Talking of T-shirts

……Those were the best days of my life!! were the lines (from Bryan Adams’ summer of 69) for our final sweat shirt while in COEP. There is an amazing story that goes behind this. The sweat shirt was ‘in planning’ for almost a year. It did not go into production on various occasions, sometimes cost prohibitive, sometimes we did not agree on the catch line, sometimes on the color and sometimes on just the timing. Everything changed on the last day in college. Now the “Cream of the Cream” in COEP gets a chance to get paid enjoyment (read learn) in various industries for a year while the “Cream” does an in-house (read ‘gharghuti’) project. Down side of this was that we were still in college (technically) when others went home after the final exams. And this time we decided to make our stay special. So when our batch had to part ways, money did not matter, timing was great, the catch line was perfect. We made the Sweat Shirt after some of us had already left for greater destinations. I bet this is the only shirt from COEP that has been ship-delivered to the US.
Another T-shirt story from my batch was of the “We can Screw Anything that comes our way!!” shirt. This is arguably one of the most popular shirts ever in COEP. Credits to Ritz and PC. I bet there were other popular designs portraying of the COEP warmth (read maaz), but these two stand out in my mind.

So is COEP only about making shirts and bunking classes? No, COEP is much more than that. It is about learning to learn, it is about finding your way, but more than anything it is about getting the confidence of “I can do it”.

Why am I talking T-shirts today? That’s because I am making one for my department today and cannot help getting nostalgic. So many memories from the best days of my life………