On Second Thoughts - A Sequel to the Previous Post

Since I'd written 'At First Sight' quite a while ago, I'd already gotten some feedback from the people who read it when I showed it to them. I'm sure there are some points in it that everyone contradicts with. Though it looks like quite a big post, I feel that there is still lots to add, lots of in-between thoughts that I missed out, especially in the last paragraph, which majority of people seem to have a problem with...

So, on second thoughts, what I would like to say is...when a student wants to get into an engineering college, the hopes are high and expectations increase tenfold - each and every college is judged, rated and criticized on various factors - placements, campus, teachers, hostel accommodation...and ultimately the 'best' is chosen. However, an important factor is missing here - the student. He's the one who truly completes the whole equation. What a student does after going into 'the best engineering college' is upto him. After all, there are 'toppers' and 'failures' in any class, in any college. 100% placements or the best teachers doesn't necessarily mean that every student will top the class.

My argument is, you can't judge a college or a student's life in it, based on these 'ratings'. Sometimes, its just about the experiences you have, the background details do not matter. People argue about ISM and its infirmities...but it has some equally strong points too (like the senior-junior relationship, as somebody said.. :-) ) but I don't want to go into that. My last paragraph was just a reference to the joys of college life (coupled with living in a hostel with 29 other girls, each "one of a kind"), something that I was so totally new to, which I am still discovering, and am sure will eventually miss. I would have written so even if I had been in another college, a better or a worse one, if I had the same, fresh experiences all over again. This doesn't mean ISM isn't unique-it's a piece of heritage...it is its own world, with the most dynamic students..and all ISMites know that!! :-)

At First Sight

A Note: This was the article I talked about in my first blog post - the one about my first day at ISM which I sent as an entry for Mailer Daemon, eventually making me realize that blogging is the thing for me :) 

Now read on...

It was a red-letter day. After a month long struggle of filling out forms and applications, setting and submitting them in order, I was finally at college. College. The word got butterflies fluttering in my stomach. I was going to be away from home for so long for the first time. It was a highly awkward feeling – not knowing what to expect – the classes, the seniors and – the hostel, something I never figured joining even in my wildest daydreams.Anyway, I was on my way into the campus, nervously tucked between both my parents in the the auto, going directly to the Penman auditorium, to complete the admission procedure. ‘This is it,’ I sighed. 

Okay – big gate with security guards, I registered (pardon me, but I was one of those idiots with ridiculously low expectations from ISM at the time). I smiled at the ‘No Parking’ sign – not that it was pretty, but that were about a dozen bicycles parked right next to it (they still are). I took in the road sidelined with big old trees, their canopy almost blacking out the sky above. No pollution here, I thought, mentally unchecking the ‘Mines – danger!!’ box in my brain, not particularly noticing the people walking along the footpath, mostly staring in our direction, as though saying, “Here they come”.

As we approached the main building, I remembered reading that ISM was built in the 1920s (part of the background research to ‘size up’ my college). Looking at it in reality, it did seem pretty old, with the red bricks and all, standing next to the modernly constructed  LHC, which I hardly noticed, being too busy calculating the size of the main building, making statistics and comparing it to the one I’d seen in IIT Madras.

After having been dropped off at the main canteen, we made our way towards the Penman Auditorium. There was quite a rush already, though we were  quite early. As we walked closer, I stopped in my tracks. Damn. No way. I looked around again – my parents realising it too. There was not a girl in sight. I panicked. But then, we were really early and shook it off as no big deal. However, it was a big hint that the female population here would be astonishingly low, which was a shock to me. I hadn’t known that it was usual in the IITs – back home, there was no such situation in the colleges there.

As predicted, my future hostelmates turned up one by one, dotted here and there among the male-dominated auditorium. After making friends with a few and completing the admission procedure, I took a look around the campus , rating the different places on a scale of ten.

