When i was me...

On the First day, I entered GCT with my parents and brother. They had come to admit me in the college. Few days before counseling, I read through some college brochures to know about the colleges and their courses. I was not even aware what are the branches of Engineering, since I had the aim and dream of becoming a doctor, joining a medical college. I also visited Anna University to enquire what are the good colleges, which college and courses I could probably get for my marks. I had scored fairly good marks in the board exam. I wished I could enter into the same University, since it was the best in the state. But I knew it was very difficult, since my marks were not enough for that and I would get into some tier 2 colleges. I had thought that I would select any course in engineering but not electronics.




On the day of counseling, only 2 were allowed into the hall, where the candidates selected their colleges. I went inside with my mother. I was very nervous as to how to decide on my future within few minutes there.



We sat in a counselor’s desk. My mother said “ You select some private college in Chennai, so that you can be a day scholar.”

“I got good marks, why should we spend paying such high fees to a private college”, I said. One can give 3 options of which he can select one.

I told the counselor to check out ECE, Computer science in PSG, GCT and CIT.

He said PSG is over and all seats are already gone. He then showed me availability of Computer science in GCT and CIT. He asked for the third option. I did not know what to say. He himself entered the 3rd option of EEE in GCT.

“ Which one shall I select”, I asked my mom.

“ As you wish, neither of the college is in Chennai, So I don’t bother about the course”, She said

I was heavily confused. I don’t ever know what made me say that to the counselor, “ Go for EEE in GCT”, I didn’t knew that it is going to change my life and attitude towards it.

But my mom interrupted “ But you didn’t want electronics” .

I said “It’s Ok ma, I am afraid of Computers”.

The confirmation letter was given to me that I am going to be student of EEE in GCT and I had to report at the college on August 25th 2004.



On the first day, I saw all the candidates were with their parents. We were instructed to take our seats in the auditorium. Inside the audi, I sat next to a girl ‘Mangalambiga’ and a boy ‘Rojesh’, both belonging to CSE branch. We were seated in the order of our marks. I still felt if I was right in choosing EEE, although I was eligible for CSE, and people having same marks as mine had taken CSE.



After completing the admission formalities, it was time for room allotment in hostel. Just before going to the hostel warden, my parents met another set of parents from Chennai who were speaking in heavy Brahmin accent. My father felt nostalgic and he went forward and spoke to them. They said they had come to admit their daughter ‘harini’ who has also taken EEE branch, and her cousin srividhya of Biotech.



My parents told them about me and they had discussed about asking the warden to make us roommates. Our ‘beautiful’ warden named ‘rathi’ told in her own arrogant nature that the students cannot choose their roommates and she will decide it. She was true to her name, really beautiful, tall and fair, long hair which I always envy at.

Rathi ma’am had allocated room number 83 for me, harini and srividhya though she told us we cannot decide our roommates.

We 3 with our families went to hostel to find a very old building which could collapse for a mild tremor. And worse was our room number 83. It was like a nasty old place, which was not occupied for several years, full of cobweb and dust. Fathers were not allowed into the hostel and they seated outside the hostel.

Harini’s mother cursed her for choosing that college despite she getting admission into very sophisticated private colleges in Chennai. She still had the offer valid from the most expensive college in Chennai. Her mom asked her if they can leave the place and join the city college. But she said she wanted to study in GCT and won’t leave the place, for which she said to me the reason as she wanted to be away from home and enjoy college life.

Our mothers cleaned the room and converted it to be a livable one. All our next rooms had 4 occupants slowly coming in and occupying their rooms. We were happy that we are only 3 and we can share the 4th person’s shelves.

We chose our beds, placed our luggage. We all felt hungry, so we decided to go out to a hotel together. We locked the room. Our mothers were too tired to walk and an auto was arranged only for the mothers to reach ‘Amuthasurbi’. We with our fathers walked upto the hotel.

The hotel was fully packed by the 1st year admissions and their parents. We found a place and finished our lunch. From there each of us returned to the lodges where we stayed the previous day.

