Jus penning my thoughts

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Malice in Blunderland

I crashed in Reddy's room the previous day. Thankfully, he woke me up at 7:45 am and I could attend the 'Pavement Materials' class. As soon as I came back to hostel, I woke up Vamsi, who was crashing in my room. (Btw, Vamsi is a popular senior of mine at our hostel whose nick is 'mallesh'. He is working at Xylings, Hyderabad and was here on a holiday.) We started gossipping. He talked of good old college days he's missing. And I told him how we are celebrating our undergrad days that are almost going to end.

After sometime, I started to glance through the newspaper. Head lines grabbed my attention. It was something on IIT and IIM. One institute where I belong to; the other where I long to belong. My keenness was just involuntary. I read through. The headlines said, "IIT, IIM entry to turn tough over quotas". The article said that the total reservation is likely to hit the appalling levels of 49.5% from the present 22.5%!!!

Height of Insanity!!!
Do these politicians know how big that percentage of 49.5 is? The shoddy MHRD (Ministry of Human Resource Development) wants to cut down the chances of hardworking people from the 'forward' castes. Why do they want to play around with those numbers just to favour their position in elections and parliament?
They are just lashing out at the hopes and futures of thousands of brilliant (unfortunately forward caste) students.

Well... It's high time they get their basics right.
Reservation in the educational institutions should be given to those people who donot have the benifit of good primary education, good coaching for competitive exams and who are differently abled etc. (I might be missing out on few peoples here.)

Reservation may be given on the basis of financial position; not caste. Not race. Not religion. Not gender. Because when you are making things easy for selected poeple on these shallow grounds, you are allowing mediocrity to seep in. Poeple who are well settled and financially sound get to take advantage of these measures. Finally, the goal of reaching the financially and socially weak but intellectually bright students will remain a distant dream. So instead of considering the option of augmenting the percentage of reserved seats, the policy makers can make sure that the present 22.5% is helping the needy.

The present reservation system can also be emended by decreasing the number of reserved seats if the primary education in the country is improved - in terms of accessibility and quality.

Hope our legislators think some sense, keeping in mind one of the objectives of our constitution - EQUALITY of status and of opportunity. Or did they already forget it?


posted by Dilip Acharya at 4:27 PM | 4 comments

Friday, March 24, 2006

The Sporting Spirit

When India lost the 3rd test match against the English, Many ‘fans’ of cricket said, “India played this match only to lose.” People, who hailed Sachin as the Master Blaster, booed him that day. Rediff.com said that the spectators did the right thing by booing him. Dravid, who is respected for his equanimity all over the world, was slandered for choosing to field when we won the toss. Had we won the match, the same people would have praised him for his risk taking abilities. Everybody in the team was lampooned.

Phew…

Cricket is just a game. It ought to be watched for the spirit of the game. Be critical about the game. Not the players. Stop doing yagas and yagnas for victories. This is not a game of life and death. Stop treating the players like gods. They are just talented mortals. Most importantly, don't ever treat it as a national sentiment. A match lost will not cost the nation's pride.

In the 3rd test, we certainly lacked fire. But when things go wrong, as they sometimes will, the team needs to show resilience. And the supporters, patience. The Team India needs to buck up for the matches to come. Let’s wait and see what it has got to offer. Let’s wish them the best. And hope for the best. But let us not attach emotionally to it. Becuase that doesn't bode well for the sport. Beacuase that's not sporting spirit.

posted by Dilip Acharya at 4:39 PM | 5 comments

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Alice in Wonderland

This is my final semester in B.Tech, Civil Engineering at IIT Madras. Ideally, I should be busy doing my project and getting the 'results' by now. But, I belong to the majority.. the class of not-so-ideal people (being politically correct).

I generally crash by 2:30 types. But recently the administrative elite of our institute decided that there won't be internet working between 1 am and 4 am everyday; so that kids would sleep in time. But the idea backfired - atleast in my case. As a consequence to their decisions, I have been staying awake till the net gets back, browse for an hour and then sleep. So I sleep at 5 am in the night (rather morning), miss all possible classes and get up in the afti. Many a time I end up missing lunch.

But yesterday was different. I didn't keep track of time. I never bothered if it was 4 am. I read a part of Alice in Wonderland recently. I was recollecting the kinda surprises Alice encounters and her reactions to those unexpected conditions. Was she innocent? Ignorant? Capricious? Curious? Was she looking for a change in her routine? Or was she pretending to be brave? May be one of them. Or may be all of them.

What struck me the most was this incident. She keeps wandering through the wonderland. She suddenly finds that there are two diverging ways. She is confused. She finds Humpty-Dumpty sitting on a wall near by.
She asks him, innocently, " which way should I take?"
He asks, "where do you want to go?"
Thats an obvious question asked by person who's seen the place. He can't guide you unless you tell him what your destination is.
But Alice replies, "I pretty much don't know".
Then he answers, "then, it doesn't matter which way you take".

I find this situation pretty close to that of our's. We are all roaming in our wonderlands. To some of us, it might be life in engineeirng or a medical or a law college. To many of my friends and my self, it's been IIT. A priceless achievement, for which we toiled for 2 long years. A coveted goal for which our mothers got up at 4 am in the morning to cook breakfast for us. This is where we longed to belong. But, we saw this as a destination. Just a destination. We never planned our travel beyond this. We vaguely thought, we would go to IIMs, Universities abroad, lucrative jobs and what not. That too after substantial damage was done to our CGPA's. In the beginning we were in the same position as Alice - innocent, ignorant, fickle-minded, over confident, trying to differentiate ourselves from our neighbors etc, etc, etc.

Just as Alice had Humpy-Dumpty, we have our seniors, professors and some despo frienz who already got this gyan (Uh oh.. they are just the manifestaions of my jealosy for my frienz who were quicker to realise that they wud get screwed unless they take up the job of reconstructing their career goal maps). But who's fualt is it? Alice's?.. for not asking which way you ought to take to reach what destination. Or is it Humpty-Dumpty's fault for not showing concern for an innocent kid lost in an alien world. I think either of them is faulty. But who has the bigger share?

Well.. I'm still thinking. If you are thinking as well, please care to post your thoughts.

posted by Dilip Acharya at 1:27 PM | 6 comments