Beginnings-6: Impact of College days

2009-2013, Trichy, India

The advent of Personal Computers:

Till 2009, all my family had was a 1990s Compaq Desktop and a modern PC in 2005. The only handheld device which was available and also affordable to us was Nokia 1100. I used this phone mostly till smart phones started spreading in Indian markets in 2011.

Then when I had my first personal laptop in 2009, the entire world and exposure were completely changed, the world got bigger in that 20-inch laptop. During my college days in India, my seniors and we all used to have a bunch of stuff like ebooks, media, movies, porn and pirated software on the hostel or college intranet (in the college server, and also on personal hard disks).

We used to share the personal hard disks and download the stuff or connect the laptops to college servers and get stuff from other laptops. Usually, as part of ragging or hazing culture, the seniors take pleasure in inducing the junior or freshmen into funny silly stuff and also into vulgar habits like drinking alcohol, drugs, etc to enter their wolf pack. This is a common scenario across all countries. 

I was immune to drugs and alcohol, the brahmin lady teacher who tutored me weekly for over 10 years (age 7 to 17) as part of the Sathya Sai Baba Movement gave certain training and put a certain code into my psyche to easily resist drugs and alcohol temptation but never did she speak about handling sex energy as it is a taboo topic in India.

When my friends introduced me the full-blown porn movies in Gbs of hard disk, I had no answer on how to tackle that energy. I wish I had some training or psychic code on how to tackle it or be prepared for it. I floundered into it. Others floundered into alcohol and drugs, and I floundered here!

Once while navigating thru an ocean of porn films on the hard disk and downloading them, I came across one book which accidentally got downloaded into the laptop, it was a book on Yoga by Shivananda. It is an old book written with a bunch of pictures and shows several asanas and mudras.

Porn was a natural habit that was simulated in my environment during my college days, after getting sober from watching porn, I used to read this yoga book and try those asanas, and methods. Tried all asanas in that book to stop this habit and control sex stimulation, but nothing worked. 

Also during my teenage years 17-19, tried several asanas and some mudras where the tongue is folded in some shape like U and other shapes around the teeth. The book under the benefits session of that mudra mentioned the practitioner will attain the beauty and vigor of Indra, I am sad to announce that never happened even after 2-3 years of practice. Indeed, a moment of realization! This is not a complaint but revealing that my attempts to use yoga to increase my physical beauty at the end of my teenage life never succeeded, sad indeed! 

Some background of the institution:

The founder started the institution (the college I went to) back in 1960 (India got independence from the British in 1947), he came back from Canada and he was asked by the then minister of state to start an engineering institution in a no-man's land.

Well, that guy was a visionary and carried certain psychic power and energy which he left behind. The institution shot to fame in the 1980s and several presidents of India were impressed by his achievements and how he turned a 700 acres land of rocks and hot red soil into the famed institute today. Ministers and Big-wigs were wondering how he did this turn-around because they hardly gave any funds to him to build any institute on that no man's land and with just 3 odd buildings how did he turn things around that every rich kid in that country wanted to get there in the 1970-80s. 

He was a very unique leader and founder, I have read his several interviews and also direct reports from some alumni and parents who moved closely with him.

Some hidden secrets of the leader were, he took several politicians and bureaucrat's sons into the college back from the 1960s to 1980s and made the institution a group of rich kids asylum and gave them the free pass to do whatever they want. With the rich and powerful kids coming there, the funds and government approval for more stuff obviously followed them and he smartly built the institute with it. He famously said once that "this institute was not built in the laps of Queen Elizabeth but in hot rocks and dry red sand of Trichy, so it is not fair to compare us with those elites" (alluding to other federal Insitutes that got big funds from British and Germans).

He also took in some percentage of hard-working village/ urban students with extraordinary merit to offset the imbalance, created by the rich kinds. These 2 extremes created a unique mixture of energy that still pervades that institute.  

Obviously, the rich kids went downhill with alcohol and drugs, and the founder/ principal reprimanded professors to let kids do what they want and learn from their own mistakes, not to do any moral policing. The founder focused only on the environment which will support their adventures and experiments and he trusted wholeheartedly that the kids will come out from this muddle in bright colors.

On one side, some students built their own speakers, electronics, and sound systems back in the 70s and others were drinking under the trees and the professors were begging the drunkards to just appear for the exams when all were scratching their heads on his crazy approach, the founder was confident in his independent ways. The output was something very unique and the institute still stands tall on its achievements and alumni.   

This was revolutionary in his time especially in a country as conservative as India. The energy he left behind in the institute is still strong and the students somehow find their way to succeed in their profession or make a decent living but with some psychic cost definitely. Several of them went out with alcohol and drug habits (including brahmin bodied kids)

College Environment:

There was no electricity, no water, and worst food, and porn was the only shelter for all boys in our hostels (also some girls used to view it) as it gave satisfaction and eased the burns of lack of basic amenities and other age-related frustrations. The environment was stimulating and assisting those bad habits as we are far away from our parent's control in an isolated place.

It was a federal college, and we were in no man's land, so isolated, even police don't come there, we were almost scott free. It is hard to get into those colleges, as the entrance exams are so damn hard and competitive. When I was 16, a senior told me that this particular college is one such place where he guaranteed complete independence from every elder or parent's interference but also warned as the breeding bed of several bad habits. The energy was unique mixture!

Well, such an environment is rarest of rarest, he said if I don't work hard I may end up in colleges which could be like hell with full of moral policing by idiots in the guise of professors (pseudo) or staff who insist on dress code, hair styles, opposite genders shall not talk, not raising difficult questions to faculty, school environment in college, etc. This alarmed me, but that was the reality. These words were enough to motivate me to get into the institute that guaranteed full independence for the next 4 years. 

One way or another either in school or college or office or friend's influence, the bad/ vulgar habit is going to penetrate the psyche, and the world is filled with such dark psychic energy today anyway. For me, it happened in college. 

Single or dual or triple degree:

As seniors joke around usually whoever graduates from our institute comes out with a dual degree,

1. one is whatever he specializes in like computer, electronic, or mechanical, etc
2. the second one is the Masters in Survival Skills

The conditions are always bad, the environment does not sponsor, and the karma of the institution and the people who run it make it even worse. Eg: Unhygienic food, no water, no electricity, no proper functioning toilets, etc. This is the story of most Govt. operating educational institutes in India, some exceptions are there, and also I heard private players keep it clean but with moral policing on their campus.

I would say we get a triple degree, the third degree is specialization in either one bad habit too, either in mixing or making different types of cocktails/ mocktails, joints, flavors of drugs, hookahs, gaming, porn, etc.

Nevertheless, the complete independence I experienced during my college days was worth it, I was able to do unimaginable crazy things during that period and the quality of loneliness was unimaginable in a country like India.  

Some College day Pictures:

Some pictures during my time in my college, this was the day to day life. We were shocked initially but got used to these things eventually and it looks nostalgic when I look back at these pictures.

I did not take some pictures when frogs were jumping out of the kitchen or toads/ insects floating in the curry. haha!

Visitors barged into our rooms and corridors:

A sneaky visitor to our bathrooms and toilets: (someone came to pee with us)

One of my hostel rooms: (a decent picture)

My friend's hostel room: (hang out spot)