My First Year in College - Section-H

With love for H-Section

After the the crucial two years, which I talked about in my earlier blog, I landed up in one of the prestigious institutions in the country - The National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli. I was excited that I was going to spend the next four years in hostel and at the same time, sad, coz i had to leave home. My mother tongue being Tamil, language wouldn't be a problem in TamilNadu and and after a period of investigation, I inferred even the food and other necessities were good( pmmph!!.. Wait till I get my hands on whoever told this to me..). After everything was set I went for the counseling. After submitting all the necessary papers and all, I was given an admission form which had the details of my class, hostel, mess etc. At the time, I noticed there was a field written as 'Section - H'. I didn't know what that was meant to be. I had taken up EEE and though I had heard that in the first year every one would be learning the same subjects, I thought only EEE students would be in one class. This idea of mixed-dept classes didn't strike me. In the first night in hostel as everyone was meeting others many asked about which section they were in. Then I came to know, that from the next day onwards, for an year we would be put in a section which would have students from all the departments.

After overcoming the initial nervousness, I entered my class, Section-H, and to my surprise the class was already full and I didn't find a place to sit. Being a back-bencher in school, I thought I would sit in the front rows in college and sat on a bench which already had an occupant. This guy was busy talking with another one in front. I introduced myself to them and then asked about them. My neighbor's name was Bodhisatwa Paul Choudhury from Tripura and it took me nearly 10 min to get his name correctly(Sorry Bodhi, no offense meant.. :)). The other guy was a Manu Gupta, from Rajasthan. (I was happy that I already met two people from opposite parts of India on the first day itself). We started talking about arbit stuff until the first prof came.

The first prof came in. He didn't look like a prof and was too young to be one. He said (pardon me I don't remember his name) he was gonna take Computer Science for us and the first class went by with introductory stuff. He faced quite a difficult time in class as half the class was well-versed with comp sci whereas it was Greek and Latin to the other.

The next hour was taken by a prof called Dr. R. Anand(wonder whether the Dr is his initial or degree.Chances are for the former.. :P). He came to class every day wearing full-sleeve formal shirt tucked in non-matching pants. His famous garb was brown colored pants and a green shirt(Duh! He looked like a tree). Excerpts from his classes include - 'Water is alkaline' and the prize goes to this one - in his notes which he puts up on the web, he has given examples of natural water sources on earth. One of them was 'Spring' followed by 'the season after winter' in brackets. All his classes had one or the other poor fellow (lucky in fact) being sent out.

Next was a physics prof - Bhaskaran. Over-passionate about society(and really nervous about the future), he used to speak with a weird accent(that's not American, if you reason that he has come from America). All his classes were filled with his advices and social concerns.

After the first day, we all came back to the hostels and started discussing 'the first day in college' for everyone. The people in G and I section were talking about a SAT who came to take English for them. From the comments, I inferred that he was a jovial young guy and was wondering if he was taking for us.

The next day was started off by a lady. From her looks and grey hair, she seemed to be quite old. But appearances are deceptive, and this lady, Dr. Hemalatha Thiagarajan turned out to be a very determined and strict teacher and since she was teaching my favorite subject - mathematics, I liked her(though not many of my class did). The most used word by her was 'AIEEE" and we used to count the number of times she used that.

After her class, in walked Mr. SAT or Dr.Sathyaraj (a mallu.. :D). He turned out be the best teacher so far and with his young and charming voice, attracted the attention of many a student. In the first day itself, he asked us to team up into different groups for doing a project and assured us that the class would not be the conventional type. Rather he would make us think and do stuffs out-of-the-box. He wanted a team of 7-8 people. As my only friends(then) in class were Bodhi and Manu we decided to team up. There were only few girls in the class(8 to be exact) and SAT asked us guys to include some girls in the group as well. Earlier, in one of the introductions, I had heard one of the girls say that she was from Kottayam in Kerala. I was relieved when I heard there was a mallu in my class(all the guys from mallu gang were in different sections and I was the only one alone). Her name was Roshni. So I went over to her and asked them(her friend, Shruti was also sitting with her), if they would join our group. She said they were already in Akshay and Vishu's group and hence couldn't join us. I said ok and turned to two other girls who were siting in the next bench. They were Ankitha and Sendhuri. As they hadn't joined any group yet, they said they would join us.

