September 15, 2002.

"Puttu..! Ent hodithu.. Lagoo elo..." ( Its 8! Get up..).. I was still shifting sides on my bed when I heard my mom say this for the 6th time that morning. Everybody knows its difficult to change something when you have been following it for quite sometime. I was no different. I was used to getting up at around 10 everyday during the holidays after CET. But that day, it was different. It was supposed to be my first day at Engineering! The moment this hit my head, I sat bolt upright on my bed. I was supposed to be at college by 10 and I was still in my bed! I got up and started getting ready while all the planning that we had done the previous day was running through my mind. Sameer was to come to my home at 9:15 and together, we were to go to Puttu's house. From there, we three were supposed to go to college. 

This part went as planned and we were in college by around 9:45. As we walked towards the main entrance, we saw that the entrance was fully crowded. There were parents and students, perplexed alike in trying to find the place where the welcome ceremony was to be held. Here and there, there were small groups of guys and girls, friends from PU college perhaps, looking for the Auditorium. Everyone was either seeking directions from the guard at the main entrance or going around looking for the Audi themselves. Finally, everyone started moving to the left of the main entrance, and we three, hoping that it leads to the Audi, followed suit. On the way, I met a few more friends of mine from my PU and tuitions, Vikya, Adi, Boka Vijya, Santya kulkarni, Sameer Joshi etc..

Very soon, the audi was packed and the welcome ceremony began. Invocation song, guests' intro, speech, chief guest addressing the students.. It went on for around two hours. I managed to gather nothing out of the those 2 hours except that we had a lunch organised and a department tour at 2 o clock that afternoon. I looked around and I saw the same "Lunch and Department tour in the afternoon" look on Puttu and Sameer's face. 

The best part of the ceremony ending was the lunch. :D I think the lunch was arranged at the hostel (I don't exactly recollect. Growing old you know. :) ). We all ate to our heart's content at the hostel and then started roaming around the campus. It was around 12:30 and we still had ample amount of time before the department tour. So, continuing our habits from PU, me, Sameer, Sameer Joshi, Puttu and Boka Vijya came out of the campus to the nearby Tapri. Vijya and Joshi went in and asked "eradu Raju kodri..". Little did we notice that there was a gang of around 6-7 guys sitting outside the tapri, smoking. When Joshi and Vijya came out, we started discussing what to do until 2. A dark tall guy from the smoking group overheard someone say "Department Tour" and that was enough for him to know that we were freshers. That's it. The guy got up and asked all of us to come into the tapri. Even after this, we never realised that they were our seniors.. Joshi, with usual arrogance refused plainly. Then the other guys from the group started getting up one after the other and soon, we had no choice but to follow them inside. Puttu, who was in a different world altogether, almost told the dark guy " Eh hogole..! chaa maaravne.." thinking that he was the guy selling tea at the Tapri. 

30 seconds into the Tapri and we all knew that this was going to be our first ragging session. The usual intros, tell me your name, "abey baap ka naam nahi bolega kya? Poora naam bata!", which PU college, which branch followed. Then came the worst part.While one of us was asked to measure the length of the tapri bench using a match-stick, the others were asked to say ABCD backwards. Some were asked questions like "what is the Integral of Body?". While everyone was struggling at their own tasks, I got pulled out of the lot solely for the fact that I was from Suku's tuitions. For the people who dont know, Suresh Kulkarni (referred to as Suku most of the time) is a slightly funny but brilliant Mathematics teacher and the founder of Suresh Kulkarni tuitions in Dharwad. Along with Hanchinmani tutorials, it is one of the top tuitions in Dharwad for PU students in Science stream. The guy who had singled me out was also from the same tuitions and so decided to get a bit of "Suku"ness out of me. Suku always had this funny way of talking to himself while teaching, turning towards the board and doing weird hand gestures while calculating something etc. We were so used to his idiosyncrasies in the tuitions that some of us used to do that everytime we spoke about Suku. The senior guy, who also knew this, asked me to do all these things in front of the 6-7 member senior crowd. The ones who knew Suku were laughing their heads off while the ones who were new to this were laughing hard just for the reason that it looked really stupid.! It was just so embarassing for all of us that we kept looking at our wrists all the time hoping that its 2. But as always, when you want time to fly, it seems to be running at half its normal pace. Finally, when we were let off, it was 2:15 and all of us were late for the department tour. Perhaps this laid the foundation for we never going to any class on time throughout engineering. Not even internals.

The moment we were out of the tapri, all of us rushed to the campus without even looking back once, fearing that we will be called in for one more session later. Once we reached the main entrance, I and Vijya left for the E&C department while Sameer left for the ME Department and Puttu to the CSE section. There was an intial briefing about the department in some classroom that went on for an hour post which, we were taken for a visit to all the labs.Finally, when the whole thing got over, it was close to 4. As soon as Sameer and Puttu were done, we rushed back to Sameer's place just to make sure that we are not spotted by any seniors in college.

That evening whizzed by with each of us recounting the ragging incident and each of our tasks. Puttu was still in a dilemma whether the dark guy was truly a senior or the chai wala at the tapri. I was still laughing at the way I imitated Suku. All in all, it was an eventful and unforgettable first day at college for all of us. :)