‘Piya Milan Chowk.’ No, it is not named after a famous person or a song. It’s just a road junction located inside the MANIT campus, opposite the Girls’ hostel and the shopping complex-cum-general store. A spot dedicated to students in a relationship. A place where students talk without worrying about getting ragged over it. Later, when the relationship grows into true love, the students will hang out in the city, go to the movies and dinners, but for now, Piya Milan Chowk (PMC) is where their love will blossom.

Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (MANIT),
Bhopal has a huge, 650-acre campus, and the designated spot for couples meet is
PMC. The spot seems to be perfect for girls to meet their treasured ones, as it
is close enough to their hostel for the warden to not worry.

The most surreal and silly crushes take place at PMC. Some
students shared their story with PaGaLGuY. One boy said, “Typically, there is a
bus stand our days are revolved around. Waiting for the bus, hoping to share a
seat, listening to music through her earphones. It isn’t the same for us, so PMC
fills the gap”. His female friend explained, “Sometimes we may meet during
lecture breaks, but we can’t have lunch together because of our different
schedules. Still we surely meet every day at PMC, sit and chat in the evenings.”

Anurag Gupta, a second year student says, “When a boy wants
to meet a girl, they hang out at PMC. It is a silent place and outside the
routine to and fro between hostels and lectures.” PMC is also an ideal location
for LOTA‘s to hang out. A lota is probably better known as a utensil
used for a different activity, but at MANIT, it is another in house term used
by the students, which stands for ‘Ladies Official Talking Authority’. Anurag
adds, “LOTA is a nickname for boys
who are single, desperately looking for a relationship, and have sent a friend
request on Facebook to every single girl studying at MANIT.”

A final year Mechanical Engineering student at MANIT, Aditya
Patle, says, “Our schedule revolves around labs, assignments, projects, workshops
and lectures etc. We don’t involve in finding ourselves a partner. Not because
we are study conscious, but because of the abysmal sex ratio in the college. In
my class, there is only 1 girl student out of a class of 180. Initially, most
of my batch mates loitered around the PMC in search of a soul-mate. Some succeeded,
many failed.”  

Engineering students spend their teenage years studying to
clear the Maharaja of examinations – the
Joint Entrance Examination. The fact that these students call their 4 year college
life as a paid vacation maybe somewhat true, as they make life-long friends,
celebrate festivals with their newly-formed families, follow their own culture
and have their own rituals. Whatever happens, for the students of MANIT, to be
known for something better than being a LOTA
is an achievement.