Well readers this is an intrinsic account of 2nd year 1st semester at National Institute of Foundry and Forge Technology in short NIFFT about whom many of you might not have known earlier.
To begin with was the the quest for finding the appropriate room in B.Tech. 2nd year hostel because the hostel authorities had provided us the opportunity to find out the room of our choice (here I'm talking only about boys because girls live in separate hostels or say in apartments. They are so few in numbers I imagine had it been a male college only, it would have been better) and get it allotted by them. So I came to the institute much earlier than the day when holidays were to be ended completely. After extensive research and intense considerations on all aspects I zeroed down on Room 207. The requirement now was to get its keys from the seniors who previously lived here. This was not an easy task because they (seniors) were not present and there was a grave danger of the room being booked by somebody else on cell. Waiting anxiously for two days at first year Hostel i got the final relief when I saw one of them. I immediately asked him for the key of his room and got it after a day when he shifted to the third year hostel.
Now my job was to clean the room first but stop actually I first brought my luggage here and later cleaned the room. Cleaning the room was a stiff task for me given my historical records of being at loggerheads with the concept of a student's room devoid of complexes in the form of dust and haphazard arrangements. At that time I was also remembering my would be room partner for he would have been a great help for me at that time. Anyway, I cleaned my room and arranged all the items at places where I thought they would be suit the best. By the time all these works finished, I found holidays had almost ended and it was now the time for registration to legally get admitted into second year. However results had not come out yet. Well it has always been the tradition of NIFFT to publish results of old semester a few days after the start of new one and surprise a few with year back tags at the time when they think they have almost won the battle. I'll not go much into its technicalities.
With the holidays over and registration complete it was now the time for start of new course but there was no Zeal in me about this as was in 1-1 or 1-2. But, there was another matter which occupied my mind through days and nights. It was a part of my dream which I had seen in my childhood and which with the joining of NIFFT had almost shattered. It was about being a computer engineer and playing with computers. Right from my childhood I had seen this dream. Although it had shattered now but a part of it could still be realized and I was trying to do just that: convince my parents about the viability of having a laptop in 2nd year. After little diplomacy and support of my mom I was able to convince my father to finance my sweet notebook. But the bigger danger arrived now, the danger of selecting the best out of the good ones. After much research I made my mind to buy the one from HP . Although its cost was slightly on the higher side but its look and performance record simply awed me. Now it was just the question of when and thank god I had not to wait for more. It was on 4th of August perhaps when the dream of having a notebook of my own realized. I still remember I had to spend more than three hours on roads wandering here and there because my father was very busy in his office work. So it was a late night show with me taking my notebook outside the shop around 10 PM quite lqte from Ranchi market standards. In general I do not stay at my house even it becomes quite late at night and return to the hostel but it was a different night because I was not single but with a costly notebook which may come in danger at night. So, I spent the night at my father's house and on morning returned to the hostel. In hostel I was greeted by a few when they knew that I had bought a laptop. I was in hurry because I had to attend the lectures and also it was Tuesday the day of most dreaded professor's lecture. I was just hoping it would go fine and I would start my affair with mine love, my notebook later in the evening.
Actually, I have not told you anything about my studies so far. At the start of second year I was expecting some good teachers. My expectations fell flat in my first class when i found the professor threatening to provide year back to the whole class in his first class. He was quite scary in his approach. If he found anybody napping or looking elsewhere in the class he sent him out. Such was his fear that I was not able to think of anything except him for two days every week on Monday and Tuesday when he had to take the class. Thank god now he does not teach us because he thinks we are too stupid to be taught by him. But he still hounds me in my dream and i wish I would not have to attend any of his class in my whole B. Tech. Life of four years. The rest professors and lectureres were ok and they could be handled with ease. So, the rest were not a problem for me but that single professor ruined my life for almost two months in 2-1.
Moving on, my affair with my computer had just started and it increased exponentially when I took the LAN cum net connection. Having net in the room was like having the entire world in your room: just click and see. For a few days I just went through the YOU TUBE as if I would watch each and every video available there. But that association soon came to an end when I found right click key of my notebook's touch pad had got damaged due to excessive Copy-paste of urls on YOU TUBE. It was a kind of shock to me but I found some solace in the fact that this is a genuine problem with the HP notebooks. Here I also realized the universal fact that all beautiful items should be handled with care be them living or non living. Thus the association with 'you tube' finally ended here.
At the start I was also quite suspicious of the activities of viruses. I had heard that these viruses damaged the system and one needed formatting the system to make them ineffective. Also I was quite afraid of the trojan horses when a friend of mine told me that they were the most dangerous and were present in plenty on LAN. I was so hesitant in using LAN or net that I opened only those sites which I thought were secure. At this time I had the help of my only companion, my Norton internet security 2008 trial pack of two months. It was so helpful that I still love Norton for its larger than life presence in antivirus sector. Sometimes I wondered my Norton security was not working properly because it never showed any virus detection when others computers had been showing nearly tens of viruses everyday. Lter I realized it was so because it removed the viruses before they could attack the system. It was also an example of how ignorance can limit your sense of thinking and prevent you from doing anything new.
