of KGP also wish to welcome their seniors again and relive the moments again. Being an alumnus of IIT KGP you might get nostalgic but the feeling of nostalgia is also quite serene and surreal.
PS: This was the first time I got bylines for any article and I was very happy to see my name in print for any article for the first time!
Singrauli: Mining-IIT KGP Field Trip' 09
You know you are a student of mining engineering at IIT Kharagpur, when you go places like Singrauli and get warm reception from senior officials and stalwarts of mining and related fields. Apart from that the field trip had an overwhelming impact on our lives and we all will remember this trip for years to come.
Singrauli, the energy capital of India doesn’t have a metropolitan environment and is pretty sleepy but as far as the mining projects and power plants are concerned it would leave you awestruck. According to Singrauli’s website its total installed capacity of all power plants is around ten percent of total installed capacity of India and aptly it is known as “urjanchal”.
We stayed at Nigahi Project Township. The quality of food needs a special mention as it was a pleasant experience to have feast for 5 days and never did we have to make faces and unusual expressions because of it. In fact, we all ate well above our normal intake and calorie count was irrelevant.
One of the other things was that we realized that you cannot take KGP out of a KGPian after meeting the alumnus over there. They arranged everything for us and it was all very smooth and at times adventurous too. The Draglines, shovels, dumpers and the ubiquitous use of Hindi are the things which perfectly describe Singrauli. The Hindi phrases which were used everywhere must have been for educating people who come from places where Hindi is not the mother tongue. This reminds me of another brief meeting with two management-trainees from which I’m tempted to conclude that whenever you meet 2 engineers from pan-India 1 would be a Gult; for the uninitiated “Gult” are people from Andhra Pradesh and yes it includes Telengana too. I’m sorry for being racist.
In short, we had a helluva time there with the whole batch. We climbed on to shovels, draglines, posed for too many photographs, actually too many. The photographers [read as guys with camera] clicked photos of anything and everything under the sun and the sun too. This might support the exaggerations of Thomas L. Friedman that the surge of technology “has empowered individuals to become authors of their own content” in his book, “The World is Flat”. If you need proof, combining the photos of only two such guys it crosses 4 GB, and that is hell lot of information clicked.
The fun part was that the whole department for the first time got together and enjoyed like never before. We previously had made many plans for department picnics and treats which failed but this really brought us together, and for the first time we enjoyed college life at least I did. There was a time when I struggled to remember the names of all the 32 people. And very recently, one of our batch-mate didn’t know “who is who” but not anymore, am I right?
This field trip will go down our memory lanes and we all will remember this for a long time. This trip likely marked the end of the field trips for one of our grand old professors of mining. We are nostalgic sir!
It’s all words and words I can type maybe some photos here and there but I cannot do full justice to the amount of fun we had and what impact it had in all our lives.
Yo Singrauli!
Yo Mining!
“KGP ka tempo hiiiiiiiiiigh hai!!!”
Singrauli, the energy capital of India doesn’t have a metropolitan environment and is pretty sleepy but as far as the mining projects and power plants are concerned it would leave you awestruck. According to Singrauli’s website its total installed capacity of all power plants is around ten percent of total installed capacity of India and aptly it is known as “urjanchal”.
We stayed at Nigahi Project Township. The quality of food needs a special mention as it was a pleasant experience to have feast for 5 days and never did we have to make faces and unusual expressions because of it. In fact, we all ate well above our normal intake and calorie count was irrelevant.
One of the other things was that we realized that you cannot take KGP out of a KGPian after meeting the alumnus over there. They arranged everything for us and it was all very smooth and at times adventurous too. The Draglines, shovels, dumpers and the ubiquitous use of Hindi are the things which perfectly describe Singrauli. The Hindi phrases which were used everywhere must have been for educating people who come from places where Hindi is not the mother tongue. This reminds me of another brief meeting with two management-trainees from which I’m tempted to conclude that whenever you meet 2 engineers from pan-India 1 would be a Gult; for the uninitiated “Gult” are people from Andhra Pradesh and yes it includes Telengana too. I’m sorry for being racist.
