Batchmates @ NITW 1995

Slowly i was getting to know the new batch mates. There were 26 seat from UP, so there were 26 guys and i was getting to know them bit by bit while the ragging went on for almost a month. I will try to list down the names of my batch mates and see if my fundae are still tight as seniors used to call during the ragging:
1) Anupam Srivastava
2) Shantanu Porwal
3) Jaideep Banerjee
4) Phani Bhushan Dhar
5) Ashwini Dahiya
6) Shiwanshu Singh
7) Madhur Srivastava
8) Gaurav Gupta
9) Sharad Trivedi
10) Jyoti Prakash Biswas
11) Shyamal Adhikari
12) Satyendra Singh
13) Bhatnagar
14) Bijay Singh
15) Apoorva Kunwar
16) Arun Singh
17) Ram Ashray
18) Rahul Gupta
19) PPT

So my fundae doesnt look to be tight any more..i am unable to recall all my batchmates in 2 mins ..never mind i will recall the rest of the names and present the full list of 26 batchmates in my next post.

My first year hostel room @ NITW

My first year hostel room was allocated in 4th Block. The room number was 4-1-8, '4' meant 4th block, '1' meant ground floor and '8' meant 8th room in the block on ground floor. My room mates were Jyoti Prakash Biswas and Sharad Trivedi both of them joined the college from Allahabad. Jyoti joined ECE and Sharad joined Computer Science, i was in EEE. That is how my hostel life started @ NITW.

Ragging - very organized & hi tech

After the initial joining formalities got over and the parents returned to their hometown after leaving their wards in the hostel, began the ragging which was a very organized and hi tech event it was 16 years before as i write it today. The seniors used to have meetings where complete planning for the ragging events took place and the work was distributed between the seniors to keep the freshers constantly engaged in the ragging activities so that they do not even get time to think of anything, forget about complaining to the college authorities. The seniors as they called it - the ragging was commando training.
I still haven't forgotten the unity funda that was so much heavily emphasized, all 26 students of the batch  were brothers and sisters and should live with utmost unity, we should at any point of time be aware who amongst us was where and doing what. There were so many norms of the ragging and one so called mistake by one fresher costed heavily and all the batchmates had to suffer the punishment for that mistake in the name of unity funda. The ragging was heavy mental and physical ragging and the most tiring part was that we were not allowed to sleep, we were given daily assignments to complete in the night and can anyone believe all 26 of us were supposed to sleep in one room which had 3 beds and we did it for a month, so our state of mind can be gauged, atleast my mind had stopped working and there was no way i could have complained about ragging to professors or anti-ragging squads. The seniors were very organized and some one from the seniors was always there to keep the freshers engaged and they always kept an eye on us.

NIT Warangal Admissions cntd...

In my last post i talked all good about the traditions of the way the state seniors treated the freshers and their parents and helped with the admissions, this examplary behaviour of the seniors continued till each of us got the admissions to our respective B.Tech Streams and all the formalities for each of the fresher admissions were completed. Not only did they help with the admissions they also guided with the hostel allocations & mess allocations and guided us to the co-operative store of the college where we can get everything required in day to day life at REC right from bathing soaps to ED sheets. This display of good behaviour did not end here and it continued in helping the parents in returning back and sending of them at the railway station and then like camelion suddenly the seniors changed colors, once the parents had left us fresher in the hostel and left back to the respective places in UP by different trains.

NIT Warangal - The Day of Admissions to B.Tech. - Once again the seniors were the best lot

The same courteous and helpful attitude of the seniors continued through out the admissions, no fresher or parent of fresher had to run from pillar to post to finish the admissions formalities, the seniors were once again organized and spread around to take care of each and every fresher and parent by guiding them with the admissions procedure, by taking them to the administrative block and helping them with all the formalities with respect to the admissions. I have never heard such good and co-operative seniors in any of the RECs then. I am proud of the way the seniors organized themselves to take care of the new comers and facilitating them with each and every task. This tradition was later carried on by all of us till we were in the college.

Ragging - nothing can match the planning and execution - the way it was organized by seniors

As the freshers started coming in Warangal city for the admissions, there was something remarkable which i saw for the first time in my life. All entry points in city specially warangal and kazipet railway stations and each train coming from U.P. was covered by the seniors, this was done by the meticulous planning and distribution of work, which ensured that there were always a few seniors to receive any fresher entering into warangal to join REC Warangal. They used to be very co-operative and pleasant to the parents and helped with each and every aspect right from helping in arranging the accommodation, to any requirements like medicine or food. Only when they got any time when the parents were not around, then the actual picture of them came in front of the freshers which stirred awe in the freshers, new comers were terrorized that they would be ragged like anything no sooner than the parents left them in the college hostel and went back.

Beginning of September 1995..

We had reached Warangal a couple of days earlier than the day on which admission formalities were to be completed. As soon as we got down the train there was a different feeling that was coming for the first time in life - i think that was because of 2 reasons which were happening for the first time in life, one for the first time in life we were going to be away from home in hostel in an engineering college with ragging and everything new to storm our life, and the other reason being that wherever we looked most of the places everything was written in telugu, which gave the feeling that we came to a different land altogether a totally unfamiliar place with different language, at that time the feeling was nothing less than to be in a foreign land. 

Journey of RECW life started in Raptisagar Express..

Now the decision to join RECW was final, it was a big change in life, till now we were kids studying and staying in the care of parents always in front of their eyes. Distance between lucknow and warangal is around 1400 km and there were so many thoughts going through our minds. At home also mommy was worried and sad that her son would not be with her now and he would be going to such a distant place for his studies. So there were mixed feeling of happiness, excitement, sadness & fear of ragging all going through the mind. There was another boy from my colony in lucknow whom we got to know who chose REC Warangal to study Mechanical Engineering, he was Shantanu Porwal. If i remember correctly the 4 of us, my father, myself, Shantanu's father and Shantanu boarded Raptisagar express from Lucknow and reached warangal after a long journey around the first of september. We checked in a hotel , right across street, near the gate of REC, the hotel was Hotel Chariot.

So my journey of life started in Raptisagar express train.. 

August of 1995..

It was August of 1995, a very important time of my life which decided the direction in which my life would move ahead. I had cleared the state level engineering entrance exam and in the counselling chose to study Electrical and Electronics Engineering at REC Warangal (now NIT Warangal).

We all prospective students had lined up in a queue and i met someone, my first friend of REC Warangal, we both chose REC Warangal that day during the counselling, this person chose Mechanical Engineering. We went on to be great buddy in college, he was my room mate in the hostel 8-3-14. His name is Gaurav Gupta. And the best part is that we are still best of friends till today and in continuous touch..although after gap of few years.

When i write next time i will go down the memory lane and write the next episode from my memory...