Trip to Delhi

One of our seniors suggested checking one shop in Delhi for initial help.
So next day, on 25th Jan 2007, the six of us decided to visit a shop of robomaker in janakapuri, Delhi. We caught a super-fast, but before we stepped on the Delhi platform, we got a phone call from one of the guys in hostel that our friend anshuman is hospitalized. Though I should but sorry I can’t share here that why was he hospitalized.
This resulted in return of puneet and rohit whereas me, prateek, rahul and om forged ahead with our planning’s.
Meeting the robo “director in chief “ of that shop was a curious experience for us.
He was around 40 yrs and looked intelligent and he greeted the four of us with sarcasm, almost humiliating us for our lack of knowledge in robotics despite being b.tech students! We explained to him our complete situation and that we r from 1st year. After some more enquiry of our thoughts and commitment to our task , he dealt nicely and explained to us some basic fundamentals of robos simultaneously showing us some his “artificially intelligent” REAL robos.
Truly, he had bowled us all with his profound experience in the very field and specially with his castor ball idea , it appealed to us very much. As we came out we together felt that we have got our way to our north star.

Delhi, IIT and Us

Munching our lunch in mc. D with not so pretty girls, over smart boys around us and the castor ball still revolving in our minds had indeed got us late to return on time to our hostel. Well, Mac.Donalds in itself is a special place in delhi, a regular hangout for just every age-group and teen couples. And as I said “not so pretty gals…”….delhi has just every type of crowd in its belly. They are smart, confident, outspoken and many other things making them sexy but there is something “cosmetic” and “just on surface” about most of them. They always seem to be in a hurry and have no time for themselves. But they are successful and attractive, most of them. Still, I feel lucky to have been born in a small town and being able to witness life in both worlds.
Anyways lets return, I called anuj bhai and ankit and told them about our situation. Next moment we decided to visit IIT-D.

Standing within the country’s best eng college will indeed get u all more excited, anxious and ofcourse….a bit jealous! As our eyes were exploring the stretched greenery of the institute anuj bhai and ankit greeted us. They encouraged our enthusiasm and our earnest attempt. We all wandered around the campus babbling on campus core topics and had some rest in anuj’s room. As the eve approached, we had a cup of tea and were lead to something called “SACK”!.

SAC
Student Activity Cell

Not only the name but the sac in itself was very stylish with loads of activities and opportunities to experiment with our creativity.
In fact, the best part of our experience of this whole trip was our visit to sac. Add to it the beauty of the path leading to it, a small wooden bridge with huge trees alongside, suspicious and curious bushes and an iron guitar on the top of the entrance! That was intoxicating. U feel am exaggerating?? Read further.
It had squash courts, club robotics, club dramatics, a literary society with its own conference room, all kinds of indoor games, a sports club, gym, on the back side, a huge-huge multistoried swimming pool with for high diving……and in the centre of this adventurous building , stood an old but smart Bentley car that was repaired by the industrial eng students.
Still not convinced? Let me tell u more, this whole sac, its every department and just everything about it is managed just by its students. They organize regular inter-hostel events concerning every department and just like the Hogwarts of the potter world, a house cup was awarded to the best hostel at the end of the year-with all records maintained and displayed for u to cherish your moments whenever u revisit ur college someday. This is the SAC – Students activity cell….my favorite place in iit-delhi.

Club Robotics

Club robotics-the technical section of the sac . Ankit and Anuj introduced us to some students there, busy drilling and testing our circuits when an extremely dashing and charming person greeted us. We responded as “hello sir” followed by our college intro…but the humble guy preferred to be called by his name- debraaj. We thought perhaps he’s a first year student but as he begun and went on to explain some nonsenses of the trade; We could now smell his abundance of his knowledge and even amazed as we presumed him to be a fresher. It was after an hour of fruitful discussion that we came to know that he was a fourth year student and had been placed in ITC; and the fact that there is nothing a concept such as seniors and juniors in iit-d. All r just friends and u know how the two breeds get friends with each other? After the seniors rag the juniors for around a month ….freshers party is the time when the very juniors rag their seniors!!!!!
Pretty cool, isn’t it?

