I remember my first reaction when I landed in Varanasi and took the bus ride to IT BHU. I looked at the narrow, dirty by lanes and alley ways of Varanasi; the old buildings of BHU and thought to myself...God! how am I going to spend four years of my life here, away from my home! If only I knew better!. Ragging days in hostel were numbered but the fear of senior students made it seem to last forever. Mining and Civil Engineering students were sharing rooms in the hostel (during first year at hostel, we had to share the room)...but I managed to get a single seat room for myself...some stroke of luck I was having from the beginning!

First Year at IT BHU passed out before anyone realized. It was the time spent in chats, lasting longer than the nights, playing cricket with tennis ball in the basket ball court, marking proxy attendance calls for friends in class, 'lankating', bunking labs and classes, copying notes and cheating in class tests, sleeping in the class or escaping from the class by jumping out of the window, working feverishly for the institute cultural and sports festival, participating in institute events...you name it and we did it! By the time I entered my department, I had a academic score 6.5, on a scale of 10, against my name...could I expect any better grades with the frantic mugging the night before the final exam?

By this time, I started liking Varanasi and BHU. I discovered the cultural heritage of Varanasi that one misses in a superficial glance. The Ganga mahaotsava - a music and dance extraveganza, the five day musical festival at Sankat Mochan mandir, the night life at ghats! It was all there to explore and absorb. I started identifying myself with the old hostel and department buildings, the awe inspiring and peaceful Vishwanath Temple inside BHU campus and the famous ghats of the holy Ganges! It was in my second year at IT BHU, when I became friends with Pradeep and Sagar. Pradeep or 'Sharma', as he was called by his surname, is a very gifted painter. He was a complete artist, working with oil paints, sketches, water colour, clay modelling and what not! I still have the pencil sketch that he made of me, in less than an hour...it was so lively, as if it was a photograph and not a sketch! We were together in classes, hostel and preparing for the tests and exams...three Musketeers!

I and Sagar did (or bunked?) the summer training together in coal mines at BCC, Dhanbad (Bihar) and copper mines at HCL, Musabani (Bihar). We fooled around during the training period as neither of us was interested in getting into a job in the mining industry after graduation! One can say - what a waste!...No! IT BHU is more about learning crisis management and to learn how to be able to do whatever you are required to do. Self learning, very fast and successfully completing the assigned task is what we were learning. I did good in the subjects taught by good professors and antagonized the incompetent lecturers. But in the end, I came out with fairly good grades - 8.89 and 8.3...not bad after all!

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