12.12.2009 - The First Match

The Morning of our first match ... This was why we were here! Finally the time had come ... Though it ws IIT Rajasthan only... still I couldnt help feeling excited ... Anish not having reached meant that I was sure to play atleast in the doubles :) The only pain was that our match was at 9AM in the morning .... and girls had their match at 11 AM... Kyuuuuuuuuuu..........!!! We would have to get up early .. I had to take a bath in the morning before the match to get rid of my drowsiness... Wen we reached the court, IIT Rajasthan was already practising...We knew it was goin to be a cake walk... got ready... I was playing the first singles, Mittal played the second and Aashish and I played our first doubles. Peacemaxx match.... Hardly anything I remember worth writing about ...

The girls had theirs against Guwahati... I forgot to mention in the previous post about Chili Chicken! So there was this chinki girl from Guwahati... for whom Chuunn had developed a "soft spot" ,,,, and we had an extended discussion the previous day about how there should not be a lot of Chili Chicken gravy... but a little bit of it is awesome! (people who whr thr.. Aashish and Chuunn will probably be able to make more of it... I was laughing at Chuun's description like mad!! )..

Back to the match ... Sharada won her singles peacefully as expected ... we were a bit worried about how Nidi would hold up... it was her first inter iit.. nd there would be crowd and shouting... plus we were also concerned a bit for her sevice ... But Nidi! ... was Awesome! She played her part to perfection near the net.. and the contest against Guwahati hardly turned out to be a contest at all ... Peaceful victories recorded in both sets of doubles too... and both the teams were almost certainly through to the knock out rounds ....

Minor mishap .... (only concerned me) ... Nidi had dropped Tang all over my new kit!!! I had taken infi efforts this time to pack my kit... and I could see it all falling apart in Tang powder!! x-( I was pissed!!

After the match, we went back to the hostel for lunch. The weather was really nice... The winter sunshine felt as nice as it is generally described in those romantic novels .. and I was all for sitting on the lawns... we decided to go to watch the cricket match against IITK ... Mittal, being GS, was concerned about other sports too and he was going there in any case....So all of us went to the cricket field...I cleaned up my kit... with minimal help from Sharada :P ... We watched the match for a while...

the others got bored in half an hr 2:30.. and they decided to leave... I expected atleast someone to stay .. but no one bothered! x-( Chuunn was the pioneer of "Going Back to Room Movement" ... He was tooooo sleepy.... I guess I had a good time though.. sitting in the sun... and thats when I started writing the diary about the camp time (which will be up soon)... The match ended by 3:30 and there was nothing else to do there... so I called up Mittal and he was at the TT court... I went along and sat with him .. TT junta were having a close one against Kanpur... They were leading 2-1 when I reached.. but Arnav lost his match against a guy from Kanpur who kept screaming "Yes Cmon! Yes Cmon!" after each point... as if he was winning the Championship point! Mittal and I had a good time there... egging him on... and shouting... We were surprised at how few people had turned up to cheer for Kanpur.... despite being the hosts... it seemed we were the only ones shouting ... the match was tied at 2-2 and Ketan was slated to play the last match .. the guy he was playing against looked very funny every time he served... he seemed to be setting his hair everytime he threw the ball up ... and served... Trust me .. it looked ridiculous... Ketan won his match and "Bombayyyyyyy!! Bombay!" echoed in the hall ... Mittal left to rest for sometime.. I really wasnt sleepy.. and knew that if I slept, I would remain sleeping for a long time... and then wont be able to sleep at night... which eventually would mean that I wont be fresh for the big match the next day ... so I stayed at the TT hall with Pritish and Neehar... watching the match between IITGandhinagar and IITG.. Rohan was playing ... he won peacefully in the end...

Sukhada arrives!

Infi pain maarke ek evening practice session jugaada tha.. Ravi Vikram Singh (the coordinator there) will probably remember me for the rest of his life for the infi pain I gave him .... first I got him to agree to a practice slot in the evening for Sukhada... but he permitted us to practice only till 8... (Anish was not going to reach by then)... then I asked for a practice slot in the morning at 6 .. to which he refused.. saying he could only give me one slot ... then ... Mittal talked to GS Kanpur... and asked him for a 6 o clock morning slot.. and he agreed... and then Ravi said no to the evening slot .... saying you already have a slot tomorrow morning .. in the mess, the court was emtpy... and the girls managed to play...

Sukhada, Sharada and Nidi took over an hour to come.. and I was left stranded at the court with nothing to do at all... finally they arrived .(Sukhada;s hunger was the cause of the delay and my intense boredom).. incidently, I came to know then that Sukhada also got EPFL intern.... CRACKK MAXX Sukhada! It took a while for Sukhada to get into rhythm .... It was almost 8:30 - 9 ... when Anish called up... "Abee.. main room pe pohoch gaya hoon... koi nai hai!" Aashish and Chuunn were in the canteen watching the match and Mittal had gone off for his meeting... I told him that I would be there in sometime .... and we winded up the practice session....
It ws awesome to have Anish back ... big match coming up tomorrow!~ ...Girls had dinner in the mess and then went off to their room... Chuunn and Aashish had been in the canteen all the time watching India defeat Sri Lanka in the T20.. so they werent very hungry... Room mein infi masti kiye ... we discussed perfectly GOD things.. like what if we lost to Kanpur? Then IITKGP would have to lose their match against Patna/Gandhinagar so that they dont have to face us in the quarters... then each time we got happy thinking about such things... one of us would bring us to back to the ground ... "abeee... quarters mein kgp se hi haar gaye to?! " and back to NBD!! But it was fun .. Anish had brought puri and sabzi from home... which formed a part of our dinner... the rest was in canteen ... We watched an episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S and then zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

11.12.2009 - Official Opening Ceremony

Slept peacefully for the first time after coming to Kanpur... thanks to Mittal for moving in with Aashish and Chuunn... and I got to stay in a single room :) for a day atleast. Well, the morning started on a tricky note... Anish called and told me that his train was late by like 8 hours or something!... I was too sleepy probably to register what he was saying...Chuunn on the other hand was not ready to accept that this was happening. He bluntly said, Anish game le raha hoga apni. Mazaak kar raha hoga.. we couldn't do much about it anyways, so proceeded for practice after breakfast. The girls were actually reading books when we got there... Mera infi giveup hua dekhke ... subah subah baddy hall pe novels leke baithe the!! Practice was usual affair, Mittal was getting used to his new shoes. Rest of us just did some normal stuff. There was also a mini photo session on the stairs... random pics kheeche... people looking in the camre, people not looking in the camera, Chuunn pose ...






