December 23, 2006 morning was beginning of a normal chilly day in Ranchi. We started amidst fog to a destination where it all had begun for most of us. My glorious days of Sindri still reminded me of how we had turned from innocent cubs to roaring lions when we finally came out from the institute.Though in those four years we had more vacations than opportunity to stay in the institute but all's well that ends well.I had visited the institute only once after September 1990 when we passed out from there. The last visit was for obtaining the Degree Certificate, alas that was the only way we could gift ourselves a convocation of some kind, though that too turned out to be an exciting experience to say the least.However, this visit was going to be a very exciting one as we had plan to meet our batch mates once again after a gap of almost 16 long years. I was so eager to meet my old friends and see for myself how they have changed in all dimensions. I could not resist but take my family also with me as we were already in Ranchi/Jamshedpur during our trip to India to meet my relatives.
The experience of our road journey in Jharkhand was also going to be an exciting one.
Lots of changes were to be experienced- the Toyota Innova, a foreign brand car rolling on Indian road, that too in Jharkhand, first hand experience of much talked about worsening law and order in that part of the world, ever increasing traffic, new political order after creation of new state, changed culture, driver carrying cell phone, kids enjoying coke bottle with potato chips while watching movies on DVD player inside the car, and there were many more! More I explored, more newer and newer changes I was encountering. Did I outgrow or had I been cut off from Indian society for long enough to have missed the gradual transformation?Whatever, it was a new experience. I recalled my journey to Sindri in my youth days during late 80s. It used to be an overcrowded bus which would have more people boarding in than ejecting out and to everone's surprise each new stop would prove people wrong that there was so much of room still there.I can not forget one incident when I had taken a short nap and somewhere around Purulia I got up only to feel under my feet some very slippery bag kind of stuff, which I tried to have a feel by touching. In the process I got hold of one smooth hard graphite kind of shaft which turned out to be a goat's horn, so a live cattle was pushed under the seat! I was about to shout and in that dismayed state when I looked around, I encountered a smiling face looking at me who said very politely that It does not bite!
As day was progressing the sun started smiling and so was my eagerness to meet everyone. We had reached Bokaro now and then started the real fun. The road had turned more like Om Puri's cheek than Hema's...literally reminded me of that (in)famous Laloo adage! We slowly crossed Mahuda, Telemuchu Bridge, Bank More and finally we had reached Dhanbad Railway station and located Hotel Siddartha. It was a little obscured one, like we knew that it was somewhere nearby but could not find the way to get in that. Finally we succeeded after few attempts. I enquired at reception about bookings made for BIT and the person immediately told me about the room number. I was very excited to reach in that room. As I was coming closer to that room, I could hear some old familiar voices, talking in the same fashion reminding me of those old days. It turned out to be 5-6 people seating in that room talking and there was a pause as I had entered in that room. Rohit immediately recognized me but it took others a little while to recollect me. I had no problem in recognizing Mukhiyaji(Rajeev of Civil), MP Singh, Sudeep and Alok Mamu.
We waited for some time in the hotel but sadly not many more turned up. We hoped that may be most of the people will show up at BIT Sindri campus, so we started off for institute.While we were waiting in the lounge a very interesting coincidence surfaced. We could not believe that BITians think alike to that extent or perhaps topology has gone down in us so much that Rajeev and I named our sons identical in the same order Hursh and Yash!Journey to Sindri reminded me of the same old scenes and places. I started recollecting the names of the places, Jharia, Bhaga, Digwadih, Fus Bangla, Patherdih, Chasnala and there we were...Goshala.
The institute was closed and not much activities were there to be seen, else the Paan Shop and Tea stalls at Goshala gate would normally have been a very lively place. The first obvious change I saw was at the enterance gate.
The big iron gate of our time had been replaced with a lighter version. I can never forget that gate as I was asked by one of the seniors during my "introduction" process the name of institute in Hindi and in order to find the answer I was directed to refer to that gate which read- Bihar Pradyogiki Sansthan. Alas, that was lost now and was replaced by a simple and abridged version which simply read- B.I.T. Sindri Dhanbad.Estbd 1949.I was told that after division of Bihar and Jharkhand, the natural change necessitated was to replace "Bihar" part of the name of institute. I had heard that the acronym BIT was maintained and Bihar was replaced by Birsa, but apparently it has not been carried out, but simply the institute's name has become B.I.T. for good. At least that is what I understood by seeing the name put all over.As soon as we entered in the campus, one could notice that there were lots of construction in progress.We saw the construction materials near Alumni House, Administrative building and Deshpande Auditorium.There was a new building coming up beside DPA, which I could not figure out as what that could have been, must have been a new branch's building.
There was a new central library just adjacent to the old one, which I was told by some of the students, whom we met later, that remains open 24 hrs.We were going at a slower pace to behold all the buildings, which were coming one after another like a live slide show. Finally we stopped at Gym ground. We all got out and wanted to reach to Kameshwar's dhaba as soon as possible to enjoy the same old taste of our life line during our stay in BIT. But before that everyone wanted to recollect the old days spent in around that ground. Slowly we marched to Kameshwar's dhaba. Kameshwar and Mukesh did not look much different. One could see the same old wooden plank resting on bricks, called bench, the design for which Kameshwar perhaps had borrowed from geeks of our Civil Engineering Department and later must have been confirmed by P.K Jha's special analysis of Strength of Material, which had kept it still going.
