I suppose the last official recognition of our having being students at NITK was yesterday. Any and ever college these days decides to give a ring of honour to its outgoing students but as I learnt from Prabha, some canadian delegates were responsible for making our turn the 45th time this event has been held at NITK. Of course she also mentioned those very canadians to have played a role in the formation of this institute itself so you go figure why the NITK anthem is not sung to the tunes of "Oh Canada..."!
Forget Canadians now, they have their own country! For us people though yesterday was all about coming in formals the very last time in college and let's just say the response to the 5 pm calling on the invitation was... ahem... luke-warm at best. Heard and seen at Final Hostel block from 4:45 pm to 5:45 pm yesterday:-
"Abey log bahut honge yaar bathroom ke baahar" ( Dude lots of people are gonna be outside the bathrooms now")
"Chehra saaf karna hai par bahut aalsi ho gaya hoon" (Need to clean up/Shave but too lazy)
"Kisi ke paas extra formals joote/tie hai kya?" (Anyone has extra pair of formal shoes or a tie?)
"Chod na yaar, ye NITK timing hai. Hum 5:30 ya 6 pm ko nikhlenge." (This is NITK, lets leave at 5:30 or 6 pm)
Avinash to the above: "Some placement meet starting now da, lets leave at 7.
In chorus, many others: "Yes, We Can!" (Uhmmm... Ok!)
And as usual I was there at 4:30 because I needed another tie in case the one I had on was not looking good on me. But then, very little does! So it was in full formals that I decided to put more load on the earth mother and sat down outside the entrance steps to the final block, talking to friends while watching a parade of batch-mates go over to the 4th block carrying a bucket and a towel to take that rare bath. I can't blame them: No water again in final block!
I got an impromptu lesson on how to tie a tie from The Singhai, only to forget it in 5 mins. Kiran came to the rescue when he got his car here: Its about 800 m to the Student's Activity Centre (The "supposed" arena for the ceremony) and in the 35 degree, +95% humidity weather we were glad to get that ride- Only to see that we were to sit in a huge huddle of students feeling every bit of the Indian Summer even at 6 pm. Somehow this evening we had a friendlier connection with the faculty- especially Dr Saidutta and Dr Shreekumar and they entertained us with their tales of this ceremony. Dr Saidutta showed us his ring which must have been magnificent in 1981, and the NITK watches to be "bought only at the alumni meetings". So here we sat awaiting the ceremony to begin...
When all the students finally came, the rain gods were ominiously making themselves heard in the open amphitheatre. Sad jokes and a few hundred pics later (Let's just say some pics are gonna be more popular than others, poodiamma!) the ceremony began with the customary speeches. A guy from computer sciences branch gave a rocking speech which I frankly think was accentuated mainly because of his accent. And then there was Prabha...
Prabha's speech will be remembered less for the content but more for the rain which came during it! Nearly everyone was more into the rain and the sudden cool weather with expressions ranging from "Sexy shit man! I love this weather even if I am in a burgundy sari and heels" to "Hey good! Ceremony postponed for tomorrow. So we get 2 ring ceremonies."... Utter chaos with some mad people (I included) just taking it all in with face turned to the heavens and others running for the SJA (Silver Jubilee Auditorium) where secondary preparations were being done. In the end a poor M.Tech (I think) guy was still talking and we all scattered like bunnies in the downpour and the power failed to just add to the mood.
Have you watched Jurassic Park and wondered how it felt running with a coupla hundred people at night in the rain with the raptors close on your heels? Well there was no imminent danger here but when you have about 700 people running on a small strech of road, you tend to get a rush of adrenalin. I am pretty sure it was more from the non-seasonal rain than anything else but hey- I'll take it!
Just as we reach SJA, power is back- Nice trick! Somehow in the madness, all chemical guys make their way to a decided seating area with lots of fans and free space around. And somehow in 10 mins time, the ceremony commenced from where it had left off. Somehow the rain had made us non-responsive to the ceremony and so the next hour or so was spent idly chatting and taking still more random pics- Probably because we all knew inside that this night may just have been our last time together! A few speeches later, it was time for the rings to be given..
The dept faculty made their way to us with the rings and all had the chance to get that ring on. I can't help remember one incident though: Christina walks over to the HoD and puts her left hand out and tells its the 4th finger she had chosen for the ring. Being a christian, she had no idea its the engagement finger for us Hindus and so she comes back with the ring in another finger and a confused look on her face. She says "I dunno why GM didnt put the ring on this finger! He kept saying something like "Udupi, Udupi!" Any idea why?" When Prabha realised it was actually "Would-be" it was a moment of gratification for "blondie prabha" who managed to get us all laughing at someone else for a change. Apart from that, there was Sindhu's "marriage plans in Jamaica" in ~3 years, Indu booking Sandeep to catch her ring in case the HoD decided to throw them at us (Lol!) and Sindhu & I having a war on Photoshop reduction- Those who know will know!
Some people thought it was cool to get a pic on the dias. Unfortunately for them, so did many others. In the end there were about 150 people cramped on the stage and the poor photographer moving back all the time in order to get everyone in the frame. All this time, we were grumbling about the dinner we were promised and it was here that the "Shameless Hoggers Inc" was born. I have no idea how long it will last but hey- I am a founding member of something atleast!!
Finally the National Anthem is sung and we are all invited to the Sports Complex for dinner: Only to see a huuuuuuuuuge line of people in front waiting before us to be served. So we (2 chemical, 2 from meta) go to the empty Food Court and head back to the complex just in time for ice-cream. Sadly this is where the night ended for me: Being a dayscholar is tough at night with no means of transport after 9 pm. So while I was making preparations to go back home, the others either went back to SAC for the Movie screening of "Sarkar Raj", went back to their rooms or simply went about in small groups to chat till the wee hours of the morning...
Kiran best expressed his feelings regarding the ring in his current gtalk status: "This ring is a thing which clings onto your wing and pings you everytime only to sing that NITK was the sling which fling you in full swing to only bring you back like a real king"
Written a lot today, will add a few pics as soon as I get them! Till then I need to stop laughing from the last spam message I got in my gmail folder: "You have a naked video of yourself at youtube.com! Click on the below link to remove it".. Nice huh? Finally an imaginative spam message... Adios!
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