Tutor-ed kids

Whenever somebody talks of school, what we immediately do is, go back to our school years. For most of us, school was actually the temple of all knowledge we have gained and remember till date. It was also that battlefield of our heart where making/breaking relationships at times composed whole of our mindspace and nevertheless at times it was also the place where we would take interest in the first, second and third wives of that fat language teacher. But definitely, above this all, what meant most, were the classes, the time when we actually learned stuff and most of us (I hope so) just loved it.
On the bare mention of school level education, the images of those classes and playgrounds come fresh to the mind and with a little more quickness, we think of our buddies. But with time, things have changed. Studying is not restricted to schools and home works for today's kids.
In the last decade, the education industry has seen an enormous boom in the tuition culture. Catch any middle school or high school kid in an urban neighborhood and he'll make you count the number of tuitions he is attending and how his timetable is jam packed. Its not that the time table is void of any physical activity or stuff. You'll discover that the same child is also going to dance/music classes and sports classes too. Such a time tabled kid might seem to become an all rounder, a perfectionist, but the poor fellow lacks somewhere. He misses what we had in our childhood. It includes silly things ranging from staring at the night sky, or peeling layer by layer of the flower from the garden, or discovering how the rainbow patterns in so many transparent-ish objects, or even picking up a spider or cockroach by one of its legs and inspecting each of its body organs. The child basically misses the time he actually needs to develop his mind. And ya, when it comes to mind development, parents will claim that they are sending their child to the Vedic Math classes. But unfortunately, math is not the only thing that develops mind.
These kids end up being a bigtime failure when they are asked to understand the stuff written in the book by themselves. They need a teacher, a tutor at every step. They do not know how to discover a way to do stuff. All they know is that if they are told the way once, they will efficiently repeat it. Though this level of efficiency is surprisingly awesome at times. The most unfortunate part is, the teachers who created the school environment for us back then themselves have become greedy enough to start their own tuitions and ensure a good crowd in them.

Education - a stamp?

Whenever we talk of any problem about our country, the very first thing that comes to our mind is- "whatever the problem be, the solution is only one - EDUCATION!" True that education is the only potential weapon that can uproot all our problems, but looking at how this weapon has faired, I don't really think it has worked that efficiently as it was expected to or as we all saw it would.
Here we live in a country, where most of the middle class is educated. Educated, perhaps just to say. You look around and you shall find many people who have done their graduation, even post graduation but their thoughts, mentality still belong to the early 20th century. People for whom a marriage is incomplete till there is ample amount of dowry to be shown off, people who still find daughters a burden, schools and homes where girls are still not treated as equals. And these people go around claiming their degree  for jobs, government positions, and often, even for match-making. But unfortunately, these degree holders lack even the middle school education. People who so easily waste kiloliters of milk feeding the idols and then calling it their tradition which as they strongly feel, needs to be kept alive. The same bunch of people on seeing the poor starving would call it mismanagement on the government's part.
I am not saying that our country is full of these kind of people. Of course not! We are 1.2 billion. This massive number itself implies diversity in behavior, thoughts and beliefs. So, there is definitely another class of people, who realize the actual worth of their education and hence choose to escape to the US or Europe. The ones who cannot afford to escape, stay here and assume that they can't do anything than follow the herd of the educated uneducated. Well, there are a really few who do make an effort to make a change.
But the other bunch of people just seem to be stuck in there. The worst part is, even the educated parents teach their kids to maintain the traditions in a social setting where the education given by parents holds the highest importance in a child's mind. And this issue is not with the lower class or even the lower middle class, its with the upper classes. The class where we have figured out more cases of female foeticides than amongst the poor village people. The class which is apparently the educated class. The class for which education is just a stamp, the stamp they like to carry with pride on their chest.  

I will transform India

situation of the country is terrible
government is awful
problem is with the citizens themselves
our laws need to be made again
the constitution needs to changed perhaps
India is not the apt place to stay in
Everyone wants to move out
the big and powerful are all corrupt
not only the youth, but the entire population is spoilt
the India of dreams of Gandhi and Nehru is lost
the onus is on us to bring about a change
and I am telling you
I will bring that change

I support Anna Hazare
I will uproot corruption
I will transform India
For this, I need your support

And when I say all this
you will listen to me
Some 5% might be keen to know how I'll transform India
some 20% could tell what problem I am talking about
the rest will follow blindly
you will buy my books
come to my public speeches
you will participate in my rallies
you will like my facebook page
and participate in any mass movement initiated by me
because I need your support
why exactly I need that?
You need to know that?

You will all unite
support me
and all this just because
I say
I will transform India

Crisis

Disclaimer: this post is a bit random. Avoid it if you find it useless.

