Season of Farewell

Its hard but times come when you have to bid farewell for reasons out of your control and all you can do is stand and wonder at this recursive cycle. Its sometimes hard to accept but this is the way of the life. You cannot hold onto things forever, you just have to be happy that you had the chance to spend few great moments together. Moments which were priceless and moments which you would never forget. As friends leave with their hearts heavy in grief and their mind filled with memories it becomes so exceedingly clear that the last two years have just flown by like a gust of wind across your face and all you can do is to try to feel that breeze for one last time. Its not that we are not going to stay in contact or its the last time we meet its just that the life we had of fun, enjoyment and frolic has come to end. People going for job will be lost into the hustle and bustle of their daily lives and then they will get involved in their own small personal world and then their will be times that these memories will only remain the last retreat. Sometimes it seems harsh but you cannot avoid it, its not the first time that i have come across something like this. This has happened before with other friends as well and at that time too it was harsh but these are things which still leave you numb. Only wish and feeling in my heart right now is that they should go and reach great heights in whatever they endeavour to do. For me the student life still continues and have one more year to go before i bid farewell to this campus, but for others.

Happy Journey.....!!!!!

Valfi

Valedictory function as they call is called VALFI in IIT lingo. This is the most important part for someone who is going to leave the campus. This is the time when everyone whom you have harrased or have treated badly is going to come at you all guns blazing and is going to tear you down to pieces to show what you really are. This is where all your friends will grill you for anything that you have done during your stay at institute. This function reveals the true identity of what you are to your friends and to you as well. Everyone chips in to add a detail or two and although it is garnished with lots of spices its underlying theme is to make you aware of what you are as a person. As most of our close friends are going to graduate this year me and my friend who have one more year to go decided to have it this year itself cause they know much about us. May be sometimes more than what we know of ourself. Now you may see this seems a very regular stuff but the details shared here cannot be shared beyond it. Me and my friend had a quote to say about it "Things which are shared and revealed in Valfi remain in Valfi". Certain details are too lewd and personal to share beyond that forum but everybody just let their defences down for that one day and pour their hearts out. Mind you all this is recorded on camera and given to everyone as a token to remember(so you can watch it with special permission). It marks as a reminder to everyone that no matter how much they fool the world outside their are a few people who know their little secrets and what they are. This in a way strengthens your bond with your friends cause you know that you can trust upon them no matter what and that they will be their standing by you on any given day. It is something you should do with your friends from all circles once in a lifetime so that you can share things that you generally wouldn't.

Part of the council: Perks

Being part of the council does not only come with great responsibility, free lunches, free snacks and long meeting their are other perks as well. You need to attend russian presidents speech sitting in the first row, you get to attend very high profile meeting behind the doors which no one have seen (board room) and you get to go for a special dinner at the best hotel in mumbai attended by Indian Prime Minister. Now i know it very well that the perks outweigh the reponsibilities and other parts but this is what has actually happened. First was about the meeting with director of the institute, it was meeting for.... whatever. But the important part was that the meeting was held in the board room of the institute, this i feel is the sanctum sanctorum of the institute where only very few lucky ones get a chance to step inside. Names of all the chairman of Board of Governors are placed up there and the room gives a sense of authority like none other. We had Russian president visiting campus as a part of his tour and being a part of the coordination team i actually got a chance to sit in the first row for that interaction, well i didnt quite ask any question and didnt make a fool of myself but yes it was one event to remember.The icing on the cake of perks was the visit to Taj Hotel, yes the one which was attacked on 26/11. Their was a ceremony for Infosys awards foundation and it was being graced by whos who of the Indian industry along with PM of India, CM of Maharashtra, Governor of Maharashtra and on and on.....

This entry is more of an record for myself rather than being a part of the general part of entries.

Part of the council: Free lunch, Free snacks

As they say "Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it". As discussed in great debate me and my friends were discussing about the state of post graduate students in IIT Bombay. Searching for the reasons behind the same and the ways to improve it and what can be done. Here i was selected as the Institute Masters' Representative and my friend was endowed with even a greater reponsibility. This will be covered in a few part series cause their are a few things to share here. I was selected into the academic council as the representative for the master community of IIT-Bombay. This may seem awes-trucking at first or may seem very trivial job depending upon how you want to perceive it but this was the reality. So my job inculded..... wait why do i need to bore you with that stuff, anyone can figure that out. The fun part about being in council was attending the meetings. You were served free lunches and snacks and were treated with lot of respect and mind you it can surely become addictive, but well you need to get your feet back on ground from those high points. The most funny part was the points being discussed. Sometimes the points of discussion seemed so unimportant and so so so...