Time pass

After the tech-feed in the robotics club it was time for some stomach feed, so we headed to a cool restaurant which had its seating arrangement under a tent. The dinner was delicious and after we piled it up to our nose, we marched towards ankits’ room in shivalik hostel.
A smart entry as if entering a restaurant, decent reception table at the centre of the main hall, a common TV room, common computer lab for that very hostel, rooms for indoor games such as t.t and caroms and a sprawling green lane forming a gallery around the hostel, this was shivalik hostel and every other hostel in iit was almost the same with similar facilities.
As ankit explained us abt the hostel they soon started to squabble as to whose hostel is better than the others. Anuj bahi told that this is common even in the most studious boy of iit to quarrel abt their hostel’s accomplishments in inter-hostel tournaments. In fact organizing any fest is the responsibility of any one particular hostel, for example this years tryst was being organized by kumaon hostel in which anujh bhai lived.
Now the time was for some refreshment and movies was what on everyone’s lips.
We began with euro-trip……..an English comedy and just imagine, how it would be watch to watch a movie with five other people in a small single room; and all six of us sitting on a single bed considering the movie was a laughter pill? ……….we all were just finding it too hard to remain seated on the bed . We even watched another college comic 15 min. movie “Despo” directed by a first year student of the very college, a movie that was dedicated to all the “maggus” of college who pass their time in mugging. The college indeed is full of technical fun!

The Ambitious Night Trip

After we finished up watching late night movies……..we all were craving for some sleep. i can’t describe but each one of us at some point of our lives must have slept a sweetly strange, hopeful and excited nights. Warning guys! Don’t take it otherwise, but it was the excited tryst aroma combined with iit flavor that intoxicated my brain. I dreamt myself improvising various changed in our colleges along with my friends and mates so that our college could one day stand abreast with the most prestigious colleges of our Nation.
Well the night went and the bright day washed away the ambitious emotions in my heart making me realize the nitty-gritty’s.
Anyways even small changes can be extremely efficient and as I apprehended, the one facility which doesn’t require any investment and was equivalent to cluster of facilities alone ;was the “round the clock” opening of the campus. With that I mean that ur college’s labs, workshops and recreation areas should be remained opened so that the students can pursue their interests forming their own groups whether related to technical development or extracurricular activities. This provides an opportunity to grow and manage ur interests and professional requirements in the limited time u have. Let’s hope our college authorities will improvise it someday.
As I met my other mates who were sleeping in the other hostel…..we all had just one thing to talk about ……our ambitious night trips….we all dreamt the same!

The Permission Maze

The future planning begun on our return to modinagar and one of the most troubling thought to our start was that, wether our college would allow us to work in our workshop. The next day in college vanished exactly as I imagined. We were ready with an application and with the first period in college began a rat race which I termed as the permission maze for our cheese! First of all we presented the application to mr. d.n Sharma to let us work in the k.n.g.d colleges’ workshop as it was near to our hostel. Mr. Administrator read it and signed it soon to our pleasant surprise which was as short lived as a water bubble. As the next moment he directed us to get this application authenticated by our college director. So after an hour long wait at the door, we were finally let into the room. Sir narayan khatri was sitting besides the big man in question “mr. m.k Sharma”. Sir Director was in no mood to listen to us but thanks to sir khatri who managed for us to get the permission on the condition that we’ll work in our own college’s workshop. Nevertheless but he further directed us to our hod to get our attendance clicked for the classes we’ll miss while fabricating the robot in workshop. We wrote another application and presented it to sir jaydeep, our “IT” HOD. He signed it too but after making us wait for a day and following the trend….in fact a step ahead, he ordered us to get it signed by each of our subject teachers of whom we’ll skip the classes. This finally completed the permission maze as we kept revolving around our subject teachers and narrating our cause to each of them.
The workshop

We had frequent visits to Delhi for the various raw materials we needed for the structure and functioning of the robot from time to time.
During the nights we plan out the robot on paper, prateek would quickly draw out possible rough sketches taking all adequate measures as we had to make our robot within the prescribed dimensions of 20-20-20 cms.
After the sketching on the paper our team including our friends puneet, om and rohit decided to start our workshop the very next day that was Sunday. Thus, we underwent another valley of permissions.
Anyhow, we finally started our dream project amidst a variety of hardcore tools using hacksaws, hammers and the special drilling machine which our college possessed owing to its industrial background. It was interesting to work with the mischievous nuts and the beautiful aluminum bars, cutting and twisting them as u desire. A new and enchanting experience was gripping all of us. For the first time working was really a fun for all of us. As if it was a kind of work-cum-picnic place. After long hours of work we often used to have tit-bit kinds of refreshment to keep us going. Often our classmates and friends came to see us in the workshop encouraging us on our task.
We kept on working on it non-stop till a week and as we felt that our robot was now almost 75% complete as it began to move on its wheels and turn around in any direction, an irritating flaw occurred. We though going with precautions crossed the 20cm limit. And it proved out to be such a disaster that to produce the efficacy we went on to restructure the robot from the very start. It was frustrating as it required to bring motors of new size and we had to revisit Delhi to bring new motors and wheels. Till now we had visited Delhi so often that it seemed as if we r living in Delhi. Anyways the robot and its remote built in time owing to lots of hard work from prateek and rahul.

