Tuesday, July 11, 2006

I was Dumb

Last sunday, I had to make an one day trip to National Institute of Technology Trichy to drop my brother at his hostel and help him set up shop, i mean get into hostel and get things arranged in his room and all the blah associated to it. All this is essential because, this particular college has separate hostels for each year students. After every year of study, people have to shift hostels. This system has its own boons and banes. The boons being, the Auto guys earn a lot on the days shifting. They take 40 bucks to shift luggage from one building to the another, which would be typically about 100 meters away. And the other boon being the fact that the college things they can avoid ragging by this practice. Lets not go into the system to hunt for more inexistant boons.

The banes are many. The guys have to shift every year. Thanks to the auto guys, they have to pay thro' their nose to get their stuff from their room to their room. Come what may, they will have to shift from one building to another. The freshie hostels are the closest to the depts and as you grow senior, you will move farther. Hence, by the time you are in fourth year, you will live farthest from the depts. Extending what happens in IITM in terms of attitude, this will only dwindle the already falling attendance percentage. Also, they dont have a room fixed for each guy. You can apparently keep changing your room all thro' your stay in the hostel and all you have to do for that is just get the shifting done and thats all. These guys apparently fight almost every other day over the room allotment issue and keep changing as frequently as they want.

Now to the most important part of the post. While sitting in the hostel, the security guard there, walks up to me and asks if i am from madras. I said yes. Our man goes to ask "There is another NIT(refering to IITM) in madras, do you know it?" I replied in positive. Then he goes on to say "It seems that NIT was started before this one. It is apparently smaller than this campus and it doesnt have so many department either. Getting a seat there is easier it seems. There isnt so much vacant space between two buildings and it is easier to go from one place to another. Students here are better than the students who study there. The same goes with the faculty. They dont have enough greenery in the campus. This is definetely a better place to study."

Wearing my blue Shaastra T shirt, all i could manage to do in response to this was to just nod my head and thankfully my brother had come save me and give me much needed sanity.

Comments:
it is funny i agree, but i now have a doubt, being an alumnus of those NIT (REC for me) hostels:

probably that guy has a MIT/NIT confusion and not IIT/NIT confusion...then all of what he says could work, as long as he sticks with the MIT in chennai...;)
 
Arunn,
I must have added that the security did mention that the NIT is in adyar and not chromepet. So, i can safely assume it is IITM.
 
OK, then it gives enough ground to believe that that guy is goofy...

he either doesn't know MIT from IIT or NIT from IIT OR chrompet from Adyar...;)
 
This is definetely a better place to study...maybe if you had been there all the while you have been languishing at IITM, you might as well have finished your PhD ;)
 
i am not concerned about "concerned" anonymous people.
 
Was hilarious no doubt but left me wondering as well. As any IIT'ian, I too have been subjected to many such encounters with ignoramuses. It's all well to get away mumbling something on the lines of "who cares if ppl don't even know of the existence of an elite institution by name IIT", but I feel it is this ignorance which makes it disadvantageous for us when these institutions are mindlessly dragged into focus by politicians, as is happening now. The majority doesn't give a damn, being blissfully ignorant, a few concerned keep harping and the government as a result has no qualms getting ahead with what it wants. Sad state of affairs, I must admit :|
 
never knew people needed autos to transport stuff between hostels.. we used to do it on our poor cycles.. obviously had to take couple of rounds.. but if u want to get things done without pain u gotto pay for it..

- A rectian
 
nalla velai! i am happy as long he has not compared IIT with ITI, which most ppl do and it seriously hurts....
 
shiva, those guys took a couple of rounds on autos.

randi, this comparison is as old as IITs da. When Nehru wanted to make more IITs after the success of KGP, he summoned his senior cabinet minister from Andhra and asked him, if there are any places near Hyd to start a IIT. The minister replied "we have plenty of them already. we dont need anymore." and hence, madras was choosen to be IIT was established...
 
is that true??? my god! can't believe that stupid mistake got us the iit. anyways thanks to him! may his soul live in majar peace
 
RKK had told of this incident in a lecture long back.
 
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