After our practice, we made our back to the hostel...and had juice on the way....as we reached the gate of the hostel, I realized I didn't have the keys to our room! Aashish said something about finding a single key on the steps in the court. I was pretty sure that it wasn't the key I was looking for as my key had a kinda keychain to it. In any case, I had to go back to the court to look for the keys. Sharada and Nidi were kind enough to accompany me back.. without much fuss... Nidi had a resigned expression on her face all the while...our trip proved fruitless. The key we found didn't work on my lock and in the process I missed my lunch. Mittal was infi angry as his tracksuit was inside the locked room and we had marchpast soon. Eventually, he wore Chuunn's tracksuit and Chuunn wore someone else's. He was complaining for a while... "ye kitna chhota hai". So at 2, we made our way to the main ground for the marchpast...on the way.. Chuun realized that probably Anish was not joking when he said that his train was delayed... "Katega to uska hi na... koi lene nai jaega usko" ... so we were resigned to the fact that Anish wont be playing against Rajasthan in any case. We reached the ground and IIT Hyderabad struck!!! One of the girls from IITH team was awesome! Most of the people around the stadium were drooling over her ... We were one of the first ones from IITB to reach the ground... and after a long long time everyone else arrived. We took our position on the ground. There were 15 IITs ... and it was going to be a looong looong marchpast. luckily the weather wasnt that bad ... and we dint feel the heat. (I guess it was real bad in madras ... whr it was all sunny and sweaty) ... IIT Bhubaneshwar was standing in front of us. They seemed to have brought the team prepared only for the marchpast... they had a small group and the way the contingent leader shouted commands, it seemed that they wanted to maximize their points in marchpast .. lots of cracks wr made in IITB contingent about how IITBh knew they wouldnt score a single point elsewhere... We din't even have 90% of the contingent as required... (i think some of the hockey guys were late)... The inspector came and started inspecting each and every contingent ... we did decently there... it was awesome fun to watch IITD ... they wr probably least prepared for the marchpast... IITG was doing pretty well ... by the time inspectors reached IITG, I had lost interest to see how the others were doing... it took a loong time ... and finally the music started... Sharada was leading the pack ... (without any placard! :P) IITB ws first in the lineup and thus got to walk the shortest distance. All the teams finished the marchpast and were finally seated. IITB contingent had already broken into groups by then and people were chatting around. I went and found Rohan and was chit chatting with him... There was a Malkham display ... (some crack from Chuunn/Aashish on this.. cant exactly remember) ... I chatted with Rohan for a while.. and the opening ceremny finally ended.... as we proceeded to ShopC, I suddenly realized I dint have my mobile with me. It had fallen on the grass when I was sitting and luckily no one had taken it! We went to ShopC after the ceremny mainly to get water ... It soooo sucked at Kanpur. .. there was no limit!! We had to get bisleris... Aashish, Chuunn, nidhi, Sharada and I went to the ShopC ... we got water bottles, new diary and a new lock .. (we would eventually have to break open the lock to my door)... We then proceeded to the basky ground ... Unbelievable atmosphere... IITB v/s IITM (nt sure) ... heard some of the awesomest comments passed .... there were guys with the following names written on their T-shirts
1) SNS
2) AURO
3) (and probably the bes of the lot) RECEPTOR

Baggji shouted.. .. "sab electonic devices band kar do!!!!!" Amazing time ... we had to leave half way through the match ... had to go for practice... before that, had to break open the door ...!! It was here that Chuunn met one of his friends and his greeting was "eenh eeeenh"! (if anybody gets that! :P :P... I m sure Aashish remembers!!)
So, it was time for the Mission LOCK! There was still no clue to where the keys of the lock had disappeared and there ws only one option left. Earlier me and Aashish had already brought a new lock). Mittal tried attacking the lock with a stone from the side.... it went on for sometime till the lock was disfigured but hardly seemed to give way. I called up Malpani for his inputs on how to break open a lock ... and he din'd provide us any valuable insights.







Sharada was the one who finally found a rod .. without which the lock wouldnt have opened. The rod was positioned and 2 shots from Mittal and the door opened! I dont think we did anything much after that ... We to the cour for a while... then returned ...

Dinner on the 11th was Awesome! We were a little late .. I was having dinner in the mess for the first time ... We sang songs all the time ... starting of "Chuunn Chala.. Chuunn Chala" and "Sharada->Shredder->Cheddar) .... it was awesome ... we were the last team sitting on the mess table... and singing and singing and singing ... Teraaaa Hone Lagaaa Hooon ....... Hone Lagaaaa Hoooooon ....... Jab Se Mila Hooooon........... Teeeeeeeeeraaaaaaaaaaaa............ one of the best nights in inter IIT!

