Date: 6th Oct 2013
Continuing from where I left off, wanted to share the rest of the evening (night ?) and the trip wrap-up form REC.
It was decision time and we had to decide between east, west and local. Some people preferred local choices but better wisdom descended upon us and decided to go back to Trichy town to stand by the directive principles of BEST policy. With some Samsumg smartphone help (This was an ongoing marketing through the trip by one vested interest :) ), it was found that Hotel Sangam near Central bus stand was a ideal place. Inspecting all the newly built highways around Trichy, Racchu took some smart "laessa straight cuts" and reached Sangam safely.
To our shock, surprise and dejection the Bar was called "Soma Bar". While that itself was upsetting, we could not find place in the bar to accommodate all of us. One Graceful Trichian vacated the table to took a smaller one and we managed to settle inside the Soma bar. (Real picture to be shared by Racchu, Sampu ?)
It was a fantastic session of 3+ hours reliving the decade and half with less inhibitions. Raaga indulged only for social compulsions (as explained by him) and others by choice. Few central themes that came out open were
We all got into a hotel near paalpannai and ordered some food. Tiju stuck to his choice and Ordered a Dosa with Cobra chutney. The food was served quickly but after two mouthfuls, Tiju figured the need for fresh air and rushed out. This is where apparently Tiju made Racchu run around like a White Bolt :) (Pls get the details from Racchu, not sure how much I can say here)
All this while, Racchu's Innova was behaving ok, not embarrassing us in college. It was time for Racchu to get behind the wheel again. We whizzed past the towns and villages and got to Salem for Lunch. We had lunch at Salem and had a small break on the NH, to educate ourselves on fixing a Tubeless Tyre.
Continuing from where I left off, wanted to share the rest of the evening (night ?) and the trip wrap-up form REC.
It was decision time and we had to decide between east, west and local. Some people preferred local choices but better wisdom descended upon us and decided to go back to Trichy town to stand by the directive principles of BEST policy. With some Samsumg smartphone help (This was an ongoing marketing through the trip by one vested interest :) ), it was found that Hotel Sangam near Central bus stand was a ideal place. Inspecting all the newly built highways around Trichy, Racchu took some smart "laessa straight cuts" and reached Sangam safely.
To our shock, surprise and dejection the Bar was called "Soma Bar". While that itself was upsetting, we could not find place in the bar to accommodate all of us. One Graceful Trichian vacated the table to took a smaller one and we managed to settle inside the Soma bar. (Real picture to be shared by Racchu, Sampu ?)
It was a fantastic session of 3+ hours reliving the decade and half with less inhibitions. Raaga indulged only for social compulsions (as explained by him) and others by choice. Few central themes that came out open were
- Who was BEST king from Batch of 98 (Confirmed to be Mahendran from one and all)
- Sampu's difficulty in numbers and math, came out in public. He was found to be repeatedly confused between 8 and 6. He also was caught not being able to add 8 and 6, where the whole group agreed the addition output to be 16 and Sampu only getting the total to 14
- CAS's practical guide to chemistry, in the form of which two spirits mix well Vs which don't
- The Generous Bartenders giving away of lot of snacks on the house and Raghu almost considered the option of visiting Trichy for his BEST sessions
- CAS, Balaji and Ramki going out for frequent fresh air sessions
A small minority had good time watching the fun unfold. Racchu was found finishing full bottles, through the sessions. He almost emptied 3 bottles during the 3 hours. When the ending was coming closer, few people started behaving up. Balaji stopped socializing, Tiju got too noisy and making faces at the rest of the gang. Akkur telling all those sweet old stories from 1996/97 and Sampu still struggling with Maths. The session finally ended with Balaji closely inspecting the rest rooms of Sangam, Sampu delegating me the task of taking care of Balaji.
All is well that ends well. We all headed to Paalpannai at around 11pm to find some native food to eat. Tiju got more noisy and somewhat under control. Tiju was insisting on eating Dosa and Cobra chutney.
