The Return

Fully dressed, I lay on my bed, putting off the inevitable for a few more moments. Wishing that I could stay here all day, with nothing to look forward to, except sipping a drink and reading the morning paper. Wishing, that I didn’t have to fight again. Wishing I could live in peace. But fate sometimes has a habit of making your life go around in loops, repeating the same pattern. I had always known that this day would come. That the time for battle would come again, someday. But I wish it was another day, how I wish that. I reluctantly got up and left the room. My family waited downstairs anxiously. I forced a smile. My mother’s tense face cracked for a second, then resumed its previous morose expression. ‘You’ll be all right son’, my dad clapped my back and said. I stood still for the customary prayer before I left. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on the prayer my parents were chanting. But my heart beat was too loud to let me hear the whispered words. I don’t want to go, I thought. I’m not going. Another voice in my head sighed ‘but of course you will’. I crossed myself with a sad smile.

I thought of my friends, my brothers in arms, at this moment all of them would be saying tense good byes at their respective homes, preparing for the greatest battle yet. Some still can’t believe it. Some had even crossed the seas, thinking that they had left it all behind. Yet, a few knew it was just a matter of time, that we would have to go back. How many will make it today? I wondered. How many will fall? I closed my eyes emotionally, then re-opened them angrily, hardened by renewed conviction to the cause.

The enemy has thrown the challenge at us. The time and place had been fixed. We will not tremble. We will meet them in battle, no matter what. The war isn’t over yet. I felt the familiar smirk coming back to my lips. I felt defiance course through every fibre of my body. The war aint over yet.

I left the house without looking back, with my chest thrown out and my head held high. I held the tricolour proudly up to my chest. This is what I’m fighting for ….. Green- for 3rd semester, Yellow- for 4th, Magenta- for 5th. We will do whatever it takes. We’ll reload our calculators; draw our pens, some of us-drafters. We will sip bitter black coffee late into the night. Whatever it costs, we will claim what should be ours by right- our B.tech degrees.

Go tell the patrons of Mambalathu, that it is time to stock up again. Send messengers to the good people of maliyekadave, tell them it is time to relive the days of glory. As the eleventh month dawns on Saint Gits College of Engineering, look to the eastern gates. Listen, for the cacophony of bike horns and the rising boom’s of car woofers. When the winter sun shines through the morning mist, on the 6th day….the Kings shall return….


Hasta la Victoria Siempre! – Ever Onward to Victory!

A RENEGADES TALE

Four years ago, I had just struggled through an entire year in my own approximation of hell – Brilliant, Pala repeaters course, and was terrified I’d end up in a college where everyone around me studied 4 or 5 hours on a working day, while I felt like an incompetent idiot, again…. I had this idea in my head that I would get to have fun only if I got into a government college. So even though I got a scholarship for a seat in the electronics and communication department at Saint Gits College of Engineering and joined up, I was pretty depressed as I was expecting to have four boring years. We had foundation classes during the holidays which I mostly bunked, still living in denial. Then our formal classes began, and I was put in the class of FY-C 2005. All my illusions of an uneventful, boring life in college were shattered in about a week. In class, I spent most of my time getting bombarded by paper balls the size of coconuts every time a teacher turned to the blackboard. In fact, it was customary for students to bring stacks of used notebook paper from home purely for ammunition. We had already discovered that newspapers aren’t very good for making paper balls. You either started rolling ‘em up or paid with bruises. It was a hell of a class. We had people from all branches and soon we became friends with our classmates’ friends in other classes and so on. Within no time almost everyone in our year became great friends. We started going for trips and parties within a few months and it was always attended by dozens of people from all branches. We were such great friends that we simply couldn’t comprehend how our seniors seemed to stick more to their branches than their year. We promised each other that we wouldn’t go down that path, that we would always stay as one, irrespective of our branches. It’s a promise we have kept till now, the last days of our college life.

I heard “1st year ki jai” during our own fresher’s day in first year as some of us stood on the stage singing “We will rock you”. Back then it was a sound of joy and laughter, a promise for a future together.

Then came 2nd year and with it, experiences that forever changed my perspective about the college and had lasting effects on me and many of my friends. We started having problems with seniors, the college authorities, seemingly everyone. We were no longer innocent first years who had a penchant for having fun, at least, not in the eyes of the rest of the college. To some, we became notorious - rebels against the establishment. We struggled to adjust to the new treatment for a while, coz we were still the same old kids we were a few months ago, only in new and very different circumstances. We were constantly in trouble in college, mostly for standing up for our friends against seniors and college authorities when they were being persecuted unfairly. I think I spent more of my time at home than at college, clutching big fat show-cause notices and suspension orders. After a while we learnt to go with the flow of the current. There’s no denying we changed. But whether the circumstances changed us or we changed the circumstances, I guess there will always be a debate. And frankly I don’t care to debate our side too much. I believed in what I stood for, what I continue to stand for. But through thick and thin, our batch stayed strong. The tougher the times, the stronger became the bond. I guess there are some things that you can’t go through together, without being bound together forever. Our old “1st year ki jai” which was a slogan of happiness and spirit became “s-3 ki jai” and then “s-4 ki jai” and so on to “s-8”. It morphed into a cry of defiance, sometimes of unbridled rage. But throughout, it remained a symbol of our solidarity. It lasted through all the fights, suspensions, dismissals, strikes and everything. The batch became something more than a mere group of students who joined college in the same year. It was a cause, a banner or a flag which united everyone under it. Through four years, it has been the only institution that has justified the faith we put in it. If you need help, the batch is with you. Whatever class or branch or block you are in, there will always be people to answer your call. They‘ll commiserate with you when you hit a rough patch, they’ll celebrate when something good happens for you. When you’re cooped up in a building getting through different stages of a job interview, they’d be celebrating each stage you get through in their own way, opening bottles of whisky and calling up anyone who didn’t hear the news yet. That was the kind of camaraderie that we had. Your successes and failures weren’t yours to enjoy or bemoan alone, it was your friends’ too.

