One year on the Road less taken....

An year ends, what can easily claim to be among the best times of my life. The college life, and particularly the hostel life, had been a totally new experience for me, and I have rejoiced every moment of the feast. I have made new friends and learned so much in many different ways. I can conclude it by saying just this : I have grown up a lot !!

But this was the first year, and as often the case is, it's not always the best yadrstick to measure your rest of the college life. After one year, it was just natural for me to ask myself again...one year ago...did I make the right choice ??

I'll tell you what it was like one year ago. One year ago, at this point of time, I was anxious and was in a big dilemma, just like many of those who were done with host of entrance examinations and were now on the needle head of situation as the results were slowly rolling out. I was confronted with something very similar. After cracking the JEE pathetically, I managed an Int. Msc in Applied Mathematics in IIT Roorkee. On the other hand, I had the option of IT in DCE. There were two paths, and go ask any normal delhiite, the choice was pretty much obvious.

IIT is IIT, but DCE isn't bad either. Any engineering aspirant knows that, especially someone belonging to Delhi. If he cannot break even into top 2000 in JEE, he'll be giving a serious thought of taking up something good in DCE/NSIT rather than chasing the IIT dream. That's how most Delhiites think. Come on, step into my shoes, or rather in my mind, and just see it for yourself.

'You love Delhi, so much that You can call yourself city-sick to some extent. If you take up this course, you'll be living in Delhi all the time !! Enjoying every moment of whatever wonderful is happening here. Damn !! you can make a girlfirend !! And Then you're getting IT in DCE, something that most of the crowd still fancy. IT, an extremely wonderful field, with best placements going on and most light course structure, how can anybody just leave it ? But hey, you are doing it!! And for what ?? An Msc. course in IIT Roorkee !! hey, that's not even an engineering degree and that's not even an IIT !! And buddy, it's Mathematics, for 5 years !! Yuck yuck yuck !! And lol...it's a first time course, you even don't know the course structure yet. Hell !! they haven't even designed it. And placements ?? You sure it's not for research...well it seems like that,...and those two year JAM guys don't seem to be making a lot of money either. And Mathematics department sucks there...maybe only after E&C. Friend !! Let's talk shop now !! Let's face it...FORGET IIT !!!'

Forgive my mind for being too hyper ( too many exclamation marks !!) but that was exactly the state of my mind at that time. And as you must have realized, any man with tiniest sense of logic would have happily opted for IT in DCE. But I didn't. I took the road less traveled, very less traveled. And to some measurement, I can posit it as the road totally untraveled. But why ? It wasn't out of adventure. Whatever logic you can conclude from babbles of my mind, it all fails on it's last two words: " Forget IIT !!!". That is something I can't do !! For two years I have rotted my ass on piles of books to get into IIT. I never thought what course I'll be getting there, but the driving force had been IIT and the life I will get there. It was IIT, my real aim, and not the further consequences and situations that will boil along with it. But my decision was not just based on emotional factors, it stood on pillars of hope and optimism, on a very new and thinking.

This was the time when got around a book called 'The World is Flat'. I have to admit that this book had been the most influential read in my life. I got to know so much going on in the world, and how new things are happening...actually how the world is going flat. What this book did was, it just confirmed some of my fears, like the non-linear relationship between education and industry. Today, a person is valued not because he maybe a king of one and may or may not be jack of some, but because he is a king of at least a few and a jack of some. Gone are the days when a mechanical engineer is required to build and design new cars and machinery and just take care of the technical know-how of his profession. Now he is expected to do a lot more than that. He is expected to organize resources much more efficiently, effectively lead people working under him, participate in the growth of organization, understand and optimize his role in global supply chain and have better understanding of economic forces that are today shaping a new world.

A MBA degree can help a lot, but it just don't end there. Today economic and scientific progress is governed by so complex processes, that everything is intermingled with each other. If you think that biology has no roles to play in aerospace technology or material sciences has no role to play with the browser you are using or any other connection like this, I'm sorry to inform you, but you have just been too ignorant till now !! You see, until there isn't a major breakthrough in material sciences, you can't expect new electronics to shape up, and until that happens, you can't expect any major hardware revolution which in turn can foster a software revolution which brings about You-tubes, Googles and your browsers. We have reached at such an height that all scientific and economics and even social processes have been so much entangled, that it needs a pro in lots of fields to take us up a notch higher. The machines build today for advanced medication requires just not the expertise in field of electronics, but also in biology. It's just an example and world today is full of it. That's why you see a lot of switch-overs these days. Most of the engineers end up in field of finance, because today companies require people who can better understand the planes or computers they are making, and hence apply suitable economics for better progress. And because the demand is way too more than supplies, placements are pretty hot.

Being in Applied Mathematics, I believe certain things can go in our favor. There are a lot of fields we can disperse in like Software, Finance, Economics, technical fields like aerospace or higher physics or mathematics. The choice is broad and the course seems promising over these aspects. The course offered to us has quite a lot in common with the successful Maths courses already in service at kharagpur and kanpur. I just hope it all turns out well for us. Of course, the success of the course will depend a lot on our batch and the guys here are simply talented. We can yield something nice, only if we are ready to get a bit more serious with acads. So I guess, It's time to rot some real ass over the texts.

Let's see how things work out !!!

As we grow here and what we'll become...

