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In the 3rd edition of As We Leave, Ayan Gupta, a Y22 student in the Department of Electrical Engineering, shares his journey from a gullible, rule-abiding fresher chasing branch change to becoming the Gymkhana President. He reflects on his eventful four years on campus, detailing how he went from setting strict “no distractions” rules to completely giving in to the beautiful, messy chaos of Hall 5.
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.
Dear Reader,
This AWL is intended for the buzz cut boy who entered the walls of IIT Kanpur on the peach of a day on 28th October 2022, If, while reading this, you could spare that loner a little company, I would consider this write-up successful already. I recollect my story not in years or semesters, but in phases, and certainly won’t brag with stories that anyone else other than me would certainly find mundane. I have a promise to you all, I will be honest, and if I manage to do this right, perhaps by the end of it, you may leave not with advice, but with a gentler way of looking at life – and maybe at yourself too.
To bacchas reading, you might not get the full context as ours was an Asynchronous first year. The first semester started in November 2022, ending in February and the next semester starting late March and ending in July. The timeline was constricted and leaves were reduced, with working Saturdays and sometimes Sundays.
Phase 1 - The Gullible Nerd
As once proclaimed by a deeply intellectual man of questionable credibility
“Half of Electrical Engineers are the ones who miss out on Computer Science” – Ayan
Naturally, I treated this statement not as satire, but as prophecy. Like thousands before me, I stood at the sacred crossroads of every JEE aspirant’s existential crisis: Older IIT versus Computer Science. After excessive overthinking, unsolicited counselling from relatives, Quora-induced psychological damage, and enough YouTube advice to destabilize a government, I chose to cling to Electrical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. By now it is quite vivid what my quest would have been in this phase. Affirmative, branch change. Dear time set the ball rolling and so I did my conquest. During orientation itself, the holy sermon was delivered “Academics is 1, extracurriculars are 0s at the back.” I absorbed this wisdom with the sincerity of a medieval monk. Now, an important detail about me at the time: I was catastrophically gullible and you will see it in the instances that follow. Yeah so back to sutra once again, prepared a note titled ‘CHAAPNA HAI’ of to-dos and don’ts in the first week of orientation. The to-dos were full of academic achievements – branch change, projects blah blah and joining those fancy Science and Technology Clubs, the ‘don’ts’ like no distractions, no alcohol and several other resolutions that now read less like self-improvement and more like a parental advisory notice, which I will tell you as the story progresses.
I kept my head down the entire first two semesters, attending nearly all lectures, tutorials, covering progress and assignments way before the deadline and maintaining a schedule. Waking up on time, bathing daily (in peak winters), preparing well for academia, sleeping on time, rare nightouts and zero offtracks. Stayed away from all distractions, no intoxicants, no instagram.
How am I gullible then? My first year was not only academia. It was largely that. One very renowned – the kind worshipped in boys’ hostel folklore with near-mythological reverence – convinced me that Antaragni volunteering was among life’s highest callings. He explained it with such passion that I cut short my vacations just to return early and do unpaid labour with pride radiating from my face. My equally gullible friends followed along like side characters in a coming-of-age film. Similarly, I still remember our first Hall V GBM. Y20s Prajwal, Parteek, Anjanesh and then the Y19s Gaurav, Tanmay and many more infused unparalleled Hall spirit and made me give the Unbreakable Vow in the upcoming General Championship. It happened, I followed. Football in fresher’s inferno, then Nukkad Natak and HSS Aamne Saamne in Galaxy and SciTalk hoisted by an amazing Y19 Mohammed Saad in Takneek. The results were fairly positive with us leading the General Championship charts.
Similarly, another close senior Prakhar instructed me to join the President’s Office as a secretary, claiming that this will get you a ‘good hang of the system’. Gullible me did not contest and complied accordingly.
As a footnote, I was not socially cut off. I spoke to wingmates. I laughed. I wandered aimlessly at night with a constellation of souls I had made acquaintance with. I simply existed in a strange middle ground: socially functional, emotionally confused, and academically overcommitted.
Fast forward the first year, with a confident Institute Rank applied for BC, but BC I did not get a BC. In what can only be described as a beautifully targeted act of cosmic humour, that particular year saw no additional seats created for Computer Science due to official mismanagement in the seat matrix. So after an entire year of monastic self-control, disciplined suffering, and weaponized punctuality, destiny looked me in the eye and said: “Electrical Engineering it is, BC.”
