The Effects of 3 Idiots

So, I finally stopped being another of the fast-diminishing group of idiots who haven't watched 3 Idiots, the film that has shattered all box office records till date (and to be frank to the movie, rightly so). The reviews I received before the movie were all exceptional, and I had made up my mind that this movie I must catch in a cinema hall, and more so because it talked about something that I felt that I had perfected in my own little way, as have many other people - how to handle education.

The movie was cinematically breath-taking, probably the finest movie I have ever seen, more so because it could make you empathise with such funny situations and absurd expressions (like the deep empathy, mixed with laughter, for Raju Rastogi's family). Of course, too many liberties were taken, especially the last delivery scene and the entire "All Izz Well" jingle could well have been toned down, if not removed entirely. Yet, the idea of this post is not to act like another of those wannabe film - critics. What I shall focus on is the idea of education as set out in the movie.

The movie first talks about dichotomising between success and excellence. Commendable. Yet, I feel tempted to add that success is, unfortunately, a barometer of excellence. How do you define excellence? How do you measure it? Success. This dichotomy would have stood had it been between satisfaction and success, or for that matter personal enrichment versus success. But as a trade-off between success and excellence, I feel it clearly falls, mostly because these two terms are so fluid that they can't be put into strict boundaries and compared. The idea of success is transient, and very personal too. For a lot of people, I might be a successful boy (being the Delhi CBSE topper), but for me success is something that people like Shloka Joshi (national swimmer, trained dancer, part-time musician) are. I feel myself totally dwarfed by them. Yet, for the common public, I would probably be the greater success. Are we both epitomising excellence? Shloka does, she's touching the pinnacle of what she does. I don't, clearly - because my net innovation factor in life tends to zero. But I do have a lot of fun in life, I do my own things - but I don't "excel" in them or even feel the need to excel. So, the film fails in this department.

Now, what I really had a problem with, as far as the movie was concerned, was the feel-good "victory" of Aamir Khan over Omi at the end. Why did Aamir Khan have to become Phunsuk Wangde at the end for the writers to prove that he was the more successful man in life? Couldn't he be just another primary school teacher, as long as he was happy with his job and more satisfied than the MNC-employed Omi? In the end, the movie defeated a lot of its purpose, by equating the "victory" to success in life, to Omi having to run behind Aamir Khan. Hindi movies need not always have the "happiest" ending, they can also have "relatively less happy" endings too.

The movie, to sum it up, showed the battle of extremes, between the carefree-but-intelligent Aamir Khan, the poor-and-God-fearing Sharman Joshi, the lost-in-the-jungle Madhavan and the hitler-cum-director Boman Irani, and to that extent it did justice to what it was meant to be. But it was too far-fetched as a film to be taken as a serious guide to the education system's ills. Yet, I do give it out to the film-makers for at least having raised issues, tending very close to what really ought to be raised. This is a beautiful time for public debate and discussion over how education is being carried out.

What is my take on India's education system? It doesn't stifle talent, or it hasn't done so in my case (for my pursuit of debating and quizzing, that is). Yes, it does nothing at all to encourage it, and if this is ground enough for reform, reform must come. But in the race to make it easier and less stressful for the students (like in the case of the Semester System in Delhi University), it must be ensured that the quality of education is not diluted.

Actually if you ask me, I disagree with the very concept of examinations. I prefer being tested in assignments and projects, that have liberal deadlines and no fixed word limits. I prefer to be tested on innovation and creativity in a particular subject rather than an ability to apply concepts to fixed questions. Unrealistic? Maybe in India as a whole. But at least in the premier institutions, like the one in which I currently am in, this could be done. Rather, if this is not done here, how does this institution remain a "premier" institution? And so it stands for the IITs too. Why not just get rid of exams, and have projects instead? The most beautiful assignment I did in my life was to use trigonometry to calculate the area of the state of Tamil Nadu, given the distance between Pondicherry and Madras. I want to do such things again, but what better than do that to score marks instead of sitting in an examination hall for two-three hours and just writing on sheets?

