Part 3- Just before My Welcome to Final Year

On the verge of third year, when everyone was looking out for internship I was no exception. Everyday when you hear the news of people getting intern offers then you feel like trying to get one. I don’t say getting an internship is a must but it does add value and helps you understand the industry while you learn, prepare yourself for bigger challenges of the corporate world.

After making some unproductive efforts, there was one lucky day when GE came to my rescue. I was sitting idle in my 12 by 12 room and was totally amazed by the lady on the other end of the phone. There she starts “Good Morning Saman, this is “XYZ” from GE” (pls excuse me for names). As usual it was a few minutes interview and I was in with the offer letter in my mailbox. Then I felt the real meaning behind the adage “Harder the Battle, Sweeter the Victory”.

After all those exhausting but dandy efforts, here comes the time to vibrate our minds to plan for stay in Bangalore for our respective internships. The final judgment was made where in one comps guy was becharmed to make a group of six people with other five from Tronix. After all those mind boggling activities (semester exams n all), the day had come when we had to leave for Bangalore for our next adventurous ride. One thing that we always cherished the most was going home after completing the semester but this was certainly not going to happen this time. Sometimes I think one needs to walk the rough bumpy road when one could prophesy that something effective and beneficial coming up at its end.

With all the ups and downs in our minds, we all made a motion towards our much awaited travel to Bangalore. As we were waiting for our bus with many other students, everybody was staring at us. It was not because of obvious reasons ;). The amount of luggage that we were carrying for mere two months was the centre of attraction. Any Guess?? We had 45 bags in total including our computers and clothing. J.

Waiting time is the worst time no matter you are waiting for your bus or for your love but when you actually see it/his/her then the real big smile comes on our face. Every time that happens, an invisible matter brushes your body with a new kind of energy and I wonder where the hell that comes from.J. With this unknown reason for immense energy, we pelted our mammoth bags into the bus and got started.

Part 2-The Saga of College Life........An indelible Part !!

Welcome to alma mater-----NITK, Surathkal

After all worthy efforts, though mainly were for IIT, I had finally committed myself to NITK, Surathkal for ( at least ) 4 years. The place Surathkal, was on the other side of the world I was in. There is only one train named Mangla Lakswadeep Express from Hazrat Nizamuddin junction that takes straightaway to a station near Surathkal (some 25 Kms). Going all alone to such a remote place with memories by my side, was neither difficult nor easy. After traveling 2645 Kms in to & fro motion and relishing delicious vada paos on my way, I could see the yellow colored display board stating Kanakanadi junction (Now renamed as Mangalore junction). With bag and baggage, I headed towards my final destination with the assistance of an auto.

Here it says….National Institute of Technology, Karnataka, Surathkal………

There are various vital aspects which differentiate NITK from other Institutes. One of them is NITK, Beach (400-500m from NITK). Every living being desires to relish the rejoicing effect of turlight once in his/her lifetime. And we were provided with this opportunity at every point of our four year life at NITK.

Reaching a destination exuberantly and briskly is cherished by all, so was I. With a large trunk and a bag on my side, I was desperately in need of some support. And here comes the dude.. Saurabh Singhal.. I got introduced to this distinguished identity on the day of counseling. From first impression, I could garner at least one thing about him, that this guy is a born leader and I could vouch for him anytime. He was of immense help with willingness in getting things done in the best plausible way. So, after all those formalities, there approached the time for my first encounter with NITK teachers....i.e. first college lecture….I was accompanied by Singhal and one more lean, short, lacking in flesh, guy called Siban.

As anticipated, First day was filled up with introduction of Teachers and Students. There were some 80 students in ECE Batch and some 500 odd in total. Students belonged to diversified credo where one can see a proper amalgamation of various corners of India and abroad. After being introduced formally, People started interacting casually and in a very informal and friendly way. There, every one could feel the presence of cordial atmosphere. As I was not allergic to interaction, So I made many new friends ( Pankaj, Gupta, Balecha, Jiju, Baba, pra, Soni, Nitish and many more……..). And with all great friends, we ended the first college day on a positive note.

If you enquire anyone about the hostel life, one would always say…”Ek baar zindagi mein, hostel life zaroor jeeni chahiye……”. So, I was ready with copious energy to start my journey at hostel end too. In first year, the NITKian is required to share his hostel room with other two (Guys L). Generally, People take some time to adjust themselves with kind of complete strangers. Everyone was busy in setting the room and keeping control of cup boards. And the ones who were over, started with gossips and all. After a wonderful first day of my college, nice and colorful figments took control of my dreams. Days passed off without any fear or home sickness.

Ragging is a part and parcel of all college lives. I believe that Ragging transforms dull and mundane into active, energetic and cheerful chap. It is basically a personality development course which is complementary to all. J . There, we have a party system where people belonging to a particular section of India need to know each other stringently. This feature was designed by veterans of KREC (NITK) wherein different rules and regulations were to be strictly practiced in order to ink your name in a particular party. The one who departs, is no longer considered to be a part of that group and every other member has to maintain a proper space from him. My party was known as U.P. Party named after State Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) with 22 new members.

Every student body in college is controlled by student union, thus, we were ready to face for the first time, the college elections for the office ( President and Tech fest, Cultural Fest convenors) and Class representatives (CRs). With immense pressure from seniors, many filed up nominations but withdrew at a later stage as they sensed their impotency and in competency. As First year students were not of much importance in choosing president and convenors, So, we turned our heads to class election for CR. In ECE, there were two strong contenders, kabra and jiju. But unfortunately, our dearest jiju lost the challenge by a mere one vote. Kabra got the Hot Seat. He unabatedly served his term.

