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. :)