Brave Fart Saves the Day

As I entered the NITIE campus on 17th June, 2009, I was a mixed bag of emotions. There was a constant conflict in my mind regarding the choice of NITIE over IIT and along with the apprehension as to what if this turned out to be the wrong decision. Amongst this entire conundrum I stepped into the sylvan campus and was astounded by the noiselessness here. Considering Mumbai this campus turned out to be a huge relief. The hustle bustle capital of the country had a serene location hidden away in alleys of Powai. I reached the Hostel room allocation centre and was escorted to my room by my to be roommate (the eventual Floor Captain).Gripped by the Delhi V/s Mumbai debate, I tried to free myself away from it by mixing about with the crowd and enquiring about their profiles and other converts that they had forgone to come to NITIE. I was anxiously waiting to meet an IIM convert who had left IIM for NITIE (which by the way was the case with the senior batch). But alas all my attempts to satisfy myself that all was well were not being helped even a single bit by the constant comparisons between IIT and NITIE and varied responses from people. I seriously contemplated taking back my decision and returning to the comforts of home and being amongst my family members. All this was getting a bit too much for me so I decided to sleep on it
The next day was supposed to be our Induction day but started off with some academic formalities. Later the same day we were called in by Team IMPACT to meet up at 6pm.The Induction event started off with a few introductions and a bit of boring stuff. This was pissing as I was already confused and these people were not helping. This continued till dinner after which the real fun started. It was past 12 and sitting on the ground for around 6 hrs was nowhere in my idea of a B-School. After what I considered to be a boring and uneventful day, I was in for a shock as we were handed out case studies on a Marketing Strategy for a company. We were to submit this by 7 am. I slept for around 3 hrs that day and had no time to think over my doubt at all. A new start awaited me there of which I was yet unaware of.
The next day started at 7.30 with a campus tour and a skit competition arranged by the Professors. The evening was supposed to be again about the same thing “Know your batch mates”. All this seemed a bit boring and I was not at all in the mood to go out there and have my head torn apart by silly performances. At 1800 hrs or so (in Mayank’s parlance) we came to know that we were to do some skits again, but this time they came with a slight twist. We were handed out our chits and as my group representative brought along our groups topic an astonished look took over the entire group. We were supposed to enact “BraveFart”. As everyone struggled with the idea, I had an incessant smile on my face. This was the area where in my domain expertise came into the picture. I reveled in such nonsensical stuff. I found another like-minded guy in Anant and together we created magic. The jokes were hilarious; the fart noises I made were almost surreal and all that Andaz Apna Apna style fighting (the one between Salman Khan and Crime Master Gogo at the end) brought tears to some people’s eyes. The whole skit turned out to be a class act and brought me instant fame (now I can understand the charm of Bollywood). It was the entire setting, the group and the penchant for absurdity that made this entire skit possible. And all of a sudden in one swift stroke I was a part of NITIE. All apprehensions went away and I knew this is where I belong, a kind of Home away from Home. So this blog is dedicated to the latest superhero who saved the day and farted his way to stardom.