Someone like me!!!!

i'd like to know where do i begin? what should i go for?

Go get yourself a linux CD. Use your college b/w to download a distro. This list of linuxers is always ready to give you a distro. Lazy myself, I waited till a PC mag made available a distro in ISO form which I took to a class-mate to get it on CD - the convenience of meeting everyday. Start scouting aggressively in your college.

i duno What is BASH or Shell Scripting?

Command prompt and batch ( .BAT ) files in w32 - but their Linux counterparts are more powerful.

I Dunno which distribution is good? whether fedora core or suse or mandrake or unbunto or the most recent one Xandros(hyped to throw windows replace in near future)

Take the one which falls into your hands first. I've tried Fedora, Mandrake and Xandros. For an IT student, I guess it won't make much of a difference. (atleast in my college - its either linux or w32).

the scenario here is like water water everywhere but not a drop to drink. there are hundreds of tuts available for Linux. but its truly confusing.

i'd be grateful to find a good way to get around all this.

The best tut is fiddling with the config files and keeping a foolscape book to record all changes you do. Then when you have reached a stage where you have to switch distro or simply reinstall, those notes help. And these Linuxers are always here. Ask me. They are real helpful.