Obsessions of an IITian

Being a student at one of India’s leading ‘excellence in engineering education’ institutions, I don’t want to sound obnoxious. However the list enlisted below is loosely based on my own personal experiences with the residents here, and is more or less pretty accurate.

1. Girls –
There is no questioning their dominance at the top of this list. And no, I am not talking about the ‘girls’ at IIT. Rather, this class includes all the femme fatales that we IITians manage to zero down upon after hours and hours and hours of browsing through profiles on Orkut, Facebook, MySpace and the likes. And then arises the dilemma of how to approach them. A few try the direct ‘fraanship’ approach; some seek the more subtle wait-and-watch approach while the rest (a majority) stoop down to the level of sending ‘Will you become my sister’ messages just to add them to their friend’s list. This list also includes the girls from the local non-engineering arts colleges.

2. Google –
This, we believe, is the greatest tool ever created by mankind (err…I mean created by the deity – Larry Sergey). The Google ranks even above The Fire and The Wheel on the list of ‘Greatest Inventions ever invented’. For more information and statistics on the usage of the aforementioned apparatus by IITians, please visit http://www.google.com

3. Wikipedia –
And this, dear friends, is the big bad brother-in-law of Google. (Jimmy Wales, the creator of Wikipedia, is actually Larry’s wife’s mother’s sister’s husband’s father’s cousin’s brother’s nephew’s daughter’s uncle’s grandmother’s niece’s aunt’s son!). Projects, assignments, reviews, tests, quizzes, final examinations, presentations…you name it and we use it. Not surprisingly, our bedtime prayers include a verse – “We thank thee Lord for Wiki”.

4. The Opposite Sex –
Not to be confused with Class 1. This refers to the damsels who flock to our campus during our Cultural or Technical Fests. But beware, as even these not-so-well-endowed-in-the-looks-category ladies have the power to make us drool all over and follow them around with our tongues hanging out, hoping that they’ll answer in the affirmative if we ask them out for the Salsa workshop to be held the next day.

5. Jobs in the Financial Sector –
This is where all the money and moolah is. (Or rather was!). Sadly though, the current meltdown of the global financial markets seems to have limited our options. But no fear, coz Infosys and TCS are always here!!

6. American Universities –
The prospect of higher education (in spite of studying at one of the epitomes of higher education in India) draws us to those far-off fairytale lands like vultures to a dead carcass. And the opportunity to acquire greater knowledge and maybe, to go along, a couple of firangi chicks as well is a major plus point.

7. Non-males –
Please don’t get me wrong. By non-males we do not refer to the third sex but rather to the inmates of the inappropriately named ‘Girls Hostel’ at the IITs. Nevertheless they are a rare species to be found only amongst the fauna and flora of the beautiful campuses. Most of the non-males (apparently) already have ‘boyfriends’ outside the campus, while others manage to locate the love of the lives on the campus itself during their 4 year stints. One must acknowledge the fact that they do bring variety and diversity to the otherwise dull and dreary life here.

8. Social Networking Sites –
If the number of ‘Kamlesh invites you to join My-Chaddi-Buddy.com’ invitations were anything to go by, it would seem that a new social networking site comes up every other day. And we end up accepting most of these invites. Why? Refer to the 1st obsession.

9. LAN – Acronym for Local Area Network.
Move over HBO, Channel V and Star News. This is the one stop shop for all our entertainment needs. Games, movies, sitcoms, pirated software, e-books, still more games….The perfect paradise for all IIT intellectuals (read geeks).

10. _____________ -
T. Patrick, C. Lane, J. Haze, Paris Hilton, Jenna Jameson, Pamela Anderson, My Friend’s Hot Son…..I think you must have got the gist of what I am trying to get at (especially if you are an IITian).

P.S. – This post is dedicated to Ms. Bon Travail, Layla and Abhinav T. for encouraging me to keep writing. And also to TS who is looking for an IITian!!