Mid-terms are always dreaded, look how we tackle them..

Our class is like every other class, a mix of persons who are intelligent, of those, who are average and of those who are below average. Now, like every other engineering college we have our ‘regular’ (well the word has relative meaning for different individuals and organizations ) asessments in the form of minors and seminars (individual presentations or group presentations). Have I said seminar? yeah! this is perhaps the most dreaded subject among my classmates. Dreaded because, the thought of giving a presentation comes with many more thoughts. Thoughts like, how would I look standing near the blackboard? What kind of clothes I should wear on that day? (Oh man! the other day somebody was telling that one should wear a traditional white shirt and I don't have a white shirt). I sound hoarse, do I need to stand in front of mirror and rehearse the transcript for like thousand times? And for some, the thoughts could be as weird as "What Language", "How" and on "OHP" or "Multimedia"? What other people will think of me?

That is just one of the dreaded issues; the other is of the minors. Now, our minors require you to solve a few questions (mostly theoretical ones) in one hour duration on an answer sheet. Well, the beauty of the minors lies in their dates. The dates are announced during the start of the semester which gets postponed for like tens of times (sometime on students demand and other times professors mess up with the scheduled dates). Now, however early the dates been announced, most of the students (it’s a fact that the number of average and below average students when taken together, contribute massively to the term “most”) start studying that subject only a night before the actual date. Some try to pull an all-night-er (well most of the night is spent on watching video clips, playing online games or chatting as, people start feeling the need for some sort of relaxation after every half an hour for another half an hour), some sleep early to wake up in the morning and study (again “most” of them are needed to be dragged out of their bed so that they can at least, attempt the paper). Some even manage to wake up early but then suddenly they realize that the syllabus is immense and it’s a better idea to get the appropriate dosage of sleep.

Well, this is just about the preparation for the minors. On the day of the test, all kind of students carry their notes with them to the class. Though, the intelligent ones bring that for a quick revision whereas, the other types envisage these copious amount of notes as their potent arsenal, in case if it is needed. Everybody tries to find the most convenient position in lecture hall. The word convenience obviously translates into, who is sitting next to you and in front of you, how far it is from the lecture desk, and is it well lit. Now, once these things are taken care of, you are well set to attempt the paper. Answer sheets are given to you and you start writing the answer to first question. You write it in bold and stylize the text, Answer 1): and then you realize you know nothing about this question. You try attempting the next question and again find yourself amidst a lot of confusion and chaos running through your mind. And then, you attempt the last question, it seems familiar and you start writing the first line of the answer, man! Again you forgot everything. What is happening here? You look around and find ‘most’ (look for the word, it’s explained above) of your classmates struggling to scribble bits and pieces of the answers that they never read and which, they are now trying vainly to recall. You find some solace in the fact that you are no different from ‘most’ of them but a feeling of guilt sweeps your mind that you squandered this chance and then, you make a promise to yourself that you will study for the next minor. And then, you come back to your cozy hostel room, take a nap for a couple of hours, play tennis in the evening, do everything that you regularly do. You hear a voice from inside that you should study but then you think, forget it man, I’ll see whatever happens.

Bad Ads, (Ruining my TV experience)

I seldom get the chance to watch TV but, a cricket tie between India and Pakistan is always a hit with the TV viewers and to take advantage of this fact, all kind of brands features in those one minute advertisement breaks between two over. In the recent series at Abu Dhawi, DD got the rights to air the matches with ZEE and I can very much say that with DD, your TV experience will surely go for a six. Not only the transmission quality plays the spoil sport but, also the quality of Ads being displayed. DLF exercised it’s monopoly on the airtime and I guess that the kind of Ad it has prepared is completely out of taste and time and if I am not exaggerating, completely out of the world. The background music is cool but then you count the number of times it has been played in one day, you start despising it. It was a bad choice to air the ads during a cricket match. BSNL ads have a decent theme but then making a black and white ad is how purposeful, I can’t understand. Being a govt. organization, they can claim that they prepared this for the majority of those who do not owns a color tv but then logic tells me that if you prepare the ads in color it gives you access to both type of audiences independent of what kind of television sets they use.

