Introduce thyself engineering college style

The common reference term for the healthy ragging activities that take place at colleges is – the harmless yet fun “introduction” sessions. Though ragging is definitely a big No-No but a healthy interaction among freshers and seniors is a great way to break the ice and you never know such an initiative might even turn your seniors into your mentors, guides and best friends for your stay at the college.

These days, most of the senior-junior interactions take place in front of faculty members and seniors don’t dare cross the line for the fear of being severely penalised by their college’s ragging squad.

I remember having a formal interaction session at my college too, wherein, I was asked to do a chhipkali (lizard) dance, which might sound weird but it is an incident that I fondly talk about when I recite about my college days.

Introduction sessions do have their share of teasing as well as making fun of juniors but at the same time they also provide students with a platform to showcase their talents as well as an opportunity to be selected at the various college communities (dance, dramatics, literarature etc).

Most current engineering students were not open to the idea of divulging details about their interaction sessions while revealing that ragging at hostels in institutes (especially the IITs) is still bad. We got some final year as well as students who have graduated from engineering institutes talk about their “introduction experience”.

Treat us

Rohan Shah of St Xaviers Institute of Engineering says, “Ragging or introduction sessions at our college were fun, if someone takes it in the right spirit. I and my friends were having lunch when our seniors sitting next to us asked us to treat them with dominos pizza.” He further adds, “As a student ordering from dominos is a costly affair but then they shared the food with us so it was all nice in the end”.  

Zulfein uthakar

For Galgotia College for Engineering & Technology’s Neha Bansal her first few days at college were one of the best days. She elaborates saying, “We were asked to wear salwar kameez and had to oil our hair. One such day I entered college and my hair kept falling on my face. What I didn’t notice was that some of my seniors were standing there. They came up to me and asked me to give my introduction, not only that, after every sentence I had to say - zulfien uthakar. So my intro was something like this: My name is Neha Bansal, zulfien uthakar. I am pursuing BTech in computer science & technology, zulfien uthakar…… It was hilarious, even I was laughing.”  

Swim your way out

A Delhi College of Engineering student who does not want to be named shared his fun introduction incident, “My seniors asked me to walk in the college campus pretending I was swimming. It does not sound that funny but the visual it created left everyone in splits”.

Hindi mein bolo

Vipul, Sudhanshu and Manish of Bharati Vidyapeeth's College of Engineering say that, “We have very stringent anti-ragging rules at our college so we didn’t as such get ragged nor did we rag our juniors”. Vipul quickly added to this saying, “We have a tradition of sorts for our introduction sessions. Juniors need to memorise the name of all their seniors which is a task in itself and along with that they need to remember their hometown and course”. Further elaborating, Sudhanshu said, “The fuchchas are made to sit in a news studio kind of an atmosphere and give their introduction in shudh (pure) Hindi along with mentioning the names of seniors standing before them. Everything they say needs to be in shudh Hindi which is difficult in today’s time and age”.

Vegetable market seller

“I was made to enact the scene from the movie 'Welcome' and was given an actual dabba full of onions and potatoes which I had to sell by shouting loudly - aloo leh loh kaanda leh loh. At that time I had this crush on a girl and she smirked at me everytime I raised my slogans. I definitely need to thank my seniors for making the situation such that she and I became friends”, says Mohit Sinha from Amity School of Engineering and Technology.

So, our suggestion is take these interaction sessions sportingly and anywhere if freshers feel that they are not comfortable doing the task being given to them, be upright and speak out and trust us you would not be forced. However, if you feel that things are going to extremes then talk to your anti-ragging committee/squad or faculty members for help. But, be assured that these fun incidences at college are going to be one of the few things you would always remember about your college life.