New Delhi: In December 1974, on the lawns of Delhi University’s Miranda House College, a group of students from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay posed with a trophy that altered the cultural history of their institute. This was the first-ever cultural trophy won by the IITians, unexpectedly, by the engineering department.
The IIT Bombay Alumni Association’s Facebook page posted two black-and-white photos on 21 March, featuring senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, researcher Amarnath Bhide and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, among others.
In the mid-1970s, IIT Bombay was not yet the cultural powerhouse it would later become. Institutional support for arts, extracurricular activities and travel was minimal. Students who wanted to participate in festivals outside the campus had to fund themselves.
“At the time, IIT Bombay did not really have a budget to send cultural teams to festivals outside the campus. If students wanted to participate, they had to find their own way,” the post read.
The team boarded a third-class train from Mumbai to Delhi, each paying Rs 37 for a one-way ticket — a fairly large sum for students at the time.
Alongside theatre, the team excelled in multiple categories, from quizzes to debates and collage making. By the end of the festival, IIT Bombay had secured top honours: Best Play, Best Actor, Best Director, among others.
After winning their first-ever cultural trophy, the IITians posed for a photograph with the full team, including Utsav Kapadia, Professor AK De, Student Gymkhana President HH Mathur, Professor KK Mani, Kirat Patel, Pradeep Anand, Nandan Nilekani, Rajan Shastri, Aditya Srinivasan, Madhav Patwardhan and the only woman on the team, Sushila Mhatre.
The photograph also offers a glimpse into another reality of 1970s India, when of the roughly 2,500 students on in IIT Bombay, only 30 were women.
Rajaya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh says that he “vividly” remembers those days.
“That is when I first met Shashi Tharoor, Ram Guha, Shakti Sinha and Pavan Varma. Those were the days. I still recall them so very vividly,” Ramesh said.
IIT Bombay alumnus Sudhir Badami recalls that before this cultural trophy, students only had IIT meetups, largely bereft of art and ilk.
“These IIT meetups were more like sports gatherings,” Badami added.
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Remembering the good old days
The post elicited several comments — largely memories from former alumni — while others tried to guess the names of the students in the photograph.
One such comment read: “What a wonderful memory. Many, if not all, of these were my good friends and acquaintances. It is a veritable who’s who of the campus in the mid-70s. All the participants have gone on to achieve great things in their lives and careers.”
Another said: “Our H6 hostel mate Alan Miranda is sitting on the right extreme.”
Badami, a civil engineer and author, came across the post on Facebook, and the first thing he did was zero in on the faces of his former colleagues. That’s when he sent a message to Ramesh, asking if it was him.
“Ramesh responded with a yes and asked me if I had the original photo,” Badami told ThePrint.
Badami said that when students first entered colleges such as IIT after clearing the JEE, they took time off from academics to indulge in things they enjoyed.
“And that indulgence germinated these art-oriented talents.”
Tech entrepreneur Nilekani recalls how he and his former colleagues attended all the college festivals in 1974.
“We were delighted to prove that IIT nerds could do so well on the cultural front. Many of my best friends, even today, are from this pioneering group,” he said.
The post on Facebook ends on a nostalgic note.
“Sometimes, the biggest traditions begin with a small group of students who give it their all,” it read.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)