The day at IITK
Posted by Jaya on March 27, 2008
After a long time there is a post categorized as “IITK” in this blog. And its a good feeling.
Thanks to Dr. Suchitra Mathur I had a bicycle to go around the campus. Not only was it convenient, but it also had great nostalgic value. I realized that I practically hadn’t ridden a bicycle after leaving IITK. For the first few minutes I felt like a novice. But soon, I was comfortable again. Went around to meet various faculty member, good old ShopC and both the Girls’ Hostels on that cycle. For a simple thing that it sounds, it was great fun. Cycling peacefully on IITK campus was one of my favourite time-passes here. Especially in the evening. When I was at Ranchi, often rushing to reach my lodge in time after an evening tuition, through Mecon and SAIL Colonies, I longed to cycle through those tree clad roads in the late evenings. I finally got to do that IITK. That simple act is filled with an enormously huge feeling of freedom…
The faculty members I met with were quite excited to hear about our company. Some interesting feedback came our way too. Am going to meet at least three more people tomorrow. And then hope to see even more on the stall. Let’s see how it goes.
April 4, 2008 at 3:18 pm
i can easily relate to the feelings of nostalgia here. kind of felt really good to read/see those wonderful
long-forgotten words (shopc!). i visited iitk after almost 10+ years a few years back and was really
surprised to see that the stretch from bada chauraha to iitk was almost the same as i had left it many
years back. iitk was the same too, in a soothing, sublime way (feeling of freedom, cycling along the tree-lined
roads, that kind of stuff). the cycle shop guy at shopc let me have a bike for the two days i was there for free; the guy who
used to sell “kurta-pyjamas” *still* recognized me (!!). a few new buildings at sprung up but a full campus
circuit from hostel towards the air-strip and back was still as relaxing as ever. the fields by the campus
were just the same as in the older days (can’t remember the name of the village for the life of me). visitors hostel ambience/food was unchanged as well. but behind all these constants were some big changes - hostels were pretty well networked (lots of money pouring in i hear)..the depts were not the same (sadly) - most of the profs that taught me had left …looks like the %age of students opting for higher studies in engineering an sciences has also dropped significantly..sigh. but still, this is definitely one place that’s always great to go back to..
thanks for giving a simple yet moving read!
-shankar.