In a slump

I am in a slump. Don’t know how or when I fell into it. During the intern I was very much longing to come back to Insti. The work there seemed so painful that I wanted to run away from the place. I felt that mugging was much better than any thing else. I had nothing interesting to do but read about maintenance and quiz people. But finally the report turned an eye opener and I felt happy at my work. Good results with least effort. I came back home determined to get back to the Insti and work well to get placed. I had already decided that I will go for placements and not APP or CAT. I thought that I could do some good work in my BTP and learn more from the Insti.

But what did I realise after coming here? I realised that I lost all enthusiasm in life. Don’t know why! Exams aren’t making me nervous anymore. Nor is the urge to study as strong as before. During the first two weeks, I didn’t realise this. It was a common thing. Nothing really happens during the first two, three weeks in the Insti. Life will be peaceful with nothing to do but meeting friends, discussing interns, and gathering books from Cenlib. So I got to know about the slump after the first month. Quizzes started last week, and even a week before the quizzes, I had no inclination to study. I tried hard for that feeling of panic that drives me to mug each time. No, no sign of panic, instead I was playing cricket in the quadrangle two days before the exam, without as much knowing the syllabus. May be this is what they call 4^th year blues.

Also, my enthusiasm to work left me. Do you want a proof? Take a look at my dust ridden bicycle waiting a cleaning or the cobwebs dangling in my room. I wake up late everyday, don’t even sweep my room and go around as if everything is fine. Many a time I said to myself [mostly during some class] that I will change, go and clean up everything and live normally. But once I come back to the room the only thing I do is to switch on the computer and sit before it for hours, doing nothing literally. Anyway, I don’t think flash games and movies are a good way of spending time.

There were days when I was there at book bank by 2o clock, waiting for it to open at 4 pm. In fact there would be many of my friends, waiting for two long hours before they could get one book issued. I did that in first year, second year and God knows how, in third year too. Of course, I went there at 3:30 pm in the third year. This year nothing drove me to book bank so early. Went there casually at 4:30, saw around and picked up two books, one for me and the other for a friend. I didn’t even care to see when they issued the second one. Only after Sriram told me that he took second book weeks ago, did I go there again.

I remember that distinct feeling of panic that struck me each time, a week before the quizzes. Till then I would have read a few pages from each course and would have an idea of where the course starts. But the week before the exams, I would start reading each subject, making notes and memorising important concepts. This semester no such thing happened. In fact I think I was promoted from the test team to the one day team. I started one day matches, mugging a day before the exam. [Don’t exactly know if it’s a promotion or a demotion moving from tests to one day. Cricket pundits out there should tell me which is better, test or one day.]

The courses are less this semester. Not many classes, but more of self study courses and projects. Had there been classes for every course, I might have realised the gravity of the situation. But when everything is left to my discretion, I am the laziest guy.

The exams also failed to evoke any enthusiasm. Three exams over till date, three one days and I am satisfied with my performance. I know I haven’t done very well in the exams, but there is nothing that is ringing bells, asking me to read, I am to continue the same old story, movies and games. God save me from this lethargy.

With classes on and off, one at 9 am and the next at 11am , I started visiting one place where the coffee is as good as that in Hotchips- Tiffanys. The coffee here is great and especially between classes and with friends, it tastes better. Long walks and hours and hours of chat sessions with friends are taking priority over other things. Yes they have to; for this is one last year we live together before we part.

Himalaya- the MESS

All of us are aware of the fact that the sole purpose of setting up the Giga mess is to provide better quality of food through competition. At least that was reason we were told, when the idea of Giga mess came up. And last month’s reshuffling strategy disproves all this notion of competition.

To those of you who are not aware of what happened last month, here is the account. A large number of students opted for CR, where the quality of food was better than others. It turned out that the number of students who opted for CR was almost the double of the next mess. The management and the “caterers” decided that this was an unacceptable distribution. It seems that the CR management themselves expressed their inability to cater to such a large number of students. Hence people were distributed almost equally to the three caterers. Some 150 were given the facility to dine in CR and 50 in RR, to provide the “competitive edge”. I don’t think the previous statement explains the situation clearly.

