First, a piece of trivia. A chap from IIT Kharagpur, commissioned by Penguin International, is writing a very interesting book. It is a history of the IITs and IITians, from the first stone that was laid in 1951 by Jawaharlal Nehru, to the present day. What is to be the name of this book? According to Penguin, it had to be representative of the awe those three capital letters invoke in lesser mortals. After much thought, Penguin has decided on a tentative name. We're to be called 'The Chosen'.

Yes, we're proud to be IITians. But over the last year (and probably a little more), we have found something that we can be prouder about - being IIT Madras junta. This editorial, a much-needed departure from the constant cribbing and cringing that has marked Fourth Estate editorials since the days that Shravan was the editor, is a celebration of this fact.

Four years ago, or even less, the typical IITian was a cynic. Do you remember those famous lines from the booklets that are circulated by an unimaginative GCU year after year? "Some IITians perform exceptionally well in studies," it says, "while for some others, IIT is one big Taramani. But the vast majority of IITians are cynics."

Cynics? The last generation, maybe. It's time the GCU booklet was re-written. For this generation of IITians, no description could possibly be farther from the truth.

There is a level of enthusiasm and energy that permeates every activity in IITM today. Whether it's about doing more meaningful summer internships, or about taking B.Tech. projects more seriously, or about winning awards in national conferences and design competitions, or sweeping ex-culs, or starting hobby clubs and music classes, or building the world's greatest paper bridge, we from IIT Madras are showing the world that we dream big now, and we match our dreams with our actions. Finally, it seems, the IITian has arrived - in Madras, at least. In every field of student activity - academics, sports, cultural activities, social service, co-curricular activities, socializing - IIT Madras is carving out a niche for itself, and receiving full points for effort and enthusiasm. In this editorial, we want to take a good long look at ourselves and gloat. Gloat about what has made us the best IIT, first among the best colleges in India.

They say the best thing about IIT is the sheer range of people you meet. A first observation would be that IIT Madras is a somewhat naturally more cosmopolitan campus than most others. As the number of students qualifying the JEE from the Madras zone gets progressively smaller, and given that they have always tended to prefer Madras, progressively more students from the rest of the country must now fill seats in IITM. Clearly, we are better exposed to people from all parts of the country. Even earlier, the absence of a single uniting language on our campus ensured that the average IITM student unquestionably speaks more (we hazard adding 'consequently better') English than a counterpart in another IIT. Are we boasting, therefore, that the IIT-M guy is more pseud than his, say, Kanpur or Delhi counterparts? Perhaps. Perhaps not. What is true, though, is the fact that when IITians go abroad, or even when they go to a place within India that is alien to them, we've heard that the IITM guys conduct themselves with social grace and tolerance that outshines their fellow IITians.

Even us, of The Fourth Estate, have cribbed that we, in IIT Madras, have divided ourselves into linguistic groups, and these loyalties and sentiments have become dominating factors in our institute's reputed ugly student politics. And yet, it seems, there is more bonhomie amongst us IITM guys than there is in any other IIT. For instance, we're the source of constant envy of the other IITs for our well-oiled and well-coordinated app scene. In the other IITs, apping is a matter of, well, 'to each his/her own'. RG abounds. Cooperation is unheard of, almost. When people from IIT Bombay, for example, look at our app-files and our app-secs and our app-meetings, they do so with wonder and more than just a tinge of longing.

A trip to another IIT unfailingly gets our students thinking rather seriously about how it differs from our own. A lot of people (typically hailing from Bombay or Delhi) we know, after having grown in the IITM atmosphere for a year or two, return from their vacations at home and many trips to the local IIT, eternally grateful about the 'braindead' IITs they were fortunate not to land up in. In fact, converse with another IIT guy who's well-enough informed, and very soon, the envy will start showing. We are always being looked up to by the others, for our increased non-academic activities, for our increased student power, and even for our curriculum! Yes, though we ourselves can never tire of complaining about our own minor courses and free electives and pass-fails, people in other IITs look at us round-eyed with wonder, wishing they were here and sharing our relatively immense freedom.

The annual Inter IIT Championships prove to be a lesson to most of us to 'love our IIT'. Numerous contingent members return visibly affected by what they perceive as extremely boorish and unruly behaviour of the other IIT contingents. Girls return infinitely thankful for how those people make our own lechers seem like gentlemen. While the general IITian male still leaves a lot to be desired as regards his attitude towards girls, the girls will concede that our boys are extremely mild when compared to the others.

