August Encounter - I

Sometime in August of 2008, this incident took place in the second year studio of Architecture Department of NIT Jaipur. I am, being a fresher, summoned by my ‘immediate’ seniors to have a discussion. I am told in advance that the guy I would be meeting is the most tough to tackle and tamper with. Rather than making me understand anything, the words just do the opposite and I stick to only constant quality of mine and that is stubborn-ness.

As I enter the studio with others from my batch, we are asked to stand in an orderly fashion. As we all que around, the seniors start asking reasons to all of us for the errors we had done. Some had not attended to their earlier calls, some were wearing belts or shoes and many others were indulged in other petty things. Many are let off easily while others have to bear with them for a bit longer.

This tough guy on recognising my presence asks me for my name and other introductory details, before coming to the straight talk of asking my reasons for not abiding with the dress code supposed to be followed by freshers in the college. As I ‘argue’ with them giving reasons for me not giving up the jeans and tee. The guy tries to manipulate my thoughts a lot but as I forbid to give up and his batch-mates and many others also give up, he is forced by friends to leave me as in their words I was a “stupid, stubborn crap, who will regret this all very soon”.

The whole lunch break is over in the incident, but I get a start that was quite unexpected, unplanned and registers in my memories quite well. To this date I consider the guy to be best of seniors I came in contact with as he and most others never again troubled with the same immaterial topic of dress code. We have a lot of interaction and talks and quite good communication on several occasions on varied topics including rock music, interaction among friends, seniors and juniors and things like why we shall indulge in socializing even though some time we might not like it…