The Sunderbans - Paradise Preserved

So, this was a family trip after a long time, probably the last time we had a family trip was back when I was in Class 10th (yes, like a typical Indian child, I count my life not in years, but in Classes) to Rajasthan, that too was without dada (for the uninitiated to Bengali, it means brother). So, it was after a long while that we were all free at the same time of the year, and I suggested the Sunderbans to my father when he asked me about whether I'd like to go to Sikkim (no offence to Sikkim, but I'd just been to Dalhousie, a hill station, recently).

So, we went on a Government-owned cruise boat. As with everything that has the word "Government" associated with it, dada and I did not have many expectations out of this ship, the Sarbajaya. But we were fairly surprised. The ship was small, by among the much smaller fishing boats and day-only cruises, it was quite large. The lower deck looked like a railway compartment, and the toilets were small, but clean (that, of course, was the biggest relief). The upper deck was done like a small restaurant.

Of course, we had to travel 3 hours by bus to reach the place where we went up on the cruise, Sonakhali. The bus journey was particularly painful, and by the time I reached Sonakhali, my enthusiasm for the cruise had been lost already. And then the cruise started on the river. The first few moments were sheer joy - the cold wind kissing my skin, and soon we entered the "core" area of the Sunderbans (basically, uninhabited land). Dada had expected the Sunderbans to be marshy, but it really felt like a huge ocean and big islands in the ocean. The islands, of course, were fully of dense mangrove forests. Oh, that reminds me - Sunderbans is named after the Sundari (Mangrove) tree.

We stopped at a watch tower in the evening. People were searching for tigers, but I always knew that on such trips, searching for tigers is like searching for toothpicks in a desert. Some people got too excited, calling crab holes as tiger footprints. So, we all went back to the cruise. By seven at night, it was dead cold, the wind was as cold as it gets in Delhi, and I was on the upper deck, sitting in the cold wind (mainly because I was having breathing issues in the lower deck). We stopped at another watch tower for the night, and after a rather good dinner, we slept on board, while the ship was anchored.

Early next morning, we visited two watch towers. In the first one, we saw a rather shy crocodile. Now, tigers I knew we wouldn't see, but I was really hoping for a few crocs on the river, but what we could see were just eyes and a snout. That, my friends, is what disappointment is. This morning, we were going near this German family. They didn't understand English, and despite doing a diploma course in the language (which I usually don't attend), I couldn't understand German. It was only later in the day when the little girls were practicing their numbers did I realise that they were speaking German. There was also another European couple (probably French or Polish), but I barely interacted with them. And in this way, about two dozen tiger-hoping-but-disappointed humans came back at around noon.

So, it was twenty four hours on the sea (yes, the river was as broad as a sea. At times, the eye couldn't even see the other bank). At first, to be back on land was a bitter-sweet feeling. Yes, I wanted to be back all the while, but finally when getting down, it felt like a transition from peace to the noise of human existence. The Sunderbans are still dense, still beautiful and enigmatic. By the time my mind was getting used to that kind of peace, it was all over. And now it is back to the rigmarole of college-life-exams. How I wish there was a middle path between the two. Probably that is there for me to discover.

So, all in all, the Sunderbans is a place worth visiting once in a lifetime. Of course, no big bangs on this trip, just the whole experience of a river cruise (you can also, of course, go on the luxury cruises that cost about 20 thousand per person). How highly would I rate this trip? Decent, not as good as a history-rich Rajasthan sounds to a history buff like me, but its as close to undisturbed forests as you get. You obviously don't get into the forests, and that kind of adds to the entire enigma of the forests. Probably there was a free royal bengal tiger lurking just 10-odd metres from you. You'll never know. And like so many things in life, some questions are better left unanswered.

Why Facebook No Longer Works

Facebook's importance in my life cannot be understated. For four months of my life after the boards, facebook was my only interaction point with the outside world. I've met so many of my lost friends on facebook and this beautiful technology has allowed me to meet up with them. It is a good way to keep in touch, for sure.