About these two :- I was pleasantly surprised when I heard that Ankitha was a mallu. Really fond of photography, which is evident from the pics she took for the Tanjore trip, which had none of us in it.[:P]. Jokes apart, this female is one of my best friends now. She even got into the Thespian's Society of our college(Ummm.. I always thought she was good at acting especially when I saw those weird expressions she used to make on her face). Had a tough time in arranging sec-H get2gether's coz she would run home at the first possible opportunity.

Sendhuri, is a more silent-type. Did not mingle with her much initially, but then she too became one of my close sec-H pals. She's into the Tamil Mandram community and goes in between sec-H treats saying she had club meeting. Too much show off.[:P]

In the meantime, I had met another mallu in Jishnu and he too agreed to be in our group. So we formed our group of 6 people.

In the meantime, I met other people from my class. The first one I met was Rohit Hari. A tall, good looking bloke, he became one of my best companions in college(in fact he was the first guy whom i met during the orientation time). During one of R. Anand's torture sessions, he asked us to elect a Class representative and he wanted people to voluntarily stand for the post. As none of us did, Rohit took the responsibility and thereby got unanimously elected as the first class-rep of sec-H.

During other classes, I saw that one guy had the habit of constantly confusing the teachers with his 'doubts'(even in Bennet's classes, mind you!). His name was Arun Ram. According to me, he was trying to become a protagonist, when he actually was becoming an antagonist. But soon I found that I was wrong and he indeed was a jovial guy. Full of weird reasoning which may sound absurd when he tells them but which you may miss when he doesn't.

Well, so far I have not mentioned about Mr. Bennet and his 'energy' classes. Well here goes. Thanks to hell, we always had this stupid energy class as the first class in the morn or just after the lunch break. This meant that we had to hurry from the hostel as this guy used to close the door of the classroom as soon as his watch struck 8.29 am or 1.29 pm. He made us realize the importance of minutes. And I better not talk about his exams and assignments.

Another interesting character was our Mech guy Kumaraswamydhas fondly called Kumsy. And I am restricting myself, so as to not exceed the limits while talking about him. He's all famous by himself though it would seem unfair on my part if I don't mention about his definition about accelaration - ' the feeling u feel when u go....... ' My god! I am dying laughing! Another incident was on the eve of the Mech sem exam when he called me and the class rep, Rohit and told he has increased the syllabus for the next day's exam. And he was giving us notes for these extra topics and told us to circulate it. This happened at around 7.30 pm and the next day morn we were to have our xams. I was like - ' What the hell, sir?!!? How are we supposed to circulate these with such short notice?? '. But he just told us to manage and walked away.

Other notable profs in our first sem were Dr. Jayalekshmy, for Civil, and Mr.Jerome, for Engineering Drawing.

At this point, I would like to introduce a few more sec-H members. First is Janani. When all the other sections boasted about their high gpa's and results, sec-H was being modest. Janani was the one who salvaged our pride. Studies hard and though I rarely hear her sing, she's in Amruthavarshini(Classical music club of NITT).

Next is Akshya. She was the first day-scholar I had met in college. Looks really sweet and cute, like a primary school girl and I still laugh when I think about what the college security-guard once asked her - ' Amma.. Entha school ma nee?? ' Wonder what her reaction was[:P]. But being a day scholar, she used to bring us home-made sweets which were soo tasty.

No special reason for introducing him here[:P], but Vinod instantly became famous in class though he came late. Reason - hails from the romantic city of Paris. Mad about cars, he made me and Rohit, learn by-heart the details regarding the Tata Nano for our second sem English project. In due course we three benchmates became the best of friends.

Before I actually met him in class, I met him in a cricket match we had between P.S and us mallus. Balaji, more than 6' in height, was the leading bowler for P.S. Although it took me some time to become close with him, I am thankful that I did coz he has one of the best personalities. I still feel I became the classrep in the second sem only due to his insistence.

Next guy is Genie. Once when the teacher was taking attendance, I heard the name Arvind Ramnathan being called and was wondering if such a student existed in my class. And was surprised when Genie answered the attendance and it is then that I realised that his actual name Arvind and that he was being called Genie coz he was a genius in many subjects esp maths and chemistry. Great guy to hang out with, he makes sure that you cherish the moments you are with him.