Well, if somebody decides to write on good ads and bad ads, I think he will end up writing a book. I wonder that all these brands are spending tones of rupees on the branding and advertisement purpose but still they are lacking in appeal. What kind of brain storming is going inside the teams behind these ads? What kind of creativity is this which neither connects with the target audience nor with the target market? In Navratna Ad, I remember people like Govinda, Amitabh and latest addition Shahrukh, claiming that this is the best oil on this earth in a manner which is completely out of this world. The ad featuring Amitabh was a decent one in which he claims that he is using this product since his early days of stardom but, for Govinda dancing with a tennis racket in his hand, god! If he had played tennis, he should have much lesser body fat than what actually shows. Well, Shahrukh is advertising it as world’s smallest AC.

Sunny Deol is now beating the shit out of devils on TV now, thanks god the villains in the movies can breathe easy for the time being. Sunny jumps with a sword in his hand, and then in the last five seconds of the ad, you discover the secret behind his heroics, Himani Sona-Chandi Chawayanprash. I guess, all the hindi movie villains should start feeding themselves on this wonder product otherwise they will keep getting the kicks on their butts by this Deol for years to come.

The latest addition in my hate list is Pepsi TV. God! What a bad use of Kareina, Priyanka and Shahrukh? And, what a logic to explain the concept of Pepsi TV, Man! Do we ever think that we pay for these ads and then again pay for our precious time to watch them again?

Brace yourself..

I was unable to post anything since the last few days and thought i can end up the draught by posting an acocunt of the recent trip that i made. Well, it could be a bit annoying so, if you are a reader of my blog then i should warn you first that Brace yourself, this gonna be a long story..

A Trip to Vaishno Devi Shrine.. (Jai Mata Di)

My friends had planned a trip to Vaishno Devi Shrine which is built in the foothills of Himalayas about 80 kilometers from Jammu. I was casually asked to accompany them and I agreed immediately. For all these years I have spent in Punjab, every year I guess I vowed to take this journey but, never actually I got the chance. Sometimes, the desire was lacking and sometime, the willingness. But this time, desire and willingness both propelled me to walk 12 kilometers of steep climb for the darshan of maa. I started the journey with certain amount of curiosity and a lot of enthusiasm as I had heard a lot of sweet and beautiful things about the whole journey from my friends, classmates, teachers and family members. I also wanted to have a first look of the things which makes the campus couple pay a visit to this shrine year after year. The journey was completed in three days time and was un-eventful except for the joyous train ride and the breathtaking scenes of the mountains going up and down with the bus from Jammu to Katra (the base station) and back.

A Lovely Sunrise:
I woke up with the sound of a porter. I asked him surprisingly that what place it is thinking that we are still about 2 hrs away from our destination. He replied “Jammutawi”. It was a pleasant surprise as the train was running a couple of hours late and it has somehow managed to reach in time. It was 5:20 in the morning and another surprise was that we were all set to see the sunrise in the hills. Being an engineering student translates into late nights, hangovers and skipped lectures in the morning. Life in an Engineering college is dictated by the credits. And unless your professor puts a condition that you will get examination credits for getting up in the morning, seeing the morning sun is a complete waste of the precious time you get to sleep.

Jammu railway station is almost like a typical north Indian railway station minus the hustle bustle of the crowding public. The taxi stand is downstairs so, the crowd dispersed within a moment and we were standing outside the station in that cold chilly morning wind (what a welcome break from the blistering summer heat of Punjab). We took a matador and boarded in one of the hotels nearby which charged us Rs. 200 for a 4 hour stay. We changed our night clothes and then after having breakfast took a bus to Katra which is the base town from where the climb begins.

Mystical Bus Ride:
The bus starts and stops, starts and stops again to lure those passengers who are waiting for the first bus to start. It starts climbing up the small hill which marks the beginning of the 70 kilometers journey. The road itself is one of the marvels of modern day’s civil engineering. On one side it’s high rise mountains and on the other, deep valleys dotted with agricultural fields, trees and a few houses on the slant. You see a TV antenna on the roof of one of the houses and feel surprised, you see a bullock cart in the valley plough a field and think about the hardships of the life here, you see a kite flying in the sky and regain that consciousness that not everyone is unhappy and sad here and at least some people have found ways to overcome the difficulties involved.