Robot Completed……almost

As it was just 3-4 days left and our robot was on the verge of its completion, we had a bit of fun when everyone who knew us used to come to check out our robot in workshop. It was cool when everyone used to “wow……”, “amazing”….., “well done” and more than anything encouraged us to win the tournament. Most of the teachers were appreciative but a few acted to be master critics and techies of their own time.
The final countdown was counting upon us as we were merely two nights away from the big day and we still had confusions in our mind. We had built 3 weapons for our mr. cranky and we wanted to put just two of them in the first round. The weapons were:
A pricker which worked on the principle of crankshaft
A mini crane weapon
Stepper motor weapon
After an hour long decision when we decided to put on all the 3 weapons, luckily or unluckily the stepper motor weapon’s circuit infused some problem which was beyond our scope of knowledge . We arranged the other two weapons and our robot that was now completed, though some finishing touches and some practice for its operating was still to be done.
23rd Feb. a fatal shock…….

My friends rohit and puneet had their competition of algorithm scheduled for 23rd and they hadn’t been to iit-d earlier. Thus though my event robowars was scheduled on 24th I went along with them whereas prateek and rahul stayed behind to give some final touches to the robot and would show themselves at the venue on the second day.

We caught the earliest train in morning and comfortably reached Delhi at around 9a.m. but we still had an hour’s journey left by bus. Next was the search for breakfast before we finally went into iit-campus. We were all feeling very excited and curious as to what be in store for us in the coming days. Rambling through the campus we reached the “moat” i.e. “mini open air theatre”.
Moat was the venue for our event of robowars and the very moment horrendously stunned the three of us.

The Twist in the Schedule

Yes the moment indeed was so shocking that it felt as if numerous worms were swarming in my stomach. We saw the moat getting ready for the event to take off. Various teams were roaming around the moat and practicing near the venue with their specific machines. We confirmed a few persons and they told us that our event was starting in an hour from then. Now that was crap, how could that be possible? We had the printouts which clearly stated the event was to be held on 24th Feb. For a few seconds I felt so weak and helpless in a position when u could do nothing to save a month of your hard work getting splashed away by strokes of fate.
We at once rushed to the help desk and discussed the matter with the nincompoops sitting on the other side of the desk. It sprinkled some drops of relief when they told us that due to large number of team participating in this, they rescheduled our even just one night before and the teams that’ll be arriving tomorrow were fully eligible to participate. It was then when I called rahul and prateek and told them about everything (informing them about all that before any confirmation was foolish and getting them tensed). They decided to leave for Delhi till very moment.
Meanwhile the 3 of us roamed around the campus, went on to see the boring book fair that had all too-technical books, sipped cold-coffees relished the eye-tonics and in the process we met our friends from college. Rohit and puneet went for their event of c-maphore and I remained behind.

Some Relaxation

I was wandering alone, getting drowned in my own feelings. Like if I would have worked hard enough to get here, how fun it would have been to live four most happening years of your life in such a huge and beautiful campus? How would I have managed if I were in the place of one of the persons in the management committee with that tryst shirt over my chest? It’s not that am not happy in my own college but everyone likes to be associated with the best. These are the kind of feelings which make me vow inside me to work harder, to accomplish the tasks meant for the best.
Soon I got a call from ankit who met me outside the book-fair. He too was participating in some programming events and told me to meet at night. We sipped a coffee and then he left, leaving me to myself and with his room keys to me in case I needed to rest.
Anyhow my space of solitude didn’t last long in the hustle-bustle of tryst as I met shubham, one of my friends in my college who too participated in robotics. Together we rambled around the venue , now enjoying our time letting our eyes feast on the eye-tonics.
Now there were two beautiful East Indian girls with big drinking cans like bag of “red bull” energy drink on their backs. They were dressed just like sales girls and so Shubham suggested to talk to them asking for the energy drinks, assuring me that they (I mean the drinks)must be for free; otherwise they wouldn’t have been wandering around like this. Trapped in their outlook and his assurance , I walked along with him and he foolishly blurted,” excuse me, are these drinks for free?” no they squealed ,” we aren’t selling anything!” it felt as if many others have approached them too!
As we moved further, I saw some known t-shirts approaching from the other end of the road. Prateek and rahul had arrived.

