The semester that was....

Exams just got over yesterday,and with it came to an end the most sleep deprived 4 months of my life.I feel so relaxed now,it has finally ended!
After my cpi dropping by almost a whole number in the last semester,this sem brought with itself a felling of resolve(more of hope really).I entered into it with an aim of atleast getting my cpi back up in the 8 point range(cant say i tried though,but atleast i thought about it).But from the day i saw the timetable,i knew it was never going to be easy.With only 1 afternoon free in the timetable,i was beggining to wonder whether IIT has finally lifted me out of the mirage i was in.
The star attraction was surely AutoCAD,a course which was superbly designed to ensure 2-3 night-outs per week for every civilian.But it was sometimes a great help too,if anyone tried to give you any work,just say"sorry man,got a CAD submission to finish",and he will understand,pat you sympathetically on the back and say "hang in there dude,God is with you".
Now dont get me wrong here,the house I designed when completed did give me a great feeling,it was a beauty(as every mother says even for her spoilt worthless child),but come on,people make a lot of money for doing what we did,and instead we had to pay for it(not only in money,but more importantly in sleep hours).
And if we stil got time left,there was always this heap of pending lab journals to be completed,or a quiz to come.
But looking back,the courses weren't really that bad,GKS was god!!!!Prof. Sethi was the best prof i have met till date.
That reminds me,of a certain IIT Kanpur gold medalist who taught(rather dictated) water quality management to a bunch of IITians who he thought were still in 2nd grade,he actually made us buy a full workbook(and made some money there too) of fill in the blank type notes and would do nothing in class except making us either complete those or occasionally send us out of the class.I am normally against bashing of professors(even the not so good ones),but here i gladly make an exception.
So that was the last semester academically in a nutshell,there is a lot more to write but i don't want this to become so long that even i don't read it again myself.

Going public!!!!

From a long time i haven't written anything,i just havent felt like writing(apart from the fact that life has accelerated beyond limits all of a sudden,so no time might also be a factor).

Writing has always given me a good feeling(to put it in simple words),i want to write.I think maybe going public might make me write more often,maybe then the hunger for attention and appreciation will force me to write more.This will make my blog a lot less frank,true,but let me try it once.

So do let me know your views

Akshat

wax on,wax off......

Yesterday in the lecture,the prof,noticing the number of students sleeping in the class,made an interesting comparison.He compared our training to the "wax on wax off" training Mr. Miyagi,a martial arts master,gives to his pupil in the movie "the Karate kid",in which he makes his pupil wax his car everyday in a particular manner.The kid feels so frustrated and cheated,all his fascination about karate is gone,he thinks "Why the hell am i doing this?".But in the end,this and such other modes of training make him the champion and it is only then that he realises the value of it all.
Is it similar to what we have been doing?Throughout school and now college,this question "Why the hell am i doing this?" comes so often to my mind,all of it seems so boring and worthless(well,mostly),for me it is just waxing a car,nothing more,but at a deeper level,maybe all this prepares me for what i am supposed to do in life.And why only courses,doesn't it apply toh almost everything in life,most of the things i do seem so worthless,boring,of no use at all,but each one of such "useless" things changes something inside me,each time i grow bit by bit.And now that i come to think of it,look at the degree of subconciousness of it all,i myself never come to know of me changing,i can't tell how or when,i cant say"look,i changed so much on this day,in this particlar week,month or year",i seemingly stay the same everyday,and yet,i somehow manage to change over and over again,strange!(strikingly similar to the concept of integration,funny how math corelates with so many things in life)

System upgradation required!

While going through the morning newspaper today,i read this article about some muslims in UP who refused to sing Vande Mataram because according to them,it implies worshipping the nation,so it offends their religion which permits only the worship of "Allah".Now i am not going to go into the logistics of the correctness of this statement,it really doesn't matter much actually,but the reactions which followed are much more interesting.Consequently,Arjun Singh made Vande Mataram recitation a voluntary act,instantly gaining a lot of minority votes in the process,and then the BJP came into picture with its communal vote bank policy ofcourse,and started voicing slogans like "desh mein rehna hai toh vande matram bolna padega" etcetra etcetra.As i think of this incedent,more and more hindi movies come into my mind(cant help it!),and it all seems so planned,so cliched.And the more i think about it,the more i start to hate and doubt the political structure in the country.The scenario becomes so macroscopic.I dont think Arjun Singh really gives a damn to Vande Matram,maybe he does,but the fact that he does or he doesnt becomes so irrelevent,he has to follow what the party says,and i really am not able to understand who decides what the party says,much of it is guided by vote bank policies anyways.It dusnt matter much even if the politician is idealistic or morally upright,he gets a crack on the back if he dares to speak his mind out(even our previous PM was made to apologise for doing that).
Take the reservation policy incident for instance,most politcians if asked personally and completely off the records,would have agreed to some extent atleast that increase in reservation quota in colleges was not the best solution to the problem,but no party is so stupid so as to lose large section of voters for "merely" doing what is right,it instead follows the "philosophy of the party",and sits comfortably on the votes it has gained by doing so.
Ideally this vote bank policy should have actually worked fine,afterall it simply means doing what the people want.How public opinion has drifted away from the voters' opinion is a complex question,this very question demands a change in the whole structure itself i guess.

But to take it easy on the system,it does not work that bad either,the very fact that we are actually progressing in most (atleast physical) spheres is a testimony to that.But somewhere the system demands a chance,maybe not a drastic one,but still it cannot be neglected.What the change should be is way beyond my limited capabilities to analyse,but i surely can sense the need of it time and again.

Ghalib ka khat

Today i attended this program where Ghalib's diary was been read out.An interesting part was when Ghalib writes a letter to a prince(one of his patrons),whose mother has passed away,offering his condolences.It is in urdu,but the diary reader was kind enough to explain it in simpler urdu and hindi,and i can only try to describe it further in english.
Ghalib was very confused about how to write the letter.He starts the letter by apologising,saying"maaf kijiyega,itne din yehi sochta raha ki aapko khat mein kya likhoon,so khat likh na saka".
He goes on to say that condolences are expressed for three main reasons:one,to express grief,second,to tell the person to be strong and brave,and thirdly,to pray that the deceased may go to heaven(dua karne ke liye).
What Ghalib says next is so true,"gham jataana toh takkaluf-e-mahez hai,jo gham aapko hai woh kisi aur ko ho yeh toh mumkin nahi".
Then he says that to tell someone to be brave is same as telling him that something has happened for which he should be brave,and thus refreshing the painful memories for which the condolences were offered in the first place.
His reasoning against the third point is "rahi dua karne ki baat,toh kya main,aur kya meri dua".
He ends the letter by wishing the prince good health and long life.

I really am thinking whether this letter would have helped the prince in anyway......but the letter is so painfully honest......it can really make one think.