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In this 9th edition of As We Leave, Nishant Patel, Y21 student from the Electrical Engineering department, shares his journey through a rollercoaster of memorie, from online semesters and chaotic quizzes to wild nights in Hall 1, deep friendships, and the unexpected lessons that made his time at IIT Kanpur truly unforgettable.
Disclaimer:- The views presented below are the author’s own and are not in any manner representative of the views of Vox Populi as a body or IIT Kanpur in general. This is an informal account of the author’s experiences at IITK.
I write this, now that I have somewhat accepted the very fact that my IITK chapter has been completed and this will be a way to tell you my journey. After many failed attempts, asking other people if they’d be writing or not and asking Zainoob multiple times to help me, here I am, on a Sunday morning, questioning if I’ll be able to complete this. I’m still not ready to bid goodbye to IITK people who made that place feel like home. I’ll take every chance to relive those moments, alas, we won’t be getting too many. Coming back to AWL, I’m doubting if I can write my college experience in some 2k words. But since we are taking this as a challenge, I’ll try to cover most of it.
Okay, so I think I did almost everything the campus had to offer. Maintained my acads on a decent level, took PORs (7 iirc in 2nd year), got very much involved in the elections (not directly), did every event in the GC with my beloved hall (Jai Bhawani, Jai Shivaji), got myself a decent intern, got a return offer, wandered and roamed around every corner of the campus and even got a fine in the last for partying so hard that the wardens got scared. I was never a guy who can only study or do something quietly, I’m glad that I found the apt peers to do the other things that made these 4 years memorable.
Toh chaliye shuru karte hai…. We started off as an online batch, had so many first year plans and expectations but ah, we could only wait. My first quiz happened, it was of PHY102, and I scored -2, yes negative 2 in that test when the class average was 11 out of 15. I was shocked, I realised ki padna toh yaha bhi padega. But thank god, I wasn’t alone in this situation. I got my first gem, Himanshu (aka chotu or mechanical), he had also scored similar marks. Our daddy wing warned us not to involve in any “malpractices” as the Y20 batch had gotten a lot of Fs for getting caught. But still, some day i got added into a small group for learning purposes obviously, lol. Till midsems, i realised that not everyone is scoring by studying, and mujhe bhi behti ganga me haath dhul lene chahiye. So, online sem was mostly around this small group only, sitting on zoom before every quiz or exam, random late night bulla sessions, thanks to saksham’s fitjee unlimited ZOOM links, some bullshit games by Zainab. I also met Rachit Gupta, who’d be playing valo during the quiz and would wait for me to finish my quiz and then give him my answers, such a bitch thing to do, to bully me like that.
Side note – Unpopular opinion but I liked TA101.
So after this monotonous online sem, finally we were called to campus, and I took my excited ass to campus on the very first day(2nd apr, 2022). After making my room a living space, I left for the campus exploration as all other Y21s were doing at that point. I remember Udghosh was being held, and we were not allowed to attend any of the events following the new batch on campus regulations. But as you can guess, we ignored that and went to cheer for our teams playing in that scorching heat. And what I experienced there, made me realise that saare engineering launde ek jaise hote, chahe iit se hi kyu naa ho. Moving forward, Chotu’s and Bitthal’s rooms became our adda. Everyday was full of new things. Before Midsems arrived, we had already attended Sunidhi Chauhan and Ritviz, completed our fun orientation, hopped on panchi banu udta firu iss gagan mein in acad area, went on all popular buildings’ terraces and got chased and eventually got caught by SIS guards for doing something stupid in the residential area. Then we had our first “offline” exams and everyone got serious. Rest of the semester was around acads only. SnT projects and recruitment tests are fun ngl. The vacation before our sophomore year brought me a surprise, you already know if you should know it. Curtains on my short but very happening first year!
First half of 2nd year brought many reality checks. You have to keep up with the pacy life, maintain your acads as your department courses had started, do projects, look for good PoRs and obviously do all this while being involved in all the bakchodis that your wing or other groups were doing. Till then, I had my core group formed, not a great name (Raands) but a bunch of goated people, had enough interactions in my wing, got my batti systumm people to pass my courses and some great friends. By the end of 3rd sem, everyone was prepping for their interns, and I was there with no plans of that.
Okay so let me tell you a side story-
I was a dropper with no plans of JEE in my 12th class. My main motive was to get a good board percentage so that I could get a good college in DU and then prep for UPSC, so I didn’t give that year’s JEE Mains. Moving forward, my last exam was held on 19 or 20th march iirc, and after that lockdown was waiting for me as a surprise. After almost 3 months of random shit at my dadi ghar with my notorious cousins, finally the result came on 13th of July, I had performed well and was happy that I’ll surely get a good college now. But DU admissions were getting late and late, and a close friend of my dad recommended me to start prep for JEE, why waste my time waiting when I can get the DU seat next year also. So, with not so much interest, I started the prep and now when I have lived the iit dream, I’m kinda grateful for covid to have given me that chance.
Coming back, so when all the other friends of mine were building their resumes, I was chilling as I thought to not sit for intern drive coz of upsc plans. But in December, when I told my parents about this, they answered back in typical Indian parents style. They said abhi ek sem hai, iit gaye ho toh backup lekar hi niklo na, sabke sath intern prep karoge toh ho hi jayegi. 4th sem started, I also started looking for some projects for my resume. Another weak point was I hadn’t done any coding other than esc101 (i had hindi in 12th L). I left it for the summer. I’ll be always grateful for the intern prep gang. I had people who’ll help me in literally every domain. Rachit, Monkesh, Srijan, Panjwani, Zainab, Sibtain, Panda brothers and Sahaj to name a few. Monkesh and Sahaj would literally teach me company specific topics one day before the interviews. I also had to manage the APC work along with this. In a blink of an eye, it was day 1. Intern drive was a little of a hard time, cried a few times but at last finally got one.
