Convocation of my Graduation

Can’t forget the day…can’t afford to forget it…so lets move on from start:-

Prelude –
Like always my university processes involves a mandatory form (photograph compulsory). Invitations were mailed only to some fortunates. Shanky was the only one whom I know to have that invitation – wonder what made him so special. One day before, while surfing Yahoo I got to know that our chief guest was Mr. Omar Abdullah (Chief Minister – J&K). Our convocation was taking place 1.5 years after our leaving from college. Henceforth, it had to be nostalgic.

The ‘C’ day –
Owing to our professional and business etiquettes, Sandy and I reached the base camp (our faculty) right on time i.e. 10 A.M (as stated in Form A). Not many were seen there. Chedi came in next and started talking about the same things in same tone that was expected from him – first signals of nostalgic moments.
Our trip to ground floor toilet (allocated to Civil Engg Dept.) was again memorable. While coming out, and seeing the tap from which we used to drink that drinking water made us laugh. Now, both of us in reputed (?) IT MNCs drink Bislery and Aquafina (without that FUN). The huge H-styled faculty building had some revolutionary changes in it – our building had got a lift now (a non-functional one). Back in my thoughts I was happy for Dr. Wali M Choudary (the famous and only rockstar teacher of my university). He had once wished a lift in our faculty. That day was our Database Management sem, the longest one of my graduation. All those who were present in that room with Dr. Wali dude, will cherish this new gift – the lift.
The building also wore a new paint combination – combination of purple and muddy checks. A new staircase was there to greet us. Rest of the ecosystem was same – spacious parking lots, green lawns guarded by bamboo stems. Dean office and the attitude of people inside it were unchanged. World most arrogant and stagnant soles sit in that office and they still had that elite royal self-comfort feel in them…sarkaari mehekma

Slowly everybody started to turn up. Surprising they were not much late (blame professionalism). Among the crowd, there were (Civil friends – Harkesh, Himanshu and Puneet), (EC friends - Apoo, Atanu, Avinash, Varun), (dear Elect. friends – Anshul, Vineet, Praveen), etc. Random greetings from/to known faces came in plenty. Compu batchmates also started to arrive – Anku (still a baby), same old Deepu, lean and fit Hi V (surprisingly in sandy shape), airtel sponsored Nana (Amit Singh), ‘stray’ Shanky dog, fatty ‘soft-toy’ Tau, Baba Ather (coming from Hyd especially), topper Alan with black eyes gogs, Shuja, Akif, Atyab, Asad, naughty ‘Naveen’, IITian Jeetu (from videokaun), study sexy ‘Sharma’, Balloon Bobo ‘Ambuj’ and Bhaskar along with Vikram and Shankar. The girl gang of our class also came in.
(Customary line but with a very true and honest feel inside my heart – some of my very close friends were not available owing to their work - Niloo, Sahil, KP, Ieesh, Devi, Akshay, Sumit, Varun, Jeetu…phir kabhi sahi)…कर्मनये वाधिका-रस्ते, माँ फलेषु कदाचना

Next in line was another form to be filled - perhaps the last one for my graduation. Form was related to hiring of robes and the scarf. These were being given from newly constructed workshop, which gave a visible feel of jail and us being the judges (thanks to the black robe). Canteen was the same, though the rates were hiked by Rs 3 for lunch thalli. Same vendor, same style of servicing and the same taste. The famous Kauwa Biryani was still selling in name of Chicken Biryani…and…students were still a fan of that. Ironically, price of thalli at my college canteen is same as that of lunch buffet at my office (but will the food @ college canteen ever match with food @ office, will the ambiance of canteen ever match with ambiance of cafeteria, will the lunch at cafeteria ever match with lunch Enjoyment at college canteen)…No ji

We all got our robes and scarfs. Robe was shinny black in colour whereas scarf was shinny maroon. All were looking like life descendants of Batman. Maroon coloured scarf on boys would have taken us on another level of fashion; Bhaskar along with Vikram and Shankar creatively converted that scarf into a bow (which looked wearable). All it needed was a shinny sword to become a dictator (dreams fulfilled).
Photosession @ faculty was mandatory. We went to our department to get clicked. Unfortunately all classrooms were locked (planned), but the multi-functional lab was open. Mr. Baashear Alarm was in the lab with a lot of students who had that feel ‘agar-aaj-program-nahi-dikhaya-to-fail-kar-dega’. Sympathies to them. There were minor changes in the corridor too. Shoe racks were in place with a new notice board (which I presume would be used to display attendance -> sessional marks -> sem pass/fail result -> SPI). We also went to other beloved sites like staircase and the toilet allocated to our department. The second floor’s GT played host to more than 80% of our class’s boys on the last day of college (major project viva) who went inside it with an intention of getting themselves clicked but soon all were found wanting for space after our examiner came out suddenly out of one of the toilet closets. Some posed for nature’s call, some realized it, some ran, some started thanking him and some even posed for drinking from those toilet taps (pyaar aur darr aadmi se kya kya karwaate hai). Subsequently, we all got the same grade in that course.
We also met our HoD was the same man – Dr. MMS Beg (control your imaginations). He was roaming in the corridor and we exchanged some ‘Hi’s and ‘Hello’s with him. He informed us that there was something planned for us at 6 PM at the faculty auditorium – the mini convo.

Now I will have a break and explain you the planning of convocation. Ours is a very big university with a lot of velle courses. So, the official convocation involves all faculties, all students, VC and a chief guest. Students don’t get the degree in the official function, rather deans of respective faculties receives the degree as a lot from the VC. In our case, because ours is a flagship course (yo yo), our faculty organizes another function at the faculty to give away the degrees (thank you thank you sirji).

