The Median: Halfway to college life

After the trauma that spanned two years of my life, it was the reaping time. The crop was giving me mixed feelings. I had option of many colleges to choose from, but finally after several rounds of dinner table conferences with papa’s colleagues and my tea party with seniors of my town; we settled down to BITS. When I was on my way to BITS-Hyderabad, several answers were still doubtful. Though the questions of those answers covered a wide range like,” Is this new campus good enough?, Is this dual degree a good option, Should I waste one year?”, but one particular section of questions were disturbing me more than any other and that was regarding my compatibility with new environment. These questions were important when I considered my small town background. But now after two years that makes me 50% engineer, I have no doubt left. Every question has now got awesome answers. But this post is about the people who made those answers awesome. Cheers to you all.

 August 1, 2009. This was my day of registration at Hyderabad campus. I boarded a bus for the campus. Conductor gave me a ticket and demanded Rs. 8. I made a futile attempt to read fare written on the ticket, because everything was written in Telgu and I can’t figure out anything except different type of curves resembling parabola, hyperbola. After half an hour, one other boy hopped inside the bus. I bet he can beat Malaika Arora in her figure “specifications”. After some moments of observation, I realised he is north indian. After hours in a place where it was difficult to communicate with anyone, I desperately needed someone to talk in order to supress my excitement of my first day at college. I offered him seat beside me. Within a minute, we recognised that our destination is same. He was also going to Hyderabad campus for chemical engineering. Finally we reached the place which was called BITS-Hyderabad and as said soon to be the most successful campus among four campuses. When our parents were dodging sleep in orientation, we checked out every girl present there. A fat old professor was welcoming us to BITS family while laying stress on advantages of BITS.(some true, some false. Professor must have to sleep with extra attention so as to dream so many benefits of BITS.) Together, we registered there for the option of sliding up. Though later we thought Hyderabad campus is not a bad option. The next day, we both were selected among 22 students from Hyderabad campus who were transferred to Goa campus. . This was my first meeting to Nawaz Nasar Malik. My first and one of the most close friends at BITS.

Nawaz went back home to attend a marriage. I decided to go to Goa that night only. Later I found myself with two more people going to Goa campus. We didn’t have any reservation in train. Somehow we accommodated in general compartment. One south indian guy was sitting in front of me. We started chatting and in that one night I spoke as much English as I hadn’t spoken in 17 years of my life. This guy is Vinayak Vishwanathan, who later became my neighbor and now he speaks fluent hindi ;) The other guy kept telling me about Msc(tech) information systems. At last, I had to admit that yes, I did mistake; rather than duals, I should have opted for Information Systems. This is my friend next door and later he went on to become source of some of my famous blog posts. So, this is Aayush Jain.

A fat lady asked me several questions before allotting me a room in Hostel AH5. Her size restricted me from asking her unnecessary questions. I reached hostel and a thin guy, probably 6 years elder to me, showed me my room. He introduced himself as Sunil and asked to approach if I had any problem. He asked me my name, my native place. “Bihar” as I said, he searched his memory for a moment and said, “room no 341; wo bhi pattna se hai”. After 30 minutes, I found myself knocking on room no 341. I was expecting a big grown up guy who would answer my knock but a girl opened the door. It took a minute for me to figure out that "pattna" wale bhai had arrived with whole family. He was not there and meanwhile uncle asked me almost all sort of questions. After a wait of 10 minutes, finally arrived a short guy with hair longer than normal. Exactly opposite of what, I had imagined him. Shashi Bhai, as he is affectionately called, has been a true companion since then. Always there for me, whenever I needed him in any sort of condition. It was 8^th of August and it had been week since the class started. I had no idea of classes. Then, Shashi Bhai told me about one guy who was in chemistry. I went to his room, he was talking to someone over phone. I didn’t realised that then and I spoke something. He gave me fierce look that could make John Cena feel terrified and made stop sign by his left hand. Later I realised, he didn’t give me that look; that was his natural expression. Frankly, this guy does whatever his heart says. He left his TRW paper halfway because he didn’t feel like completing it. He slept at 11 am in first sem, no matter how much portion was still untouched. But he is true human being indeed. I haven’t found anyone more gullible and sweet guy than him. This is Pranav Nalawade; he is a sort of guy whom I love to spend time and discuss things from all over the world. One request to you all, tickle him at his stomach, Please. ;)

(To be continued…Its 995 words already.)