It was a day of joyous welcome to the batch of first year students for the year 2007-08. A lot of elaborate arrangements had gone in to make our students feel welcome. The college bus was taken via the new bus stand. There were two students with welcome banners there to receive parents and students.

Almost all teachers were roped in for the certificate verification. An interesting observation is that students with a cut-off of 197 to 178 have opted for our college. And, a majority of students were from rural government schools. I was just thinking that the government subsidies in education are available to really needy students and that the government was doing everything possible to make engineering education a reality at a miniaml cost for many first generation learners. It was a heart-warming feeling.

The children were welcomed at the Principal's desk with a sweet. A sumptuous and steaming lunch was served to the parents, students and the teachers in charge of the duties. I was getting a peek into their mess halls, and hey, the well tiled, clean airy and bright mess halls were good to see. I was also amazed at the manner in which the hostel staff catered to the guests numbering at least a good 900 to 950. It was similar to a wedding lunch. Perhaps, I should tell you the menu...there was a laddu, potato masal fry, cabbage kootu, a fantastic murungai saambar, tangy rasam, appalam, moru and some ( rather a tumblerfull) paruppu payasam. They tell me, children get almost all of these every day. Mmmm...they are indeed lucky.

As said earlier, we are under Anna University, Coimbatore this year on and we are eagerly waiting for the syllabus and other things to get the teaching rolling.