The Place that isn’t

Had I to sum up the contents of this one, I would call it:

The one that deals with Expectations Vs. Reality.

Based on a true story.

Ah that wonderful movie, American Pie: Beta House, I believe it’s called. I believe I speak for most of the lads when I say that, ‘that’, was what we’d expected from college. Phenomenal prestige and an uber-cool lifestyle coupled with co-ed dorms, random anonymous sex and copious amounts of alcohol ingestion and partying.

Oh the life that could have been…

But, to our disappointment, we discovered(rather immediately) that this was not true.

Except maybe the part about the alcohol, but hey let’s face it, even that’s kind of a lame sausage fest. Can I get an Amen? Thank you.

Now, let’s back it up to the part about the prestige and the lifestyle bit. Sure, when you go home and meet other people it’s pretty satisfying to say the least. When they ask what you do, you would respond by raising your nose up a bit, half closing our eyes, thrusting our chest out proudly (if you could kindly excuse that ladies) and respond by declaring: “Why, I am doing my degree in engineering from the University of Cochin, baah…” And of course, most people might be impressed, but if your family is like that of a certain “big guy”, you’d probably be more embarrassed than proud. That, ladies and in a broader sense, ‘gentlemen’, are the brass tacks of CUSAT’s prestige. Cause as you would imagine, there are others who would out-cock us in a heartbeat (read IIT, NIT, VIT, MIT etc. etc.). So we are only as ‘badass’ as our relative ranking permits us to be. Moving on…

The lifestyle is pretty simple(and lame, duh.). Spend as little money as you can, while still saving a little on the occasional LuLu outing and a movie. If you don’t have mess, the regular food will be of two varieties: 1. A budget meal at the ‘new’ Canteen. 2. A budget meal at the ‘new’ Triveni. Both of which are pretty terrible to say the most. But cheap, nonetheless. Although, we do consume the occasional BRNP(Beef Roast and Porotta) or a Roti Paneer combo, subject to finances of course. But if you have non-food vices (plural), the bill is shared amongst your partners in crime. Period.

Marvelous, isn’t it?

Speaking of our phenomenal accommodation and mixed gender living scene… Yeah, like that was ever gonna happen… Our parents and society reflect values that even Alok Nath in all his Sanskaari glory, would have to squint and look away from. The movie was American, the cultural disparity was ridiculously obvious, and yet… and yet… we hoped… Like my man Bane once said: “There can be no true despair, without hope.”

I am sad now, let’s keep moving on shall we…

The alcoholism here is… entertaining. I discovered, to my surprise about 4 months ago, that we have our own inhouse BEVCO!! Isn’t that awesome?! I don’t think even Harvard has its own liquor store, INSIDE THE FRIGGIN CAMPUS!! Take a casual stroll out to the top of BTech or Post on a Friday, it is tres amusant. But swimming in a glut of wiener, I believe that the booze is more likely to help drown the suffering, rather than facilitate having a good time. Some more than others.

A moment of silence for our brothers in Mech.

Despite all these pitfalls and inadequacy and plain outright stupidity, we did, all of us, at one point of time or the other, enjoy being a part of it all. All those strikes, irresponsible teachers who bunked more classes than us (Yes EC, that is not a myth, it does happen) and the innumerable displays of unintelligence(like trying to get a bicycle over a wall), it did make us quite the bunch of happy little mother******s.

So sit back, relax and wait for all this to blow over, cause it’s not that bad. After all, this is not Rajagiri.