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In this 25th edition of As We Leave 2026, Ritesh Baviskar, a Y22 from the department of Computer Science and Engineering, reflects on a journey of stepping beyond the familiar and embracing the unexpected. Through spontaneous adventures, cherished friendships, newfound passions, and moments of self-discovery, he shares how his four years at IIT Kanpur taught him that growth often begins at the edge of discomfort, and that the memories we hold closest are built in the ordinary moments we never thought would become our last.
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 IIT-K.
I was always the silent type and it did not bother me, as long as I was achieving. Well I did perform well in JEE following this mentality and it worked out, didn’t it? I am obviously perfect the way I am and why be a people pleaser? The first day at IITK and I was overwhelmed. I seemed average and felt average. “So what I thought. I can always be perfect academically, right?” Little did I know about the crowd that I was a part of. I was naive and confident at first. I had no plan of what I wanted to do with this place and what I wanted with myself. So I offered no resistance to changes at all. I went with the flow. Freedom it was, but was I mentally prepared to handle freedom?
One with the dance…
I was always good at painting and sketching and there was a fine arts club, but the new version of me wanted new things. I made the choice that I always wanted to make. I chose to dance in the freshers’ event. It was tough but I felt nice, finally doing something different, something that I have always been bad at. I met new people, late night sessions exhausted me physically but mentally I wanted this, and I wanted to be good at this. I was allotted the first row so I was going to face the crowd! Did I dance that well? Nah they just didn’t bother moving me elsewhere. I performed for the first time in my life?! My heart raced and my footsteps were heard very frequently going in and coming out the toilet. There was tension backstage. Was I going to mess it up in the first row? This thought was always giving me peek-a-boos but I could not let it distract me. One after another, songs played and groups performed. Finally it was our song: Criminal, I had heard it hundreds of times by then. I rushed onto my place on the stage and got hit by a foreign elbow! What the actual F was that. My glasses hit the floor but thankfully I did not, but there was no time for this. I took my place and the dance started. I did everything I had practiced, I put my soul into the performance. I saw the crowd, it was a very different feeling, still very difficult for me to describe. It seemed like a single entity, with huge eyes on you and it was rooting for us, with those eyes of expectations. Weeks of practice for a couple of minutes of performance. What I know for sure is that the after effects were rewarding. I met my roomie and his girlfriend after this and they seemed crazy impressed considering that this was my first time ever performing. I felt good, the rebelling child that made me go for dance felt good and I wanted to continue down this path. What I realised later on was that I messed up the MTH111 quiz because of all the practice that dance demanded and my score was pathetic. Moreover, when I got my hands on the dance tape, I mentally puked after the first 5 seconds of my performance and I have not watched the rest of the tape till date. These were some massive blows. My entire identity had revolved around academics and I had made such a royal mess in that domain. I was a sane child back then and my identity was very important to me back then, so I chose to repair the academic aspect of my life and this meant that the other aspects must be compromised. Well, looking back it was all fun. I did lose that battle against self, but not the war.
One with lassi & paan…
So I recently got to know of codeforces and I had just finished up with a contest and I was not very happy with the performance so I was looking into the editorial. I heard a knock on my door, I knew there were some wingies outside and I opened it up. They said, “Pack kar bag, Varanasi chalna hai abhi”, and I was like “kyaaa?”. So we were thinking of going to Varanasi for a couple of weeks but nothing was ever finalized and moreover I was in no state to leave at 10 pm. They gave a clear choice, to either continue with the editorial or pack up in 10 minutes. We did not even have a ticket to the train and our plan was to get a general ticket. Well, I love adrenaline and uncertainty, so I packed up and was ready to leave with all the basic stuff. While travelling to the railway station, there was fear in my mind, because the choice I made was obviously irrational and we had no ticket! Our plan was to get to an AC coach and stay there till the time the TC catches us. We followed the plan and slept on someone else’s seat for a few hours before the TC caught us. We were then demoted to the sleeper class. Now, this was where I got to see the real North India. So I was very close to the door of the coach, which is the most crowded region of the entire coach, and after some time I started floating in the crowd because of the pressure from all sides. I saw real stuff while being in such a state. There was an old couple from Odisha with some foot disabilities and people with huge bags which seemed labour related stuff, these people do not think of enjoyment and they were just moving across towns for earning and surviving. I understood then why privileged photographers travel across south east Asia to capture this kind of stuff. Across this crowd, I saw two of my wingies, resting against a steel rod, who gave me the brilliant idea of travelling without a ticket. These were the longest two hours and I was just praying hard for the train to reach its destination soon. We reached Varanasi and after 2-3 hours of deep cleansing, we started exploring the city. On a side note, Varanasi is one of the very culturally rich cities that I have been to. There are narrow roads and the entire ghat region smells of incense sticks, there are bodies burning on some ghats, some people sketching random art, heavily dressed sadhus, professional street art and insane street food. So yes, coming to street food, we had this amazing idea of having only street food for all meals. More specifically, lassi and paan became our favourites and we had this staple around every corner. We explored a lot and it was an amazing trip. We reached back campus and I felt something in my stomach. It was the lassi and the paan making uneasy mixtures! We vomited for 3-4 days and it was a case of severe diarrhea. Well, sacrifices had to be made, in this case we sacrificed our health for cultural exploration. This was one of the best trip experiences I had (apart from the vomit part)!
