Well, as I already wrote in ma previous post the days at IITM carried a lot of memories which when typed in overflowed the post limits. 😛 So I am all splitting the experiences into Day 1, 2, 3. The rants about voyage preparations and about First day unveils itself here..
The very thought about the IIT trip make me feel excited… Being true, I never dreamt nor planned for the trip n it just ‘happened‘.
A lot of ma co-hostelers had plans of participating in Shaastra 2010 (29th Sept – 3rd Oct), the annual techfest of IIT-Madras (IITM) and had applied for the same online. Though I knew abt all dis, i wasnt very keen to go n try my luck as ma passion of popping ma head in these fests got subsidised to a great extend as I moved up ma semester. And one lame old night, i bet on 12th of September, i was in other room chatting with ma friends and some one (‘chacko’ i guess) just came in and told Shaastra application date got extended and he had applied for electrofrolics workshop, and there were comments about how cool the shaastra website is. Hearing all this made me check out Shaastre website (which I find damn awesome, hats off to webops team). After checking out every single event I found out that the only event that is suited for me is HackFest, but the notification said the last date for registration and filling questionnaire as 10th sept. Damn it , I was late, but I just tried ma luck n registered. Voila 🙂 some error in their website n the questionnaire was open for answering. With little googling( allowed by Shaastra) , I could answer all questions except 1. I didn bother much about the event as I knew that I crossed the lastdate by miles 😦
If ma memory is right , on 23rd or 24th of sept , when i was doing MATLAB , I just checked ma mailbox n found a mail from hackfest team stating I was selected for hackfest and need to sent confirmation blah blah.. I replied them ASAP, and worked on getting ma duty leave sanctioned ( Its another long story how on earth I got my duty leave sanctioned!. Whom to blame the system or the ones who is ruling the system? )
And at last on 28th evening 3 of us (myself, pramod and Nithin) were allowed to take part in Shaastra 2010 Officially. We boarded our train (Chennai Mail) from Ernakulam at around 7.30PM. the journey was so superb coz our fellow passengers were so great , one being cousin of my faculty Mr.Unnikrishnan and the other guy who supplies tyre retreading stuff. Pramod’s mom had made us chicken curry , friedrice n some bread n we 3 had our stomach filled in notime. After long discussions about current s/w industry, early marriage among muslim girls, current cabinet, tyre retreading mechanisms etc, we all went to sleep by around 11-11.30. We reached Chennai the next day morning (at around 6.45AM). After having breakfast from Saravana bhavan ( damn expensive, 150ml tea costs rs 13 !!!) , we started from Chennai central to Kasturba Nagar , as per directions given by John sir (faculty pursiuing PHD in IITM).
Pramod & Nithin with Mahesh (cousin of Unnikrishnan sir)
Reached the IITM campus by around 9.30AM and we were all excited that we even forgot to take a snap near IIT-Madras entrance (lmao). We were told to wait at the entrance as they have buses plying from main gate to other parts of IIT frequently.
Gajendra Centre
After waiting for around 15mins, a bus came and we jumped in along with 50 other guys… A 5 minute journey took us to Gajendra Centre (GC) where we were directed to meet John sir.He came in 2-3 minutes and as the Biomimicry workshop was about to start Pramod and Nithin went straight to CLT (Central Lecture Theatre) and I along with john sir went to his department lab as I need to take a note of my Shaatra PIN for registration. After noting down everything needed we head back to the ICSR building , where registration , hospitality and other Shaastra desks were located. As I was free for the rest of the day (my event is scheduled from evening 5.30 – 6.30 AM) and as we didn had our accommodation confirmed , I tried contacting and persuading my event coordinator, Ms Subhashini regarding my accommodation. Infact , I was calling her almost every single day for the past 4 days n by now she knew my voice n was blabbing ‘ I know you are Manu from cochin, Kerala’.. 😀 Atlast, I got ma accommodation confirmed at Pampa (one of 13-14 Mens Hostels). A little more persuading at the Hospitality desk made accommodation confirmed for Pramod n Nithin as well.
It was noon and we had our lunch from Tiffany’s (one of the restaurants in IITM campus). The food was good but was pricy!!! After lunch pramod n nithin had to go to CLT for the 2nd session of Biomimicry workshop and I too planned on joining them as I needed a good nap in A.C. Soon the whole lecture hall was crowded and people were sitting on stairs n ground. It was filled to its max capacity and then only we realised that 2nd session of Bio mimicry lecture is in ICSR and here in CLT they had Forensics workshop Lecture. 😦 Obviously, we decided to stay for Forensics and drop B.Mimicry session as the number of cuties here was high 😛 The talk was by one great fellow Mr. Madhusudanan Reddy from CDFD India, but it turned out to be very awkward n drowsing as he quoted a 100 examples and no hints on the technology used. 😦
My event HackFest (will write about HackFest in another post) was about to start and I just reached the venue CS15 a bit late and the introductory talk had already started. It was a great talk nd after the talk we went to meet Irene (cousin of my friend), who is doing her M.A in Economics in IITM. From her we learnt about all the restaurants, Café coffee days and all the fun spots at IIT 🙂 and she also told a lot about life @ IITM. Regarding the hostel life, there are around 13 or 14 Men’s Hostels and only 2 Ladies hostels (from this alone we could guess the ratio of geeks). The boys hostels are named like Mahanadi, Pampa, Yamuna, Ganga Godavari etc. and girls hostels are Sarayu and Sharavati. There are no curfews for both boys n girls on when to get IN/OUT of hostels. Anyone could get IN/OUT at any time. Boys are allowed to stay back in Girls hostel till 9PM and girls are allowed to stay back at MH all day round. 😀
Me and Pramod @ IITM Campus
After a lot of chit chats with her we head to Olive’s Kitchen (renamed from Basera), one of the popular Non-veg restaurants in the campus. We could see the whole campus there with a few tables filled with foreigners. The food was great and it was comparatively cheap. John sir and Emlin Ma’m (she taught me SSE in S3) called us and agreed to meet us at basera within few minutes. They turned up in a moment or two and we all chatted and clicked a few snaps. After a heavy supper, I went to attend ma first HackNight and they left to Pampa for bed…
Me and Nithin with John sir and Emlin Ma'm
The hacknight was kinda new experience and I was rejoiced by the fact that am having internet connectivity for the entire night… The hacknight session was dispersed by around 6.30 AM and I walked to the hostel which is around 2KM from CS dept. Throughout the campus one could see deer’s, monkeys and other wildlife as IITM campus is built upon Guindy National park and in ma limited knowledge it is the only campus in India with natural forest. 
The campus ranges across 620+ acres and only less than half of the area is populated with buildings and other crap and a major portion is still left as natural forest.On my way back to hostel, I could meet a pretty large crowd playing and jogging and it seems the campus never sleeps. I should also make a note that , during our breaks during HackNights ie around 2AM , we used to roam around In CS block and I could see a couple of guys programming in the labs. I learned from IITians that majority of the labs are open 24 hours a day and one could come in and learn whenever they want. And after 20 min walk i reached pampa, took the lift to 5th floor and there I am in 5th Floor Common (room allocated to us). Everyone was sleeping except one, who was from CET, who was coding his robot for robotics contest. J I waved a good morning to him n jumped to bed…
That’s it for the day, am feeling all exhausted… 😦 Need to digg in and try a movie 🙂
Ma Soul... 
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