IITs ... launchpad to IIMs !!!

I have been thinking about writing on this topic for quite sometime ... but neither had the courage nor the time to start it up. So here I am, with yet another question -
IITs were established in our country to be the pioneers in techincal education. But the recent trends show that students use it as a stepping stone to launch themselves either to Civil Services or for a career in Management. Should we now change the names of IITs to preIIM ...???

Its not that this question has just sprung off my mind just like that. I had the opportunity to study at one of the premier institutes of our country - IIT Delhi. During my 2 year stay in the campus, one thing surely caught my attention - almost all students want to make it to the IIMs .... Now saying that all students want to make to the IIMs is an overstatement. Of course there are some who like to stick to the technical area. The question is if the so called best techincal institute is producing management aspirants much more than engineers it is supposed to produce, is it fair to continue to pump money into such institutes.

What I feel is that the moment a student choses IIT Delhi over the other institutes, for a career in engineering, he is possibly not having engineering in his mind. Delhi is known for the coaching institutes,  for Civil Services, for Management and for what not !!! Even those people who are working with premier organisations of our country, when they get transferred to Delhi, one possibility is that he/she might be preparing for something like MBA or IAS/IPS kind of exams .... Well you can disagree with me on that note ... but these are my opinions ....

I know that you have all the tools which democracy has given in your hands ... like Right to profession, liberty etc etc .... and yes I know that no one can be and should be barred from making a career in his/her choice of profession. But the question still remains.

The only technical work that is done in these institutes are either done by PhD students or by MTech/MS students. Allow me to ask then, why don't we transform these premier IITs into institutes only for PG studies, by which way only those people will come who want to make a career in technical/research areas, rather than people who come to get hold of a degree from an IIT and utilize the resources to the fullest to become a Civil Servant or a Manager !!!

THE BHOOT OF JINNAH

Some time back, there was a huge controversy, again, related to Jinnah.

Well I am writing about this because recently there have been a lot of political developments flagged off by the ousting of Jaswant Singh from BJP upon writing a book. Allegedly he wrote some derogatory comments for Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel and found Jinnah secular. Sounds very undemocratic, isn't it? After all every individual has got the right to freedom of expression, a fundamental right given by our constitution. The thing to think is that is there anything at all in Jaswant Singh's book that is so derogatory that it called for a disciplinary action??? Recently I got an opportunity to read that book. Personally speaking I didn't find it derogatory at all !!! (May be I don't have the intelligence to understand what is derogatory and what is not !!!). Why is it that a big national party like the BJP comes into limelight again and again over only one issue [Jinnah's bhoot (ghost)]. Is it possible that its not by chance that Jinnah's ghost is haunting the party but that the party finds some premise or the other to get focus out of controversies arising from such issues. Can be either of them. The partition of the nation took place almost 60 years ago and no one was happy about that. But is it justified to fight now over the question of whether a person who is dead was secular or not. How does it make any difference whether Jinnah was secular or not, now?? Even if Jinnah was secular, why can't we digest this?? Can't a secular person commit some mistake at all? Is it that you can't praise a person who allegedly was responsible for our nation's partition?

What's derogatory for some historical figure is a question which can be debated over and over again. Isn't it derogatory to compare L.K.Advani to the Lauh Purush (Iron Man), Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, needless to say that this was self proclaimed by the party itself. If we see Patel's contribution and compare it to Advani's, I don't think that Advani has even done a miniscule fraction of what Patel has done for the unity of our nation.

Well another thought has crossed my mind. Every time Jinnah's bhoot comes in the news, it is associated with a new book. So in a way the possibility cannot be ruled out that such controversies are deliberately created. Jaswant Singh being a senior leader of the party must have known that such a book might trigger another controversy, so why did he write such a book at the first place. Well questions are endless with no answers. Jaswant's book might have failed to get him some literary award and even paved the way of his exit off BJP, but the controversy thereafter has certainly filled up his tijori.

Tip for easy money making - Just write a book about Jinnah and his secularism and wow you could create a bestseller !!!

GODISNOWHERE !!!

The title seems cryptic, isn't it? Well today I am writing about this only. Read the title once again. This was once sent to me by one of the closest of my friends. Now what I am going to write are purely my views and I have no intentions of hurting anyone's religious sentiments, or beliefs. If I do so, that would be purely unintentional, and would offer my apologies for the same in any form as the offended pleases (not to mention that it would depend whether I am capable of doing that and to the extent my freedom is not jeopardised, as writing this article, I am exercising my Freedom of Expression and legally there is nothing wrong in doing so!!!).

