Telephone behind a glass partition

Saarang

January 29th, 2008 Roshan Posted in College |

I went for IIT’s Saarang last week, and participated in a couple of events - Quiz, Ex Tempore, What’s The Good Word,… The whole thing seemed rather well managed, and I had lots of fun over the 4 days that it went on. They’ve got a nice campus and the frequent buses up and down are pleasant enough even when they’re packed because the ride isn’t too long. In any case, I’ve heard that IIT students have this bit of a reputation as elitist buggers who don’t like being nice to other people, a reputation that seems rather unfounded given my experiences.

A free bus ride:

The bus tickets cost one rupee normally, and seven rupees both ways on a Saarang-labelled bus. The problem is that 1 rupee is a very small denomination and it’s rare that I’m holding on to a one-rupee coin. The conductor insisted that I give him change despite me having only 10 rupees, so I bought five tickets and gave 4 of them to the next guy in the line. Just before the bus started, this guy came up to me and handed me 5 bucks despite me protesting, effectively buying me my ticket. Nice buggers.

A shared auto ride:

On the night when they had Decibels, my dad was due to come on TV to talk about the kidney trade and I wanted to see what he was going to say so I was in a hurry to get home. At the bus stop, there were lots of people and it was rather crowded. As soon as an auto arrived, these two fellows went up to the auto guy and negotiated a price to the gate. Seeing as I was in a hurry, I asked them if I could share the ride and they said okay. I was 50p short of my share of the fare, but they waived it :)

That’s about it for out of the ordinary events, but even normally, the IITians were incredibly normal fellows - even if unbelievably obsessed with sex.