10.12.2009

Early Morning 10 o clock practice slot! We felt that the one hour slot will not be enough, so as we were going to sleep, we had decided that we would leave the rooms at 8:30 and by 9 o clock go to the court. I couldnt sleep well that night. First, Mittal was on phone for a loon loong time(initially outside the room) so I got to keep the fan on and sleep for a while. At 2 in the night, I woke up and the fan was off. Tried sleeping without the fan but it didnt work out. Finally by 3:30, I'd had enuff and turned on the fan. Slept peacefully after that :) I woke up when Sharada and Nidhi were outside our room asking for food coupons. It was already 8:15, well past the time I had decided I would get up... (but its excused .. I hadnt slept well :P ). I did get a lot of snide comments from some ppl "aap to 8:30 court jaane wale the!" We managed to reach court by around 9:30. and the court was bathed in sunlight! (alrite... its an exaggeration .. :) but yeah... sunlight found its way on a non-negligible part of the 3rd court. ) Jitesh said that the shoe-fellow couldnt come in the morning and would probably make it in the evening. Mittal got Sidharth's shoes instead. We also found that we had no boxes with us. All our shuttle boxes were with the insti kit and all of them were out somewhr. We told Edwin sir that we would need the boxes, but it seemed like we would have to get thru this practice slot without shuttles... Eventually, we borrowed shuttles from the Kanpur team. I was feeling pretty embarrassed by then... first shoes...then shuttles ... what next... I wondered...I dint have to wait long for an answer as halfway into the practice, Mittal asked Jitesh to tell the show-fellow to get wristbands, socks too. So, apart from rackets, we had officially for everything related to Badminton that could be asked for. Wow! Talk about coming prepared... especially a Gold Winning Team! The practice session was nice. I did some shadows and shuttle run, and got a better feel of the court. Was finally able to move around as I liked. Dont remember a lot about the session apart from that. Mittal and I played a singles in which Mittal was leading 19-11... and he lost it from there :P :P :P ! We headed back to our hostel. All I remember about 10th was that we were sleeping for most of the day. In the evening, I had a chat with my friend from Nagpur. AA Bhaiya was sitting all the while listening to us... dunno how he dint get bored with our nonsense... We went to meet that shoe-fellow finally. Mittal got shoes, grips, wristbands, socks ... Mittal paid for everything... and started walking back to hostel... completely forgetting to take his new shoes with him! we went back to the mess. Outside the mess, KGP team had arrived. On seeing the KGP team, Mittal tried hiding his new shoes...(kept it on the floor beside the mess gate! What a plce to hide!!) I met my nemesis again... (@Mittal: This time.. not only mine :P ). We got talking and came to know that Angam and Abhijeet had been practising (Nervousnesss!!!!) We told Abhijeet that Anish dint come with us because of his brother's marriage and he was aghast! Completely violated "Anish ne bataya bhi nai Amit bhaiya ki shaadi ho rahi hai!!" and we said" Humko to invitation cards bhi mile! :P " By time time we finished chatting with them, Mittal had forgotten all about his shoes again! We decided to hv some fun and sent his shoes to TT team's room with Ketan. We all went to canteen after that and as we were eating, Mittal suddenly realized his shoes were missing ... AGAIN! After seeing him worked up for sometime, we told him that his shoes were "TAKEN CARE OF" ...

At night, Apurv came and set up the LAN settings on Mittal's lappy. We watched a couple of episodes of FRIENDS and slept off ... Pretty uneventful day as I recall it .. .

Does anybody remember anything else that happened?!

