My Mind Speaks

Two months are left before I bid the final Good Bye to my student life at IIT Roorkee. People say that these last few days are the coolest (well, I don't know how is the word defined) and most memorable days of the B-Tech life. One doesn't have much to do, very few classes, no tension of exams, B-Tech project which one never bothers about, and lots of vella (free) time. A person might simply love this and when I was not living this sort of life i.e. last year in the 6th or 7th semester, I used to dream about these days and wanted to live them as soon as possible. But, as of today, I don't really enjoy this kind of idleness. Yes, I am restless and I need something to get myself involved. There are movies and there are books with which I pass my time but that too, at times, seems boring and monotonous. 

So, do I want these days to end so that I can fly away from this place, which I hated a lot at times and loved a lot at other (for different reasons, of course)? Not actually!! But the problem is that I even don't want to stay at this place either. Because I know that perhaps I am not even going to like the job which I am going to take after passing out of this place. I know I sound confused and I certainly am. I don't know what to do with my life or perhaps, I know but I don't want to take my life in that direction coz I am afraid. Afraid due to a variety of reasons. Afraid because of thinking too much about my future. Some people say that it's good to be confused because a confused state of mind makes one think. And when one thinks, one evolves. But at times I think that life is not about certain beliefs and principle to follow. Every aspect of life is subjective and something which provides a solution in one situation can't be as effective in other. 

At times I even think that it would have been better if I had accepted what came to me as a gift from life without complaining (read thinking). And at times I think about the necessity or importance of education which I had till now. Ignorance seems to be a great bliss then.

Does education actually liberate us? Or what we got was just some piece of information, gathered from here and there, and bundled together?

Of Forgery & 500 Rupee Notes!!

A very interesting thing happened today morning. I was sitting in my papa’s office and reading a book and then all of a sudden my uncle, with excitation, handed out a few crisp 500 rupee notes to my father. It took no time for me to make out that the notes were forged and my uncle, owing to his experience with handling notes, had found the ‘truth’ about them just while counting them. And then, out of curiosity, I took those notes from my father and began scrutinizing them. And to my dismay, the notes were exactly the same as the original notes except for two things. The paper was a bit thicker than that of the original note; however I could notice this only after I was told by my father to feel the thickness of the note. And the golden thread, where RBI is written in small-sized letters, was broken.

Well, there is nothing so surprising about coming across a few forged bank notes. One gets to see many of them at different times. But what was astonishingly painful about those notes was the fact that these, even after being ‘exposed’, were not destined to turn into ‘ashes’ (as it is a general practice to destroy the forged currency)?. The client who had given those notes to my uncle was sad that he was cheated by someone else but the other person accompanying him kept on solacing him by saying that he would make those forged notes ‘run’ in the villages. And this made me ask the other guy:
Agar aap pakde gaye to kya hoga? (What if you get caught using these notes?)
To this he replied:
Gaaon me kaun pakdega? Ye to bahut aram se chal jaayega gaaon dehaat me. (Nobody would find out in the villages. These notes would be just perfect if used in a village.)

And this made me think about the narrow mindedness of that person. Just to save a few thousand rupees, he would actually commit the crime of using the forged notes, and not by his intelligence but by taking advantage of a poor and uneducated villager. But then I thought, what if these notes some back to him in some or the other? Will his cycle go on forever and there would be nobody who would choose to lose his few five hundred rupee notes and save the country from a series of false transactions and dwindling beliefs? For notes are not just pieces of paper, those are the words of trust passed on from one person to the other with each transaction.

He later told that some people in the village have the business of buying forged notes at half the price (written on the note) and using them at different places (and thus getting a full 100% on the investment). I don’t know if the police knows about it or no and why the villagers have not reported this to police. And do people really use this service of selling fake notes?

And that man told further:
Ye note to tilak me de dena chahiye!! (These notes are well suited to be given as dowry.)
This sentence made me think whether the person is so selfish that he would give fake notes to his own son-in law or this was a remark from a man tired and trodden by the ill system of dowries. Whatever the case may be, what made me sad was the fact was that the person represented a very general individual in the society and when he was speaking, it were the words and beliefs of the society. And if a society as such degraded moral values, the future indeed seems bleak, no matter whatever growth percentage we achieve in our GDP.

