College Memories

A Facebook friend's recent invitation to share the ‘College memories’ struck a real chord deep inside and a fountain of memories just sprung up. It is like watching a favorite movie as a slide show J My memories of the Statistical Institute are mostly about being taught by some of the best minds in Maths/Stats, very kind and very informal professors, long nights (nishachar by nature!) studying, reading, chatting – debating, endless cups of tea at the dhaba, arguments covering all topics from Rabindra Sangeet to politics to literature to math problems to the latest campus beauty queen (they lost their crowns and became witches as soon as we discovered they already had a boyfriend other than one of us J ) Unfortunately, ever the queen-makers, never the Kings L. I had my music craze even then, so always found potential singers among college mates and got them to sing. Hey, cassette players were beyond our reach and radio could not be relied upon to play the favorite songs on demand J. But such were the joys of that life – eating in the local roadside dhaba was a treat compared with the hostel food. Most memorable movie experience was probably Kabhi Kabhi, mainly because three of us went for a night show during our first week in Delhi, counting on the public transport in Delhi at 1 AM. Unfortunately, the DTC (Delhi Transport Corp) was not aware of our faith in them and did not schedule any buses past midnight. So, we walked about 16 KM back to the hostel, the thought of safety on pretty much deserted high-class roads like Jan Path, Racecourse road or Shanti Path never crossing our minds and neither the few cops’ we passed by. When we reached the hostel around 4 AM, it was too late to sleep, so just had few cups of tea with vigorous debates over whether we should have taken an alternate route; freshened up and went to the classes. No big deal.

A musical memory – even back in college I was crazy about songs and naturally found friends who were interested in music or could actually sing! Thru this circle, I got myself into some of my best concert experiences. One I remember in early 70's was the Mood Indigo festival at IIT Bombay. With three of my best friends, we were at the open air auditorium (?). I was thrilled because Talat, RD, Asha and Chandru Atma (what a combination!) were to perform. As it turned out, in that late teenaged crowd, Talat and Chandru Atma were the most popular, with special requests pouring in one after another. I had already heard Talat in private concert before, but heard Chandru at such length the first time. He was of course best known for his perfect rendering of the KLS songs – with students demanding ‘diya jalav’,  ‘nahi, pahale “So jaa”, phir diya jalav’ (these are famous KLS songs – for the young innocents J ) – it was a pretty long night. So much so, I recall Asha and RD squeezed out for barely a few of their songs. Even at that, Asha mostly sang the OP songs on public demand and they were practically booed out at ‘duniya mein logonko…’. Talat as usual sang his repertoire of the hits to a very appreciative audience.

What an experience! A totally fulfilling evening of quality music, followed by further listening pleasure in the IIT music room with the best of musical friends. Not sure if the goose bumps I can still feel at the memories are only due to the chill of open air late night close to the lake. J