Well let's look at it once again. Did you read "GOD IS NOW HERE" or "GOD IS NOWHERE"? Amazing, isn't it. The same sentence doubles up to depict beliefs which are poles apart. What you interpret is what you believe in. You must be thinking, why did I open this Pandora's box. This is what it is all about. It's about what RELIGION means to me and about why I believe or don't believe in GOD. To make any sense, let me tell you that I submit to the second interpretation -"GOD IS NOWHERE". Well, I too don't know what happened to me, that I don't believe in god, and its not easy to understand even, because, back home, everyone is a staunch believer, and the air in my home is extremely religious. I too was taught in my childhood about the almighty ... !!! I was asked to perform all the customs which a normal Hindu family would perform ... of course without justifying to me why is it necessary to do them. Its just that slowly I got fed up of this and dwindled away from the belief. When I grew up, I started to question the very existence of the entity termed as God, and let me tell you that I now totally believe in the absence of any such entity. Now, if we start to think why do we people believe in it, its not that you realise that such an entity exists, its just that every child has been forced to live with this phenomena called God, I don't know about other countries, but about India, this is true. You would agree with me, if I say that a child can't make an educated choice between believing and not believing, if he is not allowed to think the other way. Most of the Indians are believers because they have never questioned what they were asked to do during their childhood, and on top of that would not do so, even if allowed, because of the fear that something unprecendeted might happen if they start not believing. We have an entire setup that tells us that if something happens its because of some cause. Without a superpower acting nothing can happen. I just want to say that, what if this very proposition is wrong !!! What if things that happen, don't need any cause to happen. You might be thinking that this guy is demented, well, you may think so, because, if you do so, the cause is again what you term as God, because it can't happen by itself and has to be done by some superpower, isn't it (ha!!)??? I always think that if God has created us all, then why is this imbalance, why some people wipe even there pet's poop with a bill, while others (a large number of them) don't have a penny even to feed themselves or there children?? What wrong has a differently abled infant done, that he is born like that?? Why is that some receive respect of a king upon death, while there are millions of people, upon death, are considered useful for population correction?? I know I know, I can here it coming, the "karma in the last life stuff", do you really think that this is the reason, which is used to justify anyones miserable condition in this life. Isn't it just a proposition that some person has made because he couldn't justify that God is the ultimate, and isn't it fair to say, that he proposed this just to make the so called "almighty" beyond a common man's reach, so that he couldn't question his existence???

Even if GOD existed, wouldn't it be equivalent to its nonexistence, when we see such gross indifferences in a world which was created by HIM for the equals. On this pretext I am fairly convinced that there is no such entity called GOD, because lot of imbalances occur in our world - the world created by the so called almighty. There are just these forces of nature ... and believe me they don't need any supernatural power to guarantee there existence.

For me Religion is, if you see someone in need, help him with whatever you can. I have seen very few of these kind of people who are selfless (needless to say I am one of them , ha ha ha !!!), but yes I do try to help anyone who knocks at my door, anytime of the day, and I try to help everyone with whatever I can. And still take this, I am a non-believer. IITD gave me an opportunity to meet this other guy who is a selfless person, at least when it comes to help others, the needy ones. His name is Peeyush Mishra, though he is a theist, but I don't mind it (ha ha ha !!!). He is one person whom I respect from the core of my heart, his stature even grows bigger in my heart, when I see him helping some poor roadside kid, by giving his jacket, so that he can protect himself from the chilling cold of Delhi, when I see him offering a cup of tea for an old poor lady, and feeding poor people to do away with their hunger.

For me, God is anyone who is like Peeyush Mishra, whose actions inspire me of doing the same. Isn't this definition of Religion and God, more realistic - "Religion": To help the needy; "God": One who does so. Then why do we need 360 Million (36 Crores) Gods and Goddesses??? Just a thought that crossed my mind.

My Life at IITD !!!