But nowadays, every time I come on facebook, there is a certain morbidity I feel. It feels like "this isn't the true world, what am I doing here?". It all feels very superficial - to look at friends' photos, to comment below that. I mean, talking to people personally seems so much better - communication can then be free.

Have I changed? Has life around me changed? Why does facebook, the site that sustained me for 4 months - and the site on which I had become a permanent feature, not look so interesting anymore? Well, because now I enjoy being physically with my friends, talking to them personally, hanging out with them. Facebook doesn't allow me to do that, doesn't allow me to go to Kamla with them, have food with them.

But is facebook all useless now? Of course not. I can still meet new people here, and facebook still remains a good starting point for a friendship. And it is still a good place to keep your friends updated about what is happening in your life. So, for the past and for the future, I'm still sticking to my old flame, facebook.

Lonely at the Top

So, here comes another one of my seemingly endless self-obsessed, self-praising and self-deprecating posts. But this one is going to be more general, I promise (at least when compared to the ones that came before).

So, here it goes. For so many years now, in school and outside, I've been chasing success like a hungry hyena. I've made sacrifices on the way, like every other person does, and I've not really let emotions ever sway me. In class 9th, I used to study 10-12 hours - utilise every moment of my life to study. And finally, after so many years of chasing, I was at the pinnacle of my success when I topped the Class 12th board exams in Delhi.

But then I looked back, and I realised that i had given up too much. Primary among them that I had given up on a lot of socialising. True, I'm not really your typical social person, but I could have become social - I could have FORCED MYSELF to become social. But I didn't - because what I aimed at that moment did not require me to be social. I kind of ignored my family life. I was so engrossed in the pursuit of academic excellence that I forgot to make my parents feel special. I forgot to tell them how much they matter to me. I forgot to celebrate their little joys and sorrows.

Basically, I forgot how to live life. I'd turned myself into an emotionally unmovable block of stone. And perhaps that is what many of us end up doing. We chase something so blindly, that we forget everything around us. Its like Arjuna and the fish's eye. The fish eye becomes more important to us. And why? Do the goals in life deserve the attention we give them?

Then i came to Stephen's. For the first few weeks, I was, yes, the "Delhi Topper", the quintessential nerd whom everybody respects and loathes at the same time. But then some people made me realise my insufficiencies. They showed me that, in life, to be successful is a different ballgame than to be successful in school.

I've given up a lot to be where I am, yes ... but now that I am in college, I want to do everything that I have not done till now. I want to go around watching movies, I want to wile away my time chatting to people, I want to be myself - dance in my crooked ways, go to college without bathing. Everything I did not do, I want to do now.

Birthday Greetings

The first birthday in St. Stephen's College (and incidentally, the first birthday away from home, since i was on vacation in Kolkata this time last year) was quite a memorable for two particular reasons - I have never been given so many gifts by friends, plus I have never been made to feel as loved as my friends this time made me feel.

The night was lazy to begin with. Aishwarya wished me at 9:30 on Oct 29, because he wanted to be the first to wish me, but was feeling too sleepy to wake up all the way till 12. On 29th October at 10:00 PM, I took adieu from Aashik and went to my room, soggily waiting for 12 o' clock to strike, because firstly, I was feeling sleepy and secondly, I knew that people would come to wish me at midnight. I was almost half-asleep, till I suddenly got a message from Sanjay bhaiyya (5 minutes before 12). Then my brother called, slightly before time, to wish me. And the I could hear voices outside the door, and then a knock.

Now, the door to T-3, Mukharji East, doesn't open easily and thus people outside thought that it was locked. However, on further trying,t he door opened and outside were my senior, Vedant, my friends Aman and Manchit, and my room neighbour David. Now, Vedant thinks that his wishing me first would surprise me, but to be frank, a funny feeling within me told me that he would come - one of those inexplicable things in life, for sure. Then slowly came Jerrin, Rupam, Dipak, Rupam II and finally, Anjishnu. And then dragged to the tennis court and kicked 18 times by 3 men. Oh my, next day my back was paining.

