Remember The Titans

The day I entered IIT, I expected to meet the geeks, people who were born genius, people who became genius with time, and people like me, who struggled to find a place with the geniuses by luck. When people were admiring the campus, on the first day, I was busy observing people, finding a friend in them, with whom I can share the moment of sorrow when I get poor grades, and share the moment of happiness when I pass a course. I entered IIT with a fear of mere survival between the others.

The first few people I met changed my opinion entirely. They made me fearless, actually careless of the IIT system. And they became my friends for ever. The strangest thing in IIT was that every new people you met became your close friend. It was as if we had started new civilization we all became part of, and every year many new faces were added to it.

5 years back, I was a different person, shy and serious. I was hoping to find people of my type. But then I met Anjan, Pali, Sahu, Atish, Shi, Akshat, Charsi, Raghu, Chu, Moti, Burla, Pinku, Ari, Bindal, Sitman. They were all very different from what I was but they made life full of fun and laughter.

Anjan’s idontgiveadamn lifestyle, Shi’s funde (of getting good grades), Pali’s criminal mind, Atish’s musical delights, Raghu’s gandigiri, Sahu-sitman’s fite, pinku’s transition( from pinku to talli), akshat’s studape, Chu’s rape events, everytime there was one of the other incident taking place that made us all laugh all night.

Even today when I remember the night when Chu ran after Atish again and again, for a mere reason of touching Chu’s body:D, a smile appears instantaneously. The night when NSS hours were being given, the night when we had a water fight(thanks to Pali) that lead to Sahu’s ME110 drawing being washed off, the exams time when Anjan used to take a book into the loo, and that loo didn’t even had a latch, the sitman’s announcement, ‘beeeeendal, jute wala aa gaya hai, jute de do’, Akshat’s peculiar way of saying ‘behenchod’, that lead to his nickname, beeny, then the late night bakchodi between anjan-shi-moti-ari which were the cause of many sleepness nights of me and atish:D. The list of incidents is endless.

This was then, and after one year all of us were scattered to different corners of the hostel. But, thanks to those good moments, most of us became good friends, and still are in touch. And so, the size of our civilization kept increasing, because every year some new faces came by, and some new events happened that were registered permanently to the memory.

After 5 years, when I look back, I see a change in me, I am much happier, satisfied with life then I was before, I have learned a lot, about things I never really expected IIT is supposed to teach, about smiling at worst circumstances, about laughing at yourself just to give smiles to people you love.

I live hoping to keep meeting people like them, because they are the reason that I am smiling today.