Coz among us, there are no royal mechs’ or ec rebels’ or king electricals’ or mighty civils’ or majestic computers’. There’s only S-8…one year, one gang and one voice . You come for nakshatra or fresher’s day or any program at college and look for the most spirited and wild crowd in the audience. If you’re looking for us, on sunny days look for the dust rising up in the amphitheatre. On rainy days look for the nuts dancing in the rain. Hell, when we went on our S-5 five day tour, we caused a mini-riot in the Brindavan gardens of Mysore when our EC , civil and electrical classes met up inside the gardens. When the EC and mechanical buses came close to each other on a highway, we were calling S-5 ki jai from one bus to the other. It’s difficult to describe the experience, the emotion we feel…to go out there and yell “bolo bolo s-8 ki…” once and hear dozens of voices yelling “Jai” with spirit. It’s an old promise, upheld against all odds, every single time. A memory to cherish, every single time.


Now we’re on the last leg of this great journey. Every day we come to college eagerly, and every evening we leave, sad that one more day has passed. Not because of our love of this college. Not because all our memories here are sweet. But because this is where our friends are. Coz this is where we came together, laughed together, rode together and of course, screwed up together. This is where our batch is. Here, we lived a life, that was larger than life. We got enough memories here to last us a lifetime, and maybe make a dozen campus movies. All these college movies are full of actors acting out our kind of life, imitations really. This here is the real thing.

For those who‘ll follow in our footsteps through the years in this college, I have only have one thing to say. Don’t give in to those who’ll have you split up along the lines of branch and class. And if any of you do manage to stay together, if any of you do manage to keep calling “Jai” for your year and not for your branch, remember….we started it. Or if this custom ends with our passing, and you never hear that sound here again, know….that there was such a batch.
For one last time……… “BOLO BOLO S-8 KI JAI”

                                                                                                                                       

Sharath C George,
S-8 EC
2005-2009 batch

Note: I originally wrote this as an article for our college magazine, when a friend told me to write something for it. However, they never published it in the magazine.

babu mon in dikki

Me and babu had digital lab supply. So after that we went to celebrate. Picked up ummachen,ajin,rijin and all from bhajis shop and went to parakkekadave and then to another place which was flooded. Somebody suggested we dip babumon in the water. That prompted babu to jump into my car,lock the doors and keeps his hands pressed on both the central locks on both doors in front so that we cant open it from outside. We spent 10 minutes trying to open it while he kept laughing at us from inside and making faces at us. Finally we managed to distract him and open it.

We dumped him into the trunk and closed it for a minute. When ajin opened it to let him out, he said its very comfortable inside, so he closed it again. But we were still worried about whether he'll get enough oxygen so we went and opened it again soon. That's when he started using the mini fire extinguisher i had inside the trunk as a weapon. Sprayed it into the faces of everyone who went to let him out. Also when i tried to check whether there were air-holes into the trunk from inside the car by putting hand through the air holes, he found out that air hole and sprayed the fire extinguisher through that into the car. Now that really pissed us all off.

So we backed the car a bit into the water, and well most of the remaining stuff is kinda censored. But if you're one of the people with access to the restricted section of the blog, just log into that and you'll get the remaining details and also get to see the remaining 2 minutes of this video, which i kinda edited out of this.

Anyway after all that we drove back to puthupally with him in the trunk and let him out in front of bhaji bhai's shop. The people on the streets were pretty surprised throughout all this. Lucky no1 called the cops really.

making new friends after the last S-8 exam

Bollywood style.new friendships through song and dance.Making new beginnings even as we leave..........

S-8 EC final trip to vagamon

We went on our last trip from college on 21st april.to vagamon.we went to vagamon mottakkunne,pine forest and parunthumpara on the way back.it was an awesome trip.unfortunately i am unable to elaborate more as the details are a bit foggy.heres a few pics though.
the highlights of the days as i remember it, included some1 throwing a beer bottle out the window, which unfortunately hit a jeep coming behind us.luckily for us they were decent and only asked for money for the glass.

parunthumpara was awesome.so misty that once u go down a hill people on both sides cant see each other.and a big drop to the side.

if u hav access to the restricted section, sign it to see a cool video taken on the misty hills of parunthumpara.

Celebrating the last day of class in S-8 EC

Kicked off the day by autographing every1s shirts with permanent markers. Then barged into all the juniors classes to bid them goodbye (and assure them that we'll be back every 6 months to renew our visa).
Then back to class for one last time for a huge cake.most of it ended up on our faces though.Me and parunthe and numerous others who washed up early were used to clean the floor.

New year's eve at Kovalam

This is how we got kicked out of the restaurant adjoining a beer parlour in kovalam.first a group of foreign guys wearing stupid hats started singing songs in the beer parlour. So in response, we started singing the national anthem under ammini's leadership.But a hindi speaking guy swayed over and said we shouldnt sing the national anthem in a bar. So we sang "sare jaha se acha" with the hindi guy. That shut up the foreigners. a few of us had ordered dinner in the adjoining restaurant. The guys came and started dancing like crazy to the beat of the chenda melam from the beach below. Ammini and tintumon (reju) were rocking the place but the restaurant workers didnt like it for some reason.

Also seen below, the guys building a sand-something..











We were told that there was lights off at 12. But what happened was fireworks and the cops on the horses chasing every1 off.
Ammini wished all foreigners and policemen happy new year before we left though..