Crisis.
Yes, we use this word really often. Managerial crisis is the most day-to-day experience infact. Take this for example: I have loads of work to do, shitload of deadlines on my head. So, I pick a paper and a pen, plan when to do which work, voila! It just sounds so cool! Okay, so I start working as per the prepared time table. To my surprise, about more than 80% of the plan was executed! So, I have put my effort in there and now I am waiting for approvals, replies, etc. so that I can proceed on with the work. I had expected that those approvals and stuffs would come pretty sequentially and I would finish all the work at least just before the deadlines. An hour of waiting. Another. I watch a movie to pass time. I watch another. Still no replies and go-aheads for the work. I decide to take a nap. Barely five minutes of constant switching between conscious and subconscious minds and here - pings, mails, phone calls and texts. Everybody is replying, approvals are here and the next milestones up. But why does everything pop up all of a sudden. Now I have really less time (before the lan bans :P) and loads of work. I was so jobless a few hours ago. And now, I'll have to spend 15 minutes planning and another 15 approving the plan and I don't know how well it'll be executed.

The Trap

I heard this phrase in my freshie year. We had our department intro (a typical intro at IITB where the first years are asked silly questions so that they get to mix up with the others) where some passing out seniors were asked to say something about the department, etc. The thing which fell into my ears the most was, this department is awesome and you're just going to love your stay here. So true, perhaps the most awesome and home like department in the institute.
In the same intro, there was some senior whose words I remember fresh as if I heard them just a moment ago, he said, "CPI is a big trap, don't fall for it." I think that I could not really understand it right then but something it contained which made me remember it till today.
CPI is perhaps a tag associated to us (IITians, I mean). From the very beginning of my freshie year, I have heard people talking about others like, 'oh, she is a 9.8', 'that chap is perfect 10!! :-o' Agreed to the point that, to an outsider, the only thing that reflects your sincerity and caliber is CPI. No objection to this. Had I been a professor and given a time constraint, I would have considered the student's CPI on whether to take him for a project or not. But this all doesn't mean that the criteria is generalized and that we work our asses off just to shoot up the pointer and do not bother to learn or enjoy the course. The fact that everything ranging from the day0 jobs to good postgrad univs, you are told that a good CPI will take you through and that you should not even put an attempt at it if you have a messed up CPI. A two figure digit that defines you.
Almost all of us have a past of stardom, being the topper of class since Ist grade, topping in every course, etc and then coming to the premier institute of the country and this CPI crisis, we are like kicked off from the well molded position we had been holding till now. Only a few of us know how to handle the situation, the rest suffer a psychological setback. The worst part is, our environment doesn't help in coping with the same. The initial poor marks of the first MA105 quiz would just make us study more. I remember ditching the line follower competition in my freshie year just because the quizzes were drawing near and I had already messed up the part till midsem. Well, it was not really a worth regretting decision in first place because I recall well that I enjoyed the courses I had studied post ditching that event. But that might not be the case always. As fresh as yesterday, I also remember the course MA 205 (yes, at IIT, the course code makes more of your memory than the course name) whose every lecture I enjoyed thoroughly, loved solving the tutorials as well as the beautiful literature the course was made up of. But starting with the first quiz, I messed up bigtime and given my already dull CPI, it got me nervous over the grade the course will render me. And by the time the semester ending exam of the course was nearing (it was a half sem course, unfortunately), I had already stopped enjoying the
course and forced myself to prepare in the grade oriented fashion. And to add to this all, I did mess up with my grade in the course, despite all that forced effort, which all made me feel more helpless than ever. A few weeks after the result of this course was out, my memory took me back to that freshie intro moment and I whole heartedly realized how big a trap it was. The desire to build up a good looking CPI constantly kept me away from things I probably wanted to do hence leading me into a situation where I don't have a single certificate proving myself good at any particular thing. In such a situation, I am left with no option but to start afresh and that too from the middle.

Taking it easy

It so often and easily happens that you don't know what to do next in life. Recently while I was doing an internship in Chennai, we had an office lunch bidding farewell to someone who was leaving. There was some senior employee in the office who asked me what I was going to do next. I innocently replied that after the lunch I'll get back to work like everyone else and I hadn't planned anything for the evening. He was like No No.. I am asking what are you planning to do with your future? I was left numb for a second, then I gathered myself and replied, “I am just in my second year, I need not know that now itself. I don't have any plans as yet.” He was filled with shock and gave me the example of his son who is in his 8th that he is all planned to become a computer engineer. I appreciated the fact and tried to busy myself with the food. Though the food had only rice, I found it certainly better than the talk! This was just one encounter, I have met many people who are so much more worried about my future than me.

There was some mentorship programme at our institute where a particular club of the insti had invited so called successful college pass-outs. One of them on taking up the mic wanted to teach us to always play safe in life. He said that one should strive for what one wants but there are always chances that you might not get that and hence you should have plan B, plan C and also your plan D always ready. I was terrified to hear that for I don't even have a plan A ready with myself. I raised my hand and asked him, “Is it always necessary to have plans ready? Can't we go on in life with instantaneous planning?” He replied saying that no instantaneous thing works, you should always be planned. I wanted to argue but given the crowd and his attitude, I dropped the idea.