One with the mid life crisis…
I always took extreme measures, never found a balance in my early life and the dominoes kept falling. I found a friend in my early CPA trials and we went on to become very good friends. I discovered the KD building in this phase and took my acads seriously. The real problem was that I had lost myself and in desperate attempts to fill up the void, ended up imitating the rest. However, my scabbard would not allow other swords to fit in and I kept losing battles. This was the phase with confusion and efforts, but with no real results. Precious time was wasted in this trial-and-error phase and I felt lost. However, there were unexpected powers in life that kept me entertained. A Bangalorean creature that found its home in the gap between the mattresses and loved the cold air that an investment of 8.5k (cooler) had brought to our room. Games were played late night before PE (with screams), laughs were shared and vomit was spilled in this room that we called D302.
One with the pink creature…
Off I moved onto the second year and with this I moved to Hall 5. There were serious morning issues with Hall 5 and we even thought of going back to Hall 13 for morning rituals. This was however the place where I started finding myself. Looking into and solving others’ problems and hardships can teach you valuable lessons which can be applied to solve issues with your life, and believe me this is not the same as applying others’ solutions to your problems which caused me problems in my first year. It was Antaragni and I met a cute creature stumbling on my way, in a pink hoodie and I said “Hi, do I know you?”. I received a smiling reply and I thought it to be an ordinary interaction but the divine plan was different than what I had expected. We kept meeting in the most unexpected ways as if it was all fated. At that time I used to be a part of ERA and one night I was working with an ERA senior when I received a couple of unsober-seeming texts and I knew that I could not sleep without overthinking this. I knew what was to be done. I made up a reason with the senior and rushed to Mama-mio and confronted the creature sending the texts. This incident was the start of me being sure about what I want. It made me reflect on my life choices in other aspects. I went on to leave ERA and traded it with working with a Professor on a project and went on to publish a research paper in the coming year. That pink creature made me go to the depths of my mind that I was never comfortable visiting. My earlier belief of staying in the comfort zone was breaking and I discovered it to be pleasingly rewarding. The changes were gradual but the upcoming challenges were abrupt.
One with the money chase..
The intern seasons came my way. This time I knew the truth about this phase, that this is critical and mistakes cannot be made and laziness needs to be exorcised. An important skill that is expected in the candidates is the skill to butter, aka soft-skills, and for this I needed to breach past the walls of social anxiety and bring forth the be-friending nature. And so, the pink creature helped me with constructing a plan to cover up all the important topics including soft-skills; we practiced this a lot and then came the day of judgement. I had an interview at 8am for Splinker and god, I messed it up so bad for no good reason. I understood that this is my worst day. Frustration was at its peak when I received a call from SPO. I picked up the call and the person told me that I have an interview for Adobe in 30 mins. I replied ok and cut the call. Well, I was not OK, I was like WTF. I did not want to mess up two interviews on the same day but there was nothing more that I could prepare in 30 mins so I wore my shirt and tie. The interview was online so it only made sense to not wear formal pants(it was summer). The interview started and it ended and I kept answering, even chatting on unrelated topics towards the end. He smiled and seemed happy. Considering that day was off to such a rocky start, I refused to believe that my interview could have gone good. The next day I got a call saying I have received an offer from Adobe and that they wanted a reply within 24 hrs. I replied ok and cut the call. I climbed up my chair and jumped and I banged my desk. At this moment I knew that I was not gonna be poor next summer!