With the chapter on viruses closed, it was the turn to explore net freely throughout the day and night. There was also a very natural curosity towards downloading anything that was present on net and it was painful to see downloading speed in few kbps and the most horrific to discover that net refused connection beyond 3 AM everyday because the server gets closed by this time. So I had to sleep everyday around 3-4 AM and I was not happy with this. I wanted to surf the whole night. “The early days of curosity” and when they got converted into necessity I just don't know. When I am writing this, It is 5 am in the morning and I don't know how long will this continue.
With the passing of each day the burden of studying the course increased more and more. Every day I decided - from the next day onward, I would read but that day never came. During the course of all these events the results of 2nd semester was out and to everybody's surprise including me, I was the topper. I never expected anything of this sort. Frankly speaking I was expecting something close to my previous semester grades but it was more than what I even dreamt. So the result was like a bucket full of water for somebody who was thirsty in the middle of a desert with no traces of any water source there. This result established my credentials as a good student in my eyes which I had lost since I entered this college. Also, it was a partial relief for me as I had lost interest in studies and was always looking for fun either this way or that way. I also became a little serious about my studies after this. But that was not enough because the mid semester exams were overhead and it required miraculous devotion towards study to bail myself out from the current situation of literal inconsistency. I succumbing to pressure left everything on god and took the risk of continuing my devotion towards my notebook. To my surprise this strategy worked and except for mathematics all other papers went well. I found a good relief when the mid exams finally got over.
Now it was again the time for opening the notebook which had been closed for five days due to exams. Also my subscription of antivirus had ended. So I had to install a new one. I searched net and got one Norton internet security 2009 trial pack of one month. With this the period of ultimate surfing started again. Just after a week our holidays for deepawali started and I headed towards home. Here there was no net . Only I know how did I pass a week there. Nevertheless, I ultimately returned back but found it very disappointing that my MAC address had been blocked which could only be rectified after a week . By this time classes had started regularly and it was also the time to arrange freshers' party for the juniors. Everybody was excited and some people to my surprise had made the plans for its execution too. Those plans were presented at a common meeting of all the students of second year. It was approved and everything seemed fine. But a bigger or say unfortunate surprise was waiting for us. The organizing committee started behaving like a bunch of autocrats who could keep the entire B.Tech second year at bay. Every measure to convince them went in vain and finally it was decided to change the committee after intense duel both verbal as well as physical. A new committee was decided under the able leadership of a good student and it organized Fresher party successfully. But this event helped me to understand what dirty politics can do and how does it reduces one's credibility. I won't name but I found a few people disgusting.
Fresher party ended and it was the time for the juniors to rag us in the form of parties and notes. For a few continuous days juniors used to come to me and others for notes and party. One thing is very common in all the juniors they see you with awe as if you are really very important personality. I found myself in the similar position when I was in first year and witnessed the same in second year. However this association also didn't go long way with juniors engaged in their assignments and preparation and me engaged in my love- my notebook.
End semester exams were nearing but I was unperturbed as if I had reached a place where these things were small for me. I decided that I wouldn't read anything before the exams started. My tendency of taking risks with the exams had increased in the last one year when I found It didn't matter really now how much you studied before, whatever you were destined in the exams you would get that. This was also a nice excuse for me to prevent myself from study. Such I have changed now that when I imagine my old days I find those were really golden periods of my study life. So the saga of non study continued for the day before the first paper of end sem exam. Just a day before I realized, I really holds a good chance of getting 'f ' (fail) in Maths if I do not study now . So the association with net ended here and now it was really the time for some serious study. Reading through half of the whole night I thought I would pass but wouldn't get good grades. The very next day it became true when I became able to solve only a handful of questions from the paper .Anyway I had read so less that there was no point in regretting about this. So , I focused on the next exams . With God's grace they all went fair if not well. I was happy with my performance in the exams because I really had not read anything in this semester but surfed only through the unexplored dimensions of internet.
But there was still a fort to conquer and that too was again the toughest- The task of clearing sessionals of maths which delayed due to our own reasons. When I had just given the end semester exam of maths I had decided I would prepare well for the sessionals. But that promise also couldn't divert my love towards net and it remained a hoax promise. Anyway, I gave sessional and its outcome was the same as of the end semester's maths exam- painful and depressing.
All the exams ultimately passed and it was now the time for some final joy and jubilations. The most positive outcome of this semester was that I have not to read maths anymore now in my next two and half years of B.Tech. Life. I loved Mathematics. But the way it was taught here, I just lost interest and I now just hope to pass in it any way. No desire for any association with maths. You can see how a student can be ruined by a teacher who doesn't know the latest trends of teaching, who is against the use of net by students and who thinks students should get placement after completing four years not before that. How ridiculous this whole thing is!
Anyway I'm now about to end this fable - the fable of passing a semester without any study, the saga of some bitter experiences of life and above all only partially achieved but still enough the discovery of my childhood love- my notebook. When I sit back and think about the last six months I find it taught me a good deal about the complexes involved in a human life and helped me evolve more matured.
With best wishes…………….
SHASHANK
