The Awesome Ingredients of MANIT Archi '08

PART 1 - UNITY IN DIVERSITY

Right from my childhood, I have read in those NCERT textbooks that India is a land of unity in diversity. I witnessed diversity all around but unity on very rare occasions until I came to NIT, Bhopal. After coming to this college and being a part of MANIT Archi ’08, I realised that the greatest example of unity in diversity can be my class – the batch of Architecture ’08 in NIT, Bhopal. One can find all sorts of people coming from different parts of the country almost resembling the ingredients of a delicious dish.

To start off with, the first person from my class I met in this college was Johny, a Christian by religion and a Chinese Indian by face (can’t use the other C word, which would be racist). He wore specs which always hid his mysteriously suspicious eyes. I helped him with carry his bags from the hostel gate to his room. I thought he was a very quiet and a nice guy back then. But over the years, he left no stone unturned in proving me wrong...hehe...

That very day I met another peculiar guy in the class. As I entered my class for the first day it kind of looked like a crowded bus. I wondered how come there were so many people in the class; later on I got to know that there were students from the Sports Complex errrrr…I mean from SPA Bhopal too which brings back a hilarious memory of this one day when the then SPA Director came to our class although I don’t remember the entire speech he gave but I do remember these following words.

The Director said, “In one year you will be in your own campus.”

Today the date is 14^th August 2012; the SPA students have been trolled for more than four years. SPA classes are still conducted in our Sports Complex. There is a striking similarity though between the Sports Complex and the SPA campus – both are unfinished since a long long time. Coincidence? Think about it!

Ohhh…sorry! I guess I went too far ahead from the class scene. So I searched for a seat, there was an empty place in the last row. I went and sat there. As I was kind of an introvert I didn’t talk much with anyone. Just as I was thinking about my past journey and about my future plans, a guy – a big man pulled up a stool and sat next to me. After he sat, he asked me, “Can I sit?”

I replied, “Yeah, sure”. His face looked familiar and then I remembered he was the same guy in the hostel who looked like someone’s father. Although everyone was in ‘Funda”, he wore sandals with a bandage tied around his ankle.

He introduced himself, “Hi! I am Javed”, in his heavy voice.

I introduced myself too. Although Javed was our age, he looked much older than his age but he has the mind of a child, immature yet honest. And from that day onwards began our legendary friendship – me, Johny and Javed, all from different religions yet bound together by MANIT Archi ’08. I still remember how every day Javed and I used to get ready for college, then go to the hostel wing where Johny stayed and scream his name on the top of our voices which seldom woke him up but most often woke up the neighbours. More than four years have passed by and still our friendship is rock solid.

On the first day of the college as Javed and I were looking around at the people in the class, a very distinct short guy with an infectious smile (as Nakul Sir quoted) caught our eyes. He was talking to everyone with a wide teethed grin on his face. We didn’t have the slightest clue then that after a year or two he would have the most amazing hairstyle in the history of mankind. We also spotted a girl who was waving her hands faster than her lips which were moving due to her constant blabbering. If talking was an Olympic Games event, she would have surely won a gold medal. But more on them in the next part of ‘The Awesome Ingredients of MANIT Archi ’08’.