Freshers party

In the first week of our stay in the college, Freshers party was a regular feature. There was one hosted by Atheneum, the college student council. (Incidentally, Atheneum is greek, meaning an association for the promotion of learning. Now, which student wants promotion of learning in college?? OK, whatever..!!) The dean was there to address us, and after he left, it was a free-for-all ragging session by the seniors. The most common assignment given to boys was to interact with a girl senior and get some details about her. Some girl seniors would not say anything, and start berating us that we have come to ask for such things without any shame. Some girl seniors would take pity on us and say something. But the really mischievous "rowdy" girl seniors would invent stuff about themselves and supply it to us. We would go back happily and reveal all the precious information we had gathered, alas, only to realise very late that we had been tricked. Such delivery of "mis-information" was promptly greeted by the seniors who would then punish us by sending us to another "rowdy" girl senior.

There was one freshers party at the department the next day, organised by the department association. (This had been routinely named as Instrumentation Engineering Association, sparing us the difficulty of remembering another arbit greek name..!!) Everybody was asked to go on stage and give an introduction. Well, not an extensive introduction as in "The life and times of Meenakshisankar" (which anyway would not be too extensive, as I had studied in a boys school till then..!!) but only a standard introduction where we have to fill in the blanks to standard headings such as Name, School, (someone in the middle started saying the centums they scored in plus2 exam.. aargh..!!) Hobbies, and finally an interesting question on What we knew about Instrumentation and why we chose to study it. Some of the profound philosophical answers given by students to the last question include, "Don't know", "My father's friend's uncle's brother-in-law studied it and he is well settled now", "Industrialisation is here to stay, so Instrumentation is here to say" (that was a good one), etc. When my turn came to introduce myself, I mentioned my interest in poetry and narrated a poem I had written while waiting in the audience. It was something about senior-junior relationship, and of course, it was full of praise to the seniors. It earned a warm round of applause.

The pre-final year students felt that they would be failing in their moral responsibility as seniors if they didn't have a separate freshers party for us to welcome us into the fold. (Who knows, my poem may have awaken some of their conscience..!!) So, they organised one more freshers party. This was as good as any other. The highlight here is that the chairman of the association, Suresh (who is mentioned in the previous post), chose to attend it. When asked to speak on the occasion, he casually mentioned that he came primarily because he heard that some cakes and coffee were being served. The way he says it with a "mandhagaasa punnaigai" (seriously I don't know the English word for that), especially with his slightly protruding paunch being visible, it would be ultimate. The pre-final year seniors conducted their own version of introduction and a game to develop interaction among the first years. We were also given our T-numbers. (We'll see more about this later)

There came a time, when we became seniors and had to arrange such freshers parties for the new freshers. But, that was not a problem. We had good training in it, thanks to our seniors.!!

(Posted on 08-Aug-2003)

46th Batch Seniors

The time I spent with the 46th batch seniors during my first year at college is the most enjoyable time ever spent by me. They are a bunch of great seniors, the best ever. Every evening I used to sit with them in the Birla Hostel Bund, listening to their "pongal" (purposeless idle chat) where they would tease each other to endless limits. As I was from the plus2 stream, they did not rag me too much. However, once they asked me to explain why the shoe shines because of polishing. I didn't know it. They asked me to write a letter to the dean stating that as I did not know even such simple things, I am unworthy of a seat in such a premier institution, so I forfeit my seat for another worthy candidate. I wrote the letter, but they tore it off and then took me to the canteen. After that I became quite close with many of them.

Some of my favourite seniors from the 46th batch are Suresh, KTK (Karthikeyan), GK (Ganesh Karthik), NK (Karthikeyan), Giri, Sheikh, Sucha ("SuperStar"Chandramohan), NSK (Suresh Kumar) and Dileep (musician). Suresh was the chairman of the Instrumentation Engineering Association, and he is my role model in so many ways. He was very affectionate to all students of our batch and used to give us useful advices. KTK and GK used to be the prime targets of much teasing because of their "affinity" towards girl juniors. I got reminded of them so often when Anbu Smiles and Sathya went on to become the KTK and GK of our batch in our final year..!! Sheik was a fiery senior who used every occasion to inculcate the "IT spirit" inside us. NK was the Placement Rep and he used to give all kinds of fundas. Giri was the coolest senior and every moment with him would be fun. Dileep was a good player of the key-board and drums and his room used to be a music haven. NSK was the chairman of Personality Development Association and he was very helpful to me. Sucha was the ultimate star of fun. His jokes on his classmates would keep me in splits for a long time.

