My tryst with the Indian Institute of Technology : Chapter 4

Second year at IIT Kharagpur

Summer of 2005 brought in better news. I had been allowed to change my course of study from Mining Engineering, the job prospects for which looked really gloom, to Manufacturing Science and Engineering - far better off. I was pretty satisfied and my family was elated, for I was in the top 79 students at IIT.

Yes, there is another interesting thing about IIT Kharagpur. The first year students are kept segregated from the seniors in separate hostels. And so, the ragging (oops “Orientation Program”, popularly known as OP) took place in the second year when the students moved into senior hostels. I was allotted Nehru Hall of Residence, in the dreaded PAN loop (Patel, Azad, and Nehru – these 3 hostels made up the PAN loop).

There was this widespread phobia called the “loop drop” among those who were allotted hostels in the PAN loop. It was believed that most students experienced a drop in the grade point average by 1 in the autumn semester. I wondered about the possible reason, till I found it! The first month went off pretty fast due to the OP. What followed next were the preparations for the illumination and rangoli competition and various inter hall competitions that constituted the General Championships or better known as the GCs. There were 4 in all - GC Soc n Cult, GC Sports, GC Tech and GC Hall Affairs - which were all fiercely contested. Nehru hall was known for being a champion when it came to soc n cult events. So, it was not unbelievable to see the extra effort being put up in each of the competition. Late night dramatics practice or overnight preparations for illumination can be demanding! This was possibly one reason for “loop drop”. However, as I mentioned already, at IIT one can every well manage one’s time to be involved in various activities and yet maintain a good academic record. But then again, that is a personal choice or rather should be a personal choice. And rather unfortunately, the junior most members of the hall, the second years never had that luxury!

I was perhaps not prepared to manage both my studies and participate in these activities. Though I didn’t have a choice, I managed to escape few dramatics practice. But I never bunked the preparations for illumination. Though on most occasions we had to stay up entire night binding diyas along certain patterns on chatais, I kind of liked it. One, because it was a great chance to interact with people, batch mates and seniors. Second, I was the photography secretary and was in charge of clicking photographs of various events in the hall. Though, many people blame illumination as the prime cause of the “loop drop”, I beg to differ! I scored 8.59/10.00 in that semester. Perhaps, the third semester was an easy one for Manufacturing Science and Engineering students, with effectively 3 subjects.

The fourth semester came as a blow with 6 subjects, most of them on the tough side of the scale. Subjects like Probability and Statistics, Engineering Thermodynamics terrorized us. Then, there was this breadth subject ‘Resistance and Propulsion’ that I had opted for in the Department of Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture. Little did I know that this one would turn out to be a savior. I had always aimed to keep my semester grade points above 8. However, performances in other subjects were not that good and I was looking at a possible 7 point something in the semester when an “Ex” in the breadth subject pushed me just above 8. I scored 8.17, which was surprisingly the highest score among us. At the end of the second year, I was the topper of my branch with a CGPA of 8.40/10.00

The second year marked a significant change in attitude with respect to attending classes. I attended most classes of few subjects, where attendance played a great role in the Teacher’s Assessment. Except for that, it was almost curtains to attending classes. I had found the comfortable option of relying on Dheeraj Baid’s notes. Yes, Baid was my wingie! Luckily, he was not as insincere as me. He attended all classes and woke me up for the ones I did. Ah yes, I had also lost my cycle (thanks to a senior!) and so was dependent on him for going to classes literally.

I made some friends, essentially those in my wing, but there was not much of an interaction, to be honest. The kind of fun that I was about to experience in the next two years of my life was missing now. We had to form new wings for our next two years. We were 7 of us from the old second year wing and were joined by 6 more.