Golden Jubilee Convocation – IIT Kharagpur

The Golden Jubilee Convocation held on 26th Feb’05 provided us with a wonderful opportunity to skip work for a couple of days and revisit one of the “fine monuments of modern India” once more (I’m sure I wish to do it many more times in near as well as distant future).
The convocation was a success with no additional security arrangement, which could have spoiled the show; no central minister on the podium making ridiculous claims; no sarkari babu echoing his masters voice; and no PSU boss (or even his fat deputy) throwing a corrupt feudal look towards the rest of the world. The dignitaries were all IIT-KGP alumnus like the Director-BARC or Lord Sushantha Bhattacharya and quite familiar R Gopalakrishnan from Tata Group. 
The chief guest was Mr Arjun Malhotra (he set up the G S Sanyal School of Telecom and unlike Mr VinodGupta decided to name the school after his professor G S Sanyal). Arjun delivered a remarkable  speech on the occasion that made the audience spellbound. He touched upon several themes – the fond memories of his IIT days ( “I remember long discussions about life over late night tea at Cheddis”) ; The lessons he’d learnt while founding HCL in the year 1975 in a garage with five others; how his short stint with DCM enriched him; what keeps silicon valley entrepreneurs going and many such anecdotes. The pleasant surprise came when he mentioned VGSoM of all departments of IIT while discussing the how hard is the decision making in real life. (“That situation is one that will be familiar to those of you from the VGSoM. Management consists of taking decisions under conditions of uncertainty”).

While his look, posture & anecdotes reminded me of Dr Subroto Roy, the similies & metaphors had an unmistakable resemblance to that of Prof Sadhu. (“You cannot lead a team unless you can read the team”;  “I call every graduate of this fine institution to go out and create with compassion; lead with love & work with wisdom” He started quite predictably with Nehru, mentioned Gandhi & John F. Kennedy in between and again concluded with that famous quote (“ the making of India’s future…”) of Pandit Nehru, the father of our IIT system.

We four (Kesavan, followed by Kalyan, myself and finally Vaibhav) were somewhere in the middle to receive degrees. There was an element of nervousness since on the stage I had to manage the convocation scarf without forgetting to bow three times at right places and that too in front of flashbulbs & television cameras in plethora. But, it was too cool & near perfect for all of us.

The convocation was followed by a lunch at hangar thrown by the director for degree recipients and other guests. We caught a glimpse of new VGSOM building at the back. Inside, it looked really impressive with new classrooms, computer lab and an elevator. Juniors have added two new white-boards in the placement room (our school is growing…) where I found names of some of us boldly written at strategic places!

Our very own Bahadur (the eternal companion of all those who used to sit in the computer lab till 4 in the morning) was replaced by a new security guard from some private agency.

Juniors were extremely cordial in the hostel. (In fact, I have copied some movies from Praveen Peter’s PC and a few softwares too!). More aquagurads, geyser & one cloth drier have eased the burden on the existing ones. Shareaza is no longer in operation. But the top-priority & confidential activities are now carried out in a new avatar of it called DC++. The quest for good and better movies, hence, could not die down.
Those hapless souls who had taken Buyer Behaviour last year as audit ( including a reasonably smart Shobhit &
his not-so-smart dada) would be glad (!) to hear that our Nike dadi ( so wittily named by Shubhomoy) has joined VGSoM as a permanent faculty and dumping assignments one after another on our juniors. The venerable E-Commerce course has been scrapped since it did not find any takers. ERP however is till a very hot subject being driven by the job market growth.

….there are many more gossips to share and many more anecdotes to tell…

Howver, I feel I have successfully bored you with this long mail and before our yahoogroup moderator disqualify me as a member, let me take refuge in the lap of some useless things which somehow helps me in earning a living!

Love to all !

IIT Kharagpur – February 26, 2005
Posted first at yahoogroups ‘vgsom2004’ on 28th February,2005