Tagore

The tame bird was in a cage, the free bird was in the forest,

They met when the time came, it was a decree of fate.

The free bird cries,'O my love, let us fly to the wood.'

The cage bird whispers, ' Come hither, let us both live in the cage.'

Says the free bird,'Among bars ,where is the room to spread one's wings?'

'Alas',cries the cage bird,'I should not know where to sit perched in the sky.'

Isn't this what we all desire in life ?

A place to sit in repose. A heart to live in.

We crave for that illusion of security. We crave to be in a position that helps us feel secure. The more ambitious ones try to do one better. Notwithstanding exceptions like the ambitious ones ,the conservative view is still the dominant driving force for the rest of humanity. All that we care to satiate is the need to feel secure. Since the stone ages that is what our quest has been. All our inventions are based on our needs. And in filling in one need after the other we have created a multitude of needs. An unbelieving atheist like me would also attribute the creation and also the continued veneration of the concept of GOD to this feeling of insecurity.

This is a translated version of what Gurudev wrote in Bengali. Yet his words stir the soul like none other. The first time i read them i was - Exalted. Thats the word. He isn't just sublime or beautiful, he is complex, concise and the way he relates to nature is unique. One common string that runs through all the great works of literature is that they somehow transport you into their own world and thereby make you feel special. When you grasp the meaning of these words then they enchant you. The trick lies though in maintaining the balance. It should not be so complex that its beyond anyone's understanding and at the same time it should make us exercise our grey cells so that we'd feel exalted after interpreting the author.

Thats what counts. Doesn't it ? Balancing. Somehow it seems that there are no absolutes in life. Life doesn't just have grey shades. Life is grey.

NUTS Life

NUTS-Nirma University of Technology and Science. Thats the place where i come to write my blogs. In class i write the basic transcript on paper and later i would post it during my lab sessions. NUTS - thats what this place makes out of us all. Funny how we all conform to the system. It surprises me to no end as to how we would go to any length,bear any oppression meted out on us if forced to do so. Is this also a facet of group psychology? Doing all the donkey work just because you have to. No questions asked. No explanations sought. No satisfactory answers received. We are supposed to fill in the feedback forms regarding the performance of our tutors. If we dont do so in time then they fine us. The only objective of the whole exercise is to puff up the already over inflated egos of our tutors.

At this point of time it would help if i would elaborate on our education system at Nirma. We have a wonderful continous evaluation system similar to the one followed at the IIT's. If you have read 'Five Point Someone' then you can easily relate to it. The problem is that the system is implemented such that as of yet there are no five point someone's in our class. The nadir is a healthy 6 pointer. The University sees to it that the students are happy as all of those who pass do get high scores . And the satisfaction of the teachers is ensured by the pseudo feedback form system. Its compulsory to fill it up too.

The typical Indian mind is so steeped in tradition that it tends to respect anyone with any authority whatsoever. Even the support staff members treat the future engineers with disdain. Some of us might be bossing over teams of 300-400 others in the coming years. And yet no one would raise a voice of protest. Its the system and you do as it tells you to.

Just as the same well educated engineer won't mind littering the streets, won't mind a short cut in this Q-infested country, won't mind taking dowry on his marriage, won't mind bribing god with his prasad, won't mind the unbearable aesthetics of his office building, won't mind sending out another forward which blackmails us into sending 20 others, won't mind the Laloo Prasads sucking the life blood out of our country, won't mind the loss of his innocence, his individuality nor his integrity.

That is what college makes out of us.

Exams

Whenever i look back at my past, my heart swells with pride. Its been since the last seventeen unending years (of the total twentythree of my existence) that unflinchingly i have braved the relentless torment meted out unto me by the only demon terrorising poor kids like myself - Exams.

Insecurity they say breeds faith. And so I'd reckon that the fear of examinations is all that keeps me from being an atheist. In the relentless pursuit of ever elusive success i have realised that "Train,bus,ladki aur exams - Ek jaati hai Doosri aati hai". Alas this realization is yet to dawn upon my ignorant peers. Like predators they stalk their elusive prey and like hunters the administration create pitfalls in their pursuit. The wholesale revamping of the system is long overdue. The system belies the general attitude of the teaching fraternity towards students which focuses more on fault finding rather than fact finding.

Hotmail founder Sabeer Bhatia has nicely talked about this in his interview.When he'd gone to Caltech, Bhatia recalls, he'd just submitted his paper after reading up the four books prescribed for that particular course in philosophy, and he got a "D," his first ever "D". Why, he asked, since he'd read all the books and dutifully cited them in abundance -- "that's the Indian way," he explains to me. I've read them, too, is what his Caltech professor told him, what have you done to add to that body of knowledge?That, Bhatia says, is the big difference between Indian and US education. Last but not the least he added - Just a few months of re-orientation and, his Indian developers are on a par with those in the US.

Though higher education in India has a long way to go the more pressing concern is to improve the primary education system in our country.One way to bring about wholesale changes in the system would be to create enhance the reputation of teaching as a job. This has been well adopted by Japan. The rest of the requisite changes will all come by themselves. It might just be the lynchpin required to bring about the much sought after revolution in education. Just as what happened in the IT industry when it got fancy in the late 90's, we can bring a change in the whole system if only we manage to make the job of a teacher glamorous. Tough job but considering that bribing a whole generation with dal - chawal was considered do-able this should be a veritable cake walk for the administration. All we need is enhanced pay packages and propaganda. The rest will follow all by itself.

Any criticism of the Indian education system will optimally require a hardcover book of 500 pages. So i would stop here and now. Anyways, I have a lot of assignments to copy today. So i would love to get this blog published right now and copy down the assignments during my lectures. Somehow, I feel that no matter what you do, some things dont change.