Suddenly, it struck to me that the person might not be educated. But then I asked myself: Does it really matter whether the person was educated or not? Would the attitude towards the notes have been different in either case?

Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayega

I am at home after about five months. And I am thoroughly enjoying the ‘tension-free’, ‘nothing to do life’. And equally enjoyable is the constant supply of food going inside my stomach. These days, since I am very much occupied by ‘The Shadow Lines’ by Amitav Ghosh these days, I don’t really need to sit in front of the TV and pass my time. And as a result, I have really lost any kind of interest in the TV this time at home (which sometimes surprises my mother). Anyway, something interesting caught my attention today!! And it was…….oh, please don’t wait for it………..it was “Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayega” (Rahul will take away the bride)!!

After the death of Pramod Mahajan (who was Rahul’s father) and the drama which followed, Rahul had gained some sort of celebrity status among the celeb-hungry junta of the country. And what could have been a better opportunity to raise the celeb-status in the world of reality shows?? But what baffles me is how is this show still running and who are the people actually watching it!! There is a guy in mid-thirties who is already a divorcee and there are many girls, some of them as young as twenty, dreaming him as their future husband, making plans of wedding with him, and then going to honeymoon and what not!! Well, there is nothing wrong in dreaming of a marriage, love and other things but in that case the person concerned knows who the spouse to be is. It’s just some kind of pagalpan (madness) making such plans with the person you are not sure enough to marry with. In fact, spouse would not be the right word. Someone whom you win after a contest to make him/her as your spouse is no less than a buy and sell of commodity to me, it’s just that the money, here, is replaced by the efforts to win the competition.

The most funny (read fake) part of it is the different kinds of dates on which our groom to be Rahulji goes with his ‘desperate to be brides’. How can the girls actually behave that the guy loves them when they know that he is taking other girls on the similar dates? And isn’t it the person with whom you go on a date adds thrill to it and not the place or exhilaration associated with it? And look at what Dimpy, one of the (un)lucky final three contestants, says after going on an airplane date wih Rahul Mahajan:

Main Rahul se shadi karna chahti hoon taaki wo main aage bhi aisi dates pe ja sakoo.

(I want to marry Rahul Mahajan so that I get an opportunity to go on such dates in the future too.)

And Rahul is looking for his true love in this girl!! Funny, isn’t it? But what can Rahul do or even the producers of the show do when such crap sells in our country? Till there is an audience, there would be crap coming up and killing the time.

Some would say that there was the same drama during ‘Rakhi Sawant ka Swaymwar’ too!! But then everyone knew beforehand that Rakhi is a propagandist and the show is being made for some time pass on TV. And Rakhi, thanks to her exposure to camera glare, knows how to act or even try to act. Rahul didn’t have any such advantage also!! And the junta is bored with one swayamwar already. Difficult to digest another one!! We need better stuff, TV walon!!

Sweet February

February has been quite eventful for me till now!! It started off with me picking up “Such A Long Journey” by Rohinton Mistry (a book I wanted to read for so long) on the very first date and later on realising that it would really be a long journey for me to read it. ;-) Well, I completed that long journey somehow and now feel really happy about it!!

The second good thing was that I got a job at Surya Roshni Ltd. just before the valentine day!! So, this year at least, the agony of not finding a girl didn’t bother me much as I was too happy to even remember that 14^th of February is something called Valentine day!! It has been quite a lot of fun thinking about what my schedule would be like in the company while on training. Well, what’s funny in thinking about the schedule?? What is there to thing even??!! Well, keep reading and you would come to know. So, I, Ashish Agrawal, in my full senses present to my blog readers (who are actually very few, in fact nobody for sure except my brother), my expected schedule at Surya Roshni....ya you got it right, it’s the same Surya!! Jab Suraj Dhale, Surya Uge!! Surya Bulbs, Surya Tubes, Surya!! Surya!!

