IIT Madras

My attitude towards IIT Madras, where I studied between 2000 and 2004, has changed significantly over the last couple of years, from mildly negative to heavily positive

I don’t know what happened, but over the last year or two (I don’t know the exact timelines), my attitude towards IIT Madras has changed dramatically. I had been neutral to mildly negative about the place, but at least over the last year I’ve been fairly positive about it.

Now, for context, my time at IIT Madras began rather badly - on my first night there, I had massive diarrhoea and ended up in hospital where I was given a saline drip. Then, it took me a long time to make friends there - a fairly diverse group of people meant that the proportion of people I instinctively got along with wasn’t very high, and so I took time to find my type.

Then, after one year of insane mugging for JEE (now I don’t know how people who mugged for longer managed it), I had no enthu to continue mugging. The teaching wasn’t great, and the difference in level (from JEE) was massive. I didn’t do particularly well academically. I took time to settle into the literary scene as well. And then there were the persistent water issues in the hostel.

Ultimately I settled there (albeit after considering dropping out), had a largely good time, made friends and recovered my confidence by the time I graduated - though academically I remained average (I literally graduated at the median of my Computer Science class).

For whatever reason, for the next decade or two, it was the negative aspects of IITM that remained in my head. I had little desire to go back there. I would even get triggered at the very thought of going to Chennai. And my mildly negative view of IITM remained, and at times when I would be depressed, I would start retrospectively questioning my choice of going there (a clear sign of depression is when I start going back in time and wondering about my past choices, and start (metaphorically) beating myself up for it).

And then something changed. I can’t put a finger on it, but my attitude about “insti” turned in the last couple of years. Here are a few reasons why this might have happened, in no particular order.

• In 2021, when I was doing my podcast, I got connected to the then President of the IIT Madras Alumni Association, and had a nice (Zoom - it was mid 2021) conversation with him.

• Around the same time, I reconnected with one of my professors (having found his lecture in response to a google search for a work related thing), kept in touch and met him when he visited Bangalore in 2023

• In 2023, when I finally visited Chennai after over a decade, I needed a “hotel” for the morning, and something to do. The people at IITM Alumni Association were rather nice to me, and booked a room for me at the Taramani Guest House. And I had an awesome time that morning roaming around campus with Mohan.

• Later that year, as I was starting Babbage Insight, a friend from IITM told me that there exists a WhatsApp group for IITM Entrepreneurs, and offered to add me to that. I gladly accepted, and am fairly active in that group now.

• This IITM Entrepreneurs group had a meetup in Bangalore in April, and I met lots of people from IITM there (mostly new, apart from reconnecting with a few).

• In May and June this year, I travelled two more times to Chennai. On one of those visits, I went to IIT once again, and again roamed around campus, this time with Helmet.

  

  In front of 226 Narmada, where I stayed in 2002-4. Clearly some of my room descendants have been graffiti lovers

• In June this year again, for the first time ever in 20 years after graduating, I attended an IIT Madras alumni meet. It so happened that this year’s meeting of the Bangalore chapter of the IITMAA happened at a hotel that is 200m from my house, but by then I think I had already flipped enough to have gone nevertheless.

• Last month, my wife started teaching a course at IIT Madras. In fact, she is in class now (over Zoom) as I write this (likely she would’ve finished by the time I send this out).

As I look through the list, what I notice is that all of them have a component in one single direction - increased engagement. And there is a clear positive feedback loop at play. The more I have engaged with insti (or people thereof), there has been a greater incentive / ease to engage more, in other ways (notice I haven’t formally engaged with the insti so far, after graduation).

For whatever reason (maybe because I quickly moved on to yet another elite institution, where I settled far more easily), I quickly disengaged with IITM after graduation. And this lack of engagement sort of compounded over the years (I did go back a few times for quizzes / recruitment, but those were sporadic), and I guess there was some sort of exponential decay.

All it took was a few random coincidences to spur the engagement, and suddenly (as they say in startup circles) “the flywheel was set in motion”. And now, 20 years after graduation, I have a largely positive view of the place once again!

PS: I’m feeling very happy right now, having written this. I guess that reflects my current attitude towards IITM