Next day when we arrived at the hostel and went to our room, ‘Sukanya’ came out from the next room as she heard us in room 83. She said she was the 4th member of the room, came just after we left the day before. The room was locked and she didn’t have any other option but to stay in the next room. For which she said later that she cursed all 3 of us the entire day.

Srividhya was tall and extremely thin with a different hairstyle which I wondered how she had made. Harini was pretty and stunningly cute with the patented nature of a girl who is born and brought up in Chennai. Her liveliness attracted everybody and even the air around her was excited. Sukanya was fair, temptingly beautiful and jovial with a nice hair texture. I am always attracted towards good hair.



Our life in GCT started. All the parents left their kids (we were not kids anymore) and started back. I sent off my parents with tears in eyes. Sukanya felt uneasy to move with us because we 3 were from same place, same kind of people and more than that we made her to suffer the very first day of our college life.



That night went on smoothly, knowing about each other. Sukanya felt relieved as we explained we didn’t do it intentionally. Suddenly a senior came into our room and said “I am Pushpa, your senior. Biotech, this was my 1st year room, just came to see who have occupied my room.” I felt how poorly she had maintained the room which warranted so much cleaning.

I was afraid whether she came to rag us or something like that.

Unexpectedly Srividhya said “ Akka, I want to be ragged. Good that you came here, Tell us how the college will be..”

Contrary to my opinion, Pushpa akka spoke very well with us, she was amicable.



Next morning, all the girls woke up early and got ready since it was the first day of college. We went to the mess to have breakfast fearing that the food would be bad as commented by Pushpa akka. But the hot magi noodles was tasty. Seniors explained that it tastes good since it is our first day and they don’t want to upset us the very 1st day.



We were asked to line up and a lady took us carefully to the college building premises. From then on we called her security akka, not attempting to know her name till the end. Myself, harini and few others walked to some other building thinking that our classroom is there. But later we didn’t find our classroom and rushed together for searching our class since we didn’t want to go late.



We entered the corner class which read EEE. All the seats were occupied in the girls row(since girls occupied it). One table was free at the back in a row where boys were seated. Harini went to a boy ‘Nivas’ and requested him to ask the boys to shift to the back, so that we can sit in the front.

She said “I cannot see properly from the last, I have some problem with my eyes”.

The boys obeyed and paved way for us to sit.



We had one more person joining us as benchmate ‘Charubala’. At first i felt her name was quite different. And she too was. Charu was very loud and a chatty girl. She can hide nothing inside her heart and speak something else to your face. She was a maestro in western dance. From then on, she visited our room often and we had fun together in pulling harini’s legs.



We got another friend ‘Bagavathy’ who was sitting just before us. She was a maths brainy and seemed to be a calm and composed girl at first. But later on, as she became close to us, I understood how bold and sound she was. At the speed with which she does maths, I would be just reading the question.



We had a mathematics lecturer, ‘Kalaivani’. She was short and too thin to be believed a lecturer. More than that she was too funny in her speech and action. Maths class was the favourite of all boys since they enjoyed making fun of her. The days went on.



Those days harini was speaking completely in English, and the clean flair of the language even made some people to be afraid to talk to her. ‘Dinesh Prabhu’ and ‘Singaram’ were sitting in the row at our back. Whenever she starts to speak, Dinesh used to comment “There are lot of problems with mosquitoes. Need to kill it with a spray.” This comment sounds funny and better in tamil.



We had to sit near boys row and once I could hear ‘Vishnu’ saying to ‘Hemant’ “ I don’t want to sit near girls, I am from a boys school”. He exchanged his place with Hemant. It is true that ‘Change is the only thing that never changes’.



We had class representative elections. Then our first internal test started. Everyone studied as if they were still in school. I too did so. Some dayscholar boys even totaled everyone’s marks and calculated ranks. Our Maths ma’am had given same marks for me and harini for which she said “ I gave same marks to both of you since both of you are close friends”. How nice.



Days went on and there was no interaction between boys and girls in the class and fun. One day in physics lab, harini broke the glass during prism experiment. The lab staffs threatened her that she should return the glass of same size and same thickness. Oh. I speak so technically about Glass.! She was worried very much and requested hemant to buy the glass for her since girls in 1st year were not allowed to go outside.



We had a common phone for the whole hostel, my parents speak to me everyday at 1.40 pm after I finish my lunch. Exactly at 1.40, it goes like “83 gayathri, phone on line”. Those days mobile phones were not popular and only a few had it.



On another fine day when we had a free hour before lunch, harini invited ‘bhuvana’ and ‘saranya’ to our room. “Why don’t you come to our room, We shall chat for sometime..”

Thus we expanded our friendship circle.

Bhuvana was small and cute, intelligent girl. I always admired her excellent command in English. She was very sincere and studious, with a beautiful handwriting.

Saranya was tall and pretty, with a nice ever smiling face. I thought, any dress she wears, she looks elegant. Very lively, and she talks to the core.

Bhuvana said “Harini, I guess you are only child to your parents.”

“Yeah, how did you find” harini said. “I could guess it from the way of your talking, myself and saranya are also only child to our parents, Gayu do you have siblings?” bhuvana said. And hence our conversation continued and we became friends.



We had extremely funny times when Srividhya gave us enlightenment. She made our learning easy by directly giving the page numbers in Sidney Sheldon’s. We also had an interesting pastime of gossiping about girls and boys of various branches. Each of us in the room brought in as many news as we could.



Sukanya had a courier that afternoon. She collected it from security akka and opened it in our room. It was a nice accessories gift from ‘Santhosh’, her schoolmate. There was a letter too. We had fun in reading the letter and finding out grammar mistakes.



On a Sunday, we were extremely bored by our hostel food, and that we had planned to buy lunch from outside. We approached a senior to buy us food from Amuthasurabi. The way we had our lunch was quite interesting. We switched of the lights, closed the windows and door. We had ‘Candle light Lunch’.



In class, during morning break and just after lunch break, lot of boys from other branches would gather around our class entrance, to have a look at harini. There was one fellow from CSE, who even came inside and sat in our next row behind her. Me, sukanya and charu had loads of fun in mocking harini and teasing her associating her with the boy. We even shot a small film with them in lead role.



The credit goes to harini for bringing in the fabulous game ‘Mafia’. We gathered people from neighboring rooms and from other rooms as well. Me and Sukanya went on for hunting girls for the game. We had extremely funny time in playing Mafia and Superman killer games. We even got rebuked from seniors and security akka for making heavy noise, which could be heard upto ground floor from third floor.



During those days, Srividhya was tending to be away from our room for unknown reasons. She visited the room just once a day, to take her dress. Otherwise she was totally off from us. She had got more entertaining friends.



It was the time, when we had to elect our placement co-ordinator, joint secretary, treasurer etc., It was the time when I heard many of my class girls speak. There was a fight and it resulted in partition of the girls into two sections, of which one had lesser number and the other had slightly higher. .And me and harini were in the smaller section and our allies were saranya, bhuvana, bagavathy, charu and anu. We never knew how the other group associated us together, but we became one even without our knowledge. The 7 unique characters struck a balance.



I didn’t know much about anu till then. Only after the formation of the groups, which made us move closer, I spoke to her and knew about her. She was very good-natured and friendly with great sense of humor. She would perfectly hit the timing in delivering her witty comment and make others to fall in laughter.



The time of festivals has begun by then in the college. Students from every branch organized a function comprising of symposiums, competitions and culturals, which made them, I would say, good managers more than good engineers.



It was our time to put up the show. It was ‘Nexus-05’ the function of ECE branch coming up. ‘We’ discussed about giving a dance performance in Nexus. By ‘We’ I mean the group of 7 eventually formed. I wanted to dance, since I have not danced anytime before. But I was not sure, whether I could do equally well to others. This was because harini and charu had exhibited their dancing talents already. Saranya also joined them. But harini convinced me that I can dance well and made me to join them.

We thought 4 would not be sufficient for a performance. And our other allies said they did not know to dance. So, we had to approach the other group. Aarthy came forward to dance with us.



We had tedious back to back practice sessions which made aarthy’s leg go wrong. She had to quit the dance. It was then a new dancer was discovered. Bhuvana had so much dance hidden under her shyness. Bagavathy and anu were not our choreographers, but I do not know how to describe their part, they were with us during all the practice, correcting our mistakes and improving us. So I would tell they were our choreographers. We 7 became very closer during this time and our relationship was strengthened. We had heavy competition from the girls of instrumentation and biotech branch. They were so good in performing and neatly presented their dance.



The day of Nexus had begun. We had given our best and the other 2 groups too. The results were going to be announced. The judges could not help it and they gave 3 first prizes segmenting the contest into western, folk and fusion. It never striked to us that the 3 groups were performing in 3 different categories during our practice, which helped the judges. It was the best moment of our dance life, though we gave many performances there after. ‘We’ also danced for the function of our own branch ‘ORACLE’.



There was a guy in our class ‘Anand vivek ravi’. As his name was he, fat and fair. Just as we came our after the dance, he was standing in the bike parking area, me and bhuvana were walking by the side. He came to us and said, “You danced very well, and you looked beautiful in sari today”. Bhuvana replied “Thanks”. We thought by ‘You’ he meant the plural You.



We celebrated our nexus victory by ordering food from hotel and having it with all the girls of our class. We did not want to encourage the partition. But no one could help. It grew in its own way.



To bring about some fun, me and harini planned to play some mischief. I sent sms from an unknown number to bhuvana, telling that I was a boy of some other branch and completely blown out by her and wanted to talk to her the next day. She was panicked and nervous at this. We enjoyed playing this drama, visited her room to see her reactions. Not knowing what to do, she switched off her mobile and locked it inside a big metal box. I also sent that, I would meet her the next day and I would be in a yellow shirt.



Next day, it was a lab session. All our class boys were in lab uniform. So she confirmed that, the fellow was not from our class. In the noon, she was hurrying to go to hostel to avoid any boy meeting her. But I pretended like having fever and asked her if she can accompany me to the clinic. She came with me and we were waiting for the doctor. She was very tensed and wanted to go hostel as soon as possible. Later we went to hostel, and at last broke the trick to her.



In order to bring about fun and frolic, boys of my branch made a perfectly idiotic plan. They had derived ‘nick’ names for all the girls in the class and handed it over to bhuvana. They also asked the girls do the same for boys and give it to them. How could the boys be so brilliant !!!



Since most of the girls were from all girls school, they reacted very shockingly to this. They felt it was a disrespect to them. Followed by that is, preparing bhuvana to fight with the boys for having done this. As planned, 4 or 5 of us stayed back after the class left and bhuvana started the quarrel with Santhosh and we joined her. We had backfire and bhuvana shed few tears after the quarrel.



To soothen the agitating situation in the class, we had planned to order a big cake and celebrate the last day of first year. We brought it to class, managing to hide it from the staffs of Welding and smithy lab. Finally we enjoyed the day. Unknowingly, the noise created reached the chemistry lab. The chemistry professor, who was incharge of all the first years, called for the whole class. We all stood in front of him as if we were not aware of what happened. He warned us and left free.



During these days, I got fever and lost lot of weight. Thinking that, it was just fever I didn’t care much. But it persisted for 10 days and I went home helpless. Found that it was typhoid, I took treatment for another 10 days.



Semester exams were on and the feverish days passed. By that time, we had a new friend who often visited our room and became very close to us, ‘Ramya’. She became 4th member of the room in lieu of Srividhya. I could say Ramya was a math genius. She never prepared for maths exams and just hit the first mark hands down. She was the topper of her class too. All the exams were over.



On the last day of first year, when we had to return to home, we had time to spend that day. Me, harini, sukanya planned to visit Maruthamalai, a hill temple. Surprisingly, Srividhya joined us. It was a good day and we felt that the same happiness which we four had months back had resumed. But it was too late and we won’t be together again next year. Our journey towards Chennai started, looking forward for the happy times with parents. It was the end of our first year.