The Decision

We altogether had our lunch during which we decided that we’ll compete this evening only. Thus following the consensus we reached the moat to get a first person view of the already started robowars of the other teams. Confident and being very sure of the coming moments we gave some final touches to our robot. Prateek practiced its controls whereas I and rahul now informed the concerned authorities that we were ready with our robot to fight with any team. For the next hour we practiced alongside the moat while waiting anxiously for our turn, feeling…….”ab job hi hona hai jaldi se ho!”

Suddenly a voice roared team no. xyz get ready……and our turn arrived. I could experience a strange pin drop silence in our hearts even in that hustle bustle of the crowds and the ongoing match. We all had a foolish and “stupidsi” smile on our lips. The three of us drew closer and as our eyes met, a silent but firm “all the best to us” echoed in our hearts that only we could feel. As shubham came and wished us luck, we were already at the battlefield of the electronic world.
Some guys examined the dimensions and voltage specifications of our robot and adapters. For them they must be feeling as some great scientists at work but the nincompoops weren’t aware that they were to their best looked alike the security services in government offices. And their discovery lead to -5 marks for both of the teams owing to some crap in voltage limit.

The Combat

The two robots were kept diagonally to each other and with the sound of a whistle, the match started. Prateek started directing our robot through the narrow valley. Our robot proved out to be more agile than the other and reached quickly to its opponent. Me, rahul and shubham were cheering prateek while holding our own nerves during those suffocating moments. I then saw anuj bhai joining the spectators and cheering for us.
As the dozing got over , the two wired creatures clashed and our cranky weapon suddenly sprang bursting 4 of the five balloons at one go. The moat thundered in our ears with claps all around us. Even some cameras got clicked. A wave of excitement swept my body, I knew we were ahead but still the final punch was to be given.
Prateek now tried to gave a roundabout turn to our robot when in the process it got blocked and slipped over the blue incline of the war arena and in the process the wires of both the machines got entangled. Now below the blue incline was the danger zone that was coloured green.
Our robot was on the lower side of the incline whereas the opponent’s was above us. Prateek tried to steer it up whereas the other tried to force it down and none of the machines moved.
Now here, as per the rules if the wires of the two fighting robots gets so entangled that none of them is able to move on the stage , the match was supposed to be paused and restarted from such a helpless position for any of the team.
But that confused and absent minded umpire knew nothing of what had to be done and couldn’t take any decision at the spot. The time-keepers announced that only 30sec. were remaining.
Prateek now tried for an alternative but risky route to come out of the predicament. He reversed our robot a bit, turned it slightly and then geared it to climb.

Failed Against Destiny

The robot climbed to fight but it wasn’t allowed then. The rear wheels of our robot touched the “green” danger zone while prateek reversed it a bit and we were declared failed. We all 3 stood there crestfallen for a few min.s, unless the next team came and asked us to step-aside. We were going so fine but anyways we managed to lose. Anuj bhai came to us and told us to immediately meet the umpire for it was against the rules. We had more points and it was stated that on touching the danger zone there would be some negative points but not the ultimate disqualification from the tournament.
Also there was supposed to be a rematch on in the situation where none of the robot was able to move, like the situation our robots were in. We soon rushed to that nitwit umpire and protested for a rematch. Like a lameduck he raised his hands and tried to sympathize us that new rules were framed this afternoon owing to so much of rush for this event; and that rules are same for everyone. He then congratulated us to our surprise. On being asked, he told us that our robot, ”crancky pricky” has been nominated in the best design category for its fabulous and deadly weapon. To pose as a sincere friend he then suggested as to someone called “nitin g r“ who is the ultimate authority in all decisions concerning robotics.
Anuj was standing beside us and told that he knew who nitin g-r was and would try his level best to make us meet him. But the sun had settled till then.