Phase 2 - The Acceptance
All the first year haze now went away, that boy is just disoriented. He was no longer the youngest on campus, having left Hall 13 to Hall 5, with relatively smaller rooms carrying the aesthetic charm of government infrastructure. This phase was not extraordinary. In fact, its beauty lies precisely in how ordinary it was. Life became a rotation of commitments: President’s Office, Antaragni, SPO work, something-or-the-other as an SG, academics existing permanently in the background like a low-maintenance toxic relationship. Days passed. Deadlines passed. So did my devotion toward the sacred “CHAAPNA HAI” manifesto. The attendance percentages began declining with remarkable consistency. Morning lectures slowly transformed from obligations into optional philosophical suggestions. Nights grew longer. Hostel corridors became livelier. Random conversations outside rooms stretched into 3 a.m. There were aimless cycle rides to Ganga Barrage and Legendary under sleepy streetlights, the kind where nobody has anything important to say, yet nobody wants to return either.
During summers, the nights belonged to endless BGMI sessions that stretched irresponsibly into dawn. We would play until birds started chirping, skip sleep entirely, then march half-conscious to morning cricket sessions with the confidence of athletes and the lung capacity of exhausted engineering students. By noon, we would collapse into sleep so deep it felt medically concerning, only waking up during the final moments of lunch timings like survivors emerging after a natural disaster. Afternoons were reserved for summer courses and internship preparation – both approached with fluctuating confidence and frequent panic. Some days felt productive. Most felt like controlled academic collapse. And yet, strangely, life felt perfect then. Not perfect in the ambitious, cinematic sense. Nothing spectacular was happening. Nobody was changing the world. We were just young, directionless boys suspended briefly between responsibility and freedom. But there was laughter everywhere.
In the mess.
In the corridors.
In the blame of deaths in BGMI
In the fights during cricket.
In exhaustion after sleepless nights.
In sitting silently beside friends doing absolutely nothing.
Even now, remembering those days leaves behind an involuntary smile. The kind that arrives before thought does. Because somewhere amidst the missed classes, hostel noise, and terribly managed sleep schedules, life had quietly stopped being a competition. And for the first time since entering Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, I had unknowingly begun to live it. Still I was committed to my no instagram and no intoxicants mantra.
Then Intern season came, a flurry of tests, the leisure stopped and stress hit. Denials happened, and I got rejected by my then dream company on Day 0. The sulk fortunately lasted for less than a day with getting selected the next day putting an end to my side of efforts in the weary 9-to-5 colosseum.
Phase 3 - The Conquest
Ahhaaa…so, there was one more commandment written in the sacred note – stay away from politics and time consuming positions. The state in which I wrote this down I consider would have been far worse than inebriated. Naturally, I deleted it with cinematic confidence. And thus began my irreversible descent into the great administrative circus of Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. I took up an HEC position and represented the Pool Nawabs as Pool Captain in Takneek. At the time, it sounded glorious. And to be fair, parts of it genuinely were. But Takneek did not merely occupy my schedule – it consumed me whole. There were GBMs that stretched endlessly into the night. Sleepless weeks. Running behind juniors, bringing in seniors, motivating people who wanted motivation only in theory. Tracking progress and preparing contentions. Managing egos, logistics, expectations, disasters, and occasionally my own deteriorating sanity. And yet, by some divine administrative miracle, we were blessed with an exceptional pool of juniors. Even now, their skill and intellect amaze me. They worked with frightening competence while the rest of us survived primarily on hall spirit and typical GC aloo paratha, achaar and tea. In the end, we finished first in Takneek. Victory arrived not like fireworks, but like exhaustion finally receiving permission to breathe. And somewhere during all of this, I changed. I had begun at IITK wanting to conquer. Now I had lost interest in conquering anything at all. I no longer cared much for the external world, comparisons, or proving myself. I simply wanted to live – properly, fully, recklessly if needed.
Then came relatively hard parts of campus life with impending General Elections. I intend to keep the lores reserved for bedtime stories. In short, I first decided to settle for senator position but stars aligned in a way I couldn’t have imagined and I became what I am. In my standing, I have done justice to the position as much as I could have, but have certainly lived and enjoyed it fully. The marathon of meetings every day, nightlong senate meetings, deadlocks, debates, compromises and a whole lot more are experiences that happen once in a lifetime. And not gonna lie, I sincerely hope they remain once in a lifetime. Of course, all of this came at a price. My personal and academic life was in shambles, but the result is worth it.
