THE MIDNIGHT SAGA

To begin with, for all my non bitsian friends, “NIGHT OUT” in the bitsian lingo is a cruel misnomer referring to the all night slogging usually done before a test to prevent the inevitable. Well, for many of my friends out here, it is a way of life but for me the night of 12/13 November, 2009 was the “NIGHT”. The term is a misnomer because everybody usually remains locked up inside their rooms, performing activities that are just the total opposite of what one is actually supposed to do on a ‘night out’. Yeah, the only thing common is that both of these leave you with a ’hangover’. It’s in this hangover and a little jiffy that I am writing this post.

After meticulous planning and tedious procrastination for about a fortnight, I was able to bring together the task of the submission of Petroleum Refining and Petrochemicals (PRPC) assignment and that of submission of the Optimization assignment on the same day..err.. the night. Of course, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude towards my dear friend Kalia (alias Rishabh), also my assignment partner in PRPC, who left no stone unturned in making this possible and providing me with the much needed inspiration and guiding light for a ‘Night Out’.

The PRPC assignment was to be submitted at 2pm while the OT assignment was to be submitted by 8.00 am in the morning. I had had a tough time earlier that day with my Heat Transfer Operations test going in the drain.

To ensure a complete ‘Night Out’ I tactically took refuge in the so called ‘good’ movie ‘Ajab Prem KiGazab Kahani' which turned out to be depressing .Actually in the current stage of my life sans ‘someone special’, I find all such romantic movies very depressing. The ‘Night out’ began with the PRPC assignment which actually turned out to be quite an interesting task.I found the Offshore Drilling Technology particularly awesome and beyond my imagination. Meanwhile I could feel the outside temperature dropping as the cool breeze kept seeping in through the closed window. After completion of ‘stage 1’of the assignment at about 1:30 am, I and Kalia set out for Food King to recharge ourselves.
As we stepped out of our beloved BUDH BHAWAN, it was a different world altogether. The morning (next) fog was just setting in, with a little drizzle going on. My thought reflexively (refluxively for my Chemical Engineering friends), went to the smell of warm ‘Pakoras’ and obviously the would be and yet unknown ‘Pakora banane waali’. With the cool breeze blowing all over, it seemed so surreal. The dosa was awesome, But it was the ‘coffee on the cold night thing’ that made this experience so cherish able that I could not stop myself from writing this post.

After returning it was the same old Optimization assignment once again which had ruined the sleep of the entire 3rd year batch on four previous occasions. Grumbling, I somehow finished the assignment but a load of the PRPC assignment still remained .As the clocked ticked close to 6am, I decided to doze off.
The next thing I remember was this:
OHK!! I have calculated the thermal properties of air at 7.20 am , hmmm…, what if I calculate them at 7.30 am …should still work…but that’s too close to the threshold limit of 8.00 am!!!..Uhhmm… AND Then the THUD on my door, that woke me up.

Well, the deadly combo of assignments proved voluminous enough that I had to forego my lunch for the first time in BITS. Thanks to the morning glass full of coffee that I was live and confused though.

Perhaps for the first time in my Bitsian life, I saw how does 5.00 am look like in the alarm clock. And, did you know, the morning aarti in the Saraswati Mandir is held at 5 am ?? I realized the power of caffeine as a stimulant. Three mugs of coffee are more than enough to keep you awake for the next night and half the other day.
While all of my friends woke up to find the fog in the morning, I slept with it!!!
Although, it resulted in our submission of a 45/300 mark report WITHOUT an INDEX (!!!), this was an experience worth reminiscing, I dare say more than may be a real Night Out (May be because I have not experienced a real one as yet :p).