May 22, 2026
I'm blasting Don Toliver on my home's TV and writing this one. A very hot Surat morning today. So it's time that I continue this for the first semester. Well, I'm gonna be honest, the sem was a bit too eventful, partly because it was the first and partly because of Enthuzia'23. I'll be honest with y'all, when I decided to start writing these, the plan was to not write a lot about Enthuzia'23. For those from 22 and above, they know why. For those after, well, it was a super controversial fest that just happened. I'm sure all of you have heard a lot of stuff about it, a lot of which is highly exaggerated, really is, and also false. I'm not gonna give opinions, nor am I gonna name drop, blame, or do any of that shit. I myself had both a great and a bad time because of it. I definitely made great, great friends through it. But I'll surely mention and drop some cool stuff that happened, mostly revolving around my batch.
Okay, so to start with it, let's go a bit by time. First major event was New Year; we dropped into 2023 with half the batch sick. Then came election and Lohri iirc, then our midsems, then Arma, then Enthuzia. My plan for this piece is to cover mostly New Year, half the batch being sick, Lohri, and election. Will keep midsem plus Arma plus Enthuzia for the next one or two blogs.
Let's get to it. I'm in Surat, 1034 hours, Don Toliver blasting, and I don't know what Arpan is doing right now.
31st December 2022, the entire batch (or almost) got together at Ideation. I'm not even kidding, we all were dressed (I wasn't). Me and 626 boys had done laundry, will drop in the pic below for the ref, and had come out. Saw everybody super dressed, girlies all dressed, boys clicking nice pics of their crushes to impress them. Gupta was mad at himself for not finding his whatever the hell he wore on his knees because of whatever the hell had happened to his knees. It was cold, damn, damn cold. That's why the title of this series of blogs - the real winter. And guess what, because of this, the next day, a quarter of the batch fell sick, really sick. A week later, it was half the batch. Almost like an epidemic btw; also the chicken pox era came in, people being admitted to the 'brain space'. The best was when couples got admitted together, it was like god blessed them, almost an ideal situation. I myself fell sick, sinusitis, two days, back with a bang the third day. Then I, alone, went to Chirayu, was told I had sinusitis. Man, that was a hard day. I didn't even carry cash, came back in the bus, and met the dad of one of the kids from my batch, who was visiting because his own son was sick, and he also paid my fare in the bus. My phone was at 3% charge that day, and I was still listening to songs on full volume. Some things never change. On my way back from gate to LHC, I saw Utkarsh sitting on a bench and he asked me what happened. He then mentioned a man named Rahul Das; people on campus know the transport empire he has built, now taken a bit over by other enterprises. Haha. Met Ano in LHC who said, "brother you look dead," because I did look dead. Trust me guys, that one sick episode had my balls up my throat. Bhopal winters are cruel.
Also guys, I write these being like really excited and worked up, so I also miss some details which I want y'all to know. And if any of you want me to add some more details that you know, just drop a text. I'll be more than happy to add them and also give credit, in a quirky sense of course.
We also had an EES quiz around this time, which I flunked, but Gupta flunked harder, even after studying harder. To make things worse, he had taught AA and Adheesh both the night before and both scored higher than him. Sad state of affairs. Dropping in the pic of our marksheets for y'all to see.
I love IISERB, but there are some things I always kinda hated. One of them was elections. I know it's a necessary system but every time a batch election happens, there's a soft line being created between people, which gets darker and tougher every subsequent election. Our elections were fun: a lot of candidates, a lot of questions, Raman's ass on fire while asking questions. He made sure everybody knew he had marked his territory. A first-year Raman would shut Shashi Tharoor up as well. Not kidding here. GOAT. I'm gonna drop Dhawal's poster, maybe also Aashrit's. Haha.
Then came Lohri. Man, oh MAN, people got to know the animal in me that night. The way I danced, people thought I was drunk. It was prolly the best ever DJ I've ever had, like really man. And yes, this was when I was sick. I had to crawl to the hostel, quite literally because I was so sick, but fuck it, we ball. I danced like it was my own party.
There's also a fun pic of me and Adheesh arm wrestling. Adding it here as well, just for the good omen that comes with Adheesh.
Also dropping a pic of Adheesh and AA with me in the library, the night before the EES quiz I guess.
I think this is enough for this one. I've been really enjoying writing these, and I hope y'all are liking these too. Thanks a lot to those who read these. You can drop a text about anything btw. Always.
Cool then I guess. Will drop the next one soon.
Cheers,
Patel.