After passing numerous check post, turning numerous bends and crossing a couple of small bridges finally, you are here into this small town where it seems that there are more number of shops than there are houses. Shops which are selling Prasad, dry fruits, collectibles, artifacts, handicrafts and all the other small things. Amidst the chaos you feel a great sense of uniqueness with every other person you see. Everyone is here for a single purpose. You wonder about the feeling you are feeling now. What is this that has brought these many peoples from the different part of the country at this place? Why people from places as far as Andaman and Bihar are coming here? Why people are making sacrifices in terms of their time, effort and money to pay a visit to Maa?
Well, for the time being, I left these questions unanswered and immediately took my place in the queue for registration of the yatra. There were around 500 other people who were ahead of me in the queue and I was wondering about the sheer number of person who were about to start their yatra.

Yatra Stage 1 (From katra to Ardhkunwari):
The journey starts with a dip in the holy Ban-Ganga river (this river finds it’s origin in Mahabharata. Bhism Pitamah was on the arrow bed and he asked for water. Duryodhana brought water in silver and gold cups but he refused to drink from that. So, Arjuna shot one arrow and water sprouted from the place where the arrow went in. The water was believed to be of river Ganga and thus the name ban-arrow + ganga evolved). The first leg of the journey is about 6 kms long and if you take the stairs it comes out to be somewhere around 2400 stairs. The climb is steep at some places and you gasp for air due to fatigue. There are numerous shops at both sides for all kind of stuffs. There are eat-outs and restaurants and music shops. I was completely amazed to find a Café-Coffee-Day outlet at about 2 kilometers distance. The chants of Jai Mata Di keeps you charged and energized for the entire journey and the sight of young and old faces keep you pumped up. Then you see people coming down with packets of prashadam in their hands and you think that that yatra do has an end. That it will be your turn to climb down the next day. Finally we reached the Ardhkunwari after a 3 hour journey. We registered ourselves for the darshan at the ardhkunwari cave and we were notified that we might have to wait for as long as 12 hours. This was really crazy, but I looked around myself and there was like thousand of people sleeping in the open (with their families) waiting for their turn for the Darshan.

We waited for 4 hours and when I entered the cave, I can tell you that it was the experience of my life time. The cave is of such a shape that only one person can enter at a time and sometime you have to slide on the rocks with your body stretched to come out. There are chains hanging from the walls for the support but the effort required to pull you through the cave is awesome. I came out and when enquired from one of the staff about the significance of the cave, he told me that the shape is like a mother’s womb. And it was exactly. It was like taking rebirth. You feel that how it was when you were born, what excruciating pain your mother have endured while giving you birth. This was really a shocking revelation. I thought that this journey was worth the experience.

Yatra Stage 2 (Ardhkunwari to Bhawan): We rested for a while and started our ascent up the next 5 kilometers of the climb. Now there are two ways to the upward direction. The old one is narrow, steep and you have to share the road with ponies. The new one is wide and free. The climb is easy and you feel like walking and not climbing. We started discussing about the civil engineering concepts and clicking pictures. Within one and half hours we were there at the last check post. A group of our friends were already there and immediately we took our place in the queue. And then a long wait started. The queue was about 1000 person long and we waited for 2 hours in the line when we finally arrived to the artificial cave, which is almost close to the actual cave where the Devi is belived to have worshipped. The chanting grew in noise and you feel that you are almost there. And then, the moment you enter the cave with your head down, you are escorted outside again with your head down, but this time, grabbed by a security person who desperately tries to throw you out of the temple. So, a two day long journey ends with a two seconds darshan. But, then I saw thousands of people lined up and waiting for hours and hours for their two seconds of Darshan. God! What is this? And you get the reply, sheer devotion.

'Age of Empire'

Life in an engineering college hostel is completely crazy. It's kind of raw, untouched by the rules and regulations of the normal life. There is no normal sleeping time, there is no time to wake up, no time for meals and sometimes, absolutely no time for lectures. You plan different things and then execute the different ones. You start doing one thing and end up doing another. you vow every night to start the next day fresh and from scratch and then, you forget your resolutions the next morning.

