IIT Kharagpur
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IIT and Beyond: Lessons in Freedom, Friendship, and Fearlessness

Parvati Dev

I joined IIT in 1963, when the first hostel for women had just been opened, and was still under construction. It was so new that we stepped over construction debris in the monsoon rain to reach Scholar’s Avenue, the road to the Institute. It was so new that a cobra slid into the courtyard, protesting our invasion of what had been its domain. Our batch of women students was a blast that hit campus – eight young women where, previously, they had admitted only one or two each year. Eight sixteen-year olds, who ranged from utterly mischievous tomboys to sedate, peace-loving students, whirled into the action that was life at IIT Kharagpur.

IITKGP 1963 Class of Women: Graduation Photo (1968)

The most amazing aspect of IIT life and, in retrospect, the one that led to most growth, was the freedom we had in our daily lives. Organize your day as you wished. Study as much or as little as you liked. Try activities like debate and photography that you had never tried before. Become friends with those unknown creatures – boys. Learn that they studied and played by rules that often differed from girls’ rules. It was freedom that could easily have led us astray. Yet it was the close companionship of our hostel mates, and the long conversations (“adda” sessions) we shared, that corrected many from drifting away. Fifty years later, we are just as close.

Stepping out into the bigger world, research at Stanford and MIT, was a shock. We, at IIT, were the best of the best, but now it was a global stage. I had to learn that hierarchies were flat, that textbooks were fallible, that my classmates understood a learning environment in which I was a stumbling novice. At the same time, a world of knowledge opened up, and this was a new freedom, to study whatever I wanted. At no point did I feel there was something I could not learn, and this was certainly a gift from our late night preparation sessions for our annual exams at IIT.

Since then, I have married (my IIT classmate), raised two daughters (who are themselves models of independence), written many papers, won awards, founded companies, made friends around the world. Would I have done these if I had not been to IIT? I think not. I would have been a different person, probably living in a much more limited sphere. So, for the many, many gifts and experiences that I have received, thank you, IIT!

        
      Parvati Dev (Circa 2025)                                     Kalyan Dutta and Parvati Dev (2024)

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