Stephania - really?

Enough has been said about 'Stephania' by people more experienced than me. My first introduction to the hoopla around 'Stephania' was an article by Shashi Tharoor for Delhi Times where he wrote about what made Stephens special. Among things he said was the fact that in St. Stephen's, religion and region did not matter and the pursuit of knowledge and intellect was given precedence over scoring marks, rote-learning and the like. The merits and demerits of his arguments, and whether they are valid over a quarter century after he left college, is something I do not find myself qualified enough to comment on. Instead, what I can comment on is what difference I see in St. Stephen's today from other colleges of Delhi University.

The idea of teaching in St. Stephen's going beyond the textbooks and examinations is slowly, and surely, dying out. Not to say that the blame can be rested on the faculty of St. Stephen's College - it would be more appropriate to blame the suffocating nature of the DU syllabus since it leaves colleges with little time to pursue their own charters. Education in DU is being turned into a McAloo tikki burger - you get the same taste wherever you go. Whether that's a good thing or not (I think it's abominable) is kept for later discussions.

What I argue in this piece is that what is unique to St. Stephen's College is its small size - 1200 students - studying a large number of courses - 10 in total - across a variety of disciplines. What this results in is greater interaction between different ideas, and this is where I believe our college has the most to benefit from. I hence believe that expanding the number of seats might diminish, if not demolish, this unique advantage that we have.

The difference between previous evocations of Stephania and what I propose is that what I propose is tangible - it can very well be replicated by other colleges. I do not pin-point Stephania on intangibles such as the 'spirit', which is impossible to judge anyway. To conclude this point, I think we have a lot to gain by acknowledging that in a fast-changing world, wherein St. Stephen's is no longer considered the undisputed best arts college in India, we have a lot to gain by foregoing the old connotations of 'Stephania' and recognise what we actually have and then create fora for us to exploit it to the fullest.

As an aside, it is true that the pursuit of innovation in St. Stephen's College has been vanishing. In this context, there would be much merit in arguing that being associated with DU is harming St. Stephen's. There has to be greater room for the college to manage its own syllabus and evaluation parameters.

The importance of taking it easy

It is after quite a while that I write in my blog, and what a time it has been! My lost post on 14th Feb corresponds to the times immediately after the F&I fest, and it is actually somewhat sad that I I consider these society events landmarks in my life. And this is where I come to my next thought - that very often, we take life too seriously and give it much more attention than what it actually deserves.

Very often, what we consider as 'life' is a set of discrete points, these 'landmarks'. For example, in my case this would correspond to my topping the boards, COQ experience, coming to St. Stephen's and the like. However, what I now believe is that what is a better way of evaluating life is to view it not as a discrete set of points, but as a continuum of moments and experiences.

What is the marginal benefit of one over the one? Discrete points, of course, are far fewer than a continous range. Hence, there is a greater probability of 'failure', and there is much more scope for disappointment. In contrast, a life viewed as a continuum of experiences is very unlikely to suffer from disappointment, primarily because every moment becomes so trivial in the larger scheme of things, and the law of large numbers ensures that every moment is lost.

The logic that exemplifies this is Robin Sharma, the writer of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. He writes that the problem with walking on a path with one eye on the goal is that you have only one eye looking down on the path. Is it not better to first look at the goal, make judgements of which path to take, and then immerse yourself completely in the pursuit of the path? This way, firstly you would be able to enjoy the path completely and also probably do better in pursuit of the goal.

Of course, this all comes with the warning that I haven't tried it myself, and only now do I embark on this path. Hence, try at your own risk!