IIT Kharagpur

Old Admin Building at night. This was the original prison building during the British period which was later converted to the main building of IIT, Kharagpur in 1951 by the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru.

New Main Building of IIT KGP.

Pictures of ILLU (Illumination contest). This is a nice picture of the illumination contest at the Patel Hall of Residence on Diwali night 1995-1996 (my final year at IIT). Each hall of residence (dormitory) has to present a lighted graphic representation depicting a theme. The theme in this picture was Buddha's stages of life. Each image is a series of small lighted oil lamps which burns for maybe 15 mins at most, but the work behind creating the whole series of images was a humongous task (right from designing the images, to creating grids to hold the image, to adding each small oil lamp (there were around 10,000 such lamps) to recreate the images). The task did not end there, the success of ILLU also remained on everyone while the lamps were lighted. This event was not only a display of artistic skills, we were trained in team work, motivation, skills (we were going to be future engineers), dedication and an urge to succeed.

The other part of the series of Buddha's life.

Another such ILLU sculpture from a previous year.

Another part of the ILLU contest was a mural (Rangoli) made out of colored powder. This picture shows the volunteers filling up the different sections of the Rangoli with different colors. This was an amazing piece of art.

Finished artwork ready for the competition. The picture is of Krishna holding his love Radha, were we not romantic !! One of the flaws in IITs education policy was that there were 400 male students and only 4 female students in each batch (a ratio of 1%). Can this be improved ?

Here comes the destruction phase of after ILLU. Win or lose, we need fire and booze. Bunch of my hall mates (including me) celebrating. Patelians were notoriously know as "Basti" dwellers and this is one of the evidences.

Continuation of the celebration.

Ok, now comes our annual college festival (Spring Fest). This picture has my hallmates standing after the parade on independence day in front of the collages. Weren't they colorful ? I was also a part of the decoration team each year.

Another collage in the background, Ani, VCP and I (right to left) sitting on the wall.

Another of my artwork on the background, Mayur, VCP and I (in the middle) after putting up the backdrop for Wildfire during Spring Fest.

Nandi and I (on the left in green shirt) posing in front of our completed wall painting.

Another big unofficial event was the election. This is a huge banner/poster for one of my hallmates running for General Secretary - the theme was a modified version of an INTEL ad, representing intelligence, leadership and dedication and powered by tempo.... - creative, wasn't it ?

My intelligent wingies. All of them are geniuses (excluding me of course), Sonal (top left) owns his own consulting firm in Bangalore, India. Next to him are Goda, Nandi, Mayur, JL, CVD, Sanky (all of them in the US). VCP (bottom center), our Hall president and the rich oil explorer, is now getting his MBA in London School of Economics. I (had a moustache then) am at the bottom left next to VCP and Sanky.

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