23rd Evening

It seemed as if we were some tortured wives! As anyone whom anuj bhai met had the privelge of listening to the whole story from him and the best they could manage was to show sympathy to their guests. But soon each of his good friends started grumbling about the mismanagement in this years tech fest. They were a hell lot frustrated that why should such a high profile event be left in the hands of the cultural event creepers that look smarter shaking their legs, rather than taking important decisions in tech events.
This whole discussion led us to anuj bhai’s room in kumaon hostel. We entered his room and it felt as if we have entered a laughing zone! We were introuduced to anuj’s friend “vishesh” –a TDH……and cheerful personality. Tall , lean with a dark complexion and dimples in his cheeks with a heavy voice. That guy had something in him that can even lighten up the most suffocating moments. Vishesh was also the team mate of anuj who along with some other guy had made a robot. Vishesh soon got very friendly and asked us for suggestions to which our techgeek prateek suggested some cool points. Their minds got to to work and they all decided to go to SAC after dinner to complete the machine. Though I always cherished at SAC’s name but for then I decided to stay out. Reason being, that I get an awful feeling as if “several worms were swarming in my stomach” when I see so many techies engaged in making some stupid machines. But yes SAC-robotics was indeed a heaven for me.

Not males!

It was cool to see the gentle gender sprawling the campus at night making our dinner equally hot with this spicy and beautiful talk rather than those skinless creatures.
But I was soon corrected by anuj bhai and vishesh that there was no one as such “beautiful” in iit. Anuj bhai told us that there were no “eye tonics” atleast in the b.tech batches though a few were seen in the bca or bsc. I remember what vishesh said, “ friends, forget about eye tonics, we hardly get to see any gal here!”
What?
Yes….., no gals just “not males..!”
In iit’s either boyz crack in……or “not males”…….
Oh! U mean gals, yep they can never match boyz in the top floor.
Correction friend, u are just partly correct in saying that gals can never match us.
But we(anuj and vishesh) meant “not males”……and surely they can at times match us!
Atleast there must be one or another; I asked.
Throughout our first year we have never felt so that there is any gal in our class, everyone seems to be the same!
Anyways, yummy karhai paneer and the “not males” talk refreshed us.
Me and rohit and puneet headed to ankit’s room in shivalik hostel whereas others left for robotics. He had already given his room keys in evening as he was supposed to go for some computing event at night. Now his room was ours and there was a pc switched on! We all listened to some songs and enjoyed some videos. But we were hell tired due to so much of walking and soon slept.

A bubble morning

After a congested<3boys> but relaxing sleep, the daylight felt pleasant again; as I woke up I felt as if the very room is allotted to me! Brushing up my teeth in bathroom for a longer duration and finishing other morning activities was surprisingly a nice feeling. I don’t know, maybe the presence of other iit-ians alongside us. We all felt as if we live in the same hostel, in our hostel.
Anyways we knew its just a bubbly feeling and we have to return in a day. There was nothing to regret about and a happy truth was that “jaagriti” was eventually a better place to chill.
Anyhow, till now we became familiar with the routes of the pinnacle campus, and we directed our feet straight to hostel gate. Just outside the hostel gate was the popular “paratha-chai-sandwich” stall of sashi. That was really cool for its tasty and thankfully in-budget breakfast, for we were almost pocket-rupt till then. At around 11a.m we expected our friends to be awake but as we entered anuj’s room , they were still deep asleep due to last nights’ job on robot.
We were kicking their butts when vishesh entered. Happy birthday vishesh, it was his birthday today. He was beaming, reason being that they managed to almost complete their robot during the night.

