First semester @ IITB

Hello people!

Karan here again.

It’s been getting a bit too serious on the blog these days. So here’s an informal post.

Just got done with the first semester! Still can’t believe it, feels like not too long ago, we innocent freshies were attending orientations with our insanely proud lot of parents and relatives, loving each and every minute of it! But as the poet Rumi says- ‘how seemless seemed love, and then came trouble!’ (too much of an exaggeration, but what the hell! This is an informal post :p). Bang on the scene arrive the IIT-BBC (the broadcasting channel of IITB) crew, pranking us all out of our wits :p Seriously pleased they didn’t pick me out, I was probably the only guy wearing formals, and was as idiotically happy as it is possible to get. I would have been the easiest prey they could find  :p 

Then after our official orientations, Life@IITB began! And what a life! The Internet speed! The classrooms! The (unofficial) orientations of the various activities! The socializing! Still feels as though I have been flung into a cornucopia of pleasures and ALL activities imaginable on the face of this earth ☺

Foremost was the adaptation to the jargon. It’s a different life altogether inside IITB, and consequently it also has it’s own arcane jargon. These days though, I have to make a conscious effort to not speak in the language of the insti to outside people :p

Then came the orientations. IITB has every club possible- western music, lit, tech, personality, you name it, we have it! And the orientations for the same are just as amazing. Also, we have InsIghT, our campus newsletter ( for which I work), BBC as mentioned previously, and A LOT of other things.

Enter acads. Maths. Physics. Chemistry. Lab. Monotonous. Ditch. (Though won’t ever forget the feel of scoring a perfect 10/10 in first maths quiz; #showboating :p)

THEN came freshiezza. One of the most memorable weekends of my life. Freshiezza is the inter-hostel competition held annually, exclusively for freshies. It is organized in two parts, first part before the midsems, second part afterwards. First part involves individual competitions. That was a WHOLE LOT OF FUN. Our floor even won the ad-making competition! Kudos to the seniors here for organizing it. 

Then came one of the best parts of the first sem: the DJ night. On the basis of our future senior hostel, we were rounded up by sophies and taken to the DJ night. What’s amazing was, the DJ was not the highlight of the night; The Naarebazi was :p . My voice literally went hoarse, screaming ‘H4 ki… (stuff which I do not want to say here :p)’ and ‘H10 hamara hai’ and on and on and on :p One of the best nights of ALL freshies’ lives, I’m sure ☺

After midsem came freshiezza phase 2: Group activities. Again it was enjoyable, more so than the first phase, because I got to perform on a stage for the first time in front of an audience ☺ We performed at the inter-hostel band competition, and that was an experience beyond comparison. ‘All the right moves’ by One Republic (the song which we performed) has been on loop in my playlist ever since!

 Now came work for two calender highlights of any IITian: Mood Indigo and Techfest. As organizers, we freshers put in quite a lot of work to make both festivals as grand as possible. Our seniors do so even more. I found myself doing spamming from fake accounts, calling people to inform them about this year’s lineups for MI and techfest (I must say, feels awesome when complete strangers start addressing you as ‘sir’ as soon as you take the name IIT-Bombay :D) and doing a lot of other odd things. An entire group of us even frisked people coming to attend our first concert!

Got in touch with Aman, Shobhna, and you guys soon afterwards! It was really rewarding for me to see (or so I presume) that my article helped you guys, that I was able to make even a little bit of difference ☺

In short, my first semester has blown by like a breeze, which sometimes propelled me to the heights of euphoria, sometimes slammed me into the depths of misery. But that is what life is all about!

Most of all though, thanks to all the activities, seniors and campus, I have started to become a new person.. a person who is responsible for others, who believes more in helping others than his own selfish interest, and who wants the betterment of society and progress of every single being around him (this thanks to a couple of my extremely ‘#seniorswag’ wale seniors, though I call them my friends first and senior later :p) This is the ultimate progress that I, or for that matter ANY of the freshies here at IITB, have made in our lives. THAT progress is the biggest gift that a college like ( probably no other college like it, in my opinion :p) IIT Bombay confers upon you.

With all the studies, fun, friends, festivals, and of course, LUKKHA :p (no IITB guy’s description of a semester will be complete without this word), it has been a THOROUGHLY enriching experience, especially after the monotony of the past two years. The feel that you get, that of belonging to a huge family, is also incomparable.

Study hard, guys! An entirely fun-filled, adventurous and thrilling life is at stake!

Cheers, 

Karan. 

P.S- For all of you nerds (a good thing to be, during your preps ☺) out there, I promise next post will be technical and acads related :p

P.P.S- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxzRnKlincY

Anyone with a few minutes to spare, take a look, really good video prepared by IITBBC ☺