First days at National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli

Hey all!! I arrived at NIT Trichy on the 24th of July to join the Mechanical Engineering stream. The campus is actually quite far from the city, a drive of 45 minutes on bad roads. I’ve been assigned room number 39 in “Coral” hostel. I stayed in Trichy city in a hotel with my parents on 23rd and 24th. The campus is huge!! Bought a new bicycle to get around the place (a Hercules Matrix! Sounds fancy?). This is a REALLY hot place- and I’m only talking about the temperature here! Staying in a room meant for 3 people but they’ve crammed 4 of us in there! One of my room mates is a Bangalore guy who stayed in Fiji for a while. The other 2 are from the north. Decent guys. We’ve formed a sort of gang which mostly includes guys from rooms 39 and 40. We converse almost exclusively in Hindi here. I’m afraid I’ll forget English if that continues!!

Food is served in “B” mess. It’s edible (though they once served us watery gobi manchurian which they expected us to eat with chapati!!). Packed plenty of snacks from home. I’m supposed to eat a fruit everyday so I’ll pick up am apple from the shop on my way back to the hostel. In the Trichy city hotel where I stayed with my parents I ordered a paper dosa. Believe it or not, it came as a cone that was 2 feet high!!! No kidding, I even got a picture of it!!

Plenty of space to play here. Played football in front of “Agate” hostel yesterday. Scored in my first ever game here :-) . Hopefully that created a good impression! I’m planning to try my luck with NSO (National Sports Organisation) for football. I’ll have to deal with seniors for that though! It’s either that or NCC (National Cadet Corps). The gym seems decent enough. I’ll try joining soon. Swimming pool opens on August 1st.

There’s no means of entertainment here apart from sports! Nobody owns a laptop yet and we haven’t got a T.V. in the hostel! We manage by playing cards late into the night. Planning to teach the guys Mafia soon.

Ragging hasn’t happened yet, although we keep hearing rumours of a few 1st years getting slapped! The security guards (who all claim to be ex army folks) keep ensuring us nobody will get ragged. We all had to sign a few hostel forms before being allotted a room. The forms referred to us as “inmates”!!

I’ll admit I’m feeling a bit homesick but I’m sure I’ll get used to this place! :-)
Until next time…..