Now, Mohammed Saad, the same Y19 mentioned earlier – once described such campus politicians in his AWL as:
“Some clowns whose sole reason for winning was to grab an offer in a consulting firm because they could not learn to code in four years.”
I must admit, I laughed painfully hard reading that. And honestly? He was not entirely wrong. Though, for the record, I believe none of us ended up consulting this time. Still, I will defend one thing about these clowns: even clowns, at the very least, exist to entertain the junta. And if you ever hold office here, remember this carefully: students are not foolish. They notice when executives disappear midway through their tenure. They notice abandoned manifestos, selective enthusiasm, performative activism, and beautifully worded incompetence. So question your representatives. Hold them accountable. Remind them of their promises when they begin drowning in titles instead of responsibilities. Because institutions survive not merely on governance, but on people stubborn enough to care.
The best part of this entire process is getting to meet new people from different backgrounds, age groups, and celebrating the uniqueness every person has to offer. You create acquaintances with students, faculties, staff members and even workers and SIS guards, something that I value the most.
A few unrelated points I will just randomly state with you getting lost for context because I just damn want to.
- Being a devout Hall 5 member, most of my closest friends outside my wing are not from H5.
- Anitej Jain is my godly figure. My wing and I-Mid is my antidote.
- Campus ghost hunting and terrace climbs are my favourite timepass.
- Do not fraud anywhere or anyone. It never works. Take a handful of things and manage them religiously. It will get you more experience and respect from peers.
- Late night, specifically full moon nights are the gem of this campus. Those night-blooming flowers with their enchanting smell is something I will pay for.
- Cycle/Walk during rains. There is something serene about rain on a green campus.
- Dancing and laughing being tipsy is awesome.
- Hall 1 is the campus epicenter. It shall always remain that way. If it sneezes, the entire campus shall catch a cold.
- H1’s boondi raita and cold coffee is a goated combination that consumed alongside anything (like anything) will make your feast delicious.
- Your hall is indeed your identity during the initial years. Work hard to feel proud of your identity.
- Batti has the (LSD) least saanp density compared to other branches.
- Create many real relationships with people. This is the last place you will make genuine and lasting ones.
- Go on trips and preferably reduce expenses on luxuries (not necessities). You will create a lot of memories this way.
- Students’ Gymkhana is the best institution to do something good for any aspect of the campus. If you wish to contribute, stay relevant to campus and find problems. Never hesitate to indulge in politics. Remember, we are leaders not politicians.
- Before resorting to intoxicants, make a conscious decision. I advise against them. Think of all cons. Never do something in peer pressure.
- Things get heavy and you get sulked in self thought. That is natural, at any stage remember to keep it real and keep it simple. Letting go works in places unimaginable.
Finale - The HIT…
Yes, so I ended up ticking off nearly all of my to-don’ts and rarely any of my to-dos made on the first day. But looking back, I do not want to change anything. I am satisfied and will choose again to enter festivals, general championships or not be able to change a branch. It never made sense looking forward, but quite clear peeking backwards. Do I have regrets, yes certainly. Do they burden me? No, I am contented. Got the best engineering branch, the best community, the best college, and the best story.
I am not able to turn the last page of this chapter, this paper is very heavy. I need your help to help me lift it. As I metamorph to a fancy form of labour class. I will borrow some wisdom from an esteemed senior and MTH AM Rahul Jha.
“Maybe the only real goal worth chasing is to wake up every day looking forward to something.”
So dear sweet reader, here I am at, not staring but standing at the end. To your not-so-pleasant surprise, it is not the end. There’s not a significant difference, apart from the fact my hair might get greyer sooner than yours. I am still figuring out life, unsure of the future, having my own ups and downs and living the harsh truth. Fun lies in discovering the unexpected.
I find that my things are not like Arijit’s (Singh not Ganguly) “accha chalta hu duaon mei yaad rkhna” but more like Mukesh’s
“ Mai Pal Do Pal Kaa Shaayar Hun
Pal Do Pal Meri Kahaani Hai
Pal Do Pal Meri Hasti Hai
Pal Do Pal Meri Javaani Hai “
Whilst you are on campus, make the most of the ‘pal do pal’.
Lastly, dear reader, god bless you!
Sayonara
Fino Alla Fine
Jai Shree Ram
Written by: Ayan Gupta
Edited by: Japneet Singh, Shruti Sahu
