So the Day arrived; with all the excitement and hype that had built up for me for the convocation, I was all hyped and excited. Since we (medal recipients) were called at 9.30 am; myself and my parents started much earlier and reached the venue at around 9. The idea was that we would get good (if any) seats at the venue and probably both my parents could get in on a single card 🤪

Once there, I quickly changed into the ceremonial attire. My father came with me inside the hall and we tried to get mom inside too, but the bureaucratic officials refused, citing lack of space. This after seeing people enter with 4 invitations each! Entering the hall, there was a flurry of red and black gowns (with yellow hoods) all over the place. When we arrived, the hall was only half full; with people roaming around and taking photographs. You could really feel the excitement and the anticipation in the air. Everyone had huge smiles on their faces, probably because this was the last time they would be listening to any authority in the university. Eventually my mom also got in, with a little help from kind policewomen (what is that, does something like that exist in Delhi?)

The convocation was supposed to begin at 11 am, so there was plenty of time for me to roam around, help my father set the digital camera (the 3x zoom didn’t help much though) and in general chat with fellow medallists. Sitting behind me was a guy Nitin, who was getting a medal for DM and to the left of me was a lady who worked in Bharti Telecom, I think. Feeling bored, I decided to talk to them and introduce myself. And there I faced the problem faced by all NSITians while talking to people - what is NSIT? Telling the guy that it was earlier called DIT helped as he had given one of his exams there, he must have been pretty old. The lady/girl knew that because her boss was from NSIT (hooray!). So I educated 2 persons about the existence of my college 🙂

One more thing that I noticed (and also communicated to the guy behind me) was that 80-90% of the medallists were girls. We guys were seriously outnumbered! I have seen this for so long now, girls outnumbering guys while getting prizes. Why this happens, I still cannot figure out. Does that mean that females are the smarter sex? Guess you cannot generalize everything based on a convocation so I will leave it here.

L Jogeshwar Nath Goela Gold Medal

At 11, the procession (it’s a formal term) of the Deans, VC and the Chief Guest came. There were around 30 of them. This made me realize how big and diverse DU actually is. The deans wore red, the VC (and some others) wore purple and the Chief Guest wore blue. After a brief introduction to the Chief Guest, Sh. Montek Singh Ahluwalia (he’s the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission), the convocation ceremony began. Now the excruciating part began; my position was 92 after the PhD guys (around 300). But the university people were pretty fast and quickly wound up with the awardees. So in all it wasn’t that bad.

I liked the part at the end when the Chief Guest addressed the gathering. He gave an overview of what kind of world we will encounter when we enter our working life. The thing that I liked about him was that he supported all his statements with facts and figures and didn’t give any vague statements. He was also careful enough to say that we shouldn’t take the progress for granted and it is us who would have to work to create and take advantages of the opportunities he was talking about. The speech was truly great and insightful.

After the ceremony, there were refreshments for the guests (and also the police, staff of the college and anyone who managed to enter the premises). OK stuff, and the convocation was finally over.

I will leave you with a masterpiece that my father shot with the digicam at DU 😂