My First Year at SASTRA

I joined SASTRA on July 17, 2012. Unforgettable day! My parents drove me out from Chennai to Tirumalaisamudram to see me off. For all the "you-might-get-homesick" lectures that I got from my dad, I felt no sense of "going-to-be-homesick". As my roommate gates later told me, that was probably a night I slept very soundly. He saw me sleep well as he lay awake not able to sleep tight on his first night in a hostel.

My first day at college - July 18, 2012, I remember sitting in the wrong class and listening to some Research Dean of the Mechanical Dept. rant about the glory that was SASTRA University. I realized I was sitting in the wrong class only 2 hours later when the Chemistry Prof came in and took attendance. Hehe! My first week of college was quite fast. Most of it was used up in getting to know which buildings were where and meeting new people. Only later, during my rounds of jogging around the campus, did I realize that my university was actually not that big! :P I remember seniors handing out maps of the campus. Though they weren't very good cartographers, I remember carrying their maps around in my bag whenever I went to class, to find my way to the Chith Vihar computer lab.

My first month of college was taken up by drama clubs and canopy meet-ups! :) I was all set for an awesome 4 years in SASTRA. Then came the CIAs. *ominous drum roll in the background* The pressure of studying that much in that little time, running around the hostel for books, asking people for the portions a few hours before the exam, asking people as dumbfounded as me doubts, the CIAs literally gave us sleepless nights. College and hostel soon became part of my primary life and Chennai a place where I spent the holidays and a weekend or two (cuz SASTRA finds it sinful to send their students from the hostels to their respective homes more than twice a semester!).

With college came the usual chatter, gossip, gala and the fun associated with hostel life. I would stay up with my friends, often till 2 or 3am and chat, watch movies, play dumb charades, etc. There was always something or the other to do when two or more people are awake and are in the same room! :D It was as my friend Ani and I always said, "We always sleep tomorrow!" We would then doze off on random beds, cuz everything belongs to everyone in the hostel! :) I would oftentimes wake up at 5.30~6am and go for a round of jogging, followed by a half hour at the gym in the mornings. As the months passed, I convinced a few of my friends to join me on this daily routine. They stuck to it for a while but I'm proud to say I did it everyday - in sickness and in health! ;)

Hostel also gave us the excitement of sticking to a routine. Believe me when I say this, sticking to a rule is much more fun than breaking it. Okay, maybe not always, but in this case, you'll see what I mean! :) We often went to Krishna Canteen or Canopy - which are the "restaurants" in SASTRA, for dinner! :P The deviations from having dinner at the mess would never be planned cuz the dinner menu will be discovered by us only at around 7.30pm. Menus like lemon rice, poori and other "delicacies" would make us gather people to join us at either of the "restaurants" for better food. Best part of these excursions was that we had to be back in our rooms by 8.30pm sharp! :P And more often than not, we ran back all the way to the hostel which is almost on the other side of the campus as KC or Canopy! I will always remember running with my slippers in my hands, and my belly full of comparatively good food, heaving and puffing to the hostel! :'D The "Usain Bolt"-ness in us would be unleashed if we had gone for dinner off campus!

First semester was, compared to the second, much simpler and carefree cuz we had just graduated from school and there was no one to subdue our energy! There was lesser politics among friends, lesser fights, lesser altercations, lesser pressure and more importantly, lesser expectations to meet. Also, I had a few stalkers (I'm not sure if it was just one person using different phone numbers or if it was different people but I'd like to think it was the latter! ;) ). I got a number of missed calls, random "I love you" messages and random calls too. I would pick up the call with a perplexed "Hello?" and all I would hear was giggling in the background and heavy breathing on the phone. And the line would go dead. One of my friends actually tried calling back to that number but they kept cutting the call! ^_~ But I think there were other people, in my group of friends, who had more stalkers than I did! :P

Around September 2012 came Carpe Diem, our intra-college cultural "extravaganza". It didn't live up to my expectations of being an "extravaganza" per se, but it was one awesome first cultural fest in college for me! :) I was part of the team that performed 'Marionette' on stage and won the first place! :D It felt giddy to be recognised so soon in my college life. Drama made up about 50-60% of my first semester life. There was the Carpe Diem prelims and the practice sessions, the club sessions and lots more. The fraternity I have with seniors, whether well-established or not, came only out of my attending drama club sessions. I made many friends, got many many acquaintances and got to know a lot more people.

The weeks preceding September 24, 2012 were pretty frantic for me. My best friend (one of my best friends rather! ;) ) had his birthday on that day! The preparations, collecting b'day contribution money and planning everything from what people wore (No, +Smriti Anand - that wasn't green!), and getting everyone to sign on the huge b'day card that we had bought at Chennai, it was fun I would say. Though the conference call was a flop! :P I don't think any of us will ever forget +Aniruddh Vaidyanathan singing 'Happy Birthday' in his weird baby voice standing on the ed table that night ever! :'D.

One more eventful and boring (I know that's a paradox) thing that happened in the first semester was our EVS field trip in the month of October. It was one helluva boring trip! We went to some random garbage processing and disposal unit which, frankly, did nothing to improve my understanding of how garbage disposal works! All I remember was the creepy worker at the processing unit handling earthworms with his bare hands and eating horrible "puliyodhara". It naturally followed that I didn't know what to write in my report and all I ended up doing was sticking 4 pages of pictures and writing for just 2 pages! :P

Then came the semester exams! It all happened in a flash. Felt like just the previous day I had joined SASTRA as a "faccha" (as they call freshers here) and suddenly I was breaking my head trying to cram all that I had studied (or slept through during class) in that whole semester. The weeks of the exams went by quite fast and it wasn't long before I bid farewell to my family and went back to Chennai. I went to Chennai after the first semester examinations, on December 5, 2012. College was to reopen on the 13th but I reached college only on Jan 3, 2013 after a bout of jaundice and a vacation in Goa! B)

When I got back to college, everything seemed surreal. After a month away, it seemed like I had forgotten all that I had been through in the preceding months. It took me a while to get "reused" to the environment but I got back soon enough. My return to college was one laden with bittersweet memories. My previous semester results weren't exactly commendable and I was under the scanner about my "sincerity towards studies" and my "activites in the hostel". However, there was always the excitement associated with going back to my hostel and college lives! :D My second semester was one amazing time! I had two of my best friends as classmates and my class was two-thirds female! ;) :P My second semester was one in which I couldn't bunk! :'( I had apparently bunked my share of classes by contracting jaundice and vacationing at Goa! :| So it was sleep in class while others bunked, most of the time for me! :/ But class wasn't all that boring either... I befriended a male member of my class, which, frankly, I wouldn't have, if VKJ wasn't so strict about the "guys can't sit with girls" policy! :P So I always had a bench-mate to talk to when "Bullet" was boring the hell out of us or "Rod" was yapping in class! :P

The second semester was awesome for another reason! The weather was simply amazing for the most part of it! :) Only in the months of April and May did the heat become unbearable and I started developing rashes and what-not. The month of March should have seen SASTRA host the extravagant inter-collegiate cultural festival named "Kuruksastra". Due to the Sri Lankan issue about the UNHRC vote thingy, the college was forced to postpone it to April.

But have it we did. It probably didn't all go as planned cuz many colleges dropped and failed to participate but nevertheless, it was one helluva fest for us facchas! The "Pro Nites", the drama events, the stalls of food, the "Informals" events and lots more kept us busy and fun-filled for those 4 days! The girls would probably say those days were amazing cuz they were allowed to wear t-shirts in the campus, i.e., their strict dress code was loosened for just those days.

Then one more of my best friends celebrated his b'day on March 23, 2013 and we had another cause for exercising our calf muscles (I don't mean running, I mean kicking! :P). His b'day planning was something I will never forget! We finished collecting the money and deciding what to buy him well in advance. We had placed an order for his gift online at an online store but it failed to turn up within the stipulated time. The order was cancelled automatically as the seller hadn't "responded" to the order request. Well and good for our money, but not for our plans! We ended up complaining and swearing at the website and the seller and what-not (to no avail duh!) and had to present him with the Skullcandy headphones much later, when we next had the opportunity to buy it in Chennai.

It seemed like I was going to finish my first year in SASTRA on a high! :) But then, when has it ever been that all is right with the world? The second semester also brought with it, fights among friends, fall-outs, altercations, etc. Haven't talked to one of my friends since February, had quite a number of arguments with another friend of mine and some other sh*t. But overall, my second semester at SASTRA was, and will be (I guess), the best time of my life! I started driving my dad's Outlander (Whoohoooo!!!), found my younger sister here (+Rasika Ts) :P, watched a whole lot of movies, flirted with a number of people *sheepish grin*, got a new phone (:D), joined twitter (:P), got a few very close friends and on the whole, had an unforgettable 5 months! :))

Come June 27, 2013, I'll be a college senior and I'll be calling, and not being called, a faccha! :P I'll be in JVC! :D :D I'll get a new batch of birds to view!! Looking forward to becoming a second year at SASTRA! ;) :)

Sleepy after class but trying to pose

KS ethnic wear day with the SASTRA family

My sis and I :))

The Studio :D

KS ethnic wear day!!

Me with my favourite idiot! :*

KB & AS

Trying to look all swag with nerd glasses but actually looking gay! -_-

Random pose with Sanju, Krithika and Malu ;)

Lifting the weight of the world maybe? :P

From left: Meemam, Nerd, Ani, me

Malu and me! :D :)

5 people from my LARGE family, and me! :)

Comments

  1. I remember entering my room on 17th just to find it empty! That was the last time it was! People stay here for various reasons, let it be for studies or entertainment or spending 'quality time' with friends! And I also remember how I could never cope up with jogging because of my lack of stamina! And the rout8nes jn gym for boring because of going there alone! 1st semester for us was the time when the childishness didn't quite leave us. As in we thought of sticking to the rules, counting the days for the next holidays! Come second semester, and we feel at the top of the world, not giving any damn to the rules, going out every other day to eat like a boss! And CIA! 'CIA What? who gives a damn' attitude to them! Yet, cool internals in all subjects! Now, semesters are almost over, three more papers, one being today and the hard forged attitude of 'bah, I'll study later' hard to break! commenting on my.best buddy's article! SASTRA, YOU ARE AWESOME!

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