CHIMAERA
Business (ad)ventures of 1977
Sivakumar Koorapati, 1974
Two high-flying BITSian entrepreneurs and one Redi-wallah make a mouth-watering combination to hatch two simultaneous business ideas. As expected, nothing goes right!
(This is a true story from Sivakumar Koorapati and Santosh ‘Fatso’ Salve from the BITS Pilani 1974-1979 batch. Unfortunately, Santosh Salve passed away in an accident a few years after graduation.)
It was probably May 1977 when Fatso and I were just finishing up the 3rd year 2nd semester and getting ready to go to CDRI, Lucknow for PS1. We were sitting at the KB redi enjoying a bread tikki and chai when a couple of new business ideas were born during casual chatter with Bisu – the KB rediwala then. Our conversation went something like this….
A mother’s letter
Meenakshi Chatterjee, 2000 Physics & EEE
Mohua is a successful lawyer in the city. Single, beautiful and vain, she emulates her mother. She is caught up in her busy routine when a neatly stacked bundle of pages arrives: the first letter written by her mother, and the last…
As she rummaged through her post, Mohua did not expect to find anything other than a few annoying credit card requests and her monthly PG&E bill. It definitely surprised her to be holding a rather bulky envelope. It was addressed to her in neat, large, beautifully shaped letters. To the careless eyes, it would appear printed. This handwriting had won several prizes at school. It belonged to her mother.
The sender’s address was missing. “From Indrani Roychoudhury” was all it said...
Down the memory lane
S B L Mathur, 1946 Mechanical
“Dear Editor,
“Here I am with the article that my father dictated and I hurriedly typed in.
“Time has changed almost everything including BITS. Please take into consideration
that my father is talking of the times when the college buildings were still under
construction and the students more or less studied in a gurukul style… under thatched
roofs!
“Hope you find everything in order.
“Thanks,
Nupur Mathur”
I am now probably one of the oldest of the alumni of BITS, Pilani. It has been my fortune to have seen the Institute grow from being merely a small engineering college in a remote part of the country to becoming a mammoth of an Institute, whose fame has spread worldwide. It was, of course, the vision of one man initially, but has grown with the help of competent staff and students through the years.
Looking down the annals of my life, the best years that I spent were the ones at BITS Pilani...
Faith
Rahul Misra, 2000 Civil & Computer Science
“Without the promise of a fulfilled life…..on the altar of faith’”
A queue that stretches for miles,
Millions pushing in,
Bare feet on hot concrete,
For a four second glimpse of the deity,
Hands hurriedly folded in prayer...
An unforgettable celestial phenomenon
Prashant Mohan, 1994 Maths & EEE
As BITSians gathered 100 km away from the campus to watch a once-in-a-lifetime experience, the moon could not help feeling she was putting up an OASIS performance in the audi!
We were in our second year in 1995. The BITS physics society was going to organise a trip to witness the most important event in the sky (the real one!). There was some hype in the newspapers that the event was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most people in the narrow latitude belt that extended from Diamond harbour in West Bengal up to the western deserts of Jaisalmer. And, guess what, the latitude to witness such a grand event was as close as 100 km from Pilani...
Imported scales
Aparajith Ramnath, 2001 EEE
The search for a gift, a musical instrument for a friend in US makes for an interesting adventure for Susheela.
Hey Sally,
Re: your last email, I hope the rain’s eased up a little there. Not fun when you’ve a few weeks off and have to spend them indoors. Here, on the other hand, the sun’s been blazing away as usual. (That used to be the title of a column by an ex-cricketer in the newspapers here: ‘Blazing Away’. My dad would read aloud from it in the mornings, chuckling at its indiscriminate use of quotation marks ... but of course cricket means even less to you than it does to me.) Remember all that stuff we read about the Orientalism and the Othering of the Tropics and what not? I’m no Orientalist or Other-er of the Tropics, but I’ll swear I’ve been spending most of my time sitting with a tumbler of lemon juice, the fan overhead whirring at full speed, staring out at the coconut trees, hot, green and still. It’s only in the evenings, when the sea breeze sets in, that even the trees begin to perk up a little, swaying ever so gently and looking a softer shade of green...
Tamilnadu express
Nishant Pullabhatla
A beautiful woman travelling alone on a Tamil Nadu Express meets a handsome man in the same compartment. Will it be a fairy tale?
It felt eerie in the station even though it was Chennai central with 18 platforms and trains running in and out all the time. It was early January and very late at night, not an ideal travelling time for most. The occasional sound of sledging diesel engine or the piercing pipe of an electric engine disturbed the silence of the platform. There were some waiting for Tamil Nadu Express to arrive. Tonight TN Express was being stubborn, a technical hitch delaying its departure from Chennai central...
In the dim foggy night on platform 4, she was staring into nothingness. He looked bored, smoking cigarette after cigarette. She turned to look at him; he couldn’t help but meet her eyes...
The Bet
By Anuradha Gupta
What does it take to make an unusual date? A sporting BITSian girl, a spunky BITSian boy and a bet looming large. Love isn’t always required.
I trudged into Pilani battle weary in 1986; over 20 years have passed me by and the joy and light-heartedness BITS brought my life still soothes my soul! Etched in my memories are some moments, some tales of sunny days, some of cold, wintry evenings, yet warm with simplicity and good, clean fun...
...It was the proverbial ‘midsummer night’s dream’...
Random reminiscences
Ashok Kadian, 1971
(Retd.) Colonel, Indian Army, Engineering Core
Ashok sits back reflecting on those bygone days at a nascent BITS Pilani, and takes all of us on this enjoyable journey down his memory lane.
What is it about BITS Pilani that makes you want to go back and see that place again – and again? Sure, it is your alma mater, but there is something more than that.
Recollecting the days of the late 1960s and early 1970s Pilani was a centre of scientific study – but situated in an area untouched by science. This paradox, along with a few other things, created a sort of arcane atmosphere about Pilani...
Knowledge is ignorance
Enakshi Chatterjee, 2000 EEE
In our knowledge lies our ignorance.
The other day, I came across this phrase. Took me quite a few minutes to completely understand what it meant. Oxymoron and quite laconic, the phrase forced me to think again on what I had learnt, of knowledge removing ignorance...