ISB 1: The Journey Begins

11th April, 2010. Sunday

Hey guys, I got my laptop today ! I ve been here for just 4 days, but it seems like a long time back that I actually left Mumbai. Leaving home – it was not easy. When the train left Mumbai station, it felt as if the train was moving, but I was still there. Still home. Just still.

But soon, I reached the city I will be staying in for the next year – Hyderabad.

The City – is divided into Old Hyderabad & New Hyderabad. Old Hyderabad has tourist attarctions like Husainsagar Lake, Charminar & Golconda Fort. Its heavily populated with Muslims and in general has lost its charm. New Hyderabad is basically areas like Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills etc. – this is the usual metro city set up with malls, and more malls – NO FUN ! The food everywhere is Biryani, other kinds of rices, lots of non-veg & lots of veg south indian. There is a huge restaurant chain called Chutneys here. It has some awesome but quite expensive south indian food with an awesome collection of chutneys that we’ ve never tasted before. Anyways, enough about the city.

Now on to the campus. If I had one word to describe it, it would be breathtaking. If I had more words, I would use beautiful, clean, beautiful again, awesome, beautiful once more !!! It’s a campus sprawling over 260 acres, lush with greenery all over. I ll try explaining the structure now and I ll also introduce a few new terminologies and acronyms that I ll be using over the next year in my mails ! Also, there are come peacocks on the campus grounds too 

The Academic Block (the building where our classes take place)is a square structure with outlets on all 4 sides. It has a circular structure within it (remember my Yes Bank Worli office – similar but half its height & much more in diameter). This circular structure is a 5 storey LIBRARY ! It houses thousands of books, a radio club / radio station, a hude DVD collection, magazines & research reports & the IT dept of the campus. Its is jus beautiful with its spiral staircase and nice, filled bookstands. There are reading rooms on each level & also a computer lab. The square structure surrounding it has our classrooms and a bhaidas like auditorium. The classrooms are beautiful and sitting in it, I realised they r quite conducive to studying, I don’t know why though – but you actually feel like studying inside them !!! Classrooms are curved with the seating in a semi circle kinda thing (remember Munnabhai 1 ka class – same shape, but smaller – can seat 70). The classrooms are called AC 1/2/3/…8 LT/MLT. AC stands for Academic Centre , there are 8 of those – 4 at the corners of the square structure & 4 in the mid point of each side .. hehe.. LT – Lecture Theatre, MLT – Mini Lecture Theatre.

There are even a couple of LTs with 2 ceiling to floor LCD screens in it for conducting lectures via video conferencing. That’ll be really cool, I think !!
There are 4 hostels – called Student Villages, and they actually are villages. Each house about 200 people – considering there are families with kida also on campus. There are 2 kinds of rooms – a Studio & a Quad. A studio is for families – it’s a proper HUGE 1 room kitchen – bigger than a 1 BHK of Mumbai. A Quad is shared accomodation – 4 people share it. It opens into a huge rectangular hall with 4 bedrooms at the 4 corners & 2 bathrooms. So, I have my personal bedroom – its quite comfortable – abt 140 sqft & has a single bed, study table, ceiling to floor windows that open into flower beds (its on the ground floor) and a cupboard, side table & study book cabinet.

Other wise the facilities in the studios & quads are – 1 refrigerator, 2 clothes drying racks, 1 television, and since our SV – SV4 is the latest to have been constructed – it has nice marbonite flooring and a 32 inch LG LCD television !!! Awesome – tho I ve not yet watched TV after coming here !!
Apart from all this, there are many facilities on campus – there is a Departmental Store – MORE, a 4 bed clinic with a resident doc n nurse, a medicine shop, a counselling centre for ppl with depression issues, issues of fitting in, marital discords sue to stress of the academic yr etc etc…. then there is a amphitheatre, a open air bar & lounge wher we’ve been having parties every alternate day from 9:30 p.m. to 5 a.m., a recreation club with snooker, carrom, badminton, squash courts, a huge gymnasium & na huge swimming pool. There are 2 tennis courts & a football ground…. There is bloody so much, it feels bad that one has to actually study. The spouses & little kids have a fun time all year. The kids have a small nursery & a playing garden for themselves.

Anyways, that’s all from my side till now – have lots of other stuff to tell you’ll that I ll post about in a few days...

Click on link below for snaps:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mihirskamdar/ISBApril2010_1?authkey=Gv1sRgCKa_0c3pzO6F1wE&feat=directlink