Random Thoughts

For the past two days I happened to be in kharagpur where I had gone to let my younger brother give an exam. I hardly know any student there now, since most of the people I knew have already graduated. But still there are one or two, and I thought it would be a good idea to meet them and my professors and rekindle some old memories.

There are many things that have changed in kharagpur (or kgp, as it is popularly called), though it is the last place where you would expect the goddess of change to set her feet. You get the first sense of it as far as 100 metres from the gates, where a new flyover is being built which will enable students to avoid the two railway crossings that are just in front of the gates. God knows how many students have lost their trains and how many precious man-minutes of some of the finest brains in India have been wasted in trying to determine how long would it take them to go to the railway station considering both the crossings have been closed. Frankly speaking, I think this is the only “engineering” decision our director has taken in the institute in recent times. in other times when he is not busy putting his signature in hindi on official documents, he is putting up hindi translations of departments’ names in front of the buildings (thanks to him, all of us now know that mechanical engineering is called “yantriki abhiyantriki prodaugiki” in hindi.)

But yes, back to kgp. There hasn’t been any appreciable change in the shops outside the gates except that Goyal infotech has got a little larger and there is a new mobile shop which promises to upload all new mp3s, videos, audios, wallpapers etc to your mobile phone. Chedi’s has got a new multi-colored glossy banner which proudly proclaims his shop to be ‘chedi’s hotel’, as if people didn’t know already. The first thing that you learn when you go to RP and RK is this chedi’s place where you can get food stuff and tea for all 24 hours.

Inside the campus, the first thing I noticed was the various sign boards which showed directions for different buildings (thank god they were in English. I wonder if they have been put up recently and the director is out of station J ). Though our campus is less confusing than that of some other places, you definitely need directions in the 500-hectare campus (Asia’s largest, though most part of it is still plain jungle). Other institutes having this claim to fame are IIM Ahmedabad’s (where dorm 4 is with dorm 1 and dorm 18 is 1 km away from dorm 19) and MIT’s (where hostels are built like a maze. The architects thought that if mazes can make mice more intelligent, it should have the same effect on humans also).

The tech market also has changed somewhat. They have put gates outside the buildings so you can’t take your cycles inside now. In the ground inside they have put boundary over some rectangular areas where I think they are going to develop gardens. There is also a pundit who has started sitting there in a corner with agarbattis and all. I guess now final year students have started taking help of astrology also in making sure that they pass out of this place. J (for non-iitians, if you are too shocked to know this, this is fact.) I am afraid I am digressing, but I still remember an incident with one of my seniors which happened with him in his final year. he went to the examination hall to give his paper. as he entered, everybody started to stare at him. He noticed, but didn’t speak anything. He thought maybe he was looking very smart today. he took the question paper, and started solving it. halfway through the exam, he called for the professor of the course.

Student – sir, there are 8 questions in this paper. are we supposed to answer all of them?

Professor – yes, you have to answer all of them.

Student – very well, sir. I have answered 5 of them so far. There is this Q No. 5 which I am not able to understand.

Professor – you are not able to understand because you are not supposed to. This is not your question paper, and this is not your examination hall. You are supposed to be giving the exam for some other subject in some other class room, you fool !!!

There are innumerable number of such examples. I will tell you one more, now that I have started to recollect them. this incident happened with my friend who was also my batch-mate. In the final year, he didn’t go to meet his b.tech. project professor for full 6 months. One day, while he was sleeping happily in his room (after bunking his class, obviously), somebody started banging on his door very hard and woke him up.

My friend, person 1 – (in a sleepy voice) kaun hai ?

Person 2 – khol be m!@#$%&, teri waat lagne wali hai !!!

Person 1 – kya hua, bol to.

Person 2 – darwaja to khol.

My friend opens the door, finally, reluctantly.

Person 2 – abe m@#$%^&, tu kitne din se prof se nahin mila hai be ?

Person 1 – yaad nahin. kyun kya hua ?

Person 2 – aaj mujhe tera prof mila tha department mein. Mere ko dekhte hi daantane lag gaya. Bola ki tum kabhi milne nahin aate ho. B.tech. project le rakha hai par aaj tak koi progress nahin hui hai. Main m !@#$%^& usko samjhaane ki bahut fight mara ki uska student main nahin tu hai, par usko tera chehra hi yaad nahin. Tere hisse ki daant main kha kar aa raha hoon. Bhai, kuch kaam kar ya fir na kar project mein, prof ko kam se kam chehra to dikhata rah !!!