Mission Admission and Beyond - Part I

Part I: Genesis of College Life

The earlier blog (Haridwar one…have you read it??) was at the focal point of all the hustle-bustle of the admission process. (For your information, I got into Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi in the Economics Hons. Stream, see the picture, that's my college!). This was the assuage that my parents needed…they didn’t want any more of the uncertainty (I’ll tell you why, read on). My near and dear ones were gladdened as I got into “a great college like SRCC”. Hailing from Hyderabad, the accommodation was always a sticky-issue; most suggested me to take the hostel. We were told that there were only 3 berths from the entire Economics stream in the first year in the General Category…so that only added to my mom’s jitteriness. We had to clear an interview (ugh...another one), which I luckily did (else would I mention it here???) After clearing the hostel interview, we were given the luxury of choosing our roommates and the rooms too (this supposedly wasn’t there earlier). After lots of permutations and combinations, I chose a triple seater room with two other guys from Calcutta. The room incidentally (or otherwise) is easily the best one in the block, and yes, Lady Luck smiled, and we got it!!
Both guys (commercies, by the way) are toppers of their respective schools and have got these obscene marks in their Class XII, so I was constantly thanking Lady Luck (I love you…. are you single???) After all these (college, accommodation etc) were set, we flew back to Hyderabad and as expected had “royal treatment” for a few days (you know why…son’s going far away to study, so lots of pampering and all…) We spent a few days shopping for essentials (some of which turned out to be luxuries…) and then the day of my departure arrived. Mom (expectedly) didn’t want to leave me alone, and she came all the way to Delhi to ensure that I do things rightly and settle down smoothly (mom na…understand!). But mind you, she left three days before college began…she sort of dumped me at Delhi and returned to Hyderabad… which in effect meant, that I had to do EVERYTHING on my own (and I did that…)

The much longed “college life” was nearer than I ever thought. The first day (15th of July) was an “Orientation Programme” for us (fuchchas…freshmen in SRCC lingo). All of us reported well in-time, and I (atleast) was scanning through the crowd looking for known faces…found my room-mates there…and some other people whom I met during admissions…being the extrovert I am, I initiated the talks…asked them from where they were, what they liked etc. The programme, however, was languid. Classes were supposed to begin on the 17th. We noted down the timetables on the 15th and reported accordingly on the 17th. The first class was an introduction class basically, our HoD (Dr. AJC Bose) came to our class taught us a few college rules (never to wish teachers when they come to class, never to stand etc…the startling contrast with school was apparent in the first hour itself) and asked us to answer precisely three questions crisply
1. Your name and where you’ve come from (not percentages!!!)
2. Which book you’re reading at the moment or which incident of late has stirred you up
3. What you want to do in life
We got interesting (and a few amusing) replies from everyone…someone considered researching (on game-theory) as a career trajectory, someone desired to get into the UN or the WB, someone else said he ‘learns from films’, someone emphatically announced that she ‘hates’ reading books, another funny proclamation was someone who wanted to be the ‘King of the Universe’…responses varied from the wacky to the weird to the super-serious to the super-dumb…I immediately got a rough idea of my class…that it’s fun, and that it has the potential to have a plethora of intriguing conversations (which can soon go out of hand as most of us seemed to suffer from insanity, or just that our ideas seem to bizarre and obscure).
Remembering names however, was a problem initially. There were many goof-ups and screw-ups…but it took three odd days for the names to register.
To my astonishment, most of my classmates turned out to be the IIT-reject, Stephen’s-reject material…just like me, so I had company, and solace… and obviously acted as though the grapes were ACTUALLY sour. (Ok, no more reminding that we didn’t make it through to the IITs…it’s a bad dream for us at SRCC)

The first three odd afternoons were spent exploring the campus with my hostel mates(this is the pic of the hostel, our new home), we went in groups actually, we dreaded the R-word (Ragging)…we heard lots of spine-chilling stories in the TV and read them in the newspapers…so obviously the fear-factor was immense. So our logic was that if we move around in flocks, the perceived damage done would be minimized. You’ll know what exactly we faced as you read along…it’s interesting, delighting, disgusting, nauseating, yet fun…and all to the same magnitude…you’ll also read what we “gained” from ragging (yes, we gained a lot…trust me!)

The author can be reached at utsavmitra@hotmail.com