Apart from a comparison of the group behaviours of visiting IITs in a strange land, Inter IITs or cultural festivals such as Mood Indigo also offer us a peek at hostel life in the host IIT, both during the vacations and during the semester. From these (and even from chance casual trips during a semester or conversations with other IITians), it is evident that the levels of enthusiasm for sports and extra-curricular activities in the other IITs are quite a bit lower than our own. It isn't uncommon for hostel quadrangles in IITB to be empty and ridden with weeds, while Quake, UT and AOE tournaments rage on the intranet. Even the IITB students concede that they waste too much precious time sitting glued to their computers and the music and movies and porn and TV serials. And subsequently discussing them. In some other IITs, the extreme lack of recreation manifests itself as high levels of indulgence in, well, die-hard habits of the substance kind!

While we expect that we are scorned by the other IITs as Maddus, the uncool prisoners of the stereotypical sambar city, it turns out that we are actually quite respected for how much more constructively we spend our time. Some IITB students sought to confirm with us, "We've heard that junta in IITM have more enthu in life --sports or reading or general hobbies. And that the lit and cul standards are very high." This 'enthu in life' seems to be reflected in our performances in the Inter IIT Cultural Meet 2001, and the Sports Meet 2002, in which we steamrolled the opponents only to be edged out by the host teams under very dubitable circumstances. This is also reflected in the quality of our festivals - Saarang and Shaastra. Only IITB is in the same league in this respect. And it must be considered that a lot of it has to do with the 'size' and glamour value of Mood Indigo and TechFest. Their strengths are the amount of sponsorship and consequently prize money, which have more to do with the land of opportunity that is Mumbai city, than with any better effort. While a technical festival will have equal quality of participation in any IIT, Saarang is the undisputable winner among the cultural festivals for the same.

Speaking of Saarang, is it true that IIT Madras is more a part of Madras than any other IIT is part of the city that it is in? Kharagpur is several hours away from Calcutta. Roorkee, Guwahati and Kanpur are not much more than little towns. Bombay is quite removed from the rest of the city, but may be said to belong to it nonetheless, and Delhi is very much within the city. But somehow, while IITD (and to a lesser extent, IITB) students may have the city's hangout joints, discotheques, theatres, restaurants, and rock festivals within their reach, their presence in the cities' college cultural and social circuits is nowhere near as large as that of IITM in Chennai. Neither relatively nor absolutely. We are respected in our city as more than just bright students. We are also respected as nice guys, enthu guys, people who know how to organize a good show, people who are serious about what they do, and, on the whole, a jolly good set of people to be with and do things with. A far cry from the other IITs, we hear. In fact, apparently IIT Delhi students have been banned from taking part in the cultural festival of nearby AIIMS, because of their extremely unruly and uncouth behaviour a few years ago!

How easy it is for IIT-M guys to get together and get organized! In Bombay, the Cul fest, Mood Indigo, is organized by about 15 core group members and 30 coordinators. Here, at Saarang, there are more than 300 people involved. In IITD, their technical festival, a joke called Tryst, is organized by second year core committee members; the fourth year students sit around leching at their juniors and submitting their mini-projects as paper presentation entries. Here, for Shaastra 2003, there were 150 coordships at stake, and the Core Committee received 850 applications! A few years ago, a few IITB guys came over for Saarang, and made snide remarks about the fact that Informals at Mood-I are much bigger than ours. When we visited, we noticed that this was, indeed, the case - but not because the students there had put more fight. Oh no. We learnt, to our disgust, that in Mood-I, the whole Informals stall is 'outsourced' to professional event managers, who do all the activities that we here at IIT Madras do with such enthusiasm and energy. They've sacrificed student enthusiasm on the altar of Mammon, the god of Money.

We are at this stage tempted to ask questions, which do not befit a discussion that's struggling not to be chauvinistic in its tone - Is the average IITM student more intellectually inclined or at least exposed to more people who are? Is life in IITM a richer balance of academics, sports, social, and cultural activities than elsewhere? And finally, is the average IITM student more cultured or at least, once again, exposed to more people who are? And, curiously but very importantly, how much of this has to do with the distinctly milder ragging in IIT Madras? Here's a starting point: we shed far fewer inhibitions as freshies than our counterparts in the other IITs. Just think of the numerous consequences of that one fact alone!

And finally, one thing that we are undisputedly proud of is our fine campus. It is rumoured that in a few years, once it matures, IIT Guwahati will be the most beautiful IIT. But in a few years, a lot of things can happen. For now, however, we have cause to celebrate - celebrate with a bang - for as of now, regardless of what poorer-informed people may say, regardless of what ranking India Today gives us this year, IIT Madras is the best Engineering college in India. Q.E.D.