Traditions and Ways of Life
Victory ProcessionsKnown to all as a VP, the victory procession is one of the most enjoyable events that students can participate in. When a hall wins a major social and cultural or sports event, the residents assemble to take out a procession. At its head are the hall flag and a flame (much like the olympic torch) and about 100 residents follow in a group. Everyone is equipped with firecrackers for bomb fights that will inevitably ensue in every hall. The procession goes from hall to hall shouting victory slogans and they are greeted by a barrage of bombs and cold water. Everyone has a whale of a time and this seems to be the best way to celebrate a victory! Nehru Hall VP (Thanks: Venkat Chalasani)
Water FightsOn really hot weekends, when everyone is in a lethargic state and there doesnt seem much to do, a few mischievous residents will throw a bucketful of water on a group of people and then everyone joins in the fight and before you know it, people are throwing water from all over the place and everyone is drenched.
Hall SocialsA hall social is usually held once a year. This has become an increasingly scarce phenomenon and Azad Hall is one of the two or three halls (including Nehru, Patel and LLR) that have had socials in the recent past. On this day, people of the hall invite their friends from other halls for food and drinks and it usually ends with a rock music/eastern music show by some professional group. It is a lot of fun and everyone gets a chance to unwind and party wildly. Below is a picture of Azad Hall day in 1990. At the far end is the star shaped stage mounted on the catwalk. Lights hang in mid air (with the help of wires strung across from C to D block) and a throng of people can be seen dancing in front of the stage.
 Azad Hall Day, 1990 (Thanks: Vijay Jayachandran)
Holi - The festival of colorsOn Holi, the festival of colors, people get up early in the morning, don their old and ragged clothes and get out to throw/apply dry colors, dyes, permanganate etc on other people. People are thrown into the water reservoirs (known lovingly as shit tanks) and after all the fun is over, a procession sets out for the faculty quarters where the staff and faculty members give sweets to all the students who happen to pass by. The mess sometimes prepares lassi (buttermilk) and laddus (round sweets) impregnated with bhang (a mildly intoxicating herb) which the residents gorge on and then dance and sing their way around campus.
TFS moviesThe institute has a Technology Film Society run by the students which is responsible for screening movies every weekend in Netaji auditorium. There are two shows for the male population on friday night. The girls watch the show with the faculty (another thing I haven't figured out yet :-)) on saturday. They usually screen equal numbers of hindi and english movies and one bengali movie every month.Watching a movie at Netaji is a unique experience irreproducible at any other location or setting. The crowd is usually in a boisterous mood and people actively participate in the event by augmenting the dialogs with their choicest cliches and expletives. There is a lot of slogan shouting in which residents of different halls get to demonstrate their respective affiliations. Another important feature that warrants mention here is the existence of the mythical "Tarapodo" - the man behind the projector!! People would shout "Tarapodo Phokaas!! Sound!!" etc whenever the need arose. No documented evidence seems to exist to corroborate the existence of Tarapodo!!! Some people take the opportunity to get in close contact with their screen idols by actually stepping up to the canvas and touching it (the poor souls!! They usually get booed off the stage!). In fact, in my memory, there has been only one movie in which there was no shouting/screaming/the usual fun stuff - The Ten Commandments!! This just in - the second show on friday has been rescheduled to sunday mornings due to excessive booing and overtly boisterous behavior on part of the male audience. Consequently, the friday night show has a great rush and the accompanying chaos associated with it.
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