Oh yes, how could I forget ! Kritika and Aditi, as expected, called me and sang happy birthday to me on the phone. Now, this was something I knew was going to come, but what happened in the morning I didn't expect. Sheeni Kapoor also called, quite unexpectedly, and a host of other people sent their messages. Then I talked to Karan for some time in the night and finally went to sleep at about 2:30 AM.

At 6:00 AM, my phone started ringing and I saw that it was my cousin, so I just put the phone on silent and went back to sleep. But when I woke up at 9:30, I saw tens of messages and missed calls on my phone, plus I had a class at 9:35 AM. I just put on SOME clothes and rushed to the statistics class. Then at 10:30 AM, Kritika called me to meet her at the college gate. I went there, and I was so surprised by her birthday gift. She has always been such a sweetheart, and I got further proof this time.

Then it was 11:15 AM, and I had a tutorial at 1:25 AM. But I still had not taken a bath! I went to the bathroom, but regular water supply was gone! And the geiser water was piping hot! I innovated (uncharacteristically) - I dipped my towel in the boiling water and just washed myself. And then rushed back, just in time, for the tutorial.

Now after that, from 12 AM to 5 PM, I was at the Hansraj Fresher's Parliamentary Debate, and birthday luck rubbed on - we won both the tosses, and both the debates that day.

For what happened after that, wait for the next post ....

Winter Becons - inside and outside

A wintery night, a cup of coffee and a radio transistor - and the perfectly romanticized winter term of the first year begins emphatically. It has been a rather slow first three days, in the sense that I've not been working for my societies as much as I would like to (plus, I feel extremely guilty about missing my Mathematical Finance course ka tutorial today).

So, the highlight of the first three days was a joint birthday party with SJ and MM today. The birthday party, an endeavour initially to have a good time with your close friends, ended up in quite a bit of "politics" in class. Often, what people perceive you to do is not actually what you are doing. Due to budgetary considerations, the guest list has to be limited, but that's not what others might always perceive it as. One of the bigger tragedies of life, really, is misunderstanding. Hard to see why people fall prey to it so often, but well ... yehi zindagi ka dastoor hai.

Though what I am really bullish on is the onset of winters in Delhi. As long as I get hot water to bathe everyday, I don't have issues. The winter chill, the late nights - oh, the memories long etched in my psyche. Of the midnights at India Gate binging on ice - creams and the chill down your spine while bathing. Oh, yes. I must accept it too - I love Delhi's winters.

Getting Back

So, hello my dear (and few) readers. Here is an update from my side : the autumn vacations silently passed away on October 15, 2009. It was put on life support till October 18, thanks to Diwali and the reliable, good old Sunday. Yet, on October 19, it draws to an end. Of course, being the lazy creature I am, I took time off till October 21st. But as much as I might not want it (or perhaps I do want it), I must get back to college.

My attempts at getting a data card for my laptop have been futile. My laptop, though only a year and a half old, has become too old - she's become sick, infested with deadly viruses (relics of my failed international admissions process). So, no data card for now. Of course, I realise that it is a great tragedy to my ambitions of world domination (pun intended), but nothing that cannot be worked around. I feel like I'll be walking on crutches for one more term at least, unless a miracle happens or unless I get a new lappie (which I'm hopeful about, actually).

My goals for this two-month term are quite clear : consolidate a space in all societies that I am a part of (and in the case of FNIC, work hard to make the Futures Club a success). More importantly, I want to keep in touch with the world outside of St. Stephen's (which is tough given that I will not have unrestricted access to the internet). But still, whatever I can do.

As I head back to college, there is an excitement about meeting all my friends again. But then, most of my friends are day scholars. The rest of my day is to be spent with my few rezzie friends and myself. Myself - that is something on which I need to work now.