Flipping through old college albums, with your weird ass friends doing even weirder things; and the occasional KK song playing on your Winamp/ Amarok players. Is that all that college memories reduce to, or perhaps not even that. Is it just a consolation saying four years was more than enough, the perfect time, to get out of there. I am not so sure.
I remember my first day in NITK very vividly. So first year, my dad leaves me in the hostel room, I meet my room mate Vineet, we engage in the Hi, Where from? routine, followed by more of those in corridor, for the next couple of hours. While unpacking I was wondering what its going to be like. College life. Will it be anything like Nerd Public or would it be worse.
Then Mysore Mess 2 happened. Walked in to 2nd hostel block for lunch. Saw couple of my friends from the school I had gone to, met the people they had met. And then their was no looking back. Absolutely, totally no looking back. Life as I knew it, would never be the same again, for the better, the best even.
Then 2 months later, moved in with Ranga and Choukkar to Room No. 14, 2nd Hostel Block. The common room of our 50 odd member gang. Random people taking naps in the room, catching 'n' chatting up, playing carom, the pile of books and bags during lunch and tea-times, listening to the only 3 Audio CDs we had being looped forever, the room where people came to take a break; to wait while the saviour Maggi boiled in Nescafe after 10 (later referred to the place that should never be visited, for the rest of your life, and rightly so). Mid sems came, people discussed papers. end sems came, lesser people discussed papers, people saw class positions, calculating there GPAs and what not.
Second year. Lot picking. Our miserable performance, led us to take the worst of the hostel wings. But at least we were all together now. Robots moving around in my room, me randomly waking up in the night to find a LED poking my bum (thanks undi!), our you-yawn-and-lose-your-hand killer fan room, the ant tragedy at Paul's room door where we used deodorant+fire for a mega big fat red ant ambush at 2 AM, the 2ml Absolut vodka shots we all took at G's room, the advent of our private LAN, Quake III with Shanky's weird biting tactics, the typical 'switch on, bulb glow' projects at the end term labs. Die Bitch was born (RIP). Reliance Web World, the epic shutter down night out people had at that computer center and DOTA happened. The phenomenon that lasted 3 years. Non-veg mess opened up for us. And a bunch of us became regulars there till final year. Fr ol' times sake, NV mess Grand Dinner yaaaa.... The overnight Beach trek to Shashithullu is a nice thing to do. Little dangerous, but still worth it.
Oh by this time, most of us had stopped keeping track of GPAs, grades, class positions and every dam statistical measure of how good an engineer you are, or are not. Come to think of it, I actually did not learn much when it comes to academics in the four years, than what i did during my JEE prep days. My Big Fat M.L. Khannas and J.B. Guptas and O.P. Agarwals were definitely a lot more interesting and fun solving or rather struggling and not solving. Back to 2nd year - Alcoholism was kicking in quietely in the background, and soon everyone knew how to get to GB blindfolded.
New joints, discovered (and I mean joints as in bars and nothing else, as yet ;), new hangouts, shadier places... And time flew bye... and 2nd year ended.... Time for 3rd year lot picking... The epic meeting in the 3rd block corridor... Some people stabbed (wasnme)... and the rest made sure they rubbed it in to those who did...Yes, thats you Chauf!