First Term, Second Year

Oh well, it's been an entire term since I last wrote an entry and so much water has literally flown under the bridge (what with the Yamuna overflowing). So much has changed, and so much change is in the offing. To be honest, it was a depressing term, but through this depression, and keeping in line with my tradition of professional success in times of personal crisis, I came out of the term triumphant professionally, but ruined personally.

So, to begin with, college politics. Aditya Kiran Kakati stood for president. A good man, yes, but with a team that, for me, consisted of many power-credit hungry parasites. And that is why I refused to support his campaign. The only reason for me to support him was by process of elimination, and that is why I finally voted for him. Then there was the Students' Council elections. The Students' Council has been a defunct body and thus, the elections are a means for people to prove their popularity in college. However, I wanted to change that, but was unsure whether I'll be able to. But I thought, might as well try. So, I stood and I won (despite my entire class not turning up to vote because of no classes). And now, as I sit back at home, I have to think of ways to work and make the council work. Unfortunately, the Union (and hence, the Council) are still very much caught up in the shackles of red-tapism and hence, it is tough, almost impossible, to get things moving. Yet, I will try, not because I want credit or benefit out of it, but because I want personal satisfaction of having made a defunct body work.

Then, let me turn to a round-up of the societies. The Economics Society is surprisingly such a free society in second year. I can nearly do anything I want to, and I am exploiting this creative freedom to the maximum extent. It gives me liberty to do things that I've always wanted to do, and hence came the M S Excel Lecture Series (now known as M S Excel Workshops), the Microfinance Seminar, the V C Memorial Debate among others. Yes, Karan seems to feel that I like ecosoc more. But hey, F&I's National DreaMerger was the defining moment of my college life in first term. And now with a bundle of ideas I approach the second term.

But the happiest moments of life in first term has been to discover new people in the form of juniors. Not that I had many good friends in the third years (except for Karan), but when my immediate seniors pass out, I'll really miss people like Vedant, Pallavi, Sanjay among others. Hence, it feels nice to have a new bunch of friends from first years.

Finally, I realised that life is actually a huge constrained optimisation problem. There are a million constraints, primary among them energy and time, and we have to optimise joy in that time. Doing 'new' things has really been the joy of first term, second year, and I hope that the rest of the year too will be a wonderful ride.