Back at BITS

I cannot write poems, else you would be in for a poem now. Recently I had been invited by the Director of BITS Pilani-Hyd campus, to be a part of the insti's program to felicitate its alum in civil services. Luckily, I could make it. During the function, just like the other bureaucrats of a feather I too was invited to take my seat on the dais. Yes, really. As I tried to take a good look at the auditorium seats, students and lights from the stage, nothing that was actually there entered my mind - I could only see myself, much younger, around 15 kg lighter, sitting in a corner in a pair of dirty jeans, an insti T-shirt and of course, the standard Hawaii chappals. 

Though the second-best alternative to a poem is not presenting the stuff in bullet points, that is what I'm going to do now:

• Truly believe in: Every saint has a past; Every sinner has a future. That is the only way by which you can make sense of a country's topnotch engineering insti sending an invitation to one of its poor students (me). Yes, some 15 years flowed. But it happened. Just keep going till you find your zone. There is (sun)light at the end of the tunnel. Caution: I am not trying to make it fashionable and say - college acads is not important, just enjoy, and endure the mess food. No. I am saying just the opposite. Graduate courses are very important - even if you don't like them. Get the basics right. The world will open up more easily for you.

• (I will try to be 100% objective here...) At the function, all of us missed S.Nagarajan, an extraordinary alum of BITS-Pilani, and my brother. He belonged to the 1996-2002 batch of EEE. You just have to browse through the latest UPSC Annual Report to realise that when it comes to the number of selections in the civil service exams, among the 200-odd institutions that produce civil servants, BITS-Pilani ranks 15 - much ahead of most of the IITs, and above all the NITs. But things were so different as early as a decade back. If you look at the pre-2005 batches, there is only a handful of BITS alum in the civil services. The GRE/CAT routes were the most popular ones in the campus. But a (almost) ten-pointer fighting it out, and finally achieving the unimaginable All India Rank One in 2005 and entering the system - made many others just step aside for a moment and take a close look at bureaucracy as a career option. As the cliche goes, the rest is history...Now there are more than 70 civil servants from BITS, and most of them are from 2007-batch downwards. There have been many top rankers too. And I'm not trying to be humble here.

• I can now empathise with those irritating men and women in the auditoriums and cinema theatres, who could not resist talking, murmuring and annoying others while the show was very much on. I was seated next to the guy, who was the students' union Prez during my times. A professional troupe was performing some old Hindi numbers. Mooz and me went non-stop; in spite of several scornful glances from an elderly lady seated in the front row. (I'm sorry madam.) Mooz was one of the most articulate students of the campus; way ahead of others. We were meeting after donkey's years. In the interim he had put all his energy in Pennywise Solutions, a tech startup; Recently it became a part of O&M. Cool. Amazing. Happy. I also fondly remember him as the senior who ragged me in the early days.

• One of our illustrious alum, Ms.Anu Hassan, had come down to compere the function. It was a great evening, and a real pleasure to interact with her. Best wishes to all her creative ventures, and hoping to see her more often in Tamil films.

• It was nice to take a walk around the campus around midnight. During our days, (...I hate that phrase), the gates of the girls' hostel closed at 11 PM; And there was no time limit for the boys. Here, the girls' gate closed at midnight, and boys had to be inside their rooms by 2 AM. (Yes, it is funny.) In the trademark BITS style the Hyd campus too has been generously created with a lot of open space. No corners cut. Interestingly, unlike the Goa campus where the hostels had been named tastelessly as 'A', 'B', etc. or something like that, in Hyd they have retained the names of the Pilani campus. Sounded nice. Relived. 

• Punctuating the campus, are the oldest rocks of the planet, the Archaen age granites and gneisses. The way the rocks have been left to merge with the overall architectural layout of the campus is just beautiful, thoughtful too.

• A few students were hanging out in the audi, clicking snaps with the likes of 5D, 60D, etc. They were a part of Dopy (Department of Photography), that used to cover the events even during our days. It used to be fun, we did not have professional photographers, Dopy guys managed the photo coverage of most events. Soon after the functions, Dopy will have the photos displayed and you can place order for your snaps. In about 3-4 days you will find the copies neatly placed inside an envelope and seamlessly slipped under your room door. No cash payment hassles, it will get added to your mess bill. Now, this Dopy guy says I could download the photos from Google Drive. I was not a part of Dopy, I belonged to the Photog Club that did not have the mandate to cover the events. Photog was there - just for the heck of it.

• The Pilani DNA of single room occupancy and 0% attendance has been preserved in Hyd too. 

• As one of my friends pointed out during the walk, it looks like there is an itching need for a dozen or two road-side benches in the campus. During the day the guys hang out in places like canteen, computer centre, library, corridors, etc. but much after the sunset many of the students seem to prefer the roads and pavements. They just sit bang on the roads in circles that looked like some outdoor antakshari program. Groups of different sizes lie scattered all over the campus roads, something resembling a dharna. It was a cool thing too; sitting on the road and chatting the entire night out. But I'm sure tar and Hyd summer do not gel well. Liberal helping of white marble benches would be just fine. Any sponsors?

• It was refreshing to across two students aspiring for a career in politics. Best wishes guys! 

• The event was to celebrate the 10th Foundation Day of the campus, and also to felicitate the BITSian-civil servants. Mr.BVR Mohan Reddy, the founder-MD of Cyient, and former Chairman-NASSCOM, was the Chief Guest of the function. Among others, a 1975-batch IAS officer-alum, Mr.Chandramouli, graced the occasion. Incidentally, it was also the farewell day of around 400 graduating students. 

• It was also a week prior to the start of the dreaded Compre (semester exams). ANC (All Night Canteen) was booming. 

I also got one more thing to add, when you have a really, really early morning flight to catch at an airport that is miles and miles away - better have someone to give a wake up call to the cab driver.