Post Homecoming thoughts ...
My undergrad was in Regional Engineering College, Trichy (REC Trichy) now re-christened National Institute of Technology, Trichy (NIT, Trichy). Unarguably the best days of my life. When I talk about REC, I always think about it as the place where:
- I got out of the comfort of my home in Madras for the first time and started to learn and live the independant way
- I met a lot of amazing people who have now become the closest of buddies and brothers in arms
- I transformed from an innocent-not-at-all-worldwise teenager to a spoilt-worldwise-youth ;)
Now all of the above happened not because I joined REC per se but because of the hostel life. It happened because I met people from all the states in India. It happened because I met people from all the stratas of society and more importantly I learnt to understand, respect and live with them. It happened because I shared my life with theirs 24/7/365/4! Now all that was between 1995 to 1999. An altogether different millenium I guess.
During the last week of December '06, a batchmate and a very good friend of mine from good old REC days - Senti, decided to drive down to Trichy for old times sake. You know to get the feeling of Nostalgia and basically have a good time. But what we saw there disturbed us quite a bit. Thanks to the PC and telecom revolution that is happening, we found that the student interaction in hostel has hit an all time low. Here is what we found:
- Almost every room in the hostel has got a PC or a laptop with an internet connection. So every student is stuck in his own room
- Every student has a cel-fone. We hardly found students walking in groups to the snacky place or tea-shops. Each one was with his cel-fone stuck to his ear. What was even worse was that there were quite a few blokes with cel-fones in the mess too!
- TV Rooms are dead, because I guess everyone downloads movies or get their own CDs and watch it in their room
Still unclear on what to make out of these observations. But here is a list of reactions:
- Damn! And we thought we wouldnt face the issue of generation gap - Viggy
- They are missing out on the brotherhood we shared - Viggy
- Crap! This is not the REC I studied in - Senti
- What the hell, I am not going to worry - I got the best of both the worlds. Had a great life in REC and I am also on Orkut - Kille
- May be these guys would have a much better network than us. They are already very well connected through all these websites and IMs - Kille
Your thoughts?
posted by Victor Goodin at
12:06 AM
1 Comments:
There comes a time in life when you mention about the generation gap but you really don't feel the way you felt when we were at RECT. Behind, in the depth; lies a maturity to understand it because in RECT our lives had already seen so many changes and we all had courage to accept those and move on. Although it gives a feeling that we have lost the exactness of RECT where we lived our real lives, it also makes us proud to see so many materialistic advancements in students' lives. I am not sure what do Kille mean by "They are already very well connected through all these websites and IMs.". The connection of physical proximity of friends could never be replaced by Internet, IMs and Orkuts. These connecting devices are to REConnecT the old, really sweet memories of togetherness shared face to face, sitting between backside of Hostel and the mess, sitting in the recess in Shopping complex's juicy, and spending the quality time in each other rooms. I still remember studying together the last night, cooking food and helping each other financially and morally which these Internet connections can never replace. If cellphones, laptops can bring people closer, they can very well make them stay apart and still connected virtually. Somebody has said:
Dhoop mein nikalo, ghataaon mein nahaa kar dekho,
Zindagi kyaa hai, kitaabon ko haTaa kar dekho!
9:43 AM
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