Let me be more precise.

If ‘x’ is the number of students dining in Sakthi, then ‘x+50’ is the number dining in RR and ‘x+150’ is the number dining in CR.

If I am not wrong with the figures, each mess gets almost equal number of students and in a total strength of 2300+ students, I am not sure how this 50 or 150 students is going to bring in a competitive edge! And the spirit of competition that was the essence of this Giga mess concept is surely sidetracked. So why do we have Giga mess?

As coming to choices made by students, I don’t think many people got the mess of their choice. They were redistributed randomly to suit the number quota, making a mockery of the whole process of choosing options. [And dropping votes in a ballot box.] If they were in anyway going to be distributed randomly, why these claims of letting us make our choice? This is not directed at any individual, but at the system and the forces that run it.

And does the present system breed competition in anyway?

Besides being assured of the minimum number of students a caterer is bound to get, he is also assured of the fact that the number he has is going to stay for a month. Not only does this inhibits competition, but makes them complacent .If I know that I will get at least 700 people to eat the food I cook for a month, what attempt will I make to improve the quality? I can even afford to compromise on taste sometime during the middle of the month. All I need is to make sure that the food tastes good during the last week or may be ten days of the month. Is this what we wanted? Is it for this that we are forced to walk long distances, during sun and rain, even for tea?

In the ideal model as I see it, mess allotment should be on a daily basis. We have our smart cards anyway and their advantage has already been demonstrated in Cenlib. So why not let us choose our caterers on a daily basis? Let the caterers put up their menu daily. We can go to the mess of our choice by using the smart card. Swipe or whatever the card at the mess you want to eat and the cost of the dinner/breakfast gets transferred from your account to the caterers. This is more like a hotel where our bills are prepaid. This method of daily choice not only keeps the caterers on their heels, but also improves the quality of food. When I am not sure about how many people are going to eat at my mess, I try to draw more people by providing tasty food. Who doesn’t want to maximize his profit? This search for profit is what is going to improve the quality.

You may ask me one question. What if the food gets over and people are left without food? This can only be a short term problem, for a week at most. After all this is what it takes to enjoy good food, a minor glitch before the start of great days.

This is the idea of a perfect competition. This may be a utopian vision but certainly not difficult to implement. Good food can be the only pay off for all the fight we put to go to Himalaya.

Chanakya’s Quotes

1. "A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first."

2. "Even if a snake is not poisonous, it should pretend to be venomous."

3. "The biggest guru-mantra is: Never share your secrets with anybody! It will destroy you."

4. "There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth."

5. "Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions - Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead."

6."As soon as the fear approaches near, attack and destroy it."

7."Once you start a working on something, don't be afraid of failure and don't abandon it. People who work sincerely are the happiest."

8."The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind.

But the goodness of a person spreads in all direction."

9."Whores don't live in company of poor men, citizens never support a weak company and birds don't build nests on a tree that doesn't bear fruits."

10."God is not present in idols. Your feelings are your god. The soul is your temple."

11."A man is great by deeds, not by birth."

12."Never make friends with people who are above or below you in status. Such friendships will never give you any happiness."

13.”Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five years, scold them. By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your grown up children are your best friends."

14."Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind person."

15."Education is the best friend. An educated person is respected everywhere. Education beats the beauty and the youth."

the girl in the train

The summer heat was oppressive. I looked at my watch for the fourth time in two minutes. Fifteen minutes past 1:10 in the afternoon and still not an indication of the coming train. I looked around to see if there were any acquaintances in the station. After all it’s Guntur, my native place.

