B.Tech NIT Calicut (01) - The Initiation

Most of us still vividly remember our first few days out here. Barring maybe a couple of exceptions, nobody had stayed in a hostel before. So, there was a lot of curiosity, apprehension as well as excitement among the 300 odd new inmates of the hostel. You could sense it in the air. It was tangible.

There was a lot of paperwork to be done before you were allotted your room. You also had to buy some essential items from the in-hostel co-operative store. 1 Kurl-on mattress (the pillow came free), 1bucket with a cover, 1 mug, 1 soap case, 2 ropes, 1 mirror, 1 broom, 1 dust-pan, 1 dust-bin, 5 hangars, 10 clips - these were the items I bought. I had purchased all toiletries beforehand.

I was quite pleased when I saw the room - it was pretty spacious and very airy. 3 parallel beds, 3 study tables with drawers, one beside each bed, and 3 cupboards. And yes, 3 metallic chairs. 3 students per room. When I entered the room, one plump stocky curly haired bespectacled boy was sitting on the middle bed with his father. Over his head, I saw a rope strung, with colourful faded boxers fluttering under the fan. The bed farthest from the door had apparently been booked too - there was a Kurl-on on it. The first bed was mine then.

We exchanged the Hi's and Hello's.... he was Maharashtrian too. We got acquainted. Started talking. His name was Amit - and he was speaking in a monotone. Reeling statistics after statistics. NITs and their rankings... which JEE rank would translate to which branch in which IIT... which AIEEE rank would get you X branch in Y NIT... what were the placements of NIT Calicut.. what were the quotas for each state... and then some more arbitrary statistics. I was speechless.

All the students didn't come at once. It was a trickle that started around a week before the commencement date, which soon become a flood a day before commencement. That day was a Sunday. I kept meeting new people and made a lot of new acquaintances. I had a little problem in the first week - it was hard to penetrate that Malayali accent. I should say those, because there were atleast 3 different accents. Non-mallus weren't the only people who had an issue with the accents. My other roomie, Koshy, confessed that in the first few days he couldn't understand the Malayam spoken by some of the other Mallus. I also had problems with the Hindi spoken by the UPites and the B-boys. The Kolkata hindi was fine, except that they used 'hum' instead of 'main'.

In the days when NIT was REC, especially in the 90s, the scenario as far as ragging was concerned was pretty bad. Apparently the first years used to be subjected to pretty brutal and humiliating stuff, and the occasional police intervention was not uncommon. To ensure safety of the first years, they were all cooped into one hostel, with a guard at the single entrance. The ragging wasn't that bad now, but the system continued. A-hostel was the fortress of the campus, that safe haven were you could roam about without worrying that some senior would come and start threatening you. You could go out only for 3 purposes - attending lectures, getting a haircut and paying your monthly hostel and mess dues.

We settled down. Formed groups. They soon got realigned along state lines as the seniors got in touch with us and started the ragging. But that's another story. Lectures were a let down. I sat on the first bench the first day. Wednesday. By Friday I was on the last bench - a backbencher... and I have remained one for the rest of my B.Tech life.