When through with the elections, we were yet to witness two small intra college cultural fests, SPANDAN (conducted by DDFClub) and CRRESCENDO (by Reading Room(RR) Committee). Both the itineraries involved movie spoofs, mad ads with visually striking (group, solo, or duet) dance performances by various athletic participants. With all the fun encountered, there came the fazing affect of first semester exams which brought the end to a sem. The first six months of college life were treasured by all and everybody delightfully moved to their motherlands to enjoy the holidays.

It’s truly said “Once one is a part of Hostel Life, his/her soul never gets obliged at home”. End of Holidays brought a new term or 2^nd semester in front of new NITKians (us). With the same to and fro journey but this time with a group of new friends by my side, we made it to our college safely.

Everything started off with all those excruciating lectures torturing and twisting our lives mentally and physically. Fortunately, God was kind to us there by, throwing some kind of fun into our souls through fests though conducted intermittently. There was no scarcity of fests this semester too. Here, we were employed with two national level fests including Technical and Cultural activities. Technical Fest was named as ENGINEER with cultural fest as INCIDENT.

After just a month and a half into second semester, INCIDENT brought all the lively, cheerful and fun loving people with lot of energy, together under one roof. As INCIDENT stands for (according to me) INscribe Colleges, I (NITK) Do ENTertain, this entertainment was full of Josh, Pagalpan and every performer did take our breath away. It was mainly a combination of intra college fests SPANDAN, CRRESCENDO and Beach activities but at a heavier level with mammoth number of sensational activities which were missing earlier. With five days of endless exercise, it came to an end with pro-nite which was its main attraction wherein professionals entertain the crowd with their unabated intensity. This year came bands Parikrama and Yellow though not popularly known worldwide, touched our lives with bright colors.

After a gap of a day or two, bandwagon was joined by the fest ENGINEER. As the name suggests, ENGINEER mainly had technical activities with a shred of cultural actions to keep up the momentum. Inclusion of activities like Fox Hunt, Symphony, Inscription, Shristi, Blue Print, Rectify, Adventure and many more, make it the best technical fest that we could ever have. To add to this success, there were many video conferences incorporating many highly qualified, distinguished, versatile personalities entertaining the crowd with their genuine ideas. This fest runs through four complete days revealing the hard work done by the organizing committee.

As heard everywhere, life is not only about Masti, it has to be combined with some serious involvements to make living worth. So, here came the exam time thereby, insisting us to keep the fun aside and getting started the preparation. With final exam on its way, everybody made a beeline for home albeit in a so called cheerful way.

With another set of holidays passed off, it was time to roll back to our destiny and be called as sophomores. Everyone was exaggeratedly excited to be addressed as seniors and tightened their muscles to do, so called, interaction with juniors. The Premise behind the interaction was to be the followers of our seniors and to form a united party (or state party) out of scattered beings. Second and third year primarily took us closer to our respective core branches thereby, keeping us engaged in technical aspects. These new aspects amalgamated with all happenings in the first year directed us to the highest level, specifically termed as Final Year- The Super Senior Zone.

Part1- The Saga of Entry to College Life

College stands for collection of legends….College is a place which can be held responsible for over all development of a school pass out. College, when combined with hostel, has been proved to be an edge over its counterpart.

As every non-medical student aspires to be IITian some day, I was no exception. With displeasing performance in my first attempt, I kept my fingers crossed and went for a year drop to make it to my lofty goal. After days and nights of mind-boggling preparation, and after turning each and every stone possible for success, and after repeating each and every existing mantra for hundred thousand times, I was finally ready to face the challenge for second time. I was easily through the screening test to face the Mains with exuberant attitude. Successful completion of first step to my dreamland led to brisk behaviour. On the judgement day (IIT-Mains), I could hear or feel the blessings of God, parents, mentors, friends, which lifted or boosted my confidence providing immense moral support and inoculated me against the negative side of it. On that day, I maintained my calm and magnanimity to put in my level best performance. Finally, all the three exams went off well but I could not attempt much in mathematics which was thought to be the toughest of the three. And to add to this predicament, I made mammoth number of inadvertent mistakes in physics paper which panned down and aggravated my dream of getting appreciable rank in IIT. Anyways, all these are the part and parcel of one’s life so I didn’t get into delirium in spite I set out my target to crack AIEEE. As I primarily prepared for IIT so I didn’t have much expertise in objective type questions which is a must for AIEEE. Without wasting much of my time, I grabbed Arihant 10 AIEEE mock test papers and frisked through all the papers instead of separate book for each subject. Working out hard with these 10 crazy buddies, I could manage to hold the top spot in AIEEE with AIR-463 or 99.999 %tile. As far as IIT result was concerned, AIR-3572 was all, my unintentional mistakes took me to.

With IIT counseling on its roll, as expected no major stream left unfilled till my chance. So, I had to turn my way to AIEEE. Excellent performance in AIEEE bolstered my spirits and I got hold of NITK-Surathkal with ECE on my side. Everybody is aware of the adage that IITs are among the best in the world but being a NITKian, I couldn’t say my life was in tatters as NITK is also a institute of National Importance. My expedition from beginning to end is an indelible experience which will always be a part of my soul and mind. Welcome to alma mater--NITK !!!!