Once my intern was sorted, I had only 2 tasks to do – first, to keep my cpi>8.5, credits to Nitya who told me that you’ll get a distinction degree for doing that. Second was to do every other thing that the campus and the people here had to offer.
After coming back from intern, we had to shift to hall 1. That is the place where you live your best college life. Almost all your 1st year friends are back again in the same hall. I got a PPO but many of my friends didn’t. So, 7th sem was more about helping others in the placement preparation and making them pass the courses that I was doing with them. I would literally make 5 different copies of an assignment so that they can just submit on mookit. For the first time in college, I had gone to 9am classes and took notes and that was in this sem as all others were busy with prep and late-night tests.
Then came December, all my friends got placed, yay. We went for a small trip in Jan start. Came back to H1 and this is where peak engineering experience would start. There will be something crazy going on everytime. You’ll be randomly partying and dancing, go on a “legendary” trip, even wear black sunglasses on a random SOBER night and roam around all over the campus. Saksham and Palash would be there for the morning sutta and sesh, which will go on forever till we pass out. Akshay’s room would become dharamshala, Himanshu and wing for “gravity”, Sahil and Tejas for random gossips and dancing, Bitthal, Chad and Kausti for random booty squeezing, Arko and Teja for late night rolling paper and the list goes on. Everyday was so happening, you would just love being there. Play cricket, football, tennis, badminton. We also had a dunk fight, went to almost every wing and water water everywhere. I also got a fine for partying as some random ass person had complained to the warden with my room number. That night, we called it wildfire. Whole wing, dancing shirtless, most of them being bhand, and to top it all, bursting a cracker on the face of the warden and then running and disappearing from his sight. Crazy night. H1 is all bout getting high and moj-mastiing all the time. Surely the greatest time I had spent on campus.
I’ll put my college take-aways in the following one or two liner points but will let my emotional side take over for a moment and say – Kabhi kabhi lagta hai dosti ek local train jaise hoti hai — sab ek station se chadhte hain, ek saath safar karte hain, maze karte hain… par fir har kisi ka apna station aata hai, aur log utarte jaate hain. Main bas yeh chahta hoonki yeh safar thoda aur lamba ho jaye. Kyunki chahe yeh log zyada purane nahi hain meri life mein, par dil ke bohot kareeb hain. Aur main abhi unse door nahi hona chahta.
So, ending my AWL by listing my college take-aways and some personal facts, in no order-
- People at IITK are the best people you’ll meet in your life. Make the most of it.
- Tejas, Sahil, Rachit and Rishi are the closest ones. I’ll love to have them by my side all the time.
- You’ll learn more from people than the profs.
- Visit the residential area besides the old shop at night around 2-3am. It’s thrilling.
- Go to as many terraces of the top building as you can go.
- Have a bhindi fry+raita+cold coffee combo at H1 canteen before leaving campus.
- Always and always keep your acads on a good level. You won’t be able to maximize your bakchodi without this.
- Spray paint your room, it’s very cool. Write anything that comes in your or your friends’ mind.
- Make those friends who’ll let you sleep in their coolers if you don’t have one. They are the sweetest ones. Miss you Chad!
- Go to as many trips as you can. And try to include as many known people as possible, trips make your friendship stronger. I went on 6 trips with college people.
- Goa jaroor jaana bc.
- Vrinda Sharma is the perfect vice-captain for making a team to go for a trip.
- If you smoke, have different groups for that. You’ll get to know a lot of new music.
- Give respect to your hall, participate in the GC events. I have got some great friends and goosebump moments from there.
- Vaibhav Kadiyan is the sweetest gensec.
- Be good at atleast 1 mobile/Pc game so that you can experience that also. Great bonding time.
- Will miss Bitthal’s medicine supplies whenever needed.
- Take as many PORs you can take, given you can manage your acads.
- College is the time to take bold steps, not play it safe. Everything you do here will make you learn something.
- Visit the whole campus by the time your journey ends.
- Talk to sis guards who seem to be alone. They can share some good stories/kaands.
- Do cringe things if it makes you happy. I made dancing reels with Tejas and Sahil.
- Wingies will be there from start till end. Make sure you remain one of them. It doesn’t imply that you should remain amongst wingies only.
- Don’t go sober to pronites in your 4th year.
- Batti is not tough, find the right group for you. I would not have completed it if there were no holy trinity of Sahaj, Satish and Swastik.
- Always have one jugaadu person. I know none better than Rishi Jaiswal.
- If there is any time or point where you can help others, fucking do it. Don’t think twice.
- Placement time, people need you. They are vulnerable, please please be there with them.
- Get a PPO for maximum moj masti.
- Juniors are cute. Give parties to them.
- R***ds was/is/will be my core group.
- Always keep a late night sutta and a morning sutta.
- Dance your heart out at the top of the water tank on H1 terraces.
- Keep some crackers with you, burst them on your friends’ birthdays.
- Saksham, Himanshu, Chuchu, Palash and Pandey- my wake’n’bake partners. Iykyk.
- Be a good student in at least 3 prof’s books. They’ll help you a lot, more than you can think of.
- Play cards in library at least once. Don’t go to lib without ciggs if you smoke.
- I had 2 or 3 pseudo wings. I can spend the whole day with them. Great people.
- Don’t make yourself small for anyone. Be the awkward, funny, beautiful person that you are.
Written by: Nishant Patel
Edited by: Abhinav, Divyanshi Agnihotri
Designed by: Pragya Puri, Pankhuri Sachan