In short, we had a helluva time there with the whole batch. We climbed on to shovels, draglines, posed for too many photographs, actually too many. The photographers [read as guys with camera] clicked photos of anything and everything under the sun and the sun too. This might support the exaggerations of Thomas L. Friedman that the surge of technology “has empowered individuals to become authors of their own content” in his book, “The World is Flat”. If you need proof, combining the photos of only two such guys it crosses 4 GB, and that is hell lot of information clicked.
The fun part was that the whole department for the first time got together and enjoyed like never before. We previously had made many plans for department picnics and treats which failed but this really brought us together, and for the first time we enjoyed college life at least I did. There was a time when I struggled to remember the names of all the 32 people. And very recently, one of our batch-mate didn’t know “who is who” but not anymore, am I right?
This field trip will go down our memory lanes and we all will remember this for a long time. This trip likely marked the end of the field trips for one of our grand old professors of mining. We are nostalgic sir!
It’s all words and words I can type maybe some photos here and there but I cannot do full justice to the amount of fun we had and what impact it had in all our lives.
Yo Singrauli!
Yo Mining!
“KGP ka tempo hiiiiiiiiiigh hai!!!”
The Nostalgic Indian Wedding
There are only two kinds of people, one who have got the chance to enjoy Indian wedding and the other kind who wish to enjoy, dance and sing in an Indian wedding.
Switch off your mobile for a week (not quite literally), get away from internet and be offline for 6-7 days (literally), and attend an Indian wedding. This will truly give you more entertainment, knowledge and warmth of friends and relatives than reading this blog or twittering/Facebooking.
Last week my youngest uncle got married and I enjoyed the wedding as described in the above lines. As soon as exams got over, packed my baggage, rushed to my maternal place and guess what? It was a walk down the memory lane, as I experienced many things once again after 5-6 yrs.
Maternal uncles and aunties made my trip worth remembering and nostalgic.
One thing which I love is the craze of an IIT student outside IIT. It is as if you are a local celebrity radiating orgasmic IIT waves all around yourself. I was introduced to every notable person in the wedding with much delight.
A typical introduction would follow like this:
Uncle/Aunt: Hey Ashish! Come here… he is my eldest sister’s eldest son, studies at IIT Kharagpur.
Third person: Wow! Gives an “Aww! You are from IIT” Look and asks if I know his friend’s cousin sister’s daughter’s friend there.
The kids! I don’t know whether to love them, adore them or hate them!
I was with 12 first cousins who were all under 10 and I had to look after them. At times, it was hell but there were moments you simply want to remember for a long time. It feels nice when a kid comes and asks for a hug when scolded by his/her parents. I love them. I was the only matured of all the cousins as other cousins of my age-group had exams and didn’t turn up.
Yeah, the wedding was fantabulous. I was made the photographer by the groom (my uncle) and I messed it all, crap!
I was pampered and given unprecedented importance and even teased that,”I’m next in the queue of eligible bachelors *blushes*”
The thing which you look forward to in such functions is the food and what better than a week of full-relief from stinking hostel mess food. I was fed by my masi (aunty) not once but twice and I ate thrice my tummy ordered for.Her hands added special masalas which were tasted when I was a kid.
"Masi jab apne haathon se khana khilaye toh mazaa hi aaa jata hai!"
The cuisines were hand-licking awesome.
However, I missed out on starting any kind of conversation with few hot girls. The kids kept me busy and the rest of the time was spend helping out my newlywed uncle and aunty as they were to be escorted to various places. I must say my new aunty is a fun-loving girl, I don’t wish to use lady or woman she looks a girl only 4-5 years elder to me.
I have a huge family with 5 maternal uncles and 3 aunties and their kids; more about first cousins in other posts.
I really loved the visit as many old memories got refreshed and I was trapped by nostalgia.
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