09/12/2009: Arrival at Kanpur

We were scheduled to arrive at Kanpur at 6:40 in the morning. By the time others woke me up, most of them were already packed and ready to get down (which effectively meant that I had to get up straightaway and couldn’t laze around for 5-10 minutes). So, I got everything packed, and even before I could brush my teeth and freshen up, we were at Kanpur. After unloading everything, the train was still at the station. So I got back into the train to brush my teeth. And suddenly, there was a horn. I immediately got down; with the brush in my mouth thinking our train was going to leave. It turned out that the train on the next platform was leaving, so I got back and completed my activities. Everybody was damn sleepy. Nidi was talking to her friend on the Kanpur station. As we were leaving from the station, I found it I actually knew that guy from Nagpur. We got on the IITK buses and there was a head count going on. Funnily, in the head count, there was an extra guy! Mittal and Reddy were laughing their heads off while trying to figure out how this was possible. As soon as the bus started, I slept, and slept soo soundly that I directly woke up when the bus stopped outside Hall 2 of IITK. I don’t remember a second of that journey. An interesting change from the last year… there was no “Mr. Lova Lova” at every point in the journey! We were shocked to see their hostels. They had proper modern buildings for their hostels, not like some 50s building in which we live. And the rooms … OMG! Huge double room, almost 2.5x the size of our holes in IITB. 2 tables, 2 cupboards, 2 tubelights everything! It was enough to make me think that we live in prison cells in bbay with the minor improvement of having a door in place of steel bars. The rooms were not yet allotted team-wise so we thought we could just grab any 2 rooms for the baddy team. Aashish, Chuun and I put our luggage in 2 rooms on the second floor and went off for breakfast. Their mess was also amazing, nice shiny flooring, some random equipment for keeping the used plates, almost looked Gullu to me. The only trouble with breakfast in the mess (and this was only for n-veg ppl) was the omelet guy. He used to make 1 omelet at a time and so would take infi time per person and the line would grow on and on and on. The water at Kanpur was horrible. It tasted all weird (we found out later that it was hard water) but yeah, it was clear we would not be able to drink it regularly. After lunch, Sharada, Aashish, Chuunn, Nidi and me went off in search of the baddy courts. Marchpast practice was scheduled for 4 PM, so Mittal was forbidding us to go. But we went anyways … and we took a long route to the new SAC. On the way, we saw the new hostels (or Halls as they call in Kanpur) and I was once again very pissed. Why do they get to live in such good building?!!? We tried to find solace in the fact that it would be verrry hot in Kanpur in summers and walking around the campus will be such a huge pain as compared to IITB. The new SAC was still in the process of being made ready for the matches. It looked an impressive building all the same. Inside, IITK people were practicing. I was shocked to see an awesome player inside who wasn’t in the team last year. According to our info, no new member had made it to IITK team. The familiar sense of imminent doom borne out of guilt of not practicing hard enough and taking for granted that we would win (that I have so well come to associate with the Inter IIT Days) came over me. I breathed a little easier when I found out that the GOD player was not from IIT and had been called just for practice. All the same, it was clear that Kanpur could be a pain! (they have a full-time coach, they had a camera and a laptop in the hall itself and to top it all, they had called players from outside to practice! And … and… Anish was out of practice) Thus began the many upswings and downswings of my confidence over the next 9 days. Jitesh came and talked to us. We asked him to arrange for shoes for Mittal. He was saying that some guy would come with the shoes in the evening. They had also given us a practice slot for that afternoon (which we eventually got shifted to evening 6:30 after the marchpast practice). The rooms were being allotted. We had rooms 219 and 220 for the baddy team. Once Anish came, Mittal was going to move in with the squash guys. We got our luggage out from the second floor room and placed it outside 220. Bored of waiting for the keys, I went down to the Warden’s Office where Mittal and Reddy were sitting surrounded by all the secys, some IITK orgies and a bunch of keys. It was all random. They didn’t have keys to all the rooms, some rooms had 3 keys, and some guy used to come running once in a while “240 ki mil gai”. It was clear that it would be a while before everything got sorted out. Aashish also came down and sat for a while. We got bored then and decided to go to the Shopping Center to get our phones recharged. Chuunn was sitting outside the room with all the luggage. So aashish and me made a quick trip to the ShopC and got our phones working again. By the time we returned, Mittal had found the keys to our rooms thankfully and we got the luggage moved. We then had lunch in the mess. (was OK as far as I remember.. nothing great). Mittal called up Apurv Nakade to let him know that we’d reached IITK. I was shocked at the way Mittal introduced me to Apurv. I grabbed the phone from him and told him I was Raunak from Nagpur and he understood. We slept for a while, atleast I tried to… Mittal was continuously bugged by people from different teams for god knows what all and if nothing, he was on phone. At 4, all of us got ready for the marchpast practice and assembled in front of Hall 2. Edwin sir was also there. There was still confusion going on over when Sukhada would come. I don’t remember exactly what the situation was on 9th but it concerned Pappu, Sukhada’s parents and Edwin sir. Eventually it was decided that Edwin sir would talk to Sukhada’s parents the next day. Sir then came up with a customary “Edwin-sir” joke. He asked me to call up Anish and tell him that he need not come as we would play Sharada as our fifth player. I had a talk with Anish and confirmed when he was reaching. Then we walked to the cricket ground where the marchpast practice was to be held. It seemed soo funny and embarrassing to be walking with such a big contingent with everyone in proper attire and practising for MARCHPAST!!! Reddy had new commands to teach us “Khula Line Chal” and “Nikat Line Chal”. When I first heard the commands, I couldn’t make a head or tail out of it. I thought it was something in gulti that he was shouting. Eventually, I could make out what he was trying to say. Anyways, the practice was a very weird situation. There was IITK students on the ground, who probably would laugh their heads off as soon as we left. But, we continued our practice, deriving some sort of pleasure in our shamelessness. :P It was easily the best practice that we’d done (probably because everyone wanted to get over with it as soon as possible). It was really funny to hear one of the coaches say “Remember your positions for day after”…. As if that was going to happen in a contingent of 100 odd people!!! Chuunn would get random moments of enthu during the marchpast and would start shout “ek do ek” at the top of his voice suddenly for a while, and then would stop. The series of “Lasts of Inter IIT 2009” had already begun. Our last marchpast practice of Inter IIT 2009. (Though not many would be very sad about that :P) We got ready and went for practice after the marchpast. Mittal couldn’t play much as he didn’t have his shoes. I found the court really tough to move on. It was not slippery at all and going near the net seemed like a real pain. I did some shadows to get my movement right, but didn’t help a lot. The first toss I attempted, I completely missed the shuttle. Another out of nervousness followed. The shuttle seemed to be coming extra slow on this court (which was expected as they had a much bigger hall as compared to us…. Still I couldn’t help thinking “What if we just don’t get accustomed to the flight!?”) It was also kinda cold inside the court and the shuttle seemed to be drifting. (I found out later that it was because a window was open which I couldn’t locate earlier). The lighting was horrible! It came straight in the eye along the side lobby and also reflected off the court at certain places. Aashish wasn;t too happy with the court and his game too. Interestingly, Mittal didn’t have a single pain with all this. He claimed that his height was optimal for the court :P. Girls seemed to be having pains too. Sharada was hardly moving on the court. Nidi has a weird fascination for hitting the net repeatedly. Every time the shuttle got stuck in the net, she would derive great pleasure in hitting the net repeatedly to get it out. Chuunn on the other hand was perfectly happy with the court and the flight. He was saying over and over again “Masst lag raha hai yahaaan khelke” He was able to hit almost every shot to his liking. Thus ended our first practice session in Kanpur. In any case, it wasn’t the most encouraging practice session we had. For one thing, not all four of us could even play together, because of the shoe problem. We left the court around 9- 9:30 and I think we went to the Campus Restaurent for dinner. Mittal didn’t accompany us as he had board meeting. I liked the food in Campus Restaurant. All of us ordered sweet corn soup which felt awesome with a lot of pepper in our sore throats. Funniest thing was, Sharada and I ordered Aalu matar at first, but the waiter told us that he couldn’t make it as he didn’t have any peas. When later I asked if he could make green peas pulao, he said he could! Eventually, my green peas pulao didn’t have a single pea! It still tasted good though. We walked all the way back to the hostel and I called up Ravi Vikram Singh (the coordinator for Baddy and TT) for practice slots for the next day. (Early morning .. Eghhhh ). I had one of the many fights I would have over the fan with Mittal. Eventually, I gave up and he did not switch on the fan. But …. But … when I couldn’t sleep till 3 in the morning, I switched on the fan and slept peacefully. :)