Did you expect another Chetan Bhagat's 5 point someone kind of a story? Sorry, to disappoint you then. No Professor Cherian, or his daughter Neha, no Ryan, and no 5 point grades, in this story. This is my story.
I hail from a small township called Bhilai in Chhattisgarh, I feel this place is well known, though. This place is not only known for the Bhilai Steel Plant, which is now the back bone of SAIL, but also for one other thing, producing lot of IIT JEE qualifiers, and is not far behind KOTA(Rajasthan), in this race. Since I am from this place, I also shared a dream of beating the IIT JEE screening test, failed though miserably, after which I realised that I don't deserve a seat in IIT, then. But you know what, the dreams which are dearer to your heart, try to break and eventually break all barriers, which prevent them from being fulfilled. A slightest of the chance smiles at you, and you smile back at it, for giving the opportunity to fulfill your dreams, long subsided. Same happened to me as well. I got the opportunity to get into IITD, without much hard work. I say so because, I didn't have to write GATE exam to pursue MTECH here in IITD. I am a sponsored candidate working in a government organisation. So getting an admission was almost a cake-walk.
The first semester, in particular the first minor, was a disaster for me. I scored "praiseworthy" marks in almost all courses I took - most notable of them was a 6.5 out of 25 in one of the courses. It boosted my belief that I am going to be thrown out of the IIT at the end of the semester for not being able to conform to the IIT standards. It is said that when you are afraid of something, you prepare yourself better for the big confrontation and always pray to avoid such a confrontation. Thankfully, I managed to avoid a confrontation with such a situation, guess I was better prepared for it.
Well, I learnt a lot, during my stay in the IITD so far. I learnt how to score good marks without having much stress and minimum studies. Back in our Engineering days, we used to take "a one night stand" towards any exam. Hey you!!! It doesn't mean what you are thinking, it means that we used to study only the previous night of the semester exams. Initially I thought that it won't be applicable in IIT. But then I found out that "a one night stand" is applicable to this institute as well.
Studies apart, there are quite a lot of things worth enjoying in IITD. Firstly, the "Dilli ki sardi". This is one season in Delhi I like the most, but guess what, good things last for a short duration. Secondly, I enjoy the "Aunty ki Chai". Now all the IITDians must have enjoyed it too. Then there is the "Shashi Parathe Wala" where almost all the hostelers have there meals, almost twice everyday. At least I do. I spend, I guess at least twice the amount I pay towards the mess bill, evey semester, eating out at Shashi. Then we have the "Mezban". Another place (actually it is a canteen cum restaurant) where at any given point of time, you can find at least half of the IIT students dining.
So many, memories of this place, in this short duration. Only 4 more months to go, before I get deprived of all these enjoyable things. People say that it doesn't take time for the time to pass by. True every word, because I still can't figure out how almost one-and-a-half years have gone by and in another couple of months, it would be 2 years, time to go back to Hyderabad.
I ponder over and over again about why was this stay enjoyable for me? A couple of reasons for that. Its not that after a long time I got to make friends. I make friends anyways. Its because after a professional life, its really overwhelmingly refreshing to be a student again. You get to make new friends with whom you don't have to act professional. For me in particular, there was no pressure of maintaining a minimum SGPA of 7.0 else lose the stipend. No pressure of any campus interviews, of catching hold of some job before leaving an institute. No pressure of selecting a major project about which I have to boast in the campus interviews. No pressure of learning C, C++, OS, DBMS ... blah blah ... things to compete with other students, for a job. No preparation for the Apti rounds, Technical rounds, or HR rounds. In a nut shell, a comfortable, and memorable part of my life.
When it comes to the most memorable day of my stay, though its quite difficult to chose from so many contenders, but yes, I will never be able to forget the night when the first student of our Control & Automation got placed, inspite of the global recession. That night 5 of our batchmates including me, sat the whole night in front of my hostel, on the bare road (believe me), and then climbed on roof-top of the Bharti Building, and sat there discussing our lives, till morning 6:30 AM.
I hope, may be, I will again get to relive the moments, like spent in IITD, probably, at some other place, some other form, with some other friends and a new environment, apart from my professional commitments.

SC SYNDROME

Well, this post is not about Breaking Codes, Crypto or Computer Games, of some medical disease - its symptoms, causes and cure, as the title might sound like. This post is about those people, who show signs of suffering from a fatal disease called "SC Syndrome" - the superiority complex syndrome. Harsh as it may sound, but true though. Life teaches lot of things everyday and here I am today telling you what I have learnt in the recent times.
I always thought that life is full of people who are ready to help others, have no disregard for others, and are less meaner than are perceived to be. Submitting to this line of thought, I have already made a fool of myself amongst my friends. I am not saying people are not as good as you want them to be. They are, but not many of them. I have met with a countable number of people who are selfless, met a lot of people who are self-centric, and then I met the third kind - the "self-obsessive" kind or the people who show symptoms of "SC Syndrome". This class of people is not very rare to find. You find them all the time, and are mostly in the top slot of a group. The person suffering form this disease, shows symptoms of being toppers all through life, and doing everything that they can, to retain the top spot. They are very determined to win everywhere they compete, have the feeling that whatever they start, will be successful, and that everyone will appreciate there talent. If you appreciate someone else in front of them, the patient shows signs of agony and restlessness. The causes of the disease are not known exactly but is believed to be genetic in nature and is passed on to generations through the parents ...
Competetion is a good thing to have in life, when it doesn't break the boundaries and drive you crazy. But the people suffering from SC Syndrome, take competetion as a challenge (well nothing wrong in that, but read ahead ...) for which they can't accept anyone else other than themselves winning. "Winning" is a word, which assimilates such obsession in them, that their actions aim only at it. For them, end result is of prime importance than the means. For the word in question, everything is justified, from misleading others to misguiding them, from cribbing to defaming others, and from learning everything your competitor knows (whether you actually need to learn them) to doing everything what he does, in an effort to stay ahead of your rivals.
I always ask myself, why do people get obsessed with "Winning no matter what", why do they get crazier and crazier day by day, why do they can't accept that others also can win, why do they can't feel happy when others prove better than them ... I guess all my questions are worthless, a projection of my stupidity, in this "competing" world, with such "maniacs" who are suffering from SC Syndrome.
And then I find my answer, how does it matter to me, if I find myself inferior to someone who is having the "SC syndrome". I wish that, I should never be exposed to such deadly virus, as there is no cure for this, neither is any vaccine available !!!