Yr 1:Panagarh ke Sholay

NCC
The first 2 years here have an extra burden attached to them other than the academics. Students get a choice between various sports, NSS( social service) and NCC( National Cadet Corps)...
Try-outs were allowed for any one sport/physical activity... I tried out for yoga in the first year and was rejected ( "You are over-weight...")although a year of the mess food has taken its toll now!. That gave me a choice between the Army and Air NCC , I chose the Army and the following weeks had drills in the sun, with a few sessions of weapon handling...
I guess the part people disliked most was the immaculacy in attire. Short hair, clean shaved faces, polished boots which bit at the ankles, and ofcourse the khaki coloured uniforms...
All these are alien concepts to most IITians since laziness is an ideal which we hold dear to our hearts and the lackadaisical attitude is one which stems from a self-assumed intellectual superiority.
So, most classes had the instructors shouting out mild insults and pointing out our imperfections in doing the simplest of tasks. Our parades were inefficient, our drills were a joke, and try as they might, not a single class went by without some idiot being pulled out because of a imperfect attire!!
But amidst all the bickering, the one thing most admirable was the patience and tolerance of the Army and Air Force officers. They were quite patient with us through most of the 'ordeal' (as most of us will put it!). At the end of the first semester, we had camp...
It was the first week of December and we were off to a much neglected military camp at Panagarh. When we got there, we were informed that thieves had gotten inside during the neglected years, and stolen the doors of all the toilets!! I mean, what kind of retards do that??
The result was opaque sheets of cellophane that hung outside each door to an unavoidable fate ( I really don't think anyone went 10 days without crapping!). This led to really hilarious and inventive ways to indicate an occupied loo... people whistled, sung, help the sheet tightly, threw their pants across the sheet...etc.
Platoon no. 1 got mess duty the first day, which meant that my first day would go well, or so i thought. Mornings were at 5 so that we fell in-line at 6. You could see a plume of your own condensed breath for 2 feet in the air in that chill. As we went for a jog with the instructors, cramps set in the unused muscles and wordless abuses were mouthed while panting for breath. When we sat nursing our aching limbs on the 2nd evening, we were informed that we have to present a 'cultural show' for the commanding officer on the last night of the camp. This meant that some of us would be spared most of the exertion so that we could sit back and relax... Even though it sounds like the ultimate solution to our problems, most people preferred to stick to the scheduled torture. I have to admit that i was amongst this majority for reasons of pure lethargic averseness to change. But that very evening, amidst the regular sessions of jokes, bug swatting and card games, we started comparing our camp life to Ramesh Sippy's 'Sholay'.
The result was an unanimous decision to make a skit based on this very concept... ofcourse this meant we could take time off for cracking jokes and incorporating them in our script, so, it was more than welcomed as an idea and the 13 of us got to work(if you could call it that!)
The result was clearly( by the response , we got from both the students and instructors) a rioting success :) The end of the camp gave all of us more familiar hand-shakes which would probably last for the rest of our stay here... and not to mention, back-aches.