IITK - the trip that wasn't!

The name 'IIT' gives a 'feeling' to many people in India. Let me be clear - நான் அங்கே படிக்கப் போகவில்லை! விளையாடத் தான் போனேன்!

Yeah! 'Udghosh11' is the annual sports fest of IITK (Kanpur) and we somehow got the invitation for it this year. (I honestly think they made a mistake of inviting us! :D ) As usual, the booking of tickets created a havoc before leaving. Aravind (MUSIGMA man) booked tickets separately; Thanks to him, we could go peacefully. This time, Ramnath (IM) was a new member in our team. So the team now looked like 1. ak 2. Prem 3. Ramnath 4. Aravind... "Fair enough" I thought. This should be enough to win!

To my surprise,
I found 107 people from NIT Trichy coming in our compartment (okay, some were in the next bogies but that's not that important!) This helped a lot! 4 is not a crowd in college tournaments! Moreover, the journey from Chennai to Kanpur in Lucknow express is no fun! There is NO pantry car in this stupid train! Also, Second Class travel is no fun after you cross Andhra Pradesh. Man, I hate North Indian Railways! I hate hate hate!!! Ask any South Indian Chess player or any sports person for that matter... He will have quite a few stories to tell! :)

Somehow... after some 38 hours, we reached Kanpur and I can tell you, by the look of it, it looked a bit worse than Kolkata !!! (No offence!)

Thankfully, I don't have photos of the Kanpur station. But that photo above is from Jhansi station, our train (TN express) platform! From this image, I would like you readers to imagine how Kanpur would have looked like. (This photo is nothing compared to this pic; in Kanpur, well... just go around the Central station there to find out!)

"But for IIT, Kanpur is nothing!"

LIFE IN IIT! (4 days)

We reached IIT at night and I called mom immediately and said, "Amma! படிச்சா IIT ல படிக்கணும்!" The sight of IIT at night was simply amazing. (Love at first sight)

I had no idea the view would change ... and how! I woke up to see everything far and far! I had to walk a long way for BREAKFAST! Oh my God! "Alright" I thought... "Once and it should be fine!"

Then came the SUN! And there ended all my sunshine!

I felt "SRM is far better; even SASTRA for that matter!"

"இக்கரைக்கு அக்கறை பச்சை" என்பார்கள்!

 I felt so relieved to be in SRM from that moment onwards! IIT ல சைக்கிள் மிதிப்பதை விட SRM ல பஸ் லயும் பைக் லயும் போவது எவ்வளவோ மேல்!"

To make it even more funny, we were given a printout of IITK map (printed from google maps obviously) as soon as we reached there!

"அப்பவே எனக்கு mild ஆ ஒரு doubt வந்தது!"

We had a terrible accommodation. Thankfully, the cricket players went to stay in some other place after the second day! NITians got a better place I hope!

ஒரு ஜூஸ் கடைல ஜூஸ் குடிச்சோம்! நானும் ராம்நாத்தும் ... படு  பாவி கடக்காரன்... "It's salt; not sugar" ன்னு சொன்னான்! டேய்! இத குடிக்கறதுக்கு முன்னாடியே சொன்னா என்ன???" I hate these North Indians! Yeah, people like him have made me RACIST! :P Adding fuel to the fire, he gave a wicked smile! Bastard!!!

To compensate all this to some extent, we had a decent amount of 'entertainment'! :)

Eppadi irundha naanga ...!

நெக்ஸ்ட் மீட் பண்றேன்!

This is 'ak' signing off!!! :)