Most nicknames are formed from your initials and E.P is one such guy. Harish.E.P is one of the laziest guys I have seen. Better not go into the details[:P]. We became friends via many reasons - Despite being my section mate, he was my dept mate too and he was also the roomie of another mallu. Thus we got close even outside classes. Really good in programming, he still has a grudge against our first sem Computer sir[for??].

Amutha is another member of the 'cute-girls of sec-H'. Till the end of none of us knew that she was into astrology. She would to tell you your future by looking into your hands, though no one knows how true that is[:P]. Even she's into one of the Social service clubs, for which she goes to help school children.

Sooraj or 'Sooj' as he is called by everyone, is another member of this sec-H gang. Front bencher in the second sem, he is a cool guy to be with. Was sec-H's strike bowler in the Blitzkrieg cricket tourney.

He was Roll No.1 for sec-H - Aanand. Once I was just going through Arun's mobile, when I saw a video which had one guy dancing in one of the rooms in the hostel. The dance seemed good and the face familiar, and it was then that I learned about Aanand. Passionate about dancing, he got into the famed dance-troupe of NITT.

The first time I met Shruti was as Roshini's friend. They both seemed to be the best of friends as for the entire year you could see them together. She even had fans in class, one of them being Shashank[:P].

Another one of my team-mate for English project was Nandhini. She joined us late and the one thing I will still remember about her is her big smile.

We all had become the best of friends by the time the first semester had come to an end. With the hopes for an even better sem, we all split up for the sem vacation.

The next sem was indeed better. Though we missed SAT n HT and still had to bear R.Anand, we were devoid of Bennet and Kumsy and got some lenient profs in Mariappan and Gandhimathi.
Mariappan hardly came to classes. And as for Gandhimathi, she rarely got classes as most of the Fridays were hols. And as far as submission of CAD sheets were concerned, I would like to express my gratitude to Snitin, Mukund, Abhinav and Shivku who sincerely completed the work and even shared it with us by putting it in my 'public' sangam account. Such was the unity in sec-H that once one of them put these in a folder titled 'With love for H-Section'.

In place of HT came a Lakshmana Gomathy Nayagam to take maths for us. And no prof would have cancelled classes like he did. Every Tuesday, while I am sitting in the Workshop, I would have my mobile in my hand expecting his call. The message would be obvious - ' Appa.. Class cancelled today.. I will compensate on some other day '.

Speaking of compensatory class, Mrs. Dhanalakshmi who used to handle EEE for us in the second sem, used to take double EEE every Wednesday afternoon, in compensation for some imaginary class that she had canceled sometime, somewhere.

SAT was replaced by the HOD of English, ' Mr. ' Meenakshi Sundaram. If it was 'AIEEE' for HT, it was 'Corporate World' for this guy. Everyday was same for this vastly experienced prof.

Tuesday mornings were virtually free with Workshops. Me, EP, Arun, Bolu, Aanand, Sooj etc would go there as late as possible. The first thing the prof would ask - ' En paa.. Tamil payyan thana nee?? Yaen ivalavu late a varai?? (Are u a tamilian?? Y r u so late)'. For which the reply would be either - ' Sir, chennailenthu varom. Bus breakdown ayidthu ' or ' Sir, train late ayidthu '. And he would let us in with a big smile. And after the lab session(which usually lasted for just one and a half hour) me, bolu and ep made our routine tuesday-snaky-trip.

The highlight of the second sem was - the Opal Day and the Blitzkrieg Cricket Tournament. Every girl looks beautiful when she wears the traditional saree and on Opal Day all girls were in saree. And they sure looked prettier[;)]. And in the Blitzkrieg Tourney, sec-H bounced back from a pathetic performance in the section football matches, with a great show in cricket, nearly winning the tournament.(We ended up runners-up in an enthralling contest. A great display of cricketing talent by all members of my team, resulted in us winning all the matches except the final, which we lost marginally).

As the second sem was ending, so was our section life. And we bid farewell in grand style having a send-off function and an awards ceremony on the last day.

We enjoyed this to the maximum extent possible. I thank all my section mates for giving me one of the best years I have ever had in my life. Given an opportunity, I would like to re-live each and every moment of this life. :)