January 15, 2026
I think most of you liked the previous one, thanks a lot for all the texts.
This one will be about the first week, starting 5th December, 2022, iirc. It was when I met most, most people. One really funny thing that happened to me (and my roomie) was that we both thought (initially) that we both are good boys, and not degenerates. Thus, we were initially very formal to each other, almost for the fortnight. Could you believe it? For those who know me and Dev, could you really believe it that we really thought we were typical "good boys".
Also, now that this one is being written as well, I just wanted to let you guys know that the nomenclature for blogs will be `
Enthuzia happened this semester, so did winter league, so did Sangharsh. And so did the infamous GBM. There's also a lot of stories from Enthuzia, how I went to Lalghati with SKM and Mishra (Aryan), the Dhoklebaaz fisaco, and everything else.
A very big inspiration for the style I'm writing this with is taken from Paul Graham's essays, "write as you speak" is the idea. I'd actually suggest all of you to read his essays. Especially juniors who have entrepreneurial ambitions. Another very important thing that I'd like to mention is that this entire thing is being done in the spirit of fun. Totally. Harshida told me how reading these is like reliving memories back, well, that's all I wanted. And I don't want you guys to, you know, read these, I want you to think it's actually me coming up and narrating these stories, I want my voice to move in your minds as you read this. I wish to introduce people I met as characters in a book, with a storyline. The only difference being everything written here is true, happened in real life.
Okay, so it's a rather cold morning, Arpan's listening to some really loud romantic songs and I'm here blasting Eminem at unhealthy volumes.
I saw Muzalda (Girish) on the first day of college actually, in the washroom, we just glanced a smile. Back then, I remember my roommate waking up almost at the last moment, man, really on the edge. I got ready, and he got ready surprisingly fast as well. I was wearing black jeans, a jersey topped with my blue sweatshirt on it. Was wearing my classic USPA cap as well. The black one. First of the first things after breakfast were me, Shagun, Krishna (Aashrith), Siddhant (Choudhary), and Murchana clicking a selfie. Outside mess 4. I think mess 4 is probably the best mess I ever dined in, everything else after that was a downgrade overall. BTW, there are a lot of small nicks and details I missed of the time before, I'll prolly have another small one planned for that.
I actually have Google Photos opened right now, on my phone, of the time, so that I can vividly remember every moment. Oh, and I remember walking into L5 and saw Raman sit on the absolute middle seat of the first row. Raman almost never left that seat for the first year, if I'm not wrong. Raman is gonna kill me for saying this but he looked cuter back then. I sat on a corner middle block seat, Gargi was sitting next to me. First class, I think, was MTH or PHY. I genuinely wasn't focused, partly because of the cold breeze and also excitement. I'm actually gonna skip whatever happened in classes, until and unless it's really interesting.
The online friends we made during the time between coming to campus and the offer letter, I knew all of 'em pretty well. However, I also met Harshida the night before, I guess? It was rather interesting, she usually doesn't let anybody and everybody let on her Instagram, you know. She let me because I had remembered a rather unusual detail when we used to do Google Meets as a group in Oct/Nov. She also let Rachit let on her IG because he had an anime pfp. She is like one of the biggest anime fans I've personally ever known. Through her, I met Anoushka, and then Som (Rakhe), both being big Valo fans. Ano had a classic signature look back then, red hair and her red jacket. People actually knew her by that. Meeting Jhanvi was fun, we were sitting in a group and just introducing ourselves and when I said "Patel" she goes like, "Arey aap bhi gujju?". We actually come from the same district, made things even more fun, and mind you, we Gujjus are loud, but the place me and her come from is the absolute loudest in all of Gujarat.
Me and Ishwari, who's a big Messi fan and actually possesses elite ball knowledge, also went up to the CC to get our WiFi connected. Ankush later helped us connect it.
One fine afternoon, somebody told me that the Decathlon cycles we ordered were delivered. It was a lab day as well, so I went running to the hostel area only to find out mine was yet to be delivered. Meanwhile, I had told Rashi, whom I had just met, to order half noodles for me from ICH, that's how I met Rashi. We had the same lab slots.
I also met Rakshith Vaishnavi Dogra (AKA Romeo Vector Delta) (AKA Chintu from WhiteHat Jr) this week. Oh god, even shorts looked formal on him, man used to head NCC on campus back then, I guess. Met Priyanka, Kanupriya, Siddharaj, Rohan, Abhinav, and a bunch of others. How can I forget Swarda, she used to be a future math major btw, me too. We both come from the same place in Maharashtra. She had her old Nike bag those days, we went to Dhawal's (Patil) math club talk together as well. Nilu used to be healthy, Sammy (Samriddha) the same, we also celebrated his birthday which is in December.
I met Sampreeti much later into the month, she used to think I'm a douchebag initially.
But, but, the most interesting incident happened around the weekend. I was in the washroom brushing, a guy comes in, washes his feet, just his feet. I went to the toilet once again later on to take a bath, found him washing his feet again. Evening, again; night? Again. It was Jaydeep Patil, Muzalda's roommate. His habit of washing his feet still lives today. We have absolutely have no idea why so. One night I remember walking into my room and saw Muzalda and Dev watching a movie on Anuraj's laptop. His laptop remained the most exploited thing by the wingies for the rest of the first half of the semester.
The most fun part of the month was the Lalghati trip, if people remember. I will write a detailed one on it as well (maybe with pictures).
As I said previously, a lot of details are being skipped, partly because some people wouldn't like it. Next in, I'll introduce you to a bunch of others.
Most of this week was spent outside my room. My entire college life, on average, was spent outside my room, it's one of the best things I did to myself. I would recommend every junior, especially first and second years, to absolutely ditch their hostel rooms and stay outside. It has massive, massive upside.
Next one will be a sparse refresher on the rest of December, with great breadth and depth only in the matters of the Lalghati trip and some IISM incidents (yes, we were the host in '22). Do let me know if the writing style is fine or not, or if you guys would like something else. People mentioned can ping me to exclude/include any specific details they'd want me to.
Cheers,
Patel.