Kalusarai Again

In a bit of time everyone were on their feets, smiling strangely at each other! Seemed like everyone felt like living in iit. As I rambled around, I heard a group of students shouting and mocking with just few dialogues; I checked around and I came across the group that was preparing for some skit. Kaisi thi? Ofcourse they can’t be better than us at that! I thought of suggesting something ; but then smiled within myself and moved ahead. I went to sac to check if am needed there and then decided to meet my ex-roomie “kumar rishi anand” in short rishi.
Me and rishi lived in Kalusarai which has all the coaching institutes for iit-entrance and is adjacent to iit-d.
It was nostalgic to once again roam around the kalursarai lanes where, not academically but still I learned various aspects of my life. I re-lived some splendid and curious incidents. My heart was smiling as I saw students coming out of the coaching institutes discussing their classes, discussing the stupid teachers, dpps. Some very confident, some deeply worried; one of the groups dressed in lose t-shirts and lowers with uncombed hairs passed me in full masti with coffee in their hands. I smiled for they had surely been missing their classes and somewhat resembled my own group! There were Delhi-ites talking and walking in their own ascent whereas biharis watching them from a corner and abusing in their own ascent!
Some worried for a lost question sheet,huge crowds in bookshops for new books and forms; some hiding their cigarettes from faculty and some taking awkward ways to catch a full view of someone special to them!
Kalusarai- a full nautanki place. I crossed my hostel and headed to rishi’s room. As always he had many curious incidents to describe. Its not that he blabs, i had been with him for an year and for some surprising reasons his life is too complexed, too much twisted but extremely interesting!
Anyways, lets return to iit-d and when I decided to return, it was midnight.

Am so Foolish!

Rishi asked me, “ bhaiya, aapko chor aaun?” I prompted that its no problem and I’ll return on my own, he gave me a hug and I bid him good-bye. But frankly, as I moved a few steps ahead alone, I felt a bit afraid! For u can never trust situations in delhi. My mind started to remind me of all the tales I had heard, and this time I had a little tale too. It wasn’t scary but it was foolish.
When one enters iit-d from kalusrai gate and head towards boyz hostel, one is bound to cross “himadri”-the girls hostel of iit-d. There r always some gang of gals hanging around it specially on the mini bridge in front of their hostel. Tonight was even luckier for as I was approaching nearer, I could vaguely recognize a face. Yes, she was my senior in school, very studious but her outlook was smart.
Now the boy in me got excited. Should I chat with her? No…yes….no..its too late…….and I passed her and her group. They were chatting like freaky boyz but it felt as if they were chatting on very sensitive matter( about someone’s boyfriend who had come to participate in tryst). I just went about 100 meters, when my childish mind told me that u don’t get such opportunities every night. There are so many gals, maybe she introduces to someone!.......(don’t laugh…I know I was acting foolish but I thought of taking a chance!)
The next moment I was round about and blurted, “ hi didi”…..(she was in 2nd year and didi is the safest word to start a conversation in north india, my mind suggested that)
Didi: (baffled, who’s this idiot!)……excuseme?
Me: am from rainbow school mam, 2003, 10th batch….u were my senior in school. And u r siddharths cousin sis na?
Didi: yeah(manages to smile a bit, arranges her blunt hairs)……u know siddharth?
Me: yes, he’s my good friend
Didi: how come u here?
Then like an all india radio , I told her that am studying in xyz college and is here to participate in robotics(and sensed that its time to leave, kaafi ho gaya saale bhaag!)
I told her that I’ll show her my robot in case we meet tomorrow and said bye……and ranwalked ahead!( i was pressing my feet hard on earth to prevent myself from running untill I can be seen).
I felt as one of the most stupid person on this earth! But I enjoyed it. I don’t know incidents approach me or I pull them to me!
As I reached kumaon hostel , vishesh took me, prateek and rahul for a Nescafe treat in the last hour of his birthday. I was thinking that this is another thing that we all miss in our campus, a Nescafe stall but my heart replied,” there is an abundance of ajeebo-gareeb incidents with you!”

The Judgment Day

Yep, 25th feb, the final day of tryst-2007 had in store the results for each and every event. But they weren’t being announced so soon. We had a full masti day sprawling throughout the campus, feasting and snatching each others’ eateries, checking other events, attended boring conferences of high-profile management gurus, took a class on animation but still waiting till the evening was proving out to be a tiring affair.
Then anuj informed us that we may participate in another event called “chaos” in which we’ll have to disassemble a toy gun and then reassemble as quickly as possible. Out around 135 teams registered for that event only 30 turned up. We said alright to the new challenge and waited for our last turn. Anuj and vishesh were too contesting for this event and recorded an excellent time. And as our turn came, iit-d had no more toy guns for this event which had more than 135 registrations! Strange, but that’s iit, atleast I can say this about iit-d for that particular year.
Late in the evening, on repeatedly irritating the authorities about the announcements of results we were informed that there’s no panel sitting for declaration of results. The teams that have won will get certificates in some time.
And the best design competition in robowars is being given to some team from gujrat as due to there unawareness of particular rule, they lost their match and got extremely angry on the final day. Another solid reason was that they had arrived from a very far off place.
The chaos champions were too a team from far India, though the real winners were vishesh and anuj. Now the justification was that almost all of the main events have been won by iit-d students , and if they don’t announce some other winners for chaos, questions of partiality will be raised against them.
Now this was height of frustration that was being washed by slang rain from our mouths.