My trip to a "sunai" with the 46th batch senior after completion of INTECHO-97 is also memorable. The sunai was a good place for swimming and we went there by riding on hire-cycles for a long time. We had taken lot of stuff to eat and drink and be merry and it was an exciting event.

I worked closely with many of them during INTECHO-97 and got to know their capacity to pull off incredible things. They all loved Dr. P. Kanagasabapathy, our beloved HOD, who regarded them as one of the finest batches he ever taught. I am so thankful to many of the 46th batch seniors who made my initiation into college life a very pleasant and memorable experience. My apprehensions about college were completely nullified by their cool and friendly approach to me. They are the best..!!

(Posted on 06-Aug-2003)

English for Engineers

The topic of this blog is the name under which English was taught to us in the first year at college. The major change I found in "English for Engineers" from the normal English course syllabus in other colleges was that we didn't have to learn literature. (Although many of my college-mates would heave a sigh of relief at this, I was very unhappy because of my love for literary stuff. I missed Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Milton and the likes..!!) On the other hand, we learnt many practical topics such as report writing, understanding technical essays, etc. I am not very sure how useful it turned out to be today, as I have moved away from the scientific world. Also, as I had developed a way of writing even when I was at school, I don't think this course had any significant impact on the way I write.

But much of the course was questions and exercises oriented, which really helped later when I wrote CAT (Common Admissions Test for IIMs). One topic I still remember was about using watermills for irrigation. That was a very boring piece of article and we were asked to rewrite it in our own words, describe some other everyday process using the format given, etc. Horrible stuff..

I am generally very enthusiastic in participating in the class in the linguistics courses and this course was no exception. Probably I was too enthusiastic is what I believe. I have heard some of my friends from rural schools remark that they would come to the English class expecting only a dialogue between the prof and few students including me. That is true to a certain extent. Especially true in the first semester, when our lecturer Ms.Padmini, used to encourage this behaviour of ours a lot. The notable offenders apart from myself were Chinthu, Bivash Das and Balaji.

A very happy thought from the first year is that the lecturer of the other section organised a debate competition for her students; and the judges were invited from our section. I was selected to be one of the three judges along with Chinthu and Kamini Dhanapalan. It was a very pleasant task (and a tough one too.) One topic in the debate was "Religion is the Opium of the masses" and it was debated upon by S.K. Paaul Randhip and Saishankar, both of them heavy weights. That was one of the high quality debates I have ever seen.

In the second semester, the English classes were held for the Instrumentation students together and we really mixed a lot during those classes, especially the day scholars. We would irritate our lecturer, Mrs. Kaveri, by doing all kinds of pranks in the class. I think I scored the highest grades in both semesters in the course. So no regrets. It was a very satisfying experience on the whole.

(Posted on 04-Aug-2003)

First day and First friend

The first day was just to register ourselves as students in the institute. I had decided that I was a grown-up now and so refused my father's offer to accompany me. I detrained at Chromepet Railway Station in the "normal passenger" way. (The MIT students' standard detraining technique involves jumping out of the train onto the tracks on the other side. I was yet to develop this technique..!!) Gomathishankar, my schoolmate, was there with me as he had decided to trouble me for another four years by joining the same department. Jus' kidding. We walked through the hostels area to the Rajam Hall where the registration and initiation was supposed to happen.

Ok, my first thoughts about the college. The campus was not as big as some of the colleges that I've seen. The buildings were old, but that was supposed to indicate antiquity and long-standing fame. So that's fine. The main college road had lots of trees on both sides and was very "shadowy." Very Good. My Instrumentation department was at the very end of the college, which meant that a long walk was required every day. Anyway, the canteen was on the way, so no problem. Overall, first impression was - GREAT..!!

At Rajam Hall, we had to show our certificates to some faculty members and get registered. On stage, we had to meet the dean, Dr. A. Mathialagan for a brief interview. He just asked me about my choice of Instrumentaion and commented that my marks in plus2 were good. And he wished me for a great fulfiling time in MIT. I am happy to say that his wishes and blessings became true.

In the afternoon, we had a small "welcome" function. Speaker after speaker told us that we were the 49th batch of students of the institute and also that we were the first batch of students belonging to plus2 category. I was sitting near Anbu Smiles who was also joining my class. He was my first friend in college. And in so many ways, one of my best friend too.

(Posted on 04-Aug-2003)