First day of my College life – Flashback

Everyone remembers their first day of college life. Yes I do. I thought of writing this since after I read Shruthi’s post. Here how it went for me.

August 19th, 2005.

The Journey
I woke up so early that day than I usually do. It was at 5 am. I got ready and at 6 am, I was in the terrace welcoming the already risen morning sun. It was my first day of my college, SSN College of Engineering. This day was the inauguration day, where students go along with their parents to college, and they welcome the freshers. My dad was out of station. So my mom, my uncle and my aunt came along with me.
The function was to be held at 8:30 am. We started at 7 in a car, driven by my uncle and I took the pleasure in enjoying the ride. There was nothing much on the pathway though. This road is soon to be called the IT corridor and it is still under construction. I took nothing but a bag and a diary. This was only my second visit to college. The first visit was to register my name at the college. On the first visit, the road seemed too bulgy. But this time it was pretty smooth.
After half an hour, which seemed like an hour, we finally reached the college. Wait, its not SSN College I am talking about. Its Sathyabhama University. There is still much distance to cover. After passing several other colleges (there would be more than 10 colleges on the way), we finally reached the destination at 8 am. The entrance was short unlike Sathyabhama. During the previous visit, my mom and I had to walk around a km to reach the admin block. Now thanks to our car, we reached the auditorium (where we were asked to get down) in quick time.

Inauguration
The auditorium’s exterior looked beautiful. It had beautiful lawn outside. Many parents sat comfortably in the lawn and many had not even entered the hall. The auditorium had a beautiful aisle in the main entrance and we found ourselves seats at the back. I looked around the audi. It had a big stage (with around eight empty chairs) and had a neatly furnished decorum. The audi was almost full when I entered.
During the first half hour, they showed video presentation about SSN College (the CD which they distributed for advertisement). I had already seen it but since it was too boring, I had no choice to watch the video. Mr Shiv Nadar (chairman of HCL and SSN) was giving a brief speech about the college in the video. The chairs were then seated by college dignitaries and the next two hours went with almost everyone in the stage giving speech and then a speech by the student presidents was all it had. The college dean gave a nice and humorous speech. The no of interested people became lesser as time passed and I already spotted two students sleeping in the well cushioned chair. Just when we thought the speech was over, the college Dean invited the parents to give theirs view about their son joining SSN College. And pingo! As guessed, another half an hour passed.
It was 11:30 am already and the inauguration ended with a vote of thanks and national anthem. We, the students were instructed to stay, while the parents were asked to receive sweets and leave the college. The dean assured the parents that the students would reach their home safely after the college ends after seeing so many worried faces. While going outside, I heard a parent shouting at his son, “Look! Everyone has brought bags! It seems only you have come empty handed”.

Meeting friends
Outside the audi, I spotted Arun Kumar finally. Then along with him, I met a guy whom I instantly recognized as Shree Venkatesan. He was my schoolmate till 10th.
After bidding bye to parents, we three started to canteen. It was a long journey (as it seemed to be). I was not hungry when I reached the canteen. So I was content with just Chappathi. As if Chappathi wasn’t enough, we ordered lime juice. Shree Venkatesan left us to meet his friends. At the juice stall, I met two other guys introduced by Arun – Cilvin and Ayya Durai. They were from the same department as mine (CSE) and I was already glad to meet many friends. Also I met Balaji (another of my schoolmate) and also many others. Something really weird happened at the juice stall. The guy who was making juice (what do u call him?), added the lemons directly to the mixer and then he filtered it. I was like, “Excuse me, It seems you have made a mistake, Is that how you make a lime juice?”. Arun’s expressions were the same.

Class Sorting
We got back to the auditorium as a gang where the sorting ceremony was to be held (he he). Sorting ceremony here means the students would be allotted their respective classes. Ofcourse the list was presorted. We all took a single row. The auditorium was less full now but still the atmosphere hadn’t subsided yet. The ‘A’ section teacher incharge came forward and started calling out the names belonging to his class and as the names were read out, the respective student got up and occupied the place that belonged to ‘A’ section. The proceedings went on. Arun sprung up from his seat almost 10 times (everytime when the name ‘Arun’ was read out) but sat back disappointedly when it wasn’t his name. Finally Arun was sorted in ‘B’ section. Almost everyone from my row had left. I felt like I had to wait a long time to know the class that I would be in. But it didn’t take long as my name was called in the ‘D’ section list.
I went around the auditorium and spotted a seat second to the corner seat among my classmates. Immediately, a guy took the neglected corner seat. The names were still being read out and I didn’t take any effort in looking around at my classmates to check if any known guy is there.

Instructions and Interaction
After the sorting ceremony was over, we were given instructions about our block (which is way beyond the canteen) and about the ragging. “Yes, the rumors are indeed true”, I thought. We were asked not to socialize with the seniors at the beginning (hmmmmm, so what do they expect?). Various clarifications were made. I learnt that there is no dress code in the college.
Then we were made to wait for a long time. I got bored to the silence and started looking around. I looked ahead of the guy sitting to my left and found two familiar faces – Aswath and Aswin (who are also my schoolmates). They were sitting together in a row parallel to mine. I just greeted them from the distance and hopefully, they responded. The guy to my right was also maintaining silence since the beginning and he didn’t respond other than a nod. But I was hearing non-stop chattering from two girls behind my row. It seemed as if they were friends from school and they continued their non-stop talk in English. I didn’t know their names and neither did I take any effort to find it.
I was searching for Arun among the ‘B’ section students, when the guy to my left suddenly broke his silence. He introduced himself as Kishore from IT dept. He looked innocent (believe me, he is not an innocent anymore!) and started asking questions to me as if I own the college. After clarifying doubts such as “are mobiles allowed inside college?” and also frightening him by adding, “the seniors would take the mobile”, Kishore started asking more questions. For one of the question, the guy in the front suddenly turned back and started speaking to us. He introduced himself as Jambunathan from CSE (was pleased to see many CSE guys).
Then the hostel students were asked to leave and do the proceedings (do they do that even in a hostel?). The rest were given a paper and asked us to fill the nearest landmark to our house. Then the bus incharge went around the audi and telling the students their bus routes by just looking at the landmark. I was astonished by his memory power because there were 40 buses in our college and he remembers each bus route. We were asked to leave after the bus routes were finalized.
As I got up, I was searching for any known guys, when suddenly I heard a voice calling my name. I turned around to see Suresh (again my schoolmate) whom I knew pretty well from the tuition classes. I was glad that there is someone in my class whom I know pretty well. Finally, I spotted Arun and went along with him to the college bus stand. On the way, I heard that there were many (around 15) from my school and I also met them at the bus stop. We stayed together and chatted.

Journey back home
Arun and I had to board a different bus. I boarded a wrong bus (no, the bus incharge didn’t give the right bus route). I had to get down and board the only remaining bus (which was told would go to my place by the same bus incharge). As I previously thought, the road wasn’t actually smooth. It was the car which had made the ride smooth. Now the bus driver seemed to do the impossible by flying on the road and jumping. And as I thought, the bus dropped me (which I forced myself to) at a place, which is atleast 2 km from my house. I didn’t even think that the first day of my college would turn out to be too exhaustive. Once again, lime juice came to the rescue, for a 2 mile walk.
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