Oh, To Be an IITian!

By N.Raghavan, [IITM- 1970, IITB-1976, VP-IIT MAA EC]

Nostalgia is something you, despise in your 20’s and 30’s, look at with mild interest in your 40’s, grab at pathetically in your 50’s and 60’s and have as the mainstay in your 70’s & beyond! Having spent 39 years after passing out from my first IIT, nostalgia is pretty strong. Ample proof comes from the frequent Re-Unions (the Silver, Golden, Pearl, Platinum, Coral, Mini, etc RUs!) which we flock to as well as the frenetic scene in the Yahoo email Groups. Looking at the way we cling on to other IITian, one would think that these IITians never had a friend from the outside world. That’s the Power of the IIT!

Many of us would have wondered and pondered over this strange and strong bond between us IITians and have analyzed to see what makes it tick. This could be a subject for Doctoral Theses or confidential Company HR memoranda on how to form strong teams and nurture team spirit, etc. Once you finished analyzing how this bond has developed between alumni of one IIT, you can start analyzing how such a bond develops between alumni of several IITs- the PanIIT! May be, I should take out a patent on such an analysis.

For starters, I would imagine that it is the hostel life, which has pitch-forked young country bumpkins from anywhere & nowhere into a community where you have to learn to live and live to learn all by yourself. Except for the local guys who rush home on the weekends with a full laundry bag, the general junta learns to make the adjustments and learns to live together with peers. You also get helped on the way by borrowing notes, cog sheets, drawings for topoing, and the other ‘interesting’ stuff, which contributes to life without fetters! I would like to think that it is this camaraderie, which ties us together, well after we had crossed the portals of our IITs- to form a Vasudeiva Kutumbham!

I used to wonder whether it is the snobbery, which gives a false sense of elitist belonging to the exclusion of the other perceived inferiors, but in reality I think it goes beyond that in some ways. No doubt, the high entry barrier does give a sense of pride as well as a collective elite identity, and the subsequent successes in career add on to this, creating a special club. But more than that, it is the sense of individualism, which has been created in the years of sojourn here as a result of having to stand up by oneself along with the peer competition. It is this individualism, which probably commands recognition and respect from the friends, adding to the bonds created otherwise.

While your status in society, achievements and net worth matter in the early days, you don’t care about these after a certain stage, say after about the 45th year of age. Thereafter it is all about the old friendships revived, dusted and hung out in public; the old nick names trotted out and feeling young again syndrome blossoming! Probably the medical profession may come out with a finding some day that RUs & Yahoo Groups are better rejuvenators than the ambrosia trotted out as ‘After 40’ or the other ‘Get Young’ Spa treatments. A study group of IITians attending RUs and regularly sending out mails in Yahoo Groups, when compared against a group of non-IITians of same age range, may show better health and life adjustment. Let us investigate some time!

When I returned to the IIT after a long break, to attend PanIIT 2008, I certainly felt a thrill. As Scott asked, “Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land!”

I presume most of my alumni friends would have also felt the same. Whether it is the greens or the deer or the two ‘elephant-like animals’ in the G Circle, or the cellular hostels, or the amphitheatre of OAT, or all that concrete in the swimming pool which I helped pour, I can’t say, but nostalgia sure hit me hard. Of course, I got unnerved quite soon to bring me down to earth on seeing so many structural changes done over the last few years. I almost asked, “Is this the same IIT to which I had belonged, or which had belonged to me?” Nostalgia came to my rescue and said it was. Thank God!

Over the last few weeks when I got involved in more interactions I felt relieved and felt more comfortable back in my Alma Mater, in my motherly cocoon. Oh, to be an IITian! It’s a great feeling. I am also able to feel the comforting backing of my batch-mates, the larger group of IITM friends and all IITM alumni at large - Yes, You got a Friend! And I will never be at a loss if I have to Phone-a-Friend! If there is going to be another birth, would you say that you would like to be an IITian again?!

Amen, Bye for now. Cheers, as we say.

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