This is my last semester in this college and thanks god! i am trying to live every moment to the fullest. I am trying to make up for the sleep deprivation which I will get in my MBA college by sleeping for like 8-10 hrs a day (sometimes throughout the day). I have started playing tennis as I don't know that when and where I will get a 3000 Rs. tennis racket and endless number of Cosco balls for free. I am watching cricket all day for I know that this is a privilege which I won't be enjoying in the coming years. I am chatting with my future batchmates furiously in a bid to know them better and better.And then, I am learning this new game "Age of Empire" which can be played on the local network.

Well, last whole night was spent on learning this new game and I am a newbie still. eight ofmy friends grouped themselves into two teams of four each and then the game continued for eight hours without a result. Eight long hours!?? yes, I think that the only student community on this earth that can afford a luxury like this is computer science and engineering students of our college. If this was not enough, most of the players slept throughout the day and woke up only to feed their empty belly. They tried to lure me with the fact that the game essentialy checks your management skills and ability to plan things taking into consideration, the need of the hour. useless to say that I fell for the crap and tonight will be the second night which I am going to waste for the match practice. after all, I am a computer engg. student and I can afford this luxury of wasting this much time.

Freedom or Escape from Freedom?

I need to write this in a bid to take this thing off my mind. Only few weeks back when, I was struggling with my B-school hunting, I was really living in a confused state of mind. Those sticky situations, when your life gives you a feeling of being a snake and ladders game, where, everything is centered around making right moves and the worst part is that the moves are out of your control. In those moments you look for some advice but, in my situation I think, that the only person I could look up to, in case if I needed someone was myself. I didn’t realize how and when, the idea of working in a call center (BPO is the more civilized term) crept into my usually logical and rational mind. I mean, how could I have justified all these years spent in an engineering college learning computers?

Today, I am really thankful to the almighty that somehow I decided to give it all a fresh try and got acceptance into one of the emerging B-Schools of country. Well, I was almost over with that lean patch until I decided to talk to my long lost friend and then, my nightmare chose to give me a revisit. Long ago in one of those enlightening seminars on career-education (If you are a graduate then you might have survived through a lot many of those) I learnt the difference between a job and a career. “A career is something where you can extend your personality to your workplace. Where, you can relate with each and everything that you do and that you need to do. And a job is something, where your workplace enforces its character on your personality. The guiding force is not your inner drive but, the various long term/short term goals of your organization.”

Well, the definition is crystal clear and anybody who has the working knowledge of English can comprehend it well but, does the real world behave like this? I guess that the reality is something different. Have we ever thought that why more and more people are taking a job rather than going for a career? What are those conditions which are forcing them or guiding them to take up a job which could neither satiate their intellectual spirits nor could guarantee a brighter tomorrow? I thought to pose these questions to my friend and I am trying to put her reply into words. She said “Raj! I am a victim of my own insecurities. Living alone in an alien world, no one to look up to when, you feel lost and tired, meeting the demands of demanding parents, pushing yourself to the extent your body and soul can endure and then falling prey to the lifestyle of the big cities. When I passed out I started preparing for the MBA but then, realized that it requires a hell lot of effort as well as a hell lot of money. My father was not in a position to finance my MBA education and banks do not oblige you for nothing. (True! they want strict documentation like covering the loan amount with insurance cover and your father signing the guarantee.) I started feeling insecure and questions like ‘what’ and ‘if’ started haunting me day in and day out. So, I started looking for a part time job and then one of my friends introduced me to this concept of working in a BPO that, how fun it is for her to work there and that she is getting paid handsomely. I went for an interview and got selected as a voice based agent.

One and half years have passed since then, and the only change I feel in myself is the way an unknown foreigner, in the middle of the night, pronounces my name. To pronounce it exactly in that way, I have to roll my tongue over the ‘R’. I have lost weight but, for a girl of my age that is something everybody wants. Well, I think one more thing has changed, what I saw as my freedom, I now envisage as “escape from freedom”. I mean I was free to chose a different job, and I was free to quit this job at anytime I wish, I was free to save enough for my initial days at B-School and I was again free to ask my father or any other member of my family to sign a bank guarantee for me. I was free to do all this but, I chose to become what, I am today and at every moment of my life I am trying to convince myself of how happy I am this way.”