08/12/2009 : Leaving for Kanpur

I finally begin to write today for the blog for inter IIT 2009. I guess I have been trying to put it off for a while because it is still painful to remember about inter iit and makes me wish I was there again. Somehow it means acknowledging for sure that Inter IIT is OVER. But I guess if I don’t writing soon I will start forgetting all the details… presenting Inter IIT 2009 …


08/12/2009: Leaving for Kanpur

We were scheduled to leave for CST at 5:30 AM. I remembered reading 5:30 on the notices put up and got it confused with the reporting time. So, at 5:10 I was sitting peacefully in my room, all packed and ready, pretty pleased with myself for getting everything done well in time when Mittal called… and informed me that reporting time was 5 AM. (I also got an earful of why I was always late and why I always have all sorts of wrong information :P). So, I left hurriedly for SAC. On the way, Aashish joined me from H5. We walked all the way to SAC with the luggage (including all the tracksuits and team t-shirts, so it was a bit of a pain but I was too excited then to understand what was going on). We reached SAC and started loading our luggage. There were name tags for our luggage there with strings. And there was tea and biscuits. We were waiting for Chuunn to reach, when we found out that Mittal’s shoes were with him. When Chuunn came, Mittal asked for his shoes, but he didn’t have them. So they figured out that shoes will be in Chuunn’s car when Dude had come. So, Chuunn left for his home to get Mittal’s shoes while we got on into the bus. Chuunn couldn’t find the shoes even in the car and we were forced to leave without them. Our buses finally left SAC and we were off!! We stopped at H10 for the girls… Coach was there but in all the confusion of soo many people leaving we couldn’t meet her. She called on the bus and wished us luck. I don’t remember much of the journey except discussing for a while what Mittal will do now without his shoes and sleeping. We reached CST and it wasn’t the normal CST station that we saw. I think we were entering from the backside of the station or something. I couldn’t recognize the station. As soon as we got down from the buses, Chuunn made it clear to Sharada “I am sorry Sharada but main to sone wala hoon”. We got our seats from Mittal and proceeded to the platform. I was still marveling at how easy my new kit made my life. Carrying luggage around didn’t seem like a pain at all.



We had our train from platform 15(I think, not sure). All the baddy seats were scattered in 3 compartments. We were figuring out how to get all of our seats together. We didn’t want the last compartment of the bogie as there would be people coming constantly and the smell. We wanted the second compartment. There was this group of 4 people led by “Lungi” who was coming from a marriage. They had big big containers with them. Lungi was hesitant to move. He didn’t say outright that he didn’t want to move but kept making excuses for an hour, saying that he is waiting for his people to come and move the stuff. Meanwhile we got breakfast. Chuunn was verrry hungry and brought 6 non vegs and 5 veg breakfast for 4 non veg and 2 veg people! Veg had bread and cutlet… it was too dry. In the end I think 3 veg breakfast were wasted. When Lungi was still unconvinced after we’d finished our breakfasts, Aashish got impatient. Wo chhadh gaye Lungi pe (no idea how to frame that in English!) “kahaan hai aapke log? Kab aaenge? AAdhi ghate se aa hi rahe hain kya? Finally Lungi got fed up and agreed to move. And we had all the seats together! As expected, after all this eating, moving,re-settling Chuunn, Aashish and Mittal slept off.



Nidhi, Sharada and I were reading books. It was reminding me of the morning of the return journey from Madras. Nice relaxing morning, sitting by the window and reading a novel. After sometime, others started getting up, and we had biryani for lunch. But it was mostly evening before we started doing anything fun. I’d dozed off in the afternoon and I got up to the sounds of “Chuunn Hero hai!, Chuunn ne bacha liya!!” Turns out, Nidhi had endured a 2 hour session of “getting to know” the footer team :P when Chuunn stepped up. He went over to the footer team and told Nidhi “Nidhi, your dad is getting frantic, he’s trying to talk to you since the last hour and a half” and Chuunn the Savior had arrived!! He was infinitely pleased with himself!

The TT team came over and we played DumbC for a while. I saw some of the most entertaining and innovative acting in DumbC ever. Chuunn cracked GuftGu! His acting of GuftGu was simply unbelievable... specially the Gu part ... :P Mittal crackked Chandalika... (his expression to denote licking still remains etched on my memory! reminds me of Tom's expression in Tom and Jerry with his tougue out and saliva dripping :P) Probably the best was his idea for exorcist. Though we guessed it without that idea being put into use, it was truly brilliant. Mittal was going to show the XOR gate for the starting of the movie. He was most enthusiastic when it came to acting. I was tooo lazy to act (and more importantly after seeing such GOD acting, I was nt sure if I would be able to live up to the level!)
(I cant remember any more movies, please add in the comments)
We then had a great time playing MAFIA. Sharada got to be the MAFIA for like 5 times in a row. Each time the voting round started, first suspicions were always on Ayesha. The one time she became MAFIA, her expressions showed that she was scared to death! Aashish and Kunal were playing it for the first time. Every time Mittal became MAFIA, he would get all shrill and defensive and loud. Arunav was playing an awesome GOD until his voice went off completely and Pritish took over for a while. Ketan was made to sit out of one round of MAFIA as a punishment for spoiling the game 2-3 times. (He was near to tears while begging to be allowed to play :P) He was more interested in eating the food which someone was going to get in Bhopal. We had a photo session (which Ketan enjoyed a lot :P he didn’t get to be in any of the pics) and then dinner.





We restarted MAFIA but by then TT team was too tired to play and Mittal had to be on the phone. Later we found out that cricket and footer teams were sitting in groups and were “entertaining” the freshies while we were playing our little MAFIA game. Mittal was like “Dayaa bhe! Apan MAFIA khel rahe the and wahaan freshie ki le rahe the! Kya fart hai!” :P We had to get up early the next morning at 7 to get down at Kanpur. Kanpur was not the last station on the route... so there was a non-trivial anxiety about whether we would all manage to wake up and get down at Kanpur.

