Engineered

It is one of those precious weekends where you can actually not feel guilty about being eternally lazy. Not to say that the good-ness of a weekend is determined by the stupor it can induce, it just feels nice when you don’t have to put your mind to impending quizzes, submissions or presentations. They can all wait for another day.

But the purpose of the blog is hardly that. It arose out of a random thought a few days back – the eternal debate of how grade focused we have become. Become, have we? I asked myself. I would rather be more inclined to believe that we always grew up on that. Always egged on by parents and wellwishers to beat the nearest competitor, to score more marks than anyone else in the class. We were made to believe that eternal glory rested in the reportcard, and life depended on those little digits in red in your marksheet.

It’s a topic which has been beaten to death many times over, but what put my thought back into it was the first concern that came to my mind as we started getting the final marks for each of the term II subjects. Would I get an A in this course? How many people would be above me? What is so-and-so’s total? And then I