The year began on a high note with a lot of commitments and duties to fulfill. The whole month of January was a busy schedule, preparing for the event named CIVERE-06 at IIT Kanpur, a paper presentation contest in Civil Engineering, to be held in mid-February. I was the chief coordinator of the organising team along with Anand Hingway and Mayank Jain (popularly called Manjan). Pre-event preparations, list of invitees and coordinating the judge panel were all in the fray. In one of the meetings of the organising team, I met Manali Singh, a kid from Saharanpur and a student of CE, IITK, who was initially reluctant but somehow agreed to compère the inaugural function of CIVERE. Anand. Mayank and I gave it our best shot to make it the most successful event of the year for the department of Civil Engineering.
In the month of March, my thesis supervisor Dr. Bharat Lohani, started worrying about my state-of-the-art presentation. Fortunately, I had already worked upon some material and it was only the trimming of some material with the help of my supervisor, that made the presentation work fluently.
The month of May saw me reach Kalpakkam along with my parents, at my younger brother Suddhasattwa's residence. It was for the first time in my life, that I went so close to the sea, so as to collect sea shells and cowries from the beach and to let the waters of the Indian Ocean cover my feet while I stood capturing the seascape with my digital camera. I also took the advantage of the free time to write some code and work on my research proposal. When with family, I took every chance to tease my younger brother.
Back at IITK, I engaged myself part time, with the summer camp of the Department of Civil Engineering as one of the volunteers, with the approval of Dr. Amit Prashant. Like the last year, I was ready again to run with the participants during the morning exercises. I presented myself to them, as a sample who goes through the same set of exercises, so as to show them the remarkable changes in my living style, through the month. The summer camp ended after 28 days, and it was notable that some of the volunteers were wistful seeing the participants depart.
My father became seriously ill in the month of September and he was admitted to the intensive care unit of Anant Hospital in Jabalpur. Our ex-neighbour Mr. Venkat handled all the formalities in the hospital thus making matters easier for my mother. While I was at Jabalpur attending to my father at the hospital, Kaushik Choudhury kept up my link with IITK, thus communicating all information from my hometown to Kanpur. Bijit Dasgupta and his wife Mrs Soma Dasgupta also took time off from their busy schedules to visit the hospital and keep up our spirits. My mother had been a very brave woman to handle all the troubles successfully during this crisis. Although I missed two weeks of my French classes during this period, Eugenie (the French teacher) and my classmates helped me cope up with the lessons.
My younger brother came over to visit IITK, for some official work, and his host and I were virtually at loggerheads on the fact, whether he would stay at the students' hostel or the visitors' hostel. My brother however took my side. While he was here for around six days, we could rarely meet, because he maintained a very tight schedule with visiting laboratories and libraries. However he could take the Sunday lunch with me.
Kaushik left IITK in the month of November although I tried hard to convince him. Perhaps my magic did not work this time., and I was annoyed at Kaushik for leaving the institute. I wish him the best for his life and future, and hope that he finds his soul mate which he has been unsuccessfully trying for.
This year our family had good times and the sad ones, and at all moments, I believe, GOD was with us with His support. I surely know that you all have been supporting us with your good wishes and I gratefully express my words of thanks to you.
My hostel is gearing up to celebrating the new years eve and as the music flows in the background, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.