Thus ended our first day of the tour …

19/12/2008

In the morning, we reached Dadar, where buses were waiting for us and we returned to the campus. We made plans to see “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and fo for lunch but sab ditch ho gaya. :( Around 1:30 we went to Mocha’s for lunch : The final event of Inter IIT.. :(

THIS MARKS THE END OF ONE OF THE MOST ENJOYABLE, MOST MEMORABLE & MOST PRECIOUS TIME OF MY LIFE. INTER IIT IS NOT JUST ABOUT BADMINTON OR WINNING THE GOLD OR GETTING THE GC, ITS SO MUCH MORE ABOUT SPENDING INFI TIME TOGETHER WITH BADDY TEAM MATES AND HAVING THE TIME OF OUR LIVES!!!!


From Getting Studd wali Tshirts printed to having MP 99 to play with,
From Sharada’s RATINGS to Mittal’s Raunapa!
From Studd’s infi Laziness to Chhuunn’s infi Hunger!
From Bizza’s stories about Girls to RANDOM CRAP from Coach
(Not to mention unravelling Sukhada’s BIG SECRET :P)!! (@Coach, Sukhada : sorry abt tht :P)

Inter IIT was everything it promised to be…

IT SIMPLY ROCKS!!

18/12/2008

I got up at 3:30. I was running very late. I had not even started packing and the whole room was a complete mess. Somehow managed to get everything done within an hour and got in the bus. Everyone looked gloomy in the bus, complete contrast to the expressions when we were coing. That time seeed sooo far away: The time when we reached Dadar; the time we were leaving from Bombay. It was soo sad going back. Kunal kept repeating “Ab to Inter IIT khatam ho gaya. Oh Fuck! Inter IIT khatam ho gaya”!


Anyways, the bus left around 5:30 AM and we reached the station by 6:15. We wee getting all our luggage in. While trying to get all our seats together, there was a cricket team member sitting in the compartment we were trying to occupy. I thought he was a freshie. So I told him as commandingly as I could “Tu udhar chale ja”. He obviously didn’t move and mera giveup ho gaya. Later Kunal came and said “aap cricket team ke saath udhar chale jaenge na” and that’s when I found out that he was actually a THIRDIE! I didn’t dare to look at him again. We got all the 5 seats together and Kunal promptly went on the top berth and slept off. After a while, train started and Coach & Sukhada also went off to sleep. Sharada was wide awakeand I wasn’t feeling very sleepy either. She had her “Oliver Twist” out and I was readin “Rich Dad Poor Dad”. We talked for a while in between and it was fun. Then I started writing about what had happened on the earler days. We clicked a few pics, sunflower fields were back again. The morning time in the train was amazing, not too hot nor too noisy, just calm and greenery outside, while I was sitting at the window seat. Finally coach and Sukhada got up and we had something to eat. Kunal didn’t get up until it was lunchtime and said his customary “Bhook lag raha hai yaar!” He ate and went back to sleep. I dozed off for a while and then Coach called TT freshies for some TP. Swarna also joined us and we played DumbC for a while, Mafia and then teen patti. I discovered a list of movies Coach hadn’t seen and I was shocked! She hadn’t seen INDEPENDENCE DAY! nor SPEED! I was too stunned to say anything. In the evening, I got down to get idlis and as I returned, Kunal got up again with “Bhook lag raha hai yaar” and we ate. Mittal called and was trying to tease me (and was doing a very good job of it too!) Kunal once again said “Ab to Inter IIT Khatam ho gaya” and after some generaaal discussions we went off to sleep.