Well, when I disconnected the call, I was getting mixed vibes about my reunion with this dear friend of mine, about how young people like us define freedom and how this whole definition is all about ‘Escape from freedom’.

Reservation Tantrums..

In the wake of recent developments at the level of central government in extending the reservation to the minorities and Other Backward Classes (OBC), I think that nothing lesser than a student movement would be able to force a roll back of the bill. Last year the apex court gave a verdict that in any circumstances the reservation in private un-aided colleges should not exceed the limit of 50% (the ceiling itself is too high as per opinion of experts). Well, the Congress government has made out an amendment in the constitution and it is being put to cabinet approval which empowers state governments to introduce community based reservations in admission to the central as well as private institutes. Not many will feel surprised by seeing that no any party is coming forward for the cause of those who unluckily belong to the Forward Classes and constitutes around 60% of the skilled work-force. All this started with the court ruling against the Aligarh Muslim University which wanted to increase the reservation quota for muslim students. Well, I think it should be a little bit clear that why Congress has to take the amendment route for overriding the court’s verdict.

I don’t know how these con-artists (who are unluckily our political representatives) define the word Forward Classes? What are the criteria on which the line of demarcation between Forward Classes and Backward Classes has been drawn? Every political party feels its duty to criticize BJP for dividing the country along communal lines through the much hyped yatras and undoubtedly Congress, leads the pack. But, I think that bringing out constitutional amendments against the Court’s verdict defies the whole logic of Indian democracy and also puts the Government behind bars for preparing an atmosphere for the murder of democracy. It is grave injustice on the part of those forwards who pay taxes from their hard earned money and now have to worry for the future of their children if they belong to the forward classes. BJP is to be blamed but not for dividing the country along communal lines but for not objecting to this sheer injustice.

How Reservation will affect us?

IIM’s and IIT’s have been the architects behind the making of “Brand India”. IIT’s are rated as one of the best technical institutions in the world and IIM’s are known to have the toughest selection procedure for a post-graduate program. Now, I would like to share here two individual cases which will give you a little idea about how reservation can affect you. I applied to several colleges for an intermediate course in Ranchi University (which is now in Jharkhand). I was waiting in the queue to deposit my form and I started talking to the student in front of me. I got 81% in C.B.S.E. and I was not confident about getting a seat in that college. That guy was having only 55% (33 marks in math) and was more than sure of getting admission into that institute because he belonged to the reservation quota. His father was a forest officer (he might have got his job from the same quota). His sister was a doctor and was teaching in some medical college of Orissa (again the quota system). As expected, I was denied the admission and later I completed my intermediate from a private school.

Second incidence is of this year itself. Symbiosis Institute of Business Management is famous for following a rigorous academic schedule and is known to produce quality management students. Well, the cut-off for the second round of selection procedure was something like this. Gen- 97.25, SC- in 60’s, ST- in 30’s. Well, the seats are needed to be filled and you can see the difference between the level of cut-off for the unreserved and reserved category. Now several questions arise here:

1) Would that student ever be able to compete with the student who has displayed a better logical and analytical ability (much much better I think)? Would they ever be able to do justice with their education ever?

2) What options are left for those students who were obviously better than those who got a seat out of the luck (out of reservation)?

3) Would any of our parliamentarians who have given their nod to this bill will ever allow any doctor (belonging to reserved category) to operate onto them after learning that how they got admission into medical courses and got their job?

With this new amendment coming into action, the immediate effects will be:

1) A degradation in the education level of the premiere institutes like IIT and IIM.

2) Frustration creeping into the talented and hard working youth due to the derth of opportunities.

In the long run, this is going to have severe effects on the economy. But, who cares about that? As long as these political party sticks to their minority appeasement programs they are sure to keep winning the elections.

I want to emphasize that I am not against the reservation rule. But it should not be implemented against the fate and future of million of others. “You can’t open a door for someone by closing a door on another one”. There should be only “one time reservation policy” which allows you to take the benefit of reservation at any but only one stage in your life. It may be at your education, or at job. Our Economist prime minister must understand this thing that we will loose our competitive advantage in the world market if our legislature keeps doing things as weird as this one.

