Combat Worthiness nay Effectiveness

Luv em Hate em but you just can't ignore em. Exams are an irrevoccable facet of our lives. Three years of toil expressed in three mere hours. No amount of reason can help me understand the futility of these much dreaded chores. I am itching to fight reservation, Arjun Singh and also ignorance ala Aamir. But what we really need to fight is this incessant stress on learning by rote, the toil, the hardwork and the perseverance required for a 3 hour performance.

I call it performance - its not a test or for that matter an exam. Its just what we all are slowly becoming adept at - Performance. Its an expression of your work and in that expression your work is measured. Your ranking, your standing amongst your peers is determined more often than not by some nincompoop who can never measure up to you, yet will definitely measure you.

There I go cribbing again. Just can't help it. So these are the loop holes and the onus lies on us as to how well we expose and utilize them. The most important part is fooling the nincompoop who is evaluating us and to that end we must keep some basic points with regards to answering the questions in mind. The cardinal principles of achieving pass class are enumerated below.

1. Never leave a stone unturned. This means that no matter how much you know attempt everything.

2. Test the junior supervisors The young breed of Greenhorn Nincompoops are wonderful to toy with. Guts and gumption combined with skill and common sense can do wonders for your answer sheet.

3. Desktop Publishing This has been my favourite tool to combat the menaces of the first bench. The point worth remembering here is to use a light pencil and to try and keep the scribble covered at all times during the exam hours.

4. Scribble Oh Yes. If you have a penchant for bad handwriting then you have a good chance to get through if you write the main points neatly and scribble the rest in your original handwriting.

5. Diagrams Sad but true. You must remember them. Or publish them on your desktop ofcourse. But its imperative for your healthy scores that this aspect of the three hour chore need not be ignored.

The list goes on. But these are the points that come to mind right now. Of course psyching ourselves for the exams is also important as is the runtime presence of mind. Never losing hope, even if you don't seem to remember the curriculum leave alone the contents, is important. Just interpreting all the questions by their names and elaborating on the same may be enough under most circumstances. Some other day will add some more.

Yeh Dil Maange More

Unending assignments, sleepy lectures, long studious hours spent in the canteen sporting unshaven, unkempt mawali looks, frantic project hunts (taiyar maal), running from pillar to post for photocopied notes, bluffing confidently in the vivas, scribbling incessantly in the papers, praying for that dreaded 50 percent deadline, cursing our luck for having landed in this godforsaken place - and just about everything that I did in the past two years has finally borne fruit. Landed up a job with Satyam Computers.

Sometimes what we believe are momentous times, the turning points of our lives just don't turn out to be so and sometimes some things just creep in so softly and slowly that they become an integral part of our lives before we realise it. Landing a job, having a girlfriend, buying a new car - all these acquistions seem predetermined. Things that are bound to happen sooner or later. They do mark the beginning of a new way of life but fail to induce any significant changes in an individual. And on the other hand - falling in love, finding a new friend, discovering a new passion - as I did for blogging, all can bring about momentous changes in an individual's persona, his life and his character.

Acquistions - material or otherwise serve only to fuel our desires for more. The mere act of possession brings alongwith itself truckloads of pain and sometimes for the uninitiated, shorts bursts of joy mingled with longer ones of "Give me more" demands. Both such joys and sorrows are slow poisons that corrode an individual into either a false sense of security or one of pessimism.

True joys and sorrows never appear in bursts. A feeling of equanimity helps us sail through these mighty waves of joy and emerge from the depths of despondency. This tranquility is present in an individual battered by the sorrows of his life. A person who realises that joys and sorrows are like clouds passing us by on our journey of life. He realises that the only true joy a man finds is not in transcending the clouds but in going by our work on earth with due diligence. A life spent towards improving ourselves will bring in all the requisite acquisitions as its byproducts.

The essence of all this can be summarized in what Lord Krishna said in the Gita. " Karmanye adhikarastu Ma Faleshu Kadachit." which means to work without expecting the fruits of our labours.

Reusability

I copy all my assignments. Sometimes when I am too bored of all that writing I get them photocopied. Sometimes I copy what my Prof. told (infact shouted at) me while I recursively give a proper dressing down to my juniors. Sometimes especially for the ladies I copy the hip swinging Abhishek and sometimes the gyrating Shahid Kapoor. ( I tried a lot but I have failed to copy Hrithik) Sometimes i also love humming the (strictly original) tunes of Anu Malik. Sometimes I also use the same code for all of my data input functions. But there of course they call it reusability. So whats wrong with copying a few paragraphs ? Why make such a hue and cry over a 19 year old kid in a tearing hurry on her road to fame indulging in a few short cuts ?

Even though every indolent bone of my body hates it, I admit - copying is a crime. But then isn't what the "Unforgettable Raj Kapoor" did - puttering around ala Charlie Chaplin called copying ? Or what Walt Disney did - creating the unforgettable Mickey Mouse. So how do we discern between inspiration and pliagarism ? For a 19 year old kid who has had a limited world view and multi million dollar expectations riding on her slender shoulders to seek inspiration from all and any of the sources at her disposable is not in the least bit surprising. The naunces of the problem though lie in our own understanding of pliagarism or more commonly blatant copying. We accept Anu Malik and the Americans love patenting Indian herbs. So why is Kaavya being made a scapegoat. Are the 'Martha' paragraphs central to her story ? The excerpts I have read suggest that they are barely on the fringes. Do they in any manner accentuate or affect the plot of the story ? I don't think that has been the case either.

To quite an extent you have to accept that she has been victimised. Her fame and the money that caused it have been her undoing. Of course you can't exempt her from the crime of pliagarism but the sort of trauma that she has been made to undergo, what with the constant media spotlight on her making her look like a petty thief. For godsakes she is just a kid man. And a naive one at that. Naive enough to believe that she could have gotten away with such blatant pliagarising. But then they don't teach that at Harvard. Coz that is a quintessential Indian quality. Like my peers reiterate :

"Copying is not a crime - Getting caught is."

( The author is vain to admit having a soft corner for the fairer sex- especially one with a pretty face and a ( rare ) sharp intellect.....so he wont apologise for this bout of verbal diarrhoeaa )

Letting off Steam - For Fires

Just when it was all looking rosy, the demon of riots raised it ugly head once again. I fail to understand how the land of Mahatma harbours so many Nathurams. We Gujjus are businessmen, peace loving, non violent, profit oriented business men. Traditionally the Vohras have been the most peace loving of all the Muslim clans. Unlike the rest of their brethren they are also surprisingly well off - mebbe just for this reason. And mebbe their being well off irked the mindless mob into butchering the poor young man , a father to his children , a son , a husband , a brother and a pillar of the family - razed mercilessly to the ground - again.

Quoting from the Lord of the Rings - "What can man do against such mindless hate ?" But we aren't Orcs - are we ? We are all sane human beings who somehow see others as Orcs. It tears my soul to see such acts of inhuman stupidity. Stupidity as it doesn't yield anything at all, as there is nothing that warrants such acts. And if there are rewards attached then too there is no justification for such acts. Why go to such lengths for winning an election ? I know what you might think. I am naive,young, idealist and so eventually branded as foolish. This is the way of the world and it is not to change. But i am still young and so i will try and try to hope.

Again quoting Aragon from LOTR - " There is always hope".