The 12C Journey

So ever since I joined this place, no no... even before joining when I started preparing to get admission to this place and started reading about the campus, the number "12C" took some place in my mind. It was not just some number, it was a number associated with IIMC and after I joined here its impression became deeper in my mind probably because the music band here is called JBS BaroC (12C in bengali). Because 12C was the bus that connected our campus to the outer world in those early days, the band was named such and today I got to travel in Bus No. 12C :)

Now, you must think... soo?? whats so special about that? Well everything changes with time and 50 years is too big a time. You cannot expect anything except buildings to be there for that long in time...and therefore the fact that the bus that was here 50 yrs ago, and had that kind of impact on alums of IIMC, is still here, is just awesome. Its like getting in touch with that original thing... like seeing history in front of your eyes...being able to say to the alums of the pioneer batches "Yes! We too have traveled in 12C!" ... or saying to the future batches may be "Yeah! 12C existed in our time! I traveled in it!" 

So four of us had to buy some art supplies and we went out of the campus and there it was - Bus No. 12C :D and I got very excited when everyone else started moving towards the bus. I was all smiles for the whole going up there journey, and my vision followed this route - 12C (written upside down inside the bus), the people (co-passengers), 12C, team members, 12C, outside the window, 12C,  my bag, 12C, the insides of the bus, 12C. I don't know what got into me and why it mattered to me so much. All I have to say that if that bus is infact as old as our institute, the people of Kolkata deserve a big applause because the condition of bus was really well for that age meaning people here respect public property as much as their personal one.

And coming back was altogether a new experience. Just like IITK, here also you can go out of the campus easily, but since the campus, in both the cases, is placed sooo out of the city that no auto, taxi will agree to bring you back. So we got into 12C again but this time it was sooo crowded that for the first time in my life I stood on the doorstep of the bus when the bus was moving. Although that was for like a min because my teammates pulled me in. I was still standing at the door, but wowww.... I never thought I would enjoy crowd so much so that I said to the other person "Wow! This is fun!" May be I missed IITK life very much. Flotters in your feet, roaming around with a backpack, living on minimum expenses and therefore travelling in crowded tempos (replaced by crowded bus here) and all of it was coming back to me.

10 minutes past, a ladies seat got empty so I sat there while the rest 3 of them, stood around and I said "Well! This trip was just too much fun for me!" and their response was "Okay! May be next time we will get into even more crowded bus!"