6 am: Get up!! No, actually start doing Yoga with the CMD of Surya Roshni. So, getting up is before 6. The correct time would be 5 hr: 32 min: 47 sec, I guess!!

8 am: Woo!! It’s breakfast time but after Yoga, I can only be allowed to eat sprouts, milk, salad and that stuff!! Remember, nothing fried or nothing called as creepy as ‘Fast Food’ my boy!!

8:30 am: I hope the training session starts at that time!! But what the training would be about is still suspicious. :-)

12:30 pm: Eat the simple lunch!! Remember ‘Fast Food’ is still bad for health!!

1:30 pm: Go to bed!! Don’t you know that an afternoon nap is too good for health?

4:00 pm: You ate food for your stomach. Now, it’s time to feed your mind baby!! Read some good books!! Won’t you?

6:00 pm: This time sounds interesting!! Ride a horse’s back, jump into the swimming pool or play football!! I am gonna like it!!

8:30 pm: The dinner is ready! But...but but but but but .....the ‘Fast Food’ rule still holds true. :-)

9:30 pm: You must sleep now!! Have to get up and do Yoga tomorrow, isn’t it?

Well, I could find and thought only this much!! Hope there are no more surprises, and if there are any, those are interesting!! And wow, I am behaving like a perfect professional, criticising my job even before joining it!! I really like it, yes I am.

Well, moving ahead, I had the second last mid-sems of my life, or say IIT Roorkee life!! And I kind of enjoyed it, rather than fearing it!! Am I talking like a ghissu? Don’t know but don’t care either!! :P

And I finally went to Rishikesh this!! Ya, laugh at me but what can I do if I didn’t get any chance to go there for the past three and half years?? Well, more on Rishikesh later.

And I am on a Fast Food eating operation these days as I seriously think that I should make up for the time in future when I won’t be allowed to even see it!!

The Adapted Screenplay

Adapted Screenplays seem to be such beautiful things to me. They represent the perfect example of symbiosis in the world of art, literature, theatre and films. A motion picture adaptation of a well known and acclaimed novel or drama is hyped and people wait for its release once the news about the movie adaptation breaks out. And thus, the movie sells like hot cakes and people throng the multiplexes without finding out whether the movie is really good or not. The recent movie 3 Idiots based of Chetan Bhagat’s novel ‘Five Point Someone’ is the most suitable example for this. I and many of my friends awaited its release well before the movie was relaesed.

On the other hand if the movie based on a less known novel becomes a blockbuster, people crowd the bookstores looking for the original script or the novel. The last year’s Academy Award winner Slumdog Millionaire holds a testimony to this fact. Few knew about Vikas Swarup’s novel ‘Q & A’ before it was made into a movie which won the Oscar Award. This was despite the fact that the novel had already won the Republic of South Africa’s Boeke Prize in 2006.

I watched 3 Idiots because I knew about ‘Five Point Someone’ and read ‘Q & A’ because I had seen Slumdog Millionaire. Either way, one benefits from the other and vice versa and the different genres of art continue to flourish. But the problem arises when one is not given the due credits for the success of the others, as happened in the case of ‘Five Point Someone’. Everyone who had read the novel before could easily relate to the novel, with obvious differences of course. And it looked very absurd and astonishing when the makers of the movie discarded the similarities saying that the movie resembled the novel only by 2-5%.

On the other hand, one can find relatively fewer similarities between Slumdog Millionaire and ‘Q & A’ and still the movie makers sitting in England didn’t forget to give due credits and acknowledgement to the Indian writer. Quite contrary to what the Indian moviemakers did to the Indian writer!! Sometimes I wonder whether it is in the nature of us Indians to take all the credits on ourselves and leave the blame for others. We always like to have our pie in someone else’s success and quite comfortably shift the blame on others when something wrong happens. Well, that is another story. What bothers me now is irrespective of it is the fault of moviemakers of 3 Idiots or that of Chetan Bhagat to gain more popularity and be the centre of media (as alleged by the moviemakers), this trend is not good for the movie industry or the novelists and writers. The symbiosis between the various genres of art should continue as it has in the past. And if it is disturbed in any manner, both the genres are going to suffer. And apart from the moviemakers and the novelist, going to suffer a lot are the movie-goers and the book lovers, who would loose interest in the ‘Adapted Screenplay’ Symbiosis.

