Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra gets nostalgic about his college days

What is the key to organise an event that will be a super hit among college students, undoubtedly? The answer seems to lie with the students of Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), who recently organised the annual event Youth Conference 2016. The two-day long star studded affair was attended by celebrities including actors Soha Ali Khan and Manish Paul, filmmakers Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Olympians Abhinav Bindra and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and author Anuja Chauhan.

The event started with the session of Rathore had the students cheering, when he spoke on the Kashmir issue, saying, “We will hit hard, we will hit slow, we will hit when we want. We will keep hitting them, that’s for sure. We have a massive bench strength when we talk about the Indian army and we have every Indian youth.”

The next session, author Anuja Chauhan’s was a mix of fun and gyaan as she advised the students, “Talk to more people. Don’t gravitate towards sameness. College years are a great time to gravitate towards otherness. The more different people you talk to, the more you learn. It is a very liberating experience.”

Talking about her own college days, Chauhan added, “College ke baad economics chhoda kyuki eco tha yaar. I took it for the same reason that all other students do, people say ‘eco lelo, your options will be open’. Then soon I realised it wasn’t my cup of tea.”

Mehra, who was up next, recounted an anecdote from his college days. He said, “During second year, we were given our Maths exam question paper. I remember looking at it and thinking ki maine Greek toh nahi padha tha kyuki ye Maths toh ho hi nahi sakta. Soon, word started spreading in other colleges that SRCC students were not going to crack the paper.”

The students of SRCC also gave a loud cheer when journalist Ronojoy Banerjee, moderater of Kishore Biyani’s session, revealed that he would hang out very frequently at SRCC with his friends. He said, “I was a student as St Stephen’s College then. Tumhare canteen ka khaana humare se better tha so it was our favourite haunt.”

Manish Paul’s session, which was next, turned out to be one of the most popular session’s among the girls. He had boys in splits an SRCC student asked him how to express his feelings to a girl. The actor went down on a knee in front of the boy and showed him how to win a girl’s heart. Some girls also got lucky when he clicked a selfie with them.

Talking about SRCC, he said, “There was a time when I used to distribute pamphlets outside this college. Mera bas ek hi goal bacha tha, SRCC aana. Jaise mere marks aaye the, I couldn’t even dream of roaming around outside the college.”

Day two of the event was attended by singer-songwriter Kailash Kher, filmmaker Prakash Jha, stand up comic Papa CJ, music composer Rahul Ram, and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.