Some day back during the WC (when India was still in race) one of my friends asked me "Why u people don't buy TV...its really worth buying it now". And I was able to give him two reasons: it gives me an opportunity to go to my friend's sweet home and then enjoy matches together there in an envoirnment full of cricket enthusiast and if we buy TV, then after long days in office, sticking to TVs which we have seen in some cases will decrease the socialization aspect of life (with friends/roommates/others) to minimal. With few people's appreciation I felt my explanation overall made sense. And also made me write this blog about the college days.
With so many people (56, if I remember correctly) joining hostel from different parts of country, the various ways of entertainment was always high on everyone's mind. I remember with no personal computer in our hostel batch in first semester, it helped everyone a lot to interact, socialize, share, be creative and even identify each others habits very closely. With only a small computer room with about 7-8 PCs, it gave every person enough time to spend time out of their rooms. I do remember people who after 1st year were rarely found out of their rooms were never in their rooms after returning from institute for 1st two semesters. There were full bakaiti and haha hihi chaupals, bumps sessions, sports activities, visits to almost each and every 20 rooms and then these PCs started arriving which changed a lot many aspects of hostel life. One of my friends having CD player and speakers and the other having a two-in-one were the only source of music in the whole wing. That was also the time that on slightest hint everyone used to assemble for everything. I still remember a day when whole batch ran, like a 100m race, after a couple of guys to give them bumps for spreading wrong information about someone's birthday (which had resulted in that guy getting a lot of bumps with nothing ON) and then came after me because they were not able to locate them at the place told by me. Then people used to share their personal troubles, complains about the system, day happenings, plans and I believe hanging around at different places in Delhi itself with friends was much more during those days. 1st PC in the whole batch was brought in 2nd sem by my friend who used to stay in the room which was just in front of mine. And in a way his life changed-few classes(almost none), all days sleeping(this is because no one let him sleep in night for obvious reasons), full time LAN games (i still remember those AOE sound effects) and definitely his interaction level decreased.
By 2nd year most of the people got their PCs and the socialization level decreased more which can be for many reasons like exposure to many new interesting arenas, time pass activities or may be learning few more things, though this last thing must be the case with least possibilty. And with few other aspects of sincerity to improve CGPAs, political and ambition clashes, personal commitments emerging ,this got reduced to minimal level.
With the latest batch that entered hostel, while I was leaving, this thing changed very much with many guys bringing their PCs or laptops along with the basic necessity that they brought with them to live in hostel. And that left with me no surprise when I get to know few guys not remebering their batchmate's names even after a month (we used to remember them in 3 days!) because they had been too busy getting adjusted to the system or just fascinated with the kind of things that they are exposed to using the LANs(DC++ which started from IITD is a big hit in all IITs and everyone who went through the transition from IPScan and Sharescan to 0DC++ knows what kinda effect this thing had and still has) or the Internet itself or even without these things the PC itself has so many options to keep one engaged.
If I remember those days I do believe that these PCs do made a lot of changes in our hostel life and though in a sense it made many things better but in other it made many things worse. And I don't know whether this TV will have the same impact but surely it made me reminisce the dull effects that PCs brought in our happy and happening hostel life few years back.
With so many people (56, if I remember correctly) joining hostel from different parts of country, the various ways of entertainment was always high on everyone's mind. I remember with no personal computer in our hostel batch in first semester, it helped everyone a lot to interact, socialize, share, be creative and even identify each others habits very closely. With only a small computer room with about 7-8 PCs, it gave every person enough time to spend time out of their rooms. I do remember people who after 1st year were rarely found out of their rooms were never in their rooms after returning from institute for 1st two semesters. There were full bakaiti and haha hihi chaupals, bumps sessions, sports activities, visits to almost each and every 20 rooms and then these PCs started arriving which changed a lot many aspects of hostel life. One of my friends having CD player and speakers and the other having a two-in-one were the only source of music in the whole wing. That was also the time that on slightest hint everyone used to assemble for everything. I still remember a day when whole batch ran, like a 100m race, after a couple of guys to give them bumps for spreading wrong information about someone's birthday (which had resulted in that guy getting a lot of bumps with nothing ON) and then came after me because they were not able to locate them at the place told by me. Then people used to share their personal troubles, complains about the system, day happenings, plans and I believe hanging around at different places in Delhi itself with friends was much more during those days. 1st PC in the whole batch was brought in 2nd sem by my friend who used to stay in the room which was just in front of mine. And in a way his life changed-few classes(almost none), all days sleeping(this is because no one let him sleep in night for obvious reasons), full time LAN games (i still remember those AOE sound effects) and definitely his interaction level decreased.
By 2nd year most of the people got their PCs and the socialization level decreased more which can be for many reasons like exposure to many new interesting arenas, time pass activities or may be learning few more things, though this last thing must be the case with least possibilty. And with few other aspects of sincerity to improve CGPAs, political and ambition clashes, personal commitments emerging ,this got reduced to minimal level.
With the latest batch that entered hostel, while I was leaving, this thing changed very much with many guys bringing their PCs or laptops along with the basic necessity that they brought with them to live in hostel. And that left with me no surprise when I get to know few guys not remebering their batchmate's names even after a month (we used to remember them in 3 days!) because they had been too busy getting adjusted to the system or just fascinated with the kind of things that they are exposed to using the LANs(DC++ which started from IITD is a big hit in all IITs and everyone who went through the transition from IPScan and Sharescan to 0DC++ knows what kinda effect this thing had and still has) or the Internet itself or even without these things the PC itself has so many options to keep one engaged.
If I remember those days I do believe that these PCs do made a lot of changes in our hostel life and though in a sense it made many things better but in other it made many things worse. And I don't know whether this TV will have the same impact but surely it made me reminisce the dull effects that PCs brought in our happy and happening hostel life few years back.
1 comment:
PC's of course decrease the social interaction among the batch mates...b tech can be passed with better grades if you don't have PC...I have one example from my batch...The person who knew the most about programming and related stuff didn't have PC...ppl but it just to have fun...
Nice post...
Cheers,
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