Down the 'Tiger Road' lane..!

Maybe its too early to look back… But as we grapple with life in many ways, we can’t escape a smile when we are reminded of stray incidents in our 4 years stay at BIT. Be it the initial days when we were trying to settle in our hostels, the ragging blues, the pressure of living upto the expectations our parents and elders had of us and not to mention the feeling of being independent! I don’t know how many of you had already stayed in a hostel before but for me, it was the very first experience. When I read Chetan Bhagat’s ‘Five Point Someone’, I believed the setting could as well have been BIT. Perhaps with a stigma attached of not being able to crack the IITs and settling down for a ‘lesser’ institution in many ways. However we may deny it, but the fact remains BIT Sindri wasn’t really our first choice (for most of us , i.e.). I, for one thought I would get an REC somewhere with a pretty decent ranking I had. There were a few who thought they could have another aim at the JEE of 1994. I believe, out of the many who tried, there were hardly a couple who actually managed to crack it. Rajesh Kumar who got IT, BHU is one I remember.

If you think this write up is all about cribbing and regrets, let me tell you – it isn’t! It is about how we started our respective journeys and spent our best days together and how we came out of the whole set up – a little bruised, a little hurt but nevertheless stronger than before. There were many who knew exactly why they were there. Yes, to study, to do well in exams and make sure they weren’t at the crossroads once the 4 year long sojourn was over. At the same time, there were a lot who thought of playing around and making sure they enjoyed to the hilt. Enjoyed we all…and HOW!

I knew Arun (Arun Ranjan) and Anurag (Sinha) in the process of finding out who all had secured admission in BIT. Our respective dads / families knew each other and thought the boys would do well together. In the age of no mobile phones, my first memories are of feeling a lot homesick and heading more often towards Goshala to that uncleji’s STD both, waiting for our turns to call our mummy jees and Daddy jees and telling them ‘all was well’ and etc etc etc. Imagine, that STD booth guy made 10 bucks by just sending across a messenger on a bicycle who told us by knocking on our doors that our mom/dad had called the STD booth and asked them to deliver the message to us ! Its strange we didn’t have a phone in our hostels (or did we?).

Internet hadn’t even arrived and PCs were still machines which were found more in computer labs than in houses and offices. I guess it did help us in some way compared to today’s guys and gals who always end up reaching for their cellphones for every little feeling they have. The anticipation, the waiting, the speculations are all gone with the arrival of technology. Of course it has done good but we should also agree that it has raised the pressure and injected a feeling of always being under the surveillance of webcams or networking sites or …There isn’t a private life nowadays. The recent suicides in IITs have been attributed to the fact that the hostel inmates were always ‘connected’ to their parents and relatives back home and always felt depressed of not being able to sustain the glory they brought to them after securing a JEE rank. Result – they couldn’t cope and took the extreme step.

Before we knew what had hit us, the FIRST year was over. The euphoria over various clubs had subsided a bit and reality had hit hard (me at least!). First year was a joyride nevertheless with various ‘discoveries’. One incident that comes to my mind recalling that period is being told my authorities that ELECTRICAL and ECE would be shifted to single seated rooms of Hostel No. 17 and 19 of the dreaded ‘B zone’. Although there was some excitement, there was fear as well. As we were entering the senior’s den! There was a lottery held with various chits put with ‘17’ and ‘19’ written in them. Many of the guys wanted to stay together and I do remember that I swapped Hostel 19 chit that I picked up with Wikesh who had picked up Hostel 17.



To be continued! :)
Please share your memories of the BIT days!