From a town to a city ..... A journey of a student

Night outs have become a habit in IIM Bangalore for last two weeks. As most of the classes in this semester are only after lunch break, almost everyday I go to sleep at around 4:30 / 5 am. And this has helped me to visualize that every campus has its own lifestyle. And thus IIM Bangalore is far far different than IIT Kharagpur.

The thing I like the most in IIMB is the weather. Believe me, it's awesome. After living 22 years in the sweaty Bengal, the last month at Bangalore was indescribable. It was amazing to get 22*C temperature on 30th May when the whole country is burning. And you really have to get something to wrap you while sleeping at dawn. For a lazy guy like me, it's really tempting. The second thing I should appreciate about this place is its campus. The campus is not so big, but the architecture of the academic blocks is awesome. And being a past civil engineer, this stone architecture of the campus attracts me a lot. The hostel, the gardens, the playground, the buildings and the road, everything is well maintained here. So, in terms of staying, IIM Bangalore is perfect.

But what I miss here at IIM Bangalore is life. I don't know what is about to come, but this one month stay is not so attractive to me. Kharagpur, even being 100km away from the main city, has its charm, what IIM Bangalore lacks. We used to hear in our first year @KGP that when all world go to sleep, IIT KGP wakes up. And that is actually true. You shall find the hangouts crowded all the day. And even at 5am if you feel hungry, Cheddi (uncle) will be there to serve you with his lots of variety: Tinku, Delta, Mohile etc. Forget about variety, even you do not get fried maggi in IIMB. Lets do not talk much about costs also. And, I don't know what happens on exam weeks, but at a normal night, perhaps you can count with your single hand the number of people awake. People can ask that they have classes from 8am, how can they stay awake till late night. But you know what, we also had classes in IIT, and that too from 7:30am. Still we used to live our life, night-life.

One more thing I do not find here is the depth of culture. May be because of its huge student community, IIT KGP has a very enriched culture that IIM lacks. “Arambh” is one of the important occasions here, but believe me, the performance was not of the level of a normal undergraduate college in any city. There was too much show off, but in deep it was too empty. Guys with no basic knowledge about dramatics and acting were doing mimes. I really discourage this type of show offs in cultural activities. I am really waiting for “UNMAD”, the main cultural festival of IIMB. Hope I'll get to see or shall make myself involved to produce some better performance at that time. Actually the student life at IIMB is so busy and competitive that you do not get time to fulfill your cultural appetite. And with such a low variety of profiles, where 90% of students come from engineering background, it is pretty much obvious that the cultural output will not be up to the mark, which is the case for IIMB. I do not have played much in my college life, so really can't compare between the two institutions in terms of sports and games. But I appreciate the infrastructure provided for sports, which is far better than IIT KGP.

Obviously, four long years in Kharagpur may make me biased towards IIT. May be only after my five years stay in Bangalore, I shall be able to comment rightly about this institution. But at the deep of my heart, I still feel, Kharagpur was much more lively than this prestigious management institute of the Silicon City of India.