The main canteen got a four – it was untidy (littered with dung, to be specific) and the food inside doesn’t tickle any taste buds. I gave the library an eight – liking the peaceful looking building instantly. We proceeded to the Ruby Hostel, having been (wrongly) told that it was going to be our abode. ‘Its quite  big,’I thought, trudging towards the gate, silently thanking God that it wasn’t a 1920s building. Then came the blow. “There’s no water in the taps Ma’am,” said the girl, obviously my senior, to a sulky faced, elderly lady (apparently the caretaker) standing with her hands on her hips who subsequently fired a volley of statements in denial. The rooms inside too gave no hope – we were just going to be stuffed like hay on a truck, I realised. “How am I ever going to adjust to this place?” I thought. As my temper built, I internally ranted about the low standards of “my college”, comparing it to the ‘grand’ IIT Madras, and then bitterly blaming myself – after all, if I’d gotten admission in this place, it was all my fault. I went back to the hotel with my dejected parents, all happiness drained from my face.

One year on now, I sometimes sit back and smile about my behaviour that day. After all, I didn’t know anything back then. I didn’t know the fresh feeling of independence one felt on being away from home, I hadn’t made such good friends with whom you joke around and hang out with all the time – be it in class or late into the night in the wee hours of the morning. I hadn’t been part of fests like Oorja or Srijan, to really get a taste of college life. What I had seen was only the shell, not the heart of the matter. After all, everything is not actually what it seems to be.

The "Back Benchers"

Scene 1: First row, middle bench, in front of the teacher's desk

3 students, writing seriously in their copies, either never looking up or following the teacher's every step without batting an eyelid. Their visage reflects the cool and calm attitude of one who's gotten up early in the morning to pray and study.

Scene 2: Last row, last bench in the corner, away from the teacher's roving eyes

2 students, with their notebooks open but empty. They occasionally nod their heads, when the teacher posts a query, to show they are listening...but if the effort takes up too much energy, they nod off to sleep. When caught, they get an earful from the frustrated teacher and eventually get thrown out of class, while those at the front bench gape in amazement. The others in the same row do more or less similar things, but are more in the line of sight of the teacher.

This is typical college life - the concentrated attention one pays to the lecture diminishes at a rate inversely proportional to the distance from the blackboard. I don't want to take sides here - the front benchers and the back benchers have their own philosophies in life. While the majority of the former category have got all their priorities sorted and their future already planned and chalked out...the latter are the ones who 'live life on the edge'. They don't waste time on trivial things like copying down notes word-to-word - they indulge in 'multi-tasking'...texting a parody on the teacher to a friend two rows ahead, writing down the assignment given a week ago and to be submitted in the next period, doodling and making designs behind the notebook, engraving witty one-liners on the desk...For these often 'out-standing' students, EQ (emotional quotient) is more important than IQ. They are usually the first to come up to help a friend down with fever at 3 am in the wee hours of the morning. High on creativity and low in the 'responsibilities' section, they can be alternately labelled 'The Misunderstood'...

A Wonderful Quote!

" ..The only dream worth having is to dream that you will live while you are alive, and die only when you are dead. To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget. ..."

- Arundhati Roy.

The Unwritten Diary

Sitting on the shelf of my study table is a small Expressions notebook - a cute collection of pages with pictures of vintage cars at its corners. There's one thing you'll immediately notice about it - that it's empty.

It was at the end of my first semester that I realised that I wanted to keep a diary - for various reasons. I had been on my own for six months at a place so far from home... I made new friends and had some great experiences - overall it had been an extraordinary journey for someone like me, who had never expected, liked, or dreamed of the idea of staying in a hostel. I was the typical Mama's kid (still am :-) ), had my own life, friends, studies and all that, before relocating to Dhanbad. That changed everything. It was like as though I was on my own planet (with all the weirdest and funniest people I ever met)...independence makes people either foolish or tough..in this case however, it made me autobiographical.

Somehow though, after I'd finally gotten a small blue diary in my second sem, I just wasn't able to put down my thoughts in it, try as I might. Then I got busy with Srijan, Pratibimb and all those gala fests of our college and finally found no time. Then thinking that a change of writing environment might do me good, I got the cute Expressions notebook. And even then I couldn't do it. Everytime I just opened the book and stared without writing anything - it was like a Writer's Block. I just let things go down the drain like that until there came a notice inviting second years to be part of the Mailer Daemon team - we had to mail an article on a topic of our choice. I was desparate to do some writing - it had been way too long, and lo and behold - I wrote an article about my first day at ISM, but not in the diary...in Microsoft Word on my laptop!

It didn't take me very long to realise what my ideal 'writing environment' would be. No matter how busy I got after that, I knew I just had to start a blog...and here I am with some 'Pieces of Me'... :-)