Nostalgia...

Life is really mysterious. The more you try to understand it, the more it becomes complicated. The one aspect of it, that baffles me most, is the uncertainty and sometimes the certainty with which things happen with you. For five long years, I have cherished the memories of my school mates and truly speaking, it’s something that I would never want to go off my mind. Through all these years, the only communication I had with them was through ta couple of handwritten letters, a few emails (when my typing speed was like 100 words per hour) and rare phone calls. Even, the photographs started fading away. I almost lost the hopes and was really doubtful that our roads will ever cross again. And then in a span of two days, I got to talk with two of my very good friends. Friends, whom I think I’ll always find by my side whenever, I need them. So, whoever has doubts about the presence of the supreme power, I think that my life would serve a pretty good example for them to start believing in god, to start believing the fact that, there is a design for everything, for every event to happen in a particular manner and at a predetermined time.

I still wonder that what makes me feel nostalgic about my school days. Was it all about freaking out of school and watching those movies? Was it all about those numerous trips to the best restaurants in and around the city? Was it all about those endless gossips (sweet nonsense)? Was it all? I don’t know the answer in its exact form. But, vaguely it seems to me that human mind has a tendency to take a saunter down the memory line and seek some solace from the past whenever it find itself in confusing or demanding situations. Memories can be painful but also believed to have excellent healing qualities.

I now am thinking that what will happen once I get through with my graduation program? Would I terribly miss these people who have been partners in my joys, sorrows and pain (even in crime)? Would I ever be able to forget my first crush in this college or that phone friend or this guy who has been my room mate for three long years and have been at the suffering end for all these years? I don’t know that what will happen in the next few years. Well, I think that these two lines are a close reflection of the state of my mind.

I M SURE EVEN IF LIFE SENDS US IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS,
OUR HEART WOULD BE JOINED FOREVER BY THE BOND OF LOVE.

See why men and women feel crazy for each other.

According to the great Greek Philospher Pluto, at the begining of creation, men and women were not as they ae now; there was just one being , who was rather short, with a body and a neck, but his head had two faces, looking in different directions. It was as if two creatures had been glued back to back, with two sets of genital organs, four legs and four arms.

The greek gods, were however, were jealous, because this creature with four arms could work harder; with its two faces, it was laways vigilant and could not be taken by surprise; and its four legs meant that it could stand or walk for long periods at a time without tiring. Even more dangerous was the fact that the creature had two differnt set of sex organs and so needed no one else in order to continue reproducing.

Zeus, the supreme lord of Olympus, said: "I have a plan to make these mortals lose some of their strength. "And he cut the creature in two with a lightening bolt, thus creating man and woman. This greatly increased the population of the world, and, at the same time, disoriented and weakened its inhabitants, because now they had to search for their lost half and embrace it and, in that embrace, regain their former strength, their ability to avoid betrayal and the stamina to walk for long periods of time and to withstand hard work. That embrace in which the two bodies re-fuse to become one again is what we call sex.

Well, I was reading the book "Eleven Minutes" by Paulo Coelho and found this interesting explanation for the sexual orientation of human mind. I was able to find only a couple of pages in the whole book which is captivating in nature and forces you to receed deep into thoughts. This was the one and I have to re-read the other part to understand it fully.

Understanding life..

Finally I am back from what seems to me as a long long journey. I don't know how but in the recent months I have developed an eye for the brisk details of life. The little details which move the life from Patna to Patiala, chandigrah to Chennai and even further. Now, I see things more clearly and can really feel about the hardships of life. I see pain and suffering and can feel the pain and sufferings of the peoples different from me. I felt the pain of that little baby girl who feared the syringe like i did when i was a kid and also of that old rickshaw puller who was willing to ferry me to the bus station for a minimal sum of money just to feed himself.

Well, I think that the most important question is "Should life be considered easy (like it is for the priviledged peoples) or Should it be considered as tough (like in the case of unpriviledged ones)." Anyways the brutal fact is that " does the answer matters for that old rickshaw puller"??