We all got into a hotel near paalpannai and ordered some food. Tiju stuck to his choice and Ordered a Dosa with Cobra chutney. The food was served quickly but after two mouthfuls, Tiju figured the need for fresh air and rushed out. This is where apparently Tiju made Racchu run around like a White Bolt :) (Pls get the details from Racchu, not sure how much I can say here)
This is when the 2nd car joined us and with CAS coming in and ordering all the exotic stuff and day's special from the hotel. This is obviously when passion beats logic. All the icing of fun on the evening cake was getting made. Good fun and finally made it to Guest house in REC with no "breathe blow tests" etc., Few of us stayed around to talk and could hear the aftermaths and effects of spirits unfairly mixed with Dosa, for the rest of the night. We called of the day around 1:30 am and hit the bed.
Being an early morning guy, I got-up around 5:30 am and started knocking the doors with a "kaphee saar" cry. I am not sure, how many fell for it, but we had the whole gang, up and ready to walk in the cool trichy morning by 6:40 am. We took a long walk towards the hostels and MEGAmess with anticipation of Dosas, Fried onions and omelettes. We had a nice view of Shopping complex, SBI, Juicy, College Hospital (Super renovated) and greenery of the campus. The campus looked much greener, probably due to the incessant rains, this year. We took a few pictures in SC, in front of Dept and PG hostel. Like described by few others already, every hostel has security in-front and getting access to boys hostel was also difficult. (Indication of gender equality ?? in the area of access controls..)
Finally with so much help from Samsung Maps/Boys, we managed to get to MM-1, where to our utter disappointment, we only got raw bread slices and some very well-built Aloo Paratas. Seems like Food in general has gone from OK to worst with students ending up paying a lot more for nothing substantial. There were not even options like south Indian and north Indian food. It seems like student numbers went up and with steep labor problems, the food making and distribution is privatized and sore point for most students. It was a bit of disappointment and sorry state.
After grabbing something to fill the stomachs, we went to see Aqua Marine Hostel, where the MCAs are staying. Most of these are on the far end of the Campus (straight line to guest house but far end) and getting around places seems to be a bit of a problem. It seems like most students have cycles (in comparison to only elite boys like Manoj from '98 and Satheesh from '99) and they don't need to borrow the cycles from girls, like a decade back. Few boys have bikes and also.
After this long walk, we dragged our feet and made it back to Guest house. Tamil selvam from my batch joined us at the guest house. (Remember the Tamil --> Muthamil typecasting that happened the previous day :) )
It was wrap-up time for us to get back to Bangalore/Chennai on-time. Few folks had quick game of shuttle, inside the guest house and got all set to head home. The patchy ATMs in REC gave a little hard time to settle few accounts with Dept but was worked around quickly. We all bade a bye to few folks who came to Shopping complex.
The rest of the journey was event-less except for getting to meet Durga after 14 yrs in Blr, for me.
All said and done, I feel this is a humble beginning to reconnect with our alma mater and give something back, in our current capacities. few things that were discussed, that I will re-state below.
- Make sure, you get to talk to your company HR/TA and have NIIT-MCAs be allowed to attempt during campus placements, wherever you are working
- Help with 6 month or 2 month internships, if possible
- Keep visiting college once in 4 to 6 months, without causing as much overhead as we might have caused (Our's was due to 1st time factor, May be)
- Help/Fund version (should be small sums of money only, less than 4K), as students are not allowed to go to companies for sponsorship
- The tech savy folks can do guest lectures, at least once in a semester or year. This is a very important help we can do, given the exposure and perspective, that we can present to students. If we can do this, we will implicitly make a visit to college anyway
Hope my write-up made you re-live the time and made you smile/laugh heartily. Lastly, let us not stop there but have our ears, eyes and minds open to help our Alma Mater, in our own small little way.
Ranadheer Velamuri
MAA9612
