Days of "Ullas"

Days of Joy, "Ullas", the "I give a damn-f***" times....It was quite nice when i sneak peeked into Partho's album (Top row, 3rd from Right)..Two things which struck me a.) I was really slim at IIT, even though the buggers told me i was quite "healthy". b.) the sheer of exuberance of achievement without a money value attached.
To all those who has just bumped in the work that is going on is for ILLU, a competition that IIT Kgp hosts and possibly the one which is unique at this institution, where hard work, imagination , aesthiticity, knowledge, team work are tested all at the same time. And all for a tempo shout " Patel ka tempo High Hai" [ there is a certain of speaking that too] and a pitcher of Rasogollas [ provided by the Gymkhana] . Caring two hoots for capitalism and loosing 0.25 CGPA's on an average [mine went down a by solid 1.0] for the semester, at least 10 days of night outs by around 50 folks, bunking classes and working on the elixir mixture of palm oil+ mustard oil [ it was really a tough ask, for those folks who care less, there would be significant experimentation for the right mix, atleast 60-70 tests were done to characterize every mixture for brightness/lack of soot in the flame/flame length/ and ease of lighting up and cost, and all in a earthen pot called "Diya", no candles please and no lighters]. Someday i possibly would write all the details that i know of, but couple of points about it. There are no written rules of how to tie the diyas to the chatai's [for those who dont understand this, may care less about it], but we did tie them in possibly only one way @ Patel Hall, Nehru had a different style and so did RK and RP and LLR, it it one of the perfect example of Guru-Shishya where Final Year/3rd year students teach their juniors of how to do the perfect bend, let them know the quirks of Patel Halls gallery, and why B-Top needs only a plain lighting, and why the library needs to be accounted for. There is also no written rules as to who would participate, and on a random group, we would end up with 20-30 regulars, while the entire hall participates for the final day [ and thats a 100% , no labs, no assignments, no staying in the room's, no chats, no girlfriends, things may have changed now but as late as 2001 that was the custom] . No artificial stuff is allowed and only bio-degradable things which are ethnic, were used for, Bamboos/iron wires, clay pots.
No central leadership but group leadership was the order of the day, people believed in who worked the most. Simple, leadership by example, though there was meritocracy, but peer review was the order of the day. There were folks who were creative and thought differently and then there were those who were day-labourers like many of us [ i cant a draw a straight line without a scale and bullock carts always had goat like bullocks in-front of them]. More later....