Back to our ‘C’ day…

Around 3 P.M., we all assembled at Ansari baba grounds for official convocation. Nice bright setting sun behind us made the convocation extremely picturesque and pleasing. The function started with chaos (as usual) with around 2000 students indulging in gossiping and BC baarzi. Teachers who have no respect for their voice started to monitor the crowd. Finally the prayer was all it took to make the morons (us) silent. Then there was our university official tarana (song) - “Dayar-e-shauq Mera” sung fabulously by our ‘saree-kurta’ chorus. I was hearing it for the first time in my life. Wow!! Address from our new VC (Mr. Najeeb Jung) was next in line. Our past VC was educated, and this one too sounded educated. And educated administrators are always appreciated. After his address, he formally presented the degrees to respective deans. Official convocation also saw VC conferring the degrees of doctor of letters on Marshal of Indian Air Force ‘Arjan Singh’, former Chief Justice V.N. Khare, our university’s former VC Lt. Gen. (retd) Zaki and Prof M. Amin. This year, I saw the interview of Marshal Arjan Singh on 26th Jan and knew he was over 90 years old; consequently I was quite amazed and frankly quite astonished to see a man more than 90 years old saluting 5 times with full power, flexibility and adeptness (now this automatically brings dignity with respect). Finally the chief guest addressed the youth of tomorrow (us). Omar Abdullah was very candid in his speech. He openly disclosed about his prepared speech. He was given one by our university, next two were prepared by his personal staff and the last one was derived from first three. He rejected the prepared versions as our VC had already spoken his words…same quotes and same lines and same couplets. My university is champion at that. However, what followed was a candid lovable sober short impromptu speech. He admitted it’s easy to get into ancestral occupation be in acting or politics. He also advocated and appealed to US to join public service. The official convocation ended with national anthem. A total of 137 gold medals were conferred on toppers and 3279 degrees/diplomas and 112 PhDs were awarded.

Snacks (same canteen quality) were arranged for us. Man! I love them. It was now time to get the degrees. We all assembled in our faculty auditorium. Dean was also same – Mr. Humpty Dumpty. He was removed from his post in between our years of graduation studies due to corruption charges. But back came he like a phoenix…yo baby yo. He organized a mini but more important convo for us. On stage were HoD of various engg disciplines (Civil, Mech, Compu, E&C, Elect), Dean and a chief guest for mini-convo CRRI director who did his doctorate from Canada. Toppers of various courses got medals and appreciation from the chief guest. Then degrees were conferred to various courses – B.Tech (Civil), B.E. (Civil), B.E. (part-time Civil), M.Tech (some Civil course), B.Tech (Mech), B.E. (Mech), B.E. (part-time Mech), M.Tech (1st batch, some Mech course), B.Tech (E&C), B.E. (E&C…don’t even dream about any other course in E&C), Diplomas (polytechnic guys), B.Tech (Elect), M.Tech (courses of Elect) and laastly B.Tech (Comp. Engg). After the long wait and agonizing courses calls (all of whom were pre-emptive to our course for some reason), the batch of Computer Engineering 2004-2008 got the nameless envelopes. Surprise surprise!! We all were given empty envelopes rather than our degrees here. The writer of this article was the last one in his faculty (or university?) to be given the empty envelope in person by his respective HoD cum major project mentor (Berkley returned Dr. MMS Beg). Just for a thought – my parents named me with an ‘A’. No more words here – it was a different experience to go onto stage, shaking hands and getting snapped with him with a Gold medal in Batman dress. Can’t say whether, it will be a long standing memory, but it did bring me some ephemeral happiness. The process of becoming a complete engineer still had to go through the last stage. ‘Go and get it from your dept. office’. We all rushed towards our department. There too B.E. guys were given preference. Wonder and wait, both coexists (never mind). Finally, I, officially the last person of class present on that day entered into that scared room (the dept. office) and took the degree from Mr. Nizam. Man! he still has so patience – he sits on that throne of the office signing forms, collecting forms, distributing forms, receiving forms, filing those forms – actually one of the most efficient, calm and rumour-less guys of my university (unlike dean office duds).

Robes were returned and degrees were earned that day. There was a feeling of accomplishment in body movements but never a feeling of victory though. And it’s a true feel. There were some last talks, some last conversations may be…last greetings, last naughty lines and last jokes...last minute pics…

Cannot forget the college, have so many memories of it. Have cursed it to extremes, have cribbed about its processes, all getting me that important dose of nirvana in life. Have earned a job (yack!); have earned some friends (yip!)…have said so much in my COLLEGE life…it all can be summarized in one quote (borrowed) which is so relevant to my current life…

The crowded Highways are often a pain
but nothing is as crowded as memory lane

Customary thanks have to be given – thanks to Billi, Bobo, Tau, Jeetu and Deepak for taking pics in their cam (half of them are ‘blurred’ – read some of them ‘cult’). Thanks to Vineet for having me my share of Gold fame. Guruji (now in videsh) deserves a special thanks (or xie-xie in local language) for his motivational talks and even more motivational visuals. Thanks to Bobo for giving me a lift after witnessing what I can do to a car. Billi deserves an add-on apology from me as I got impulsive with him; giving varying threats to getting him endangered and extinct. Class topper Alan should be credited with thanks as soon as she reimburses toppers-party-bill which is lying with Bhaskar along with Vikram and Shankar.

May all my batchmates of Jamia (2008 batch) find luck and success in all their future endeavors. God bless you all. Any wrong doing from my side to anybody (countless they are) should be forgiven [now that’s by order]…

This is it; the end of chapter ‘Graduation’ in my life।