Most of us had grown much bigger to fit on that bench though, but everyone wanted to enjoy the bench in the same fashion as we did during our old days. There were some chawkees as well. Kameshwar was not expecting the old babus to visit him, so naturally was overwhelmed by seeing all of us, some had come with their spouses and kids. There was an overzealous exercise on our part to ask him to recollect some of us, Kameshwar duly obliged us by smiling and murmuring that he did not remember the names but was recognizing "most" of us by face! Around that time train to Dhanbad had started. That reminded many of us of the "key" of Diesel Rail engine which being so rare to be seen normally but we were so privileged to have seen that thanks to "special efforts" made by some during one of those days. Soon the barber who used to run a small saloon inside the gym building came back with full of chips, biscuits and bottles of mineral waters, which he had brought from Goshala for us. The special chai was served soon. There was demand for samosas as well but institute being closed, it needed to be a special order. Meanwhile Shankar Agrawal, Arvind Kumar,Mech. (the badminton champ of '86 batch beside Rajeev Kumar), Binod Prakash "Binny", Rakesh Hazaribagh had joined us with their spouses. While some of us were busy calling other batch mates over the phone and talking with them one by one, someone had managed bat and ball and the cricket
match was on in the field. The match was being played with same vigour and enthusiasm as it used to be in our old days. After all we had two of our genuine players of '86 batch together with us, the prolific opener Shankar Agrawal and strike bowler Binny. As the match was in progress, Ajay Nand and his family joined us on the field. There was no interruption as Ajay virtually resumed playing on the same field from where he had left almost 16 years back. Ajay looked as athletic as he used to be during those days. Soon match ended and we wanted to take a walk down the memory lane. But Kameshwar's special samosa was on its way so there was some wait. We posed for some group photographs meanwhile. Kids had got hold of one goat grazing in the field and were thrilled to have touched it.We started our march from Hostel 10 and 11. The Love tree in front of hostel 11 was still as green and lovely as it used to be during those days but a boundary wall was built around the hostel. We were however made aware of the facte that a new girl's hostel had already been constructted somewhere near director's bungalow. So hostel 11 was of "academic" interest only now! But we could not resist going close enough to that. There was recollection of numerous incidents and stories, after all that used to be the most talked about place during those days. Many secrets were revealed associated with those stories much like KGB and CIA stories of cold war era being published now. Later, I visited Mehta's Store. Mehta had died in late nineties but his son had taken over. I purchased few journal/sessional covers to keep with me as souvenir. Few ward servants met us there. The refreshing change was that students in near by rooms were busy discussing with each other on their respective laptops, something every one would love to hear that laptops, mp3 players, internets are common in the hostels now. I asked few of them about job placements for final year and was told that nearly 300 students had already been placed and few more companies were expected to come soon. Companies like Infosys, Wipro, TCS, Satyam, Tata Steel, Tata Motors and many more had already come for campus interviews. Surprisingly juniors were asking more about career counselling than merely getting a job. What a turn around! Perhaps Deshapande's era was back. Some of them asked about our batch. I asked few of them as how old were they in year 1986 and believe it or not we have indeed grown too old now, if not then the answer should make you realize- some of them were not even born in 1986.We were told that there was an Alumnui Meet being held in January and the juniors were requesting us to come back again for that meet.
we finally reached the 'B' zone via 'C' zone by walking. By this time many juniors had come near our cars to know the reason of our visit and generaly mixing up with us. Soon we started back for Hotel in Dhanbad.
We had plan for dinner at Skylark hotel. Manoj Prasad(Prod) and Brahmdev(Civil) joined us at Skylark. We had a sumptuous dinner and food had become even more spicy with lots of giggles, laughs and cheers. Finally we left for hotel. Few of us had left for relatives in Dhanbad and remaining of us again assembled in a room. Lots and lots of chatting on myriad of topics went on and finally around 3:00 AM we went to bed bringing the curtain down to one of the memorable incidents of our lives.
We had expected many more to join us, particularly people nearby in Dhanbad, Ranchi, Bokaro and Jamshedpur, but perhaps the information was not spread well. There was a strong urge amongst all of us to meet again somewhere in near future, hopefully then we will have a better turn up.
Trust me, it was an out of world experience. Meanwhile please do keep in touch through e-mails, phones or whichever way it works. Also please visit at following url to see the photographs taken by us during this visit: http://sanhursh.smugmug.com/photos/sspopup.mg?AlbumID=2366057
Efforts are being made to recollect old photographs and upload them to this site so that it will be treasured forever. We remembered and thanked Kaushik's efforts in keeping us "reacheable" even after 16 years of our physical separation. We need more updated contact details of each other and soon I will upload the most updated excel spread sheet. Meanwhile, please flood your comments and make this place a busy highway.
