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Artwork by Prof. Arun Inamdar
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]As background, I had the honor of serving as General Secretary (GS) of Hostel 4 in 1968-69 1 . During my H4 GS term, we broke all norms for a hostel function (and more).
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Photo Courtesy: Author
[/vc_column_text][vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”Part” tab_id=”1652167043146-8b48d3aa-714a”][vc_column_text]Long, long ago, in 1965, archeologists were scandalized to find a stoned student in the bed of Powai Lake (surname first), who pretended that it was routine matter.
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Artwork by Prof. Arun Inamdar
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]For most of us, the four years that we spent at IIT Bombay as undergraduates, though a small fraction of our total age, are arguably among the best years of our lives.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The first girl to join the B.Tech. program of IIT Bombay was Tejaswini Saraf (now Kanvinde).
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Artwork by Prof. Arun Inamdar
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Somewhere in the second semester, we were told that we need to have a field trip to gather the mandatory 100 hours needed for social service in the first two years by Prof Major.
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Artwork by Prof. Arun Inamdar
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]I am Bankim Biswas and what I write is a lot of bunkum and wishwash. I write about “then” and “now” scenarios. I am from the “then” generation. Mercifully so. Else, I would have been known as @bunkum_h4bee. Yes, I’m a gujju but the title is not my gujju accent. It’s about some tales from hostels. Tales that live on forever. Evergreen stories from a black & white era.
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Artwork by Prof. Arun Inamdar
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Once upon a time, there was a magazine called the Debonair. It was famous for its nude centrespreads. Nobody knows what else there was in the magazine.
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Artwork by Prof. Arun Inamdar
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]When did the ‘start-up’ culture start in IITB?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]I don’t exactly know, but let me tell you about some start-ups that occurred in the late nineteen sixties.
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Photo: Mid-April 1972 with batchmates and classmates from H4
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]It happened suddenly. Messmates started shouting and there was chaos. Demands were made as to who prepared aloo subzi for the dinner.
[vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”1. Surviving Two Cultures” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:left|color:%23dd9933″][vc_column_text]About a week or two after I became a resident of Hostel 4 on the campus, for some reason I was a bit late getting to the mess for dinner. Usually, a whole gang of about 12-15 of us freshies would gather, go to the mess, and sit at the same table together – for the same reason that Herrings form large shoals, the larger the shoal the lesser the probability of any one individual being eaten by a marauding Shark!