Flashback : First Year in College

Written on 7:41 AM by nitesh

An era is nearing to end, the place where we spent most days of our lives after our home will no longer be ours, We will have to leave daiict to start a new life in the corporate world wearing formals 'suited up' (barney quotes from how i met your mother) for consecutive 8 hours.

Life will not be as enjoyable as it was here; some one has said rightly that

We run life inside the college gate
And life runs us outside the college gate

So now in this my first blog I try to recapitulate last four unforgettable years in daiict.

Counselling


Starting with counselling on 9th june 2002( not sure about date), I came here with my father and we were greeted by smiles of sumukhi shukla sitting at the help desk . My counselling was on second so I was not sure whether I will get the seat or not as my rank was 501 double the required capacity, but was relieved to know that only 80 seats were filled the previous day probably because of Gujarat riots 2-3 months before this day very few parents opted for sending there wards to da-iict. Last year all the seats were filled by rank 425 so my anxiety was valid. I met here with sumit goyal who later on went to become one of my best friends in college. There was an orientation lecture before submission of fees by director Prof. Kudchadker. I don’t remember the whole lecture but I liked the way he spoke, we were shown some dreams of taking this college to a world class level and I guess we all were mesmerized by the oration of Proff. Kudchadker that included words like innovation, generalist specialist, jack of all trades and many more. The orientation removed any doubts which me and my father had regarding taking admission in da-iict which at that time was offering diploma reliance name assured that da-iict will become a university in 6 months. Fees were deposited and as we were to stay outside campus in the first semester so were shown the place where we were scheduled to live somewhere in sector 6.


On 6th july came the news that the father of Da-iict Mr. Dhirubhai Ambani had passed away, so this was not an auspicious start to our life in daiict. Later I came to know from deputy registrar P.K.Chopra that there is one more guy from hisar (my hometown) who also got registered in da-iict but his counseling was on first day. The guy was vivek goyal my roomie for 7 long semesters.

First Semester

On 18th July we (me and vivek) landed on the land of Gandhi with new hopes and vigour to make a bright future. We were allotted rooms in sector-7 in different blocks from 76 to 95 and 16-20 students were to live in each. First few days were like adjusting to new environment and meeting and making new friends. On Monday we 240 fresh faces well dressed came to college to for regular studies but first there was a orientation lecture by deputy registrar P.K.Chopra which I will never forget as in the orientation he spoke the word smart card around 100 times.



Our first lecture was supposed to be Professor R.N.Biswas but we came to know he has not yet come in college as he is joining with our batch as a permanent faculty so Professor Sanjay Chaudhary came to take the lecture in which he talked about the password and other profile stuff and the important incident of the lecture was his quote ‘u red shirt sitting on 4th row 1…2…3…4 are you sleeping’ the guy in red shirt was Deepak Gulati (charsi) first guy to be kicked out of the class.


We all were horrified by the professor and many of us stopped wearing dark clothes in his lecture. There was not much fear of ragging as we all knew that our seniors were not ragged so we hoped they will not take cruel ragging but somewhat lighter one. We all were right to some extent leaving behind few cases. The common ragging stuff included things like giving introduction and bending in front of seniors, ‘90 maar’.


Somehow some seniors had some how taken out the list of students of our batch there was one student Taru Sardana who was most looked after as his name gave the impression of a sardarni girl but the outcome was a guy with a beard and moustache. Some seniors also came to our blocks during night for ragging but next day we saw 2 guards outside the main office. Ragging was over with fresher party after 20 days and we attended the maiden jam session and still I all feel that was the best till now in college. After few days came our first mid sems exams, for the first time we had 2 exams on a single day.




I still remember how all of us were literally pushing each other in the tv room to get some place to stand so that we can watch movie ‘kamasutra’. Running back from college to watch cricket matches was also very exciting, tv room used to be jam packed we also used to sit on windows to watch the match. Started watching English movies in R-World at the cost of Rs20 and icing on cake was that free coke was also included in Rs.20.

Eating dokhlas in sector 7 market and dinner at vishal’s home became a regular routine.We all wing mates became chetan baboor (national table tennis champion) by playing tt on four tables combined to make a table. Final exams came and were over by week and our first long one month break started.

Second Semester

Second semester started on a sad note for me as I screwed in the finals and my cpi touched down south, though I passed all the courses but surprising part was getting C grade in BEC after scoring .5 marks in final. Our honeymoon with sector 7 blocks was over and we were to shift to brand new hostels in college campus. As girls were supposed to live on first floors of F-E wings I remember seniors requesting first floor B-wingers to swap rooms as direct view was there towards girls floor.


The shifting of hostel the depicted real example of metamorphism during which we transformed from sincere, hardworking, energetic boys to not so sincere not so hardworking and not so energetic lazy lads during that period we would had denied ‘indras asnas’ in lieu of our beds. We ate to live and lived to sleep and I guess things didn’t change much after that. As Glen McGrath used to keep waiting to get sachin out, faculties used to keep waiting for us for the lectures, attendance touched rock bottom to 16 in DFS lecture.

Making of KBD ( kaun banega draupadi pati)

Bunch of 17-18 guys decided to become serious actors by doing a comedy play later on titled ‘Kaun Banega Draupadi Pati’ for the upcoming blitz-03. Fifteen sixteen nights which we spent on writing the script and thereafter practicing the play were most memorable days of my life. Blood circulation increased during the nights (when we all sat together to decide the script ) watching dk enacting almost all the actors of bollywood, nana patekar was favorite of all.

Convincing honey to become ‘gandhaari’ was the most difficult part as the character was supposed to cover her eyes. Idea of using 2 balls (in absence of honey) to give male ‘gandhaari’ a realistic look was also discussed but later on rejected. Saurabh Nandan (chotu) was most supportive as he easily agreed to become draupadi. Draupadi was reincarnated in a 6.3 feet tall guy and bheem’s reincarnation was done in a underweight ‘akha bukha India’ type of guy sumit goyal (kikad). I was supposed to play ‘dhritrashtra’ and the song to be played on me and gandhaari was ‘aankho ki gustakhiya maaf ho….’ Entry of pandavas carrying plastic guns with song 'tha tha duniyi di tha tha' was most comical. Crowd was on their feet watching taru bond dance (enacting bhishm pitamah) on song ' i am a bachelor akela hoon bimaar hoon'. Sachin (duryodhen) made them made requesting me ( his father dhritrashtra) on song ' shaadi karva do meri shaadi karva do'. Both's dancing styles later on led to a craze among the masses. Raghu Movva aka 'karna' transfigured into prabhu deva while dancing on song 'mera baap mila de mujhko doon lakh duaye tujhko'




Our play was 21st century’s Mahabharata in which ‘dushasna’ who in real epic went to bring draupadi by pulling here hair, here in our play was brought in lap of draupadi in the ‘durbar’ . Another laughing incident was bheem’s (kikad) tearing apart his undershirt during the wrestling round in a style, to make it easy to tore the undershirt a cut on the upper part was made but we forget to make the same on the lower part of the undershirt, he was unable to tear apart the undershirt so this shrink guy somehow took it out by making various tilts to upper part of his body Dressing up chotu and honey in saree and all others was another difficult part but somehow with the help seniors and lots of shouting by all of us (aise nahi aise kar) was done somehow. The play ended with raghu aka prabhu deva dancing on the song 'mera baap mil gaya hai meri maa kho gayi hai ' Stomachs of every one out there were aching because of excessive laughing.





Cricket crazy da-iict got the first chance to play on the lush green ground with the first inter group tournament being organized by DCC , with director sir playing the first ball, thanks to amit singh for kicking start sports culture in college. I will not forget my debut match which started with a record which no bowler would like to hold, I bowled 11 wides in an over. Wherever I tried to bowl ball swung incredibly and the result was wide. Group 1 came out champions and I was part of winning team. Batch team was formed and I was lucky to represent my batch. Cricket tournament was followed by carom tournament. Players played with bats worth 10,000 each, life time of those was not more then 30 days, this is still a mystery were they really of 10,000 bucks.

One day during sas tutorial came the heartening news that our college has been made university under start act by Gujarat government, we celebrated the day with a tea party and a big card was made and we all signed on it. In the end of semester there were nightmares of course DFS as some one had complained about the copying of assignments, many students were caught and many were unluckily punished with F’s ( the most till now around 41).


Peaceful bond between juniors and seniors was broken with secret seven of our batch beaten by seniors probably because senior ‘sabu’ being pushed on the roller (by one of them) which resulted in his shoulder dislocation. There were many other reasons for the fight, later on matter was resolved by warden proff. Ingle and no one was punished.

Internships and next two semesters coming up in next blog

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