Everything that has a beginning has an end

Warning
Musings in bracket are liable to piss you off whilst making you forget what the heck I was talking about. Enjoy catching up!

Considering that Nitesh just kickstarted a blog for the sake of penning down his experiences of this particular neck of the woods, I, never having anything remotely mentionable to bequeath to the universe in my own demented junk/spam/trash corner of the web passing for a blog, have certainly gained new ammunition to torment my readers with. But then again, considering the fact that I hardly like sharing most of the thoughts (yes it might sound surprising to a few, but thats how I am) that are continually assaulting my reactionary/reflex mechanism (which the politically correct crowd refer to as a brain), I'm again assailed by writer's block. To share or not to share. How much to share? How much slander to pour forth upon the salivating world about the many secrets that I'm party to? (That last one was for cash rich publishing houses willing to part with a cool million for selling gossip). Fie, fie, this indecision will cost me heavy some day. But then what can you do with a makeshift, numbed-through-TV/PC organ which I'm using now. Wish they had organ transplants for this. Before I waffle any more, or trot along any other tangents (which might provide fodder for later posts), it would be prudent to begin with what I can recall (or what I want to) of my first impressions of this place.

After screwing up my IIT mains (not very unique am I?), and giving AIEEE as if I was testing it for bugs and loopholes, all my hopes of going to college seemed to rest on the DA-IICT NET. I was so not interested in going to a Bengalooru college (Mediocre CET Rank) or one in Rajasthan (ditto for PET). My previous year's experience (yes I could've been your senior) told me that the level of the NET was downright laughable. Uh huh, not to be this time. There is no other way to put it...I got 0wn3d! But then thats what competitive exams are about aren't they? I got 0wn3d more than only 635 people not all of whom were coming to DA-IICT. In fact, I was the one of the first group of people to get invited to register in the second counselling. That was a tad unexpected. My first impression of the college...ah. Have to be honest, I wasn't dissatisfied. I know, I know, there was a lot of construction going on, the place didn't offer a degree yet, the labs looked too much like the ones in my school, but the place offered hope (actually make that the Director offered hope), especially to a worn out warhorse like me (why don't you try eight months in Kota with nothing to look at but aunties! I still blame that place partially for ruining my sex drive). The plus (minus for some) point was that that it was an half an hour's drive away from my home. Nothing like home base to fall back on (trust me, I know now).

Counselling

I've never quite understood why it's called that. It's not like they are providing you advise on whether your ward would be better off in a commerce college with lesser fees, more accomodating girls, and similar placements; or here. It's a (kids please close your eyes for the rest of the post, its probably downhill from here) fuckin' sales pitch! Here we had a venerable Dr Kudchadker (oh juniors, you do not know what you've missed), a former Dy. Director of the world-class (mark this word, friends, it might figure a lot later on. It did figure a lot in our jokes) IIT in Powai pitching for an institute backed by a multi-crore business conglomerate. No wonder a lot of people fell for it. Me, I had no choice. I came to pay. Period. People hardly noticed the late Dhirubhai Ambani, having passed away less than 24 hours before, watching over the counselling from the oh-so-cool-screen in the solitary Lecture Theatre we had then. After the customary minute of silence, we had the presentation. I didn't pay much attention (first sign of things to come. Hell, I didn't pay attention when companies came over to offer me jobs). The only thing I cared about at that point was probably a degree, which the college assured would be ours (Reliance backing, c'mon). After this fruitless rigmarole was taken care of, there was the question and answer session. My father kept egging me on to ask some doubt or the other. I gave him the whats-the-point look (I'm pretty good at it. You don't even need to look at me sometimes. Yeah, I'm that good). Being my father and all, he had to keep trying though. C'mon, consider this practise for later. Yeah, right. How right I was! Why don't you ask if it's bothering you so much. Thing was he had all the answers he wanted, and I had no questions. But we weren't the only ones there! There were a few parents who were worried in the extreme about what their sons/daughters were going to be put through. Lots of questions and explanations flew around. There was a particular person (this, a student) who soon became very famous, who was mostly responsible for the former. Ah, finally an interesting fellow. A person who spoke not because he was worried about what he was getting into. He spoke because he liked to hear himself speak. I was unaware at that time that persons like him weren't so hard to find.

Surprisingly, besides him, I never noticed a fellow student in the whole counselling (or atleast I can't remember now). I was all eyes for the ladies. My fruitless search for a Johar-esque institution encouraging hedonism and the realization of one's wildest fantasies ended pretty abruptly. One did catch my eye, and I'm sure you know who I'm talking about (A subtle hint: She turned out to be a member of the staff). Considering that I had no choice, I went against my nature and tried optimism for a change. There must be a few girls in the first counselling! We all the know the answer to that. All you require, is an engineering college. Not yet! This is a diploma course. PYTs from Gujarat will dig this place! Go go Reliance! Abso-fuckin-lutely. I mean Come on! How dumb did you have to be not to get into this place? I did it! (Apologies, I was trying to simulate that frustration felt four years ago. And no, I know what you're thinking. It's called resignation/fatalism now).

Thats all I remember as far as counselling is concerned. But there seemed to be bad days ahead. My hair decided that it would look too sexy on a bespectacled guy with mangled teeth and a healthy paunch, and got rid of itself, lest it look out of fashion on a dilapidated accessory like me (officially, the hair was an offering to a God, but I'm sure He has enough of his own). My cousin told me that my would-be seniors stayed at some three-star housing in a management institution, and that we'd be there too. Oh-boy! This finally sounded more like the place I'd wanted. But Reality has an uncanny knack of finding your private parts and making chopsuey out of them. Say hello to my first semester!

To be continued...