17/12/2008

For the first time in soo many days, I woke up on my own without an alarm at 6 o clock!!! Inter IIT was leaving its marks. Never during the camp or the matches (When I actually should have got up at 6) did this happen. Went to make Anish up and he bluntly told me that he is not going to get up. So I got his laptop out and did some timepass. Coach Sharada and Sukhada had finished their breakfast and reached Godavri around 8:30. They were sitting in the lawns in front of the Godavari Hostel. Sharada was cribbing all the time that she wanted to go out somewhere, mainly to the beach. We all were trying to figure out what to do while Stud and Chuunn slept peacefully. Meanwhile, we were also having a mini-sleepy photo-session there. We also got out souvenir T-shirts and bags. All the while, the sun was playing tricks. It would get cloudy for sometime, and Sharada would get all excited saying its perfect weather to go to the beach and then there would be full sunshine. Sukhada was indifferent all the while and Coach didn’t seem too interested in going to the beach but was getting bored. I knew nothing was going to happen unless Anish and Kunal got up. Finally at around 10 o clock, they got ready and came down. Meanwhile, it had been decided that we would be going to the nearby beach. Sharada and I went to the canteen to get some refreshments. After sometime, Kunal, Anish and others joined us and they had decided that “Beach to NAHI ja rahe hain“. And we were back to SQUARE ONE. We sat down trying to decide what to do, while Chuunn was busy in filling up his stomach. Finally, I’d had enough of the useless talking and we just got into one of the buses that would get us to the main gate. On the way, I called up Swpanil and he said we could go quite easily to the City Centre by taking the train. So after getting down at the main gate, we walked to the station which was just 2 blocks away. We got the tickets to the Lighthouse station and went up. The station looked really nice and clean and the best part of it was that it was not crowded at all. The trains were quite similar to the locals, though much less crowded. After reaching the stop, we went to the City Centre. City Centre was awesome, first we went into one of the bookshops there and Sharada, Coach, Sukhada and me promptly picked up a book each and started reading. Just when I had started enjoying there, Anish and Kunal said that they were bored and we had to get going. I got a book for myself and a Rubik’s cube for Kuku(which in the end turned out to be useless as he already had one). Then we went to INOX and hung around for sometime but couldn’t decide on any particular movie. Anyways, we had to get back to the insti by 4 for the presentation ceremony and we certainly were not going to miss that! So we went to the food court and I finally got to eat Idlies there :). I also had garlic bread there which was simply AWESOME. We decided to leave from City Centre. As we walked out, we heard that there was some beach nearby and so we started walking towards the direction we assumed the beach was. And when we reached there, it turned out that we had actually reached MARINA BEACH!!!! It was sooo amazing!!! We had just started out with no particular aim or directions and yet had managed to reach City Centre and Marina Beach!!! I was feeling sooo triumphant that I actually called up Papa to tell him about this! Marina Beach was really calm when we reached…no crowd, just the 6 of us and sea in front of us, waves crashing and everything. We sat in the sand for like an hour, clicked photos, got up from time to time to get a feel of the water. I felt like getting completely wet but none of the others seemed interested. Kunal had gone off the sleep and Anish was obviously too lazy to get up JUST to get wet. Coach, Sharada and Sukhada complained that if they got wet, going back would be a pain. Anyways, I got wet and Sharada and Sukhada also joined in to some extent. I tried to get Anish into water but was unsuccessful. Kunal got up then. Chuunn was clicking a pic of all of us when suddenly a wave came from behind at the same time Chuunn clicked the pic. That was THE BEST PIC EVER! Everyone’s expressions came soo naturally that it was too good to be true. Me and Sharada tried to drag Coach into water but she seemed to start getting irritated and senti about it. So we ditched. Finally, it was 3:15 and it was time for us to move on. We took train back reached Himalaya complex at around 4:15. The presentation ceremony started then and it suddenly started sinking into me that this was it. The last day of the Inter IIT. And I would have to wait one whole year for this time to come again. The last day of Inter IIT 2008 was drawing to the close. Meanwhile IITB’s DOSA had come and was saying something…Our name was called out soon enough and I got too busy enjoying the photo session that followed to worry too much about “The Last Day”. As usual, my certificate had some typo, I tried to get it corrected but it spoiled the certificate further. All too soon it was 7 o clock and Anish was going to leave. Felt really sad then…With Anish gone it had started happening….the beginning of the end. He had managed to get the videos of our games from the Kanpur team before leaving. After he left, I went and bade goodbye to Rohan. He was leaving for Nagpur by Tamil Nadu Express ( and I myself might have, had I not decided to attend MI). Then, TT team and all of us decided to go back to the City Centre to watch a movie. But Coach wasn’t very enthu for it. We managed to force her to come along but on the way to the main gate, we found that all the tickets had been sold. (basky team had already reached there). So we decided to go to Rainforest (Another of Coach’s Masterstroke!! ), a theme restaurant near the Adyar terminal. We walked all the way there. While we were sitting in the waiting area, we found that one of the TT freshies, Pritish, knew some palm reading. When he read my palm, the first thing he said was “Ohh Shit!!” and told me that I MIGHT BE GAY! I was Shocked.! He then proceeded on to tell me other grim things of my life. All in all a forgetful experience which I am surely not going to forget very soon. The ambience inside was very nice, and so was the food. Pritish also told someone ( dun remember exactly, mostly Coach) that she would have 2 marriages!! So the dinner passed with everyone making jokes about each others’ futures as predicted by Pritish. On the way back, Pritish was trying to console me which was really funny because I was acting as if I was really concerned about what he said. He told me lines “Lines change ho jaati hain with tie and some other crap… “ When we reached back at the Main Gate it was already 11 PM and the last bus for the hostels left at 10 PM. Sabka GIVEUP ho gaya. There was still a 3 km walk ahead of us and we were dead tired. We started trudging along, when a couple of tucks passed us. Vrinda arbitly flagged a truck for a lift and the truck actually STOPPED!! All of us got in the truck and once again the triumphant feeling returned. We for a life from a TRUCK!!!! It was unbelievable!! The driver dropped us off at Gajendra Circle and we decided to meet up around 1 AM at the Himalaya Complex. But when I reached the room, I was tooo tried. Sleepily I msgd Coach tht I wont be coming at 1 and slept and didn’t wake up till 3:30AM. We were scheduled to leave from Himalaya Complex by 5.

That was the last official day at IIT MADRAS campus of Inter IIT 2008. It was AMAZING!!