I was waiting for the Nagarjuna Express. It was the summer of 2004 and I was going to my uncle's home in Hyderabad. I had come to the station by 12.30PM and was waiting since then. With no friends to be seen around, I sat their impatiently waiting for the train. Finally the train showed up at 1:40 pm and we were soon moving out of Guntur. I was feeling happy that I was able to get a window seat. I didn’t want to sit somewhere in the middle, sweating.

There was a child beside me, constantly nagging his mother for something or the other. I was watching his antics with amusement. His mother was trying to calm him, as he constantly demanded all that was being sold. An old lady in the front seat was trying to find some space on the opposite seat to rest her legs. I took out "The blind men of Hindoostan: Indo-Pak Nuclear war scenario”, a book by a retired general and was quickly engrossed with it.

In an hour, the train reached Nadikudi. I was deeply immersed into the war scenario being enacted at Delhi by the defence staff when suddenly, something caught my attention .Through the corner of my eye I noticed someone dressed in red walk past. I lifted up my eyes to see who it was. I think she was a teenager. She was wearing a red Parikinee*, and was slowly carrying a heavy suitcase. She moved past me with difficulty balancing her luggage carefully, before I could see her face. Suddenly I was very excited. To describe the feeling truly, my heart started thumping and I could feel it. She was gracious and I wanted to see her face. I was longing to sit there and watch her for ever. She walked forward and seated herself two rows ahead of me, facing away. I tried to come back to the book but to no avail. All my attempts to concentrate proved futile.

I kept glancing in that direction, but the seats blocked my view. I don’t know why I felt so or what the reason was, but I still felt like sitting there forever if I was given a chance to look at her. On one hand I was feeling guilty that I was doing this, but I couldn’t take away that feeling of wanting to look at her. I offered my window seat to the kid beside me as if I was pleased by the fellow. I sat at the edge of the triple seat, from where I could have a convenient look at her, and held the book in my hand, pretending to read.

I tried to look away, read and I tried doing everything possible, but could not look away. Finally I gathered enough courage as I would call it, to walk past her to the door and then turn back to look at her face. I slowly placed the book away and walked towards the door as if I was going to wash my hands at the wash basin. I held the tap just for a minute, before turning back to look at her. I tried to do all this as casually as possible, but couldn’t avoid the nervousness that was catching up.

She was looking away, through the open window. Her face didn’t seem to look like what I thought. But what did I expect? Nothing. I just had a hunch that her face is going to enthral me as much as her gait had. But I was disappointed. I glanced at her face for a few seconds before walking back to my seat.

I sat there for almost an hour or so, glancing at her stealthily, never having enough courage to strike a conversation. At the end of it, I felt so bored that I dropped my book and fell asleep. I woke up with a start and by the time I woke up, the train has passed Miryalaguda. I searched for her. She wasn’t there! I had a sudden feeling of dejection grip me. I lost some of the happiest moments of my life to sleep. I cursed myself for being such a moron. Finally I fell to introspection.

I tried to find out what made me feel like that towards her. I didn’t want anything else, but just wanted to sit there looking at her. I didn’t want to trouble her even. All the while, I knew that this joy will be momentary, and that we will part in a few hours. Even that didn’t prevent me from enjoying the moment immensely.

It was for the first time that I felt so towards a girl. May be I liked her red Parikinee. Red is my favourite colour and may be the culprit. It wasn’t her personality, for she looked excessively lean. May be it was just the Parikinee it self. Andhra dresses, though largely ignored by people now have a certain degree of charm in them. I don’t exactly know why, but to me a Parikinee looks much better than jeans and I rate sarees above any other western costumes.

After sometime, I tried to imagine what she would have felt, had I gone to her and told that she was charming. The reaction may be a pleasant surprise or a suspicion. I just tried imagining what she would say, but couldn’t conclude anything. It would have been a suspicion followed by some beating by the co passengers, it was funny to imagine me being beaten up and me shouting “I didn’t intend any harm, I didn’t intend any harm”.

Now I just want to meet her once, if it can ever happen. Just to tell her "Madam, you are charming”.