And What a Loss that would be!!

Why do We Celebrate 26 January??

We celebrated 60 years of being a republic yesterday. But did we? I mean did it mean anything more than just a holiday to most of the people of the nation? I guess not. At least it didn’t mean anything to mean and my friends. Munching the boondi ladoos and fried peanuts in the mess, given on the auspicious occasion, I asked my friend whether it was essential to distribute these or whether we needed to celebrate republic day even. And the answer was a flat ‘No’. Quite true and justified!!

The question is why do we need to celebrate a day when we can’t relate to it? How have the people of this ‘great’ nation benefitted from the Right to Vote and other rights granted by our Constitution? The rich are enjoying life as they did during the colonial era and it actually doesn’t bother them who is sitting at the Centre and making policies. The poor are getting poorer and hardly get any time from their struggle to survival to think about the governance. It is only the middle class which is concerned about the government. But that interest is also fading as it is broken by the false promises of the government. Right to Equality is there but those who have money in their pockets want and actually are treated with special care and attention. Celebrities are treated as Gods and netas (political leaders) as the makers or our ‘destiny’. We have the Right to Speak but no one is there to listen to our grievances. We have the Right to Move Anywhere within the country but MNS is there to beat the north Indians out of ‘their’ state, and ironically no government can act against it. We have the Right to Education but there are no schools and if schools are there, tutors are not!!

The government says that the country is growing at a rate as never before but is this development really reaching the lowest strata of the society?  Are those located in the remote countryside actually able to enjoy the benefits of freedom and democracy? The poverty has risen to 37 percent and about 400 million people live below the poverty line. And by no means is the number small. So, instead of creating a hoopla about the day and wasting the precious money of the taxpayers, wont it be better to do something meaningful for the aam aadmi (the common people)? Something to which the junta relate to? Something for which we wait for this day every year? Something which can make the day cheerful and enjoyable, instead of making it boring and sluggish?

The Less Earning IITians

According to an article published in The Times of India (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/IIT-graduates-annual-salary-drops-by-5-to-Rs-588-lakh/articleshow/5487687.cms), the average annual salary of the IIT graduates has decreased by 5% in 2009. While this may bring a wave of sadness for many students studying in the prestigious IITs (and even more terror for their parents), I see a lot of positives from this news (WHAT!! Do I even remember that I am still unplaced?).

Lately, these institutes have become a mere brand-name provider for the students and those lucky enough to study here have forgotten the importance of learning the subject matter and are too satisfied with the fact that they would get a certificate from the IITs after the completion of their degree with which they can swiftly and easily sail through the world. They perhaps don’t remember that while a name can open so many doors of opportunities, the same is closing a lot more doors of learning and skill enhancement. I don’t remember how many times I have discussed this with friends that students in other private colleges have a lot more technical knowledge than us. All we (the ‘revered’ IITians) bother about is cramming one day before the exams and ‘vomiting’ in the papers. So, when we don’t excel the graduates from other colleges in terms of our technical knowledge, why should we get better salaries than then? Just because we cracked a difficult exam called IIT-JEE? Seems quite indigestible!!

According to the report, the reason for the dip in the salaries is the global economic recession. Maybe, but doesn’t seem cent percent true because while the salaries at IITs decreased, the average at the NITs increased by 6%. Another reason which the report cites is the fact that a large number of ‘bright’ students from the IITs opted for higher studies. Well, this seems a little reasonable but the fact here is that even those (so called) ‘bright’ students want to take up a high paying job when the campus placements start despite knowing that they are not going to join it. Aakhir kuchh security to chahiye hi aur phir izzat ki bhi to baat hai!! (It is a matter security and prestige, isn’t it??)

Looking at the broader picture, it is nice to know that other colleges are doing well in terms of placements as this would reduce the stress which students face during their 10+2. And even better news is that maybe it will open the eyes of the dreaming IITians and strive harder to be better engineers, which actually is needed of them!! J