All this renders me worried about what I shall do in future, for I don't have any plans. But what I wonder more is why do we need to have plans, why can't we let life flow the way it wants to. Is it necessary that I make a life scheme and that scheme decides what interests me? Isn't it upto my heart over what interests me? I have often heard the quote, you are the potter who shapes his life, but should we decide the final shape of the pot even before we start collecting the clay. The scheme of final shapes we already have is pretty limited, isn't it? If we let ourselves be the potter and shape the pot with time and the natural flow of life, won't we end up with a shape which is completely new to this convention-ridden world?

The next time anyone asks me about what I am going to do with my life, then my only reply would be 'I'll be taking it easy!'

Mumbai meri jaan...

The title of this blog post is stolen from my friend Surabhi's blog post, but she has no right to complain for I have an equal right on the title as any other Mumbaikar! And as of this blog post, my another friend Pritam almost made me write this (for I was really getting bored sitting in some other city), but I am not really sure whether I'll be able to do justice to the title of the post. Mumbai pe jitna likhu utna kam hai!!

My experience with Mumbai is really short. Up till last two years, I hadn't been to Mumbai even once. Or like any other kid, I might have been there to catch a train or a flight or to meet some obvious relatives, but that was just a visit, I didn't feel the city right then. I don't really recall when and where I heard about Mumbai for the first time but it seems as if I've known Mumbai since I know I exist and I'd always been keen to be a part of the hustle of the city! All this made me decide back in high school, that I will do my graduation from this city and given that I wanted to do engineering, the first thing that came to my mind was of joining IIT Bombay and I did realize that getting admission is tough, but don't worry that did not make me study hard! Its just that I kept dreaming (didn't work hard) and fate brought me here. Probably I was destined to be belonging to Mumbai.

I so properly remember my first day here. I came to do some paper-work for my admission at the institute. My foot stepped the first on Andheri station and the very feel of the moment was awesome! I still don't understand from where did I get this feel, but yeah, it was there. I was all full of energy to discover the entire city, but for that day, task was defined and time was limited, we had to leave Mumbai by lunch time. Mumbai gave me a warm welcome that day with its continuous drizzling signing no hopes of stopping! Unavoidable rains is something most people hate about Mumbai, but for me, that is something which gives me the feel that I am in Mumbai!. That day was anyways a short encounter with Mumbai. It was almost a month later that I properly shifted to Mumbai and probably even a month after my shifting did I decide to go around places.

More than places, it was the public of this city which caught my attention. Everyone has such a precise calculation of his time, counting every second involved in catching a local to finishing a file in office. In the rush and crowd of everyday life, simple things that grant pleasure just amazed me. The feel of you peeping out of a rushing fast local and the breeze thrashing your face, the taste of vadapav available at almost every local station or nearby areas, the ambiance of a simple mall, the sound of rain pattering on your umbrella, the holy air of a small temple or masjid around.. all these make up the hidden elements of this city, the fun of which only those can enjoy who have been a part of the inevitable flow of the city.

Often people would ask me, whats there in Mumbai that you're mad about and my answer completes with one word, the 'feel' of the city. Its this feel that I miss whenever I am not here. This feel can't be explained though I can make an attempt at trying to give you too the 'feel'. When I went to Marine line for the first time, I was gripped by this awesome feel.. yea that was the same marine which was eternal to movies from Chalti ka naam gadi to Guru. All these years, so many things around have changed but this marine line remains the same, so much like the way it was. The view of illuminated Queen's necklace at night, the feel of  dirty Juhu chowpatty, shabby sea-side at Gateway, the 'let-it-be-as-it-is' elephanta caves, really beautiful Victoria Terminus and surrounding area, always crowded Siddhi Vinayak, sea-facing fresh-breezed Mahalakshmi Temple, another crowded Haji Ali Mosque, the ages old and its own Mumba Devi Temple, the self-sufficing Nariman Point, the rich-and-posh Bandra-Worli Sea link, Bandra's unavoidable fashion street, vast Powai lake and our very own Sameer hills with the adjoining National Park, it is all this which constitutes this city. The locals, which are unmistakably the heartbeat of the city for it executes the flow of people and goods across the city, exist to liven up the city.

Yea, you'd heard it right somewhere, Mumbai is very crowded! Managing a space to live in this city is a big deal! The actual land area of this city was originally very small and it has been build up to accommodate the crowd flowing in and on this land stolen from sea, there is utter lack of space! The exorbitantly high property rates and cost of living reflect this. But despite this, in addition to housing the country's richest, this city has a heart big enough to accomodate the country's poorest. Almost in each and every meter square of Dharavi, a life breathes. As the song correctly quotes, Ae dil hai aasaan jeena hai, suno mister, suno bandhu, ye hai bombay meri jaan, a person hailing from any corner of the country can manage to earn a living here. And this attractive nature of the city is not new, from before independence (almost since its birth) till today, people of different classes, of different parts of the country come here, settle here and belong here!

Been in this city for only two years and that too largely in the walls of my Institute, I already feel as if I belong to this city, as if.. if there is some place I could choose for my death then that is Mumbai!