The NIT Experience: PART 1

I should have written about this way back. The trip to NIT (National Institute of Technology), Calicut for the ‘Ragam 08’ fest was interesting. There were three of us who had decided to go ‘on tour’- literally, because we had no plans of participating in any of the events. In fact, the decision itself was made on the night before the departure. Vinit, Anand and I were the ones who took up the decision and we were the only so called self-proclaimed ‘representatives’ of our college. We had called quite a few friends, but none of them replied in the affirmative, probably because we’d asked them to pack up the very next day!
The day of departure was on Thursday, 27 March. We were having mid-sem exams from 25th to the 27th. Vinit and I had always wanted to roam about and visit other colleges ever since we had joined our present college! The world outside had been beckoning us. The thrill that got into the both of us regarding our travel made us focus on Ragam rather than on our exams. We least bothered about the series test and wrote the exam just for the sake of it. The preparations were quick. We came back after college on 27th, packed our backpacks, and off we were- on our debut long distance journey.

Anand, Vinit and I

We reached the Thampanoor (Thiruvanthapuram Central) Railway Station at around 7:30pm. The train to Calicut was scheduled at 8:45pm. On the platform, I met a few of my friends from different colleges. It was a disgrace to realize that we three were the only ones from our college, while other colleges had reserved train compartments to allocate the students. Most of the colleges had almost one hundred students on an average. It was undoubtedly a shame on our college that none of them were willing to go. We had expected a few seniors at least, but in vain. None of them showed up. We had not reserved our ticket and so had to be complacent with travelling in the highly packed and noisy ‘general compartment’. Eventhough boarding from the starting point of the train, the bogey was jam-packed. Had we reached 10 minutes late, we wouldn’t have been fortunate to even sit. We managed to get two window seats. Being away from the aisle, we were not affected much by the rush that poured in with each passing station. We had not bought anything to eat while in train. We hoped to sleep through the night, but it never seemed to work. The only thing that we’d bought from the station before boarding the train was a bottle of water and half a dozen oranges! That didn’t help satiate our ever increasing hunger. I had brought half a kilogram of cake, but forgot to bring the knife. We hesitated to take it out and eat in front of all the others, and that too without a knife! However, hunger won! By midnight, we were at the peak of our hunger and finally decided to take out the cake and eat. Anand seemed to be a guy with strict scheduled menu for each meal! For him, dinner was at 8pm and breakfast at 7am. A midnight meal was not defined in his food schedule. But who can win over hunger? I made up my mind with inspiration from Vinit to take out the packet and savor it. By that time those who were sitting were falling asleep and those standing were struggling to stay awake. As soon as we opened up the packet and dug our fingers into the cake, the train halted at Kayamkulam. A group of teenagers rushed in with hopes of getting their asses down to sleep. Some of them tried to climb their way to the luggage berth- which had been raised even higher, lately, to prevent passengers from sitting. A few of them stared at the three of us nonplussed, probably seeing us eat mercilessly, stabbing, pinching and pricking the cake with our bare fingers. We were done with the cake in no time and still hungry, Anand and Vinit struggled to sleep. Some of them have this peculiarity that they lose their sleep once their usual bed-time is surpassed! But I was an exception. The first thing I try to do when travelling, is to sleep somehow. It’s the best way to kill time. Its almost a routine affair that as soon as I start off on a train journey, I simply sleep off. The long lonely journey home from hostel every month taught me this valuable skill! While Anand struggled to get some sleep, at times leaning on me and resting on my back, Vinit seemed to get some sleep. I was asleep almost all the time, and waking up in between to see Vinit swaying like a drunkard and Anand struggling next to me!

We reached Calicut Railway Station by 6am. We had no friends at Calicut except for one- Divya. She was at Thiruvananthapuram then and so we hesitated going to her home when she wasn’t there. We had to find some way to get fresh and worse, Anand had to attend 'nature’s call'! We tried the Station’s restroom, but it was crowded with people and so decided to rent a room for an hour or two. Renting a lodge was however out of our ‘accounted’ plans. But we had no choice. We took a room at a nearby Lodge, got fresh, slept for some time and got ready to leave for NIT.

We boarded the bus to Mukkam- that’s where NIT is located. It’s a 45 minute journey from Calicut town. On reaching there, the three of us were flabbergasted to see the flow of girls clad in appealing costumes and a few of them seemed to be with their bloody boyfriends- sometimes in apparently compromising positions! We walked along the road leading from the gate to the campus. In front of us stood them main building of the college. There was a huge banner hung from the top of the building painted in graffiti style. As we walked down the road with chicks on either side of the road, we thought we had seen it all! We walked in and completed the registration formalities, which was necessary to get accommodation at the college’s hostel. The three of us were allotted room no: 18 in the F- Block of the college hostel. The first day at NIT was spent mainly walking around in the campus and admiring the beauty of God’s creations! The campus is huge, rather humungous compared to ours with many buildings scattered in acres of land, interspersed with tarred roads with signboards leading to different blocks. There is a huge amphitheatre called the OAT or Open Air Theatre. We passed the whole day watching different programs at different stages- Chanakya, Aryabhatta, OAT and many others. On the road down the left of the entrance to the college is the OAT.

The OAT

It’s a huge amphitheatre in a semi-circular shape, with a rising gallery with the stage at the far end. All the main programs were held at the OAT- mainly the musical programs. The main attraction of the day was the live music show by Karthik. Entry was free for everyone who’d registered. Then there were other indoor venues, lecture rooms and seminar halls. These were meant mainly for the formal events like debate and extempore. Dance competitions were also being held at one such venue. Then there were also a lot of other temporary stages erected for Rock Music competitions and DJ. In short there were a hell lot of venues spread out in the campus. In fact we could not visit all of them. We could not even walk around the whole campus! One among the interesting event was the JAM- Just A Minute. It was in NIT that we saw the much hyped JAM- in an authentic form. It started off with the formal talk- any of the participant would speak on a given subject and the others would find out the mistakes (if any) either grammatical or others. Soon, towards the end of the event, the participants were spitting obscene words on others- it was part of the game and it was lot of fun! Karthik’s concert started off at 8pm at the OAT. The OAT was fully occupied by 7:30pm. There was a huge rush to watch his show and the show in itself was awesome. The crowd danced to the rhythm all through the program. It had lasted for almost three hours and came to a close at 11pm. We retired back to our room in the F-block Hostel.

(To be continued...)