Hilarious Prank at IIT Bombay by General Secretary – AFA!

Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay or IIT Bombay has emerged as the choice of toppers in the recent years. About 60% candidates in Top 100 rank holders list of JEE Advanced 2014 chose IIT Bombay to be their dream destination. Considering that JEE Advanced is highly competitive and getting into the hallowed gates of IIT Bombay is even tougher, one would expect that making a fool of IIT Bombay students would not be easy. On April Fools’ Day 2011, one of these ‘geniuses’ proved that his fellow IIT-B students were vulnerable to mass pranks too.

On midnight of March 31, IIT-B students received an e-mail that the institute had 50 ‘free’ tickets of the ICC World Cup final match which was to be played on April 2, 2011 at Wankhede Stadium. The mail said that students need to write a 250-word essay on why they deserve the prize tickets. 50 chosen applicants will get the tickets – based on their essays. Well, in less than an hour, 675 candidates had sent-in their detailed requests.

Do note that the mail was sent at midnight. So many applications by 1 a.m. only meant that at least so many students were online and checking through their mails at such an odd-hour – judging by the ‘normal’ world standards. The prankster was never caught. He remains anonymous to this day, known only by the name he chose for himself – the ‘General Secretary of April Fool Affairs’ (General Secretary – AFA).

The mail seemed so genuine that students queued up at the administrator’s office to see if they are the ‘lucky winner’ of one of the tickets. Ultimately, authorities had to send out an email to the students to say that the previous email was just an April Fools’ Day prank.

The fun doesn’t end here. The prankster posted the list of ‘fools’ on a blog with excerpts from their essays. Here are some of the funniest entries:

• As a Champion of my Gali Cricket, I would like to learn some neat tricks from Team India playing at the stadium.
• As a PhD candidate, I have published two papers and have played in the H1 cricket team too.
• Even as a 43-year old, I participated in the PG Cricket Event at IITB. My Civil Engineering department even bagged 3^rd position.
• I am a true cricket-enthusiast. Under my initiative, our hostel bought speakers for the World Cup. I also ensured that all World Cup matches were screened on a High Definition Projector without any advertisements in between.
• I am General Secretary of Academic Affairs for Post Grad studies. I request you to please consider my entry.
• I am not a ‘genius’. Do have some consideration for guys like me too.
• I came 3^rd in Physics department in the M.Sc 2009 batch. I deserve the break!
• I can do true justice to the ticket as I am one of the most patriotic guys at IITB.
• I have designed three Mozilla Firefox web browser add-ons which have seen over 60,000 downloads so far.
• I have improved my SPI semester-after-semester from 6.11 to 9.83 to become the batch topper. At IIT, I have learnt to fight ad not give up. In Cricket, same rules hold true.
• I have met Sachin (Tendulkar) once in a promotional event of Ambuja Cement at Noida. He had requested me to meet him in WC final.
• I hold an important role in Mood Indigo (cultural programme) and am Coordinator of Techfest. I have also been elected as Mess Secretary of Hostel 12. For all the hard work I do, I deserve at least one ticket.
• I know the Science behind the Cricket World Cup and can explain it too.
• I secured AIR 30 in IIT JEE and State Rank 1 in MP-PET. My CPI, right now, is 9.36 am contesting for ECell Manager in Corporate Relations. I am one of the most deserving candidates.
• I was not even born in 1983 and have missed what happened then. I deserve to see it at least now.
• IITians are more dynamic than others. I will encourage other guys to cheer our team better.
• In PG cult cricket, I was part of the team that finished second. I am a true cricket fan and last but not the least.
• Whenever I am in the ground, India wins.