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.