Dear First-Year Student,

Two weeks into the semester and I’m sure you feel like hell. I know I did. Worry not. This will pass. And if it doesn’t, you will learn to push the feeling down into a locker which is rarely opened. But I will come back to that. Let me begin by telling you why I am writing this letter to you.

A little while ago, I heard that one of your friends was found hanging from the fan this evening, his body limp and his neck broken. I was standing with some classmates when the news was broken to us. After the initial period of shock and asking for details, there were a few seconds of awkward silence. Everyone tried extremely hard to appear solemn. Then someone cracked a joke and there was nervous laughter. The tension eased. Conversation filled the silence. Someone took out a cigarette and in a few minutes, we were all sitting in Village Cafe, a hookah parlour just outside the main gate. Everything was so normal that it was hard to believe that anything of significance had happened in our lives for a long time.

I started writing this letter after I got a call from a friend. She had just heard the news and was sobbing uncontrollably into the phone. Her voice was hollow and filled with disbelief. As I tried to calm her down, she kept asking me one question: why did he do it? Why, indeed? It’s possible we shall never know. And it was at this point that I was suddenly filled with revulsion at myself and decided that this letter had to be written.

Every year, lots of students like yourself join this institute. Many have dreams. Many have ambitions. Many have hopes for the future. They look ahead to the next four years hungrily and with enthusiasm. Having finally reached the hallowed land, they have every right to feel pleased with themselves. I was like that and if you are like that, I hope you remain this way. Because the years ahead are going to be difficult and fraught with choices which will determine your opinion of yourself.

A lot of people will tell you what to do here. Not all of them will have your best interests at heart. Human beings are a competitive lot but always remember that at the end of the day, the race is long and only with yourself. Do not follow the crowd. It usually degenerates into a mindless stampede with everybody running at top speed without knowing where the finish line is or what the reward is. Before you do anything, spend a couple of minutes to think about why you’re doing it because a human being who doesn’t think is a machine. Machines. You’d think that at an engineering college, they would play an important part in your life. They do. But alas, not in the way you think. Emotions are often what define a person and it is these very emotions that to-be-engineers seem to lack, thus giving them the appearance of machines clothed in human skin. I’ve been as guilty of it as many others and I hate myself for it. As I cruelly discovered today, most people don’t care about anything that doesn’t affect them. Hardened to all external pain or pleasure, we plod on through life oblivious to the many wonderful and terrible things that go on in this world.

Please do not aspire to become like us. Please do not create the locker I mentioned earlier. Be open and free with your emotions. If something hurts you, react angrily. If something pleases you, react happily. Don’t just see the world around you, look at it. There’s so much to do and learn and enjoy and feel that it’s really quite a wonderful place. All you have to do is keep your head in the right place and be proud of your heart before you realize they’re both gone.

Welcome to IIT Delhi.

Third-Year Student