One with the cursed trip…
It was the last semester when I really sank into the place and decided to go all out. We had a long weekend and decided to go on a trip to Mussoorie. Who would have expected that this trip was cursed. Well, just like us, everyone in Delhi realised that it was a long weekend and obviously their favourite place to visit was Mussoorie. There had been recent snowfall there which attracted crowds. We started off our trip with a 1hr trek to our stay, with our luggage as the roads were choked with cars more tightly than a toilet could ever be, with toilet paper. We felt the cold air and it was not such a bad thing, I thought. But alas, this was the only start of bad things that were going to befall us on this trip. From getting scammed extensively in the name of good scooters, to 1000rs of bonfire wood that never burned, to more severe issues like an almost police case and stitches because of an accident, this trip had everything. Even the breakfast we ordered had one egg missing. The snow that attracted the crowds had mostly melted and only some of it was left on a private property in Landour and we had to enter the restricted area to experience the “snow” craze everyone was talking about. Well it was shit, but this was the first time I saw snow, so I had fun. I realised that it was all about the company, not about the place. Learning from this experience, never again did we decide to use long weekends for trips to hill stations near Delhi!
One with the dance, again…
So we have this thing called dance extravaganza and the leaving batch participates extensively in it. But knowing my dancing skills, I was not sure if I should really have the spotlight on me. But the pink creature wanted to do a duo and I could not break its precious heart. So I decided to go for it. I was a pathetic dancer so ideally I should have practiced thoroughly, but I was a little too confident or a little too lazy, so the practice never began until it was the very last day. And then it got to me, that I was to perform the next day and I know shit. To make the situation worse, my duo partner was out of town and so I had only myself as a believer and teacher. I learned the steps after a day’s work and decided to shoot it once to clean it up a little bit, if need be. I saw the video and the same feeling struck me, the one that I felt in my first year. I was mentally puking again.I was so close to giving up at that moment, I even thought of making up a reason about some kind of sickness to get out of the situation and I knew that it might have worked. Did I want this to happen? Could I not put in some more hours for the happiness of someone that I care about? I had to do it. I had many dancers in my wing so yes they helped me out a bit by correcting some moves. I had planned on performing in two dances, one with the wing and the duo. We were practicing at OAT when I came across my CSE friends. They asked me if I wanted to join in and they played the music and made space for me and I danced. Then, I already had two dances at hand and they had already changed their positioning to make space for me, so I could not back out now, so I was all in now. On the DE-day, I performed and I enjoyed performing. I felt so much better because of being an active participant and not just a member of the audience. I am so glad that I performed and it became one of the core memories and I felt proud of myself. Leaving the comfort zone is always rewarding!
One with the end…
I never realised that this place was that important to me, until the time the last couple of weeks arrived and I started to realise that these are going to be the “last times” for many things. This place and the people I met, made me what I am today. Nothing was planned out and yet everything fell into place magically. We started going for walks around the campus at night. Once, we were outside L20 and in front of my sight laid the empty fountain area and an empty CCD. However, It was not empty to me. I could see myself and the pink creature sitting there, initiating and resolving fights, sipping coffee and having samosas, after classes and before classes, enjoying and appreciating the sunlight and the nice weather, sharing our days, going out for walks after being at the library for midsems and endsems study. I looked at the grass in front of L18, it was dark but I could see a sunny November noon, the cute pink creature laying in the grass, dressed in all white like a penguin, waiting for me. The space in front of the L18 filled with people, discussing answers and that too, in a relaxed state knowing that the exams were over. It was all going to come to an end.
When I saw people leave, it felt strange, them getting into a cab and waving for the last time. Hundreds of events that those people were a part of would flash across my eyes in a fraction of a second and my eyes would tear up. I realised that the best times we had here were not single events. Instead, events that became habits were the ones that felt the most comforting. Long nights spent in Catan sessions and the pretty mornings that followed, visits for non-mandatory mattha and ban maska, casual racism and digging into each others’ insecurities; I met the best of people here. These memories make me want to go back to a morning where I had just gotten up to a bright November sunny day, late for my classes, waking up from a very realistic dream…
Written by: Ritesh Baviskar
Edited by: Gauri Singh, Shriya Suravarapu