Prateek

It was almost night now and we needed to hurry to return. We went to the topen air restaurant for our dinner. And the moment we came out of it, Anuj met us and asked us to enjoy the special dinner organized for all the contestants on the last day. Just meeting him 10 min. earlier would have saved our rupees! Anyways, at last there was something for us! The dinner was smelling tasty though we could only enjoy “gajar ka halwa”.
Our bags were kept in ankits room, so we all headed towards it and something unwanted happened. Prateek, complained of a severe headhache that was disturbing him from past week and was now on its peak.
He wasn’t able to walk at all and was thus rushed to the nearby hospital in iit. There he was given some medicines and asked to have a good rest. We were now dropping the plan to return tonight but prateek insisted on moving as we had our sessionals from 26th feb. So after around an hour we took our bags from ankits’ room. As we were leaving ankit gave me a call that he was out of campus for some urgent work and I should leave his keys to the xyz person in abc room.
Finally it was time to bid good bye to the institute.

NRIs

Anuj and vishesh came to see us by the bus stand. Our moods were getting lighter and bodies heavily tired. And they were making our hearts hopefull, encouraging us to revisit next year. At the end of the day it was a mix of decent performance and a bit of bad luck. But it was good to make new friends, meet new people, experience the cut-throat competition and etc-etc. Yes, we all enjoyed a lot…..had lots of fun but for some reasons, for us , for the 3 K.N.M.I.E.Tians…….., these 3 days were the days to cherish, the days to remember forever.
The days when we lived as NRI’s that’s Non resident IITians for us!
It was already late and we got our buses late, so we reached our hostel late! At around 1a.m . though our bodies were hell tired , we somehow managed to jump the backwall and enter “safely”.
“jo bhi hua……saala maza pura aaya!”
Magar yaar bes ek cheez ka gam rahega.
Kya be?
Kambakht certi nahi mila saala.
Abe yehi baat toh khal rehi hai yaar.
Chalo koi nahi yaar, we performed well…..agli baar saala phor ke aana hai
Abe subah sessional bhi dene hain yaaron…..!!!!!
*we all hugged each other*…..
Abe teri shirt mein kel subah de dunga……..good morning now!

Yes, the only regret was that we worked so hard for so long, but didn’t got any certificate from iit. “I’ll make my own certificate, my own testimony that me and my friends toiled hard to make our first robot to compete at the national level”

An year later

Finesse-2008(organized by our seniors) is being organized and the highest profiled and awaited event is the ROBOTICA. Public from both first year and our batch was participating in that. HOD’s, senior and junior faculty members and everyone who has been around in our college for some years are all wide-eyed, amazed and with jaws wide open. Yes the ongoing scenario, students running criss-crossed ways,shouting to transport their voice over the pitch of several voices on mic. I crossed the mechanical lab to drink water when I heard

Pankaj….kaj..aj….. prateek was calling me, “abe saale lab mein aa jaldi”

I walked in.

The usually deserted lab was bustling with various sounds, drill machines, saws, the hammer hitting the nut and touching our hearts, there was noise from every corner of the room.

Smiling rahul emerged from within the crowd, “ ek saal pehle yehan galti se bhi koi nahi aata tha!”

As we 3 were watching the young crowd engaged with the cryptic figures, a group of students came and asked us ,”sir, we have a trouble in rotating our machine, can you explain the funda that you applied in your robot?”

We looked at each others face and were almost laughing when our mouth erupted at the same instant; and the discussion among “the three” techies begun……….

After an hour of Discussion

I could only smile.

According to the registration 55 teams each comprising of 5 members that is 275 students in our college tried their skills on crafting a robot.

Time and hard work combine together to bring good change;

For many of the students who had or have been studying at good colleges, its not anything big. But when circumstances are against you and you reach the shore tackling all tides, sailing in the boat of your passion; you can feel something that is beyond comprehension.

And for all this

I love my college, my hostel and my friends.

Thanks for your time,

Your friend,

Pankaj singh

BLINKING IMAGINATIONS

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Friday, July 4, 2008

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

An year later

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