Ignited Minds

The festival of lights and crackers, kurtas and saaris and for an MITian, of shame and stupidity. I might sound like a primitive adult in this article but am very confused as to where we draw the line between fun and dumbness.

As I was heading towards the temple in the evening, I realised that people look far more beautiful in ethnic. Maybe it was just a pleasant change or the west’s cataract. The hockey ground was officially declared the cracker ground this time (the ATM at KC was bombed last time). The celebrations had already spread to the Venugopal Temple grounds by then. We make it through the prayers and return to KC. Rather peaceful this time as it was a no cracker zone. We have our dinner outside campus and knowing the authorities would have to extend perm, we took our own sweet time.

As we returned there was MIT waiting for us. This time it wasn’t just the random bombs, dustbins, ATM’s, flat rockets, helpless CP etc. This time we showed what exactly we mean by 5:1 ration in favour of guys. We had every girl given utmost attention, with hoots and crackers at their every step. They’d be followed till they run their way to the hostels where more people shall be waiting with crackers as grenades.  My committed friends somehow got their girls into hostel safely. No one could say a word as the chief warden was literally bombed out of the scene a few hours ago. ‘Power in Unity’ they say.

We headed for our hostels, swearing at them to ourselves. On our way we notice the freshies getting their first taste of rebellion. They had broken down the 15^th block window (more than 30 of them), and started jumping down (a minimum 4 metres). I got a bit nostalgic, reminiscing my night-out at Malpe last year. I catch hold of a junior and ask where they were headed to.

‘Dee Tee’ was the reply.

‘Where to after that’, I see a blank face.

He then shows me his hand (bloodied by glass) and asks me where he could wash them.

I tell him KMC.

He gives me mischievous smile and says, ‘Ya, I heard the chicks are good there’.

I look at him wondering if I wanted to slap him or myself. Finally I just tell him that I was serious and left abusing some juniors targeting rockets at us.

These are not isolated incidences. Ask a fourth year why we no longer can use the KMC library, or why boy’s hostel is deprived of washing machines, or how much did the world cup cost the KC Anna, you shall get interesting answers. I am in no position to judge (I too was shamelessly with a milk packet in my hand after world cup), nor do I have a ‘Chaud’ to complain. But this friends, is MIT. Pure raw MIT. It’s one’s own perception now, whether it’s cool, stupid or just conventional engineering.