cant define it but they were something you just dont expect highly intellegent people to discuss. Worst part was that certain important things just got missed out. Sometimes being in the council i feel that what they say about meetings and commitees is really true.. "Its just a bunch of people discussing something about anything, arguing on everything and finally deciding nothing". My belief of an individual making a larger difference working alone or atleast working freely not under a red-tape regime is strengthrened by seeing my friend lead team which was out of the clutches of the council. One more thing which i learned was that if representative of a certain class are in total agreement with the authoritites and have become just a pawn in their hand then the representation is lost. Representative should look at the welfare of the community he is serving and not fall into the trap of pleasing the authorities, may be i myself would be guilty of doing it i am not sure but this was one thing i learnt in my tenure. One more thing is that if you have good intentions and you are ready to make those good intentions your motivation and try to deliver nothing will be able to stop you. Impure intentions no matter how well you try to disguise them will only lead to a state of discomfort and loss of respect. One thing that i am personally satisfied about being a part of council was, that here we were a few months back talking about how we could have brought change and here we were already given an opportunity to deliver that promise.

I am not sure how successful i was but i can say that i worked with my dedication for my satisfaction.

Year gone by

Its been a year since i posted something and their are a few reasons behind that but they are not necessary(Or may be they are). Leave it, will post them if i am in a mental state to do so. Right now a few things come to my mind immediately and they are posted here.

Election season

Institute has election season during April-May and everyday you are bombarded with manifesto of one or another candidate. Basically manifesto's of each candidate seems similar only difference being that it has different construction of the sentence. Some even copy one another’s manifesto and that’s really gross. For the first time I was seeing an election upfront. I had decided that I was not going to side any candidate. Our departmental election was one heck of a political plot. It had all the mix of being a Hindi Movie, regionalism along with show of strength and bitterness among the candidates. It was really interesting to see how people even at student level play political games and do whatever they can to swing the votes in their favor. I was shocked with one thing that even at place like IIT where the most educated lot of our society lives, the votes are decided by loyalties and not merit. Regionalism, like any other place was a deciding factor so this system of “Democracy” although seems good has it flaws and they cannot be rectified as it takes people’s power to think as a basic assumption which is not at all true. Every election in institute is fought with loyalties, for department, for hostels, for regions and for academic programs. Although I fear to say, but this is a sorry state of affairs in student politics, in every university and college across India, and if these are the leaders of tomorrow then we better have Dictatorship. One good thing that we have in place is the Impeachment clause that if someone elected to a post does not fulfill the promises that he has been making, then that person can be removed from the post. Although this seem trivial but plays an important in keeping the elected candidates on track. Also one more thing they have implemented is the negative vote. You can say that you do not want a candidate or you can select whom do you want.

The Great Debate

First things first. I will confess that Post Graduate in IIT is like under-rated or say is not as pompous as Under Graduate. Well there are reasons for this and me and two of my friends went on a soul searching spree. We have this garden restaurant in campus where you can sit and enjoy and have tea, lush greenery, morning dew, dim light and a hot cup of tea. What else would you want? Our main topic was why in this whole world are PG’s not recognized in the same manner as UG’s. This issue was a pain in our heart since we entered because we were constantly reminded of this fact. Indeed this is really bad because you won’t expect this kind of difference among IITian’s. For outer world an IITian is an IITian but for us there are two parallel worlds that exist. In IIT itself you can see stark difference between a UG and and PG. One is handling the various activities which IIT’s are famous like the cultural festivals and technical festivals, while the onus of research lies upon the other community. This divide is increasing and is surely a thing which could be noticed once you are here for few months. Our issue was why PG students are not so participative in various activities of the institute and is only interested in being online whole day and making friends in cyberspace? Also when we have so many facilities provided by the institute why aren’t they utilized by them? We tried to reason this out and found various issues which are bogging them down. Although I am not trying to defend this community by giving any alibi it’s just that this problems exist and they need to be looked into before writing them off as someone who is not interested in the institute issues and activities. First thing which affects them most is the duration, the course duration is 2 years which are insufficient and if we are looking at effective time frame then think of this, first six months need to be removed as they are required for settling in the environment, in last six months the only thing which is on their mind is placement and once that is done the story ends. So only effective time they have is a year and in that too we have a break of 3 months so how in the whole world do we expect them to do everything else along with their studies and their projects. Although they should be able to do it cause “WORKLOAD” as they say in IIT is not that much but still the duration is so short that if you miss a chance then you have lost the chance to participate in anything. Second is that they are here for finding a socioeconomic security and to have this they need to study and get good placement. For this they need to concentrate on academics even in second semester. So this is one reason I find which leads to non participation of PG’s but still we decided to take upon us the work to infuse some energy into the PG community so that at least they can be represented well in the institute and they would also be looked upon as someone of importance and not as some third person.