I had a whirlwind visit to Berhampur University during my recent trip to India. It was not planned but on my way to the Mayfair Hotel in Gopalpur, I requested my husband's cousin who was behind the wheel if we could take a small detour into the campus. He didn't mind as he was doing MCA during our time. It was only a ten minutes detour of driving through the campus.
It no longer looked familiar except for a few buildings. The main arch at the entrance of the campus looked different. There were many pathways and gardens alongside that are under construction. Many facilities have replaced the jhaunbana (a forest patch with pine trees connecting the main campus to the hostels) which was the charm of the university. I believe a big auditorium has been replaced along with facilities in place of jhaunbana. That definitely shattered my beautiful nostalgic memories. with this new makeover of the campus, I really couldn’t recollect how it used to look where the bus used to drop us off.
The Math and Comp science dept now occupies our old building. In front of our old building the empty space where we used to hang out before classes, is now occupied by many tea stalls. Probably the Anand bazar moved there. (I forgot to click a pic.) The only building I could recollect is the library where I have many nostalgic memories.
For those who have not visited the campus for a long time, the new MBA building is found somewhere out and away from the campus. I felt sad that we had to ask many to find its location. Gone are those old days when the MBA dept used to be the center of jealousy, at least I thought so. The cousin grinned as their MCA dept took over the old MBA dept while no one knew clearly the whereabouts of the current MBA dept. How pathetic is that! Given it was a holiday I consoled myself that there weren't many academicians or students to ask.
Is the past always glorious? Is the mind always resistant to welcoming new changes? Not sure if I have an answer to that but the campus looked so different that I struggled to imagine going through my memory lane. But the ten minutes detour was worth every second.
Above are a few candid clicks of the main admin building, and the old and new MBA building for refreshing my memory.
@Manorama Choudhury
December, 2022
A very beautifully written blog on your last seat of learning in India i. e Berhampur University. I happened to visit this University last month after two decades & amazed to see tremendous changes all around the University campus. It pained me a lot to see few concrete jungles in place of greeneries.