16/12/2008

COACH SAVES THE DAY!!!
We went to drop Mittal early in the morning at 4. Watched FRIENDS all night and on the way to the airport too. After dropping him off, did some timepass at the airport. Mittal msgd that the Chinki from Delhi team was also at the airport and they had a conversation!! We were searching for rikshaw to drop us back at the campus and one of them actually asked for 500 Rs.! Chuunn went nuts hearing this and was telling everyone about this for the next 2 days to come.! “Wo sala 500 maang raha tha! “ On the way back, the rickshaw ran out of fuel and Anish, Chuun and me were left sitting in the middle of nowhere for 20 minutes. Just when we decided it was enough and started getting out of the rickshaw, the driver came running and the rest of the trip passed without any more adventures. Slept around 5:30. It was creepy sleeping in the huge room alone.
Got up at 11 AM with Anish shouting madly. Plan to go to Mahabalipuram. We finished our lunch by 1 and left for the maingate. We were also joined by the TT team. We took an auto upto the Adyar Terminal and were waiting for the bus. Coach and Chuunn were trying to manage everything. Anish and I found out about “Soc Secy“ here (:P). There was a really nice looking food shop right over the wall near the terminal and I went and got some chocolates. Chuunn was making his stupid remarks and as we were “standing” and waiting for the bus, he discovered why the bus stand was called a “Stand” !!! Really makes me wonder how ppl can come up with such stupid jokes! Finally the bus arrived and we got on. On the way to Mahabalipuram, we stopped at crocodile’s park. Saw the laziest of crocodiles in the park. It is the largest croc park in Asia. One of the crocodiles was infinitely huge, there was another one with his upper jaw cut off, then there were gharials, and I don’t remember much more. There were some snakes too and turtles. We actually got to touch a live snake and crocodile and their skin was soo icky.! Coach freaked out!! :P We then left from the Croc Park and replenished our refreshments and got on another bus to proceed to Mahabalipuram. The scenery on the way was really amazing. I personally couldn’t believe that such a scenic drive existed in India. One side sea and the other side greenery. We reached Shore Temple and it was really beautiful there. There were green plains all around and in the middle stood the small Shore Temple. We clicked loads of photos around it. Chuunn suggested various poses as he was bored with the normal standing poses. The temple itself didn’t have much to see. There were some sculptures, and some arbit work. From there, we went to the beach. We sat there for like half an hour and clicked a few photos. It was getting dark and photos bhi utne achche nai aa rahe the. Then we had ice-creams and left. On the way back, we crossed loads of shops and Coach tried her best to irritate us by trying to buy a souvenir. She didn’t have a clue about what she was buying and after looking at the shops for around half an hour finally gave up. Every shop she would go and ask for the price of one particular item, try to bargain without much success and then walk off. Chuunn was particularly in a lot of hurry as he did not want to miss the GALA DINNER at the campus at any costs. On return, we got a really cool AC bus which dropped us right at the gates of the IIT. After delta freshening up, we went to OAT for the gala dinner. It looked to be a very gloomy affair. There was some arbit prize distribution ceremony going on in the background which no one was very interested in. The food was also not very good and the chocolate ice cream was supposedly hopeless. ( I differ on this one). I was wanted to have some fun there so went out seeking S.N.Goyal to get some of his expert comments and went around the OAT following him. I was unsuccessful, but then Chuunn and I went up to him in guise of saying GoodBye and managed to talk to him.  Then we tried making plans for the next day. All of us were very happy with Coach for the wonderful we had bcz of her and so we left everything to her for finalizing the next day. She talked to a few Maddu ppl and all the plans ended in “how do we gat to the main gate at 6 in the morning” or “its too far we wont be able to make it back for the presentation” or “BEACH KYU JANA HAI YAAR?????????” While going back to the hostels, we finally decided that we would be going to the Marina Beach at 6. There was a subtle smile on Studd’s face as this was being decided and as soon as we reached room, he declared that he wasn’t going to get up early in any case and THAT was THAT!

15/12/2008

INTER IIT CHAMPS YET AGAIN!! HIP HIP HURRAYYYY !!!!!!!

The day had arrived! In the morning, girls played their match against Delhi. I forgot to add in the last post about Chhuunn and Delhi. So, on 14th night, when we were sitting in front of the Himalaya Complex, this was what the tp was. Chuunn was saying that he hoped Aditi from IITD didnt lose against us. Now this was bound to raise a few eyebrows!! And so we started pestering him with what he exacty meant by it. He tried to be diplomatic by saying that he did want IITB to win, but he hoped Aditi wouldnt have to lose against Sharada. Hearing this, Mittal straightaway called up Kanchana and started telling him about Aditi and Kunal. Kunal did get an earful from Kanchana :) but managed to control the situation...

Eventually, Aditi didn't have to lose her singles b'coz she was probably too fattu to play against our first singles, and Sharada won the first singles easily. (though with a lot of effort to get atleast one high servince in the court! Don't remember whether she managed to! She had to resort to STUDD service). The doubles was won with equal ease, and for the first time in the history of IITB, Girls had won the Badminton Gold!!

Now it was up to us! We had a huge discussion going on whether who would play where. Mittal wanted to play against Angam as he was playing the among the KGP players. Anish wanted to play against Abhijeet and have his revenge, that left me with Debashish. It did turn out to be that way. Anish played the first singles against Abhijeet. There's something about Inter IIT and Anish. Everytime, you feel this is going to be a tough one and he just pulls out something amazing! He wont he first gae 21-18, lost the second game 23-25 and then easily won the third set 21-9. What was surprising to see was that Abhijeet was all drained out after the first 2 sets and Anish(who had the poorest of stamina at one time) was peacefully walking around the court! Mittal played against Angam then and won his first set quite easily. Part of me started getting sad that I would not get to play in the finals. :( Everything looked set in the second game for Mittal before he started giving infi negatives and ended up losing 21-14. Angam was all pumped up for the third set and Mittal tired. Somehow he managed to win the third set 21-19! I was up and down all the time. ( part of me happy that I might actually get to play, but greater part scared...of repeating my last years Raunapa) When Angam hit that last shot in the net, I was relieved! The doubles was won with ease. After all, it was Mittal and Anish. Kisi ki aukaad nai hai inko harane ki!! :) And we had won once again!!!!!!!!!! The worst part of the win was that there was not a single member of any other team from IITB to cheer us...It was all silent...so in a way giveup ho raha tha! ("KGP KA TEMPO HAI HAI" ) As soon as the match was over, Mittal was calling everyone up himself to inform them of the "huggamaxx"! We talked with Ranjan sir, Kohlimann, Nandini Didi and Dude, all of them surprised with Mittal! Angam was grinning from ear to ear all the while! He had been undefeated in Inter IIT till now. Mittal also lost his first set in Inter IIT.

Anyways, we packed off and went to see the basky finals. It was a very close match and IITB was trailing right upto the fourth quarter. Eventually, they did win and the celebrations that ensued were a complete contrast to the scene at the baddy court. Sea of players in Black IITB tracksuit running from one end to the other of the basky court hugging each other and shouting at the top of their voices!!

We then decided to go to Ascendas for Dinner. We reached the Main gate to find rickshaws charging exorbitant prices. Then a local told us that it was much more easier to reach there on foot from the Taramani Gate. So we got into their Tum Tum again and reached Ascendas. On the way, "Hum Kis Gali Jaa Rahe Hain" and "Doorie" were on at full volume. Sharada and Sukhada were looking away trying to distance themselves as much as possible from hamare jaise besure gayak!! Had some arbit stuff at Ascendas. Thoda ghoomein and then returned back to Himalaya. Mittal was going to leave soon...he showed us some magic tricks with cards... Then we went back to the hostel, changed our gtalk and orkut status msg straightaway and watched FRIENDS for a while, before it was time for Mittal to leave.