Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Nostalgia Calling - 1

There are few moments in your life which you cannot imagine what could have filled them had they not happened. The first time it happens to you stays longer than any. Every year from the day I joined I have been outgrowing the experience but this one is yet to receive a beating.

It was all thanks to Acumen, I came to know that there are some things that differentiate us from Intermediate to Engineering. I was especially thrilled by the kinds of topics that were spoken of. That’s it then I made up mind to do something about it. Not going into much of detail let me fast forward it to the day when we (my friend Rajesh and me) came to the college flushing red with pride and sense of achievement of having been selected in NIT Warangal’s Technical Symposium (Sounds big right…). Everybody had their share of thanks and that day if I remember well I didn’t have much lunch either. Apart from that there were two other teams that got through, from our own class (little discomfort there).


Funny thing is we (I mean all of the three teams…) applied for paper presentation and got selected for poster presentation. But hey, when you are talking about biggies like NIT you don’t stand a chance. The trip was for three days; I thought it would be worthwhile if I give it in parts.

Day 0: Land, Eat And Sleep

Take off didn’t go as planned. Raju (a.k.a Rajesh) made some scene there by not coming on time and Srinu and I had to catch the train running at the last moment leaving him with his own destiny. Two and a half hours later we were in the campus waiting in queue to get our rooms. The situation was something like a railway station. People in all sorts of attire, some in their T-shirts, some wearing formals, some with large suitcases and so on. Commotion prevailed all throughout. Rooms were allotted and we dispersed. Nikhil Mohan (Nikhil), Venkat (Venky) and me in one room and the other two guys Srinivas and Pradeep (they play very important role on/before day 2) in another room, another block (you will know why I had to mention that additional block…). The sixth one Raju again, was a Warangalian, so don’t bother.

Three is a crowd they say. But with two heavyweights and one bony guy (that’s me) on one bed is tough decision to be made. There was another burning issue the dinner to be sorted out first. It was already late for the mess so we had to go somewhere else looking for dinner. One good thing about Warangal is no matter how far you want to travel, say from north to south or east to west of the town it costs the same- five bucks. With Nikhil acting as our tour guide we began the search. First a phone, the hotel name. Open get in, not open phone again. Finally after the fourth call got the right one. Time was 11’O clock. We were hungry like hell. You can’t call that a hotel actually. Down in the basement, makes you feel as if you are entering a dungeon. It took sometime to get used to that odd smell of liquor and the servicing there. There was no selection, salad, and stuff. Chicken Biryani was on the menu and that’s it. Eat it or leave it situation. There was no turning back; talking as little as possible we finished our ‘dinner’. With a little heavy stomach and droopy eyes we started back to the campus. They somehow convinced me to adjust in the room and I graciously obliged. Not everything goes as planned anywhere in the world. It’s easy to tackle anything but mosquitoes and one of the stupidest things I have done is forgot to pack my blanket. The day was totally ruined I say for I couldn’t sleep at all, pulling Venky’s first then failing to hold it longer I would go to Nikhil’s. There was this patience in me running out. I could do that for two hours and then it was time for me to relive the BACARADI experience (calling all creatures of the night..).

Well that ends my day 0, not the usual happy ending story but wait to know till the other three days (hey read between the lines guys, I said day 0).

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