The day I cooked up Bakartheory, I promised my substance that I'll blossom a post at least twice a week on it's tender stems. Time has passed and my substance questions me. For past two months, my blog had been marooned unscathed and there had been no more than 3 posts added to it, counting very generously, the fortnight before that. You know, I'll fool my self if I say I couldn't find time, but I'll still say that because I've become such a bustard sluggard, such bustard sluggard that can never find even a hint of spare time in the routine he lives. Living the IIT culture is like living very lavishly. Sometimes I feel bad, we live a life an average Indian can't even think of living but bills in enough taxes to make sure that crap like us get off well from this place to serve the nation. This issues touches onto something different and I'll write about this somewhere else in spacetime. Right now, I'll just like to focus on the IIT culture and how is it molding us, so much so that I can't even face my substance as after a long time, I breath yet again in blogosphere.

I can't put the entire blame on the life I'm living in my hostel, but stewing it with my personality and aspirations, to a large extent I can. First time I landed here, I never knew we were expected to have so much fun. I expected to do a lot of ghissing. That notion soon changed. I realized, that the best way a person can survive, or better say live life king size in IIT was, to allocate minimal time to academics and devote rest of the share to a world lot of activities, which will nurture his personality to the fullest. But yes, there was a minimum time to be dedicated to studies. Until you are in possession of a celebrated brain or you are a knucklehead, that minimum time in IIT means, attending enough lectures to save an attendance back, submitting all tutes and pracs on time ( or at least, not so late to land you in trouble), and learn enough stuff (and that won't take more than a day or two) so as to atleast sense what the question paper is about. Rest the system can take on it. You can gracefully expect something decent out of your results if you have managed that minimum quanta of time. As we say here, it takes a lot of effort to fail in IIT. But what if someone actually puts in all that effort and starts doing the things by too daring means.

I'm part of a group called Watch-Out, a group that brings about a student news magazine twice every semester. Being in the group, I have talked to a lot of seniors over various issues as we keep conducting surveys and interviews among students every time we bring out a mag. While talking to them you get to learn a lot about this place and some other things too. This can provides you with a lot of insight. But you see, It's not difficult to sense a level of frustration that has taken toll over them. I have seen this with lot of seniors, this thinking of theirs to get out of this place as soon as possible. They've had their share of fun here, but not everyone seems very cheerful with the life they live now. Of course, they radiate nth degrees of coolness which can't let anyone go uninspired. But they do admit themselves, that they've been disappointed in some way or the other. I'm not saying everyone is frustrated, but many are and amount of that vary over a large range. I had been chewing over this aspect for a long time and had been wondering how can this so colorful life let down anyone. Yes, I'm new and the life we have just subscribed to, seems very glamorous. But with time, everything change. I pondered over it long enough to realize that one day, we too may grow bored out of the life we live. And I see, entropy already increasing in the direction I think.

Last month had been a rugged road on the venture of time. Chaos finally taking charge of me as my life sinked in the ocean of turmoil. It was never earlier than 4 in the morning that I banished to the bed. And whenever that happened, you'll find myself with my peers in most inadequate postures. Naturally, I never piled out on time to attend the lectures. I must have missed over half of them. I got a few proxies, and rest were all marked absent. The other classes that I attended, I was found absconding seeking salvation in the shades of Alpahar and Khosla. My TS marks are nothing my parents could boast of and my academic life is on it's way of decimation. Leave the academic life apart, I never cared about it much. But a little problem with a nut and a screw can bring an entire bridge down. My oblivious self on the part of academics has affected every other work that I've doing. Once I know I can ignore academics, I know I can ignore any other stuff as well. I'm not playing squash anymore, neither I'm doing anything for Cogni, and nothing great for the cells I'm committed to. When I came here, education was never high on my list, but I intended to do a lot other activities. And when I see myself horsing around my own pursuits, It's all natural but to fret. And thats here that I can conclude.

We all expect things in life, and when we don't get them (including women, of course), we sulk and we erupt within. I have seen people here, who have been left disappointed in lot of ways. Academics has disappointed almost everyone here. There is a limit, at least in theory, to which anyone can engage in inventing and harnessing crap (Bakchodi). After that, everyone can feel the dormancy creeping into the talents they have. Some people come here with lots of expectations of the academic environment they will get, like my roomie. He is kind of really interested in Higher Physics and he's rare and lucky to get the branch of his choice. But the reality concealing this place is far away from anyone's anticipation. I'm happy to see him resorting to other interests, but many people who are dedicated downright to studies, are disappointed the most. First year can serve you well, with a new air and everything exciting and colorful, but as you grow here and find your best not being exploited, it's your gusto that channelize into dismay later.

What I want to settle with in this post is, that life in IIT is not the way people think it is, and I have realized it now. Personally, it may never disappoint me because academics was never in my 'I want to do good in this thing' list. IITs have lot to offer for those who seek for other activities. But from the point of view of academics, it hardly serves it's purpose. It's not a place for academic excellence. Maybe for excellence in field of entrepreneurship and management, but not for academic excellence. Academics is deprived of genuine interest. The frivolity is so much, that in most of the lectures everybody, every student sleep. It's an unchallenged tradition. Even I sleep along with everyone else, when I'm not supposed to sleep. But I still sleep, and in moments when I wake to change in positions, sometimes I think that we are being taught by the best in the country, some of the most prized men. And then we are sleeping not paying a damn to what the profs are muttering. Are we fooling ourselves or the system, or sometimes I think, maybe even this country. And then discerning the depth of thought I had penetrated into, I raise the eyebrows up, smiling over myself for the thoughts I just had, I decide better to submit again to slumber god. If that's the way things are supposed to happen, I'm no maverick to foster a new cognizance.

And yaa, our tech-fest is on it's way !! At least I can promise my substance to add a post to the count when those three glorious days come.