Convocation at IIT.........

Its one day in your life you will never forget, you feel all the efforts you made were worth this day. Especially if you are graduating from an esteemed institute like IIT, you are definitely the “king of the world”. Dressed in the colored gown that imparts your accomplishment, you don’t even need a wand like Harry Potter….. your gown has all the powers and they transfer to you as you wear it. Convocation is a big deal for all the IIT’s; it’s like you on your birthday. IIT is fully clad with beautiful surroundings, flowers and plants all around to make you feel how badly you miss staying on campus :).

The scene inside the convocation hall is splendid. People with colored gowns (different colors for different degrees) ---- PhD’d with their Maroon gowns with black hats, masters with orange colored gowns with pink hats and graduates with the orange colored gown with blue hats. It’s a spectacular sight. You can see and feel the pride in the air of IIT. Swollen with pride are the parents and faculty surrounded by the people in colored gowns. An overwhelming feeling surrounds you and you feel like forgiving everyone you cursed when you were working with them. All the dreadful memories just get wiped away in a second and you feel incredibly happy……. you experience as if you have conquered all 7 skies.

The chief guest was G.Madhavan Nair, Chairman ISRO. He spoke about lot of things, about his experiences with ISRO, responsibilities as a scientist etc. It was quite a motivating speech; he might be used to giving such speeches. Have you noticed how things come back to you, if you want to forget something? It felt weird as I resigned from ISRO, and my degree was awarded from the ISRO chairman himself. What an irony? I kept feeling guilty all throughout his speech, but I had my reasons. How do you expect an IITian not to work, as there is not much work they will give you when you join? We are trained to work all day and night; we are not familiar with the terms like “No Work”, “time constraints” or anything like that. All we know is “Work”, “deadlines” and “last day” etc. So if we are asked to leave the office by 5PM and there is nothing to do after you go home, it’s like going against our IIT ethics.

This is a day when you feel proud of yourself, your efforts and when you see your family cheering for you, believe me there is nothing more precious than that. Their smile tells you all their blessings and prayers for you have paid off. And your friends are as or more excited as you are, they have seen your efforts. It only motivates them to work faster and earn a degree soon. It’s a trick to motivate you also to go for higher studies.

Your dreams come true when you march up to the director and the senate members, with loud applause to receive your degree and feel awesome………………best feeling I ever had :)