A Journey

I was getting very bored sitting at home having no work to do, so i thought why not write about some of my experiences at IIT Bombay. I will share them in parts...

The Beginning

4 years ago a boy came to Mumbai!
He was very exhausted after 24 hour long journey and so were his parents.
The train stopped at Lokmanya Tilak Terminal,Bombay at around 11:30 pm.
They immediately decided to go to the college campus as it was thought that administration must have made some arrangement for the stay.
This was their first visit to Bombay.
The monsoon was in its full youth. It was pouring like cats and dogs.

All throughout his journey he was engulfed with so many questions which continued to trouble him in the taxi too.

“How is the college life going to be different?”
“How good would be the hostels?”
“Would there be any ragging?”
“How tough would be to manage all alone in this city?”
“Had he chosen a college near to his home, would that have been a better option?”

Well while he was still engulfed with all these thoughts, taxi entered the campus gate.
Security asked for his name, branch and his taxi was directed to Hostel-2.

In that pouring rain, campus looked mesmerizing.
Those wet leaves...the peculiar smell of wet soil...the sound of water dripping down from trees...
Everything was looking very different.

Well taxi entered into the gate of hostel-2 and all luggage was taken out.
The meter came to Rs. 350/-.

(In this much amount one could have made a round trip from lucknow to kanpur and still might have saved some money.At that time no one actually realized that they were being overcharged. The taxis in Bombay run by meter and usually the taxi-drivers are honest but there are exceptions too !)

The security at hostel told him his room no.

"Room No. 13"

There came the first shock.
(though he was not so superstitious, but still….
why room no 13? why not room no 12 or 14?")

The room was locked and the key was with the Hall manager who would come only in the morning, so for time being all luggage was taken to lounge which seemed pretty fancy.


The second shock came when he went to use the bathroom
"whooooooooo"
The bathroom was even worse than those in government hospitals located in remote villages.
The plaster was coming out, roof was leaking.They required immediate renovation.
(Which finally did happen after a month)
Anyways, he had no option. He freshened up. It was around 2 am. The canteen was still open. His parents had some food there but anxiety and nervousness had killed his hunger.
He came from a well to do family and had always lived in decent house. His new "den" was in no way comparable to his home.

Night passed....

In the morning he got the key to his room. It was a 15ft x 15ft room. Though it was deigned to accommodate only 1 student, but due to increase in the intake, the administration was forced to make them double-seater rooms. He realized that life is not going to be very easy in here and will involve lot of adjustment. His parents stayed with him for 2-3 days before leaving for Lucknow . Now he was left alone without any friends. There was not even a single person whom he knew in the entire campus.
Even his room mate was not there yet. Also there were only few students in the campus as there was still some days left for new session which was to begin from 25th July.

There were hardly any seniors at that time as they haven't yet returned from their holidays.So for the time being there was no fear of ragging.

Well slowly other students also started to arrive and hostel came to life.He met few people who had come from his hometown itself and this wiped away the feeling of loneliness which had troubled him for so long.

The next day every fresher was allotted a senior as mentor (a 4th year senior) who would help them to adjust to new circumstances and guide them in the case of any difficulty.

It took about 10-12 days for students to get comfortable with their new environment and now was the time to know about the hostel seniors and let the seniors know them..Yes !! time for ragging.....Actually its not called ragging there....Ragging is banned :)....the name which people at IIT Bombay give to this practice is "intro"........

I will write about some "intro" sessions with seniors in later posts