“This has been one of my longest hiatus from the blogging world I believe. To say the least life has had quite a few turns of late and those who know me well, probably wont ask me why. Those things apart I finally managed to tame some time to get back and put up something.
Life takes you to places you never imagine. Come to think of it, there are still times when I wonder what am I doing here in Kharagpur of all places on earth. A place that I didn’t know existed, leave alone it being in God’s own country.
I still remember the first time I had come here to give my interview. It was exactly a year before. I left the station only to be greeted by age-old Amabassador cabs and cycle rickshaws. I took one of the cycle rickshaws (I thought the cabbies were charging exorbitant. Besides, I was alone with just one bag). I loaded the bag and my haversack onto the rickshaw and off we were at snail’s pace. It was a typical country-side lined up with small houses with shingled roofs. There were seperate houses of the daroga, collector, etc. Whilst sitting in the rickshaw I told myself, “”Never am I coming to this place again in my life””. As fate would have it, this was the only admission call I got and I decided to take it up. A major gamble I must say (I am yet to know if it paid off).
Being born and brought up in a city like Bombay, you never really get used to the place quite well. And till the time you do, its time to leave. Its almost like living in a different world. There’s some respite in the fact that IIT itself is quite urbanized as compared to the town (or village?) outside it. Theres a marked discontinuity.
There’s a major shift in lifestyle when you start living in such a place. I got used to much lesser (almost nil) pollution levels. So much so that when I went home in winter break, I found Bombay almost suffocating. You get used to more two wheelers than cars. The biggest difference being, I had to start using a cycle again. It was almost like childhood days revisited when we went out shopping for a new bicycle.
The saloon here is like the typical village types, only difference being it is in a proper brick and mortar housing instead of the traditional dhoop-chhav (under the tree). I always looked at people’s haircuts and had decided that I am gonna grow my hair and will get a cut when I go home after the semester. For once I believed in Murphy’s Laws when I was compelled to get a hair-cut because of the companies coming to select students for summer internships. Finally I mustered enough courage today and got a hair-cut. The guy who was cutting my hair must have got a major pain the place where sun don’t shine. I was meticulous about each and every small detail of how he should cut my hair. Needless to say, it turned out quite decent at the end. The coiffure still resembling what it was before unlike some of my friends. The best part being, it cost me only 10 bucks. And I asked him twice whether it was 10 only. Things are quite cheap when you compare it to your megalopolis home city.
But then maybe the experience was really needed to get me used to living sans the luxuries of urban life. The western habits get diminished a lot when you are staying in this kind of a place. There is still a little more than a year to go before I leave this place for the same old life. I don’t know whether I will ever miss it. I think I might. Only time will tell.”