I can never forget the first day in college .... Deshbandhu College ......
I had heard about ragging and was pretty scared ....
I reached college pretty early, around 08:00 am and found a few guys standing, roaming and chatting. The guard stood at the main gate and I showed him my payment slip (I-cards were not issued till the end of october). As I strolled inside I was expecting to be caught by seniors any moment and was mentally preparing myself. But instead another guy came up to me and asked me, "1st Year" ? I nodded. With a smile of relief on his face he introduced himself, "Hi I am Vivek. 1st year BSc Physics Honors". I was thrilled as I was also enrolled in the same course. Now I was a bit at ease and talked to him about why I enrolled and other stuff. Then we came across another guy who introduced himself as "Vijay" and amazingly from our course only. We caught hold of Vijay near the Physics faculty room. (Me and Vivek are still good friends. I am not sure what is Vijay doing. Hadn't heard of him after 2004).
Now we were three "freshers" who were simply waiting to be ragged. Well that didn't happen though we could see that many "freshers" were holed up with seniors around them and some were dancing and singing while one was converted into a statue. And then there was a kid who was standing slightly bent was with his right palm rounded around an invisible object near his lower abdomen was pushing his hand back and forth and shouting, "Billi mera saara doodh pi gayi .." ("The cat has drank all the my milk .."). The seniors were having a laugh while it took me some time to figure out what exactly was that guy being made to do. We fled the scene. As we moved through the door of the admin block we came out into a small stretch with walls on both sides and it opened into a stretch with garden on both sides. The walls were used to put on marks list and time table etc. We three saw a crowd there and we assumed that they must be noting down the time table. We also went there and started searching for our time table. And in a few minutes we found ours. As I started to dictate Vivek started to note it down. And then we saw a guy emerge out of the main gate and what he said sent chiills down our spines. He said, "Hey guys lets go the freshers have started to pour in. Let us get hold of some and have fun.." All guys around us cheered. We three were standing right inside a huge crowd of seniors who for some reason didn't figure out that we three were freshers. We looked at each other and went out with the seniors. We reached the college gate and went out. With a huge sigh of relief we went straight to the bus stop to catch a bus.
Then something hit me. "This was not god. I mean come on we are freshers and we have not been ragged. This is so unlike the stories we have heard and .... no lets go back", I said.
Vivek gave it a thought and concurred. Vijay too came along and we headed right back into the college. This time though we were not that lucky. We were immediately caught by a bunch of seniors. They took us to the huge space in front of our library. Many many seniors were there.
I was asked to introduce myself, purely in hindi. Well that was tricky.
"Mere naam Shubham Chakraborty hai. Main Zilla Ghaziabad ka rehne wala hoon aur yahan par ....."
I stopped. I had no idea what "BACHELOR OF SCIENCE " was called in hindi. So I translated word to word. "Main yahan Bhautik Shastra (Physics) me Kunwara (Bachelor) hone aaya hoon"..... Well this Bachelor (Kuwanra) means un-married. All seniors burst out into laughter as I was left embarrassed.
But this was just the beginning.
Vijay was asked to become a Peacock and fly around the campus and he was doing exactly that. I saw Vivek doing Bharatnatyam in front of the Library.
I was asked to stand on a concrete slab around 3 ft high and I was asked to shout " meri biwi bhaag gayi hai, mujhe Deshbandhu me biwi dilao" (My wife has run away, get me a wife at Deshbandhu). I shouted 10 to 12 times.
Suddenly I felt someone clutching my legs. As I looked down I saw Vivek holding me leg and saying,"Swami mujhe sweekar kijiye " (Dear Lord please accept me as your wife).
Then we two were taken to the open area near the library where one of the seniors became a pandit and rest all family members and married me to Vivek.
That was hilarious.
Then me, Vivek and Vijay (who had by them completed a couple of rounds of college) were lined up and asked to behave like chickens. So we hopped and skipped and said, "kukroo koo" ..... and went till the main college entrance. There the seniors clapped for us and told us that it was over for us. They sent out a diktat that no one else was supposed to rag us again. We were given a copy of syllabus and time table etc.
Thus our introduction to college was really something which atleast I will never forget.
I had heard about ragging and was pretty scared ....
I reached college pretty early, around 08:00 am and found a few guys standing, roaming and chatting. The guard stood at the main gate and I showed him my payment slip (I-cards were not issued till the end of october). As I strolled inside I was expecting to be caught by seniors any moment and was mentally preparing myself. But instead another guy came up to me and asked me, "1st Year" ? I nodded. With a smile of relief on his face he introduced himself, "Hi I am Vivek. 1st year BSc Physics Honors". I was thrilled as I was also enrolled in the same course. Now I was a bit at ease and talked to him about why I enrolled and other stuff. Then we came across another guy who introduced himself as "Vijay" and amazingly from our course only. We caught hold of Vijay near the Physics faculty room. (Me and Vivek are still good friends. I am not sure what is Vijay doing. Hadn't heard of him after 2004).
Now we were three "freshers" who were simply waiting to be ragged. Well that didn't happen though we could see that many "freshers" were holed up with seniors around them and some were dancing and singing while one was converted into a statue. And then there was a kid who was standing slightly bent was with his right palm rounded around an invisible object near his lower abdomen was pushing his hand back and forth and shouting, "Billi mera saara doodh pi gayi .." ("The cat has drank all the my milk .."). The seniors were having a laugh while it took me some time to figure out what exactly was that guy being made to do. We fled the scene. As we moved through the door of the admin block we came out into a small stretch with walls on both sides and it opened into a stretch with garden on both sides. The walls were used to put on marks list and time table etc. We three saw a crowd there and we assumed that they must be noting down the time table. We also went there and started searching for our time table. And in a few minutes we found ours. As I started to dictate Vivek started to note it down. And then we saw a guy emerge out of the main gate and what he said sent chiills down our spines. He said, "Hey guys lets go the freshers have started to pour in. Let us get hold of some and have fun.." All guys around us cheered. We three were standing right inside a huge crowd of seniors who for some reason didn't figure out that we three were freshers. We looked at each other and went out with the seniors. We reached the college gate and went out. With a huge sigh of relief we went straight to the bus stop to catch a bus.
Then something hit me. "This was not god. I mean come on we are freshers and we have not been ragged. This is so unlike the stories we have heard and .... no lets go back", I said.
Vivek gave it a thought and concurred. Vijay too came along and we headed right back into the college. This time though we were not that lucky. We were immediately caught by a bunch of seniors. They took us to the huge space in front of our library. Many many seniors were there.
I was asked to introduce myself, purely in hindi. Well that was tricky.
"Mere naam Shubham Chakraborty hai. Main Zilla Ghaziabad ka rehne wala hoon aur yahan par ....."
I stopped. I had no idea what "BACHELOR OF SCIENCE " was called in hindi. So I translated word to word. "Main yahan Bhautik Shastra (Physics) me Kunwara (Bachelor) hone aaya hoon"..... Well this Bachelor (Kuwanra) means un-married. All seniors burst out into laughter as I was left embarrassed.
But this was just the beginning.
Vijay was asked to become a Peacock and fly around the campus and he was doing exactly that. I saw Vivek doing Bharatnatyam in front of the Library.
I was asked to stand on a concrete slab around 3 ft high and I was asked to shout " meri biwi bhaag gayi hai, mujhe Deshbandhu me biwi dilao" (My wife has run away, get me a wife at Deshbandhu). I shouted 10 to 12 times.
Suddenly I felt someone clutching my legs. As I looked down I saw Vivek holding me leg and saying,"Swami mujhe sweekar kijiye " (Dear Lord please accept me as your wife).
Then we two were taken to the open area near the library where one of the seniors became a pandit and rest all family members and married me to Vivek.
That was hilarious.
Then me, Vivek and Vijay (who had by them completed a couple of rounds of college) were lined up and asked to behave like chickens. So we hopped and skipped and said, "kukroo koo" ..... and went till the main college entrance. There the seniors clapped for us and told us that it was over for us. They sent out a diktat that no one else was supposed to rag us again. We were given a copy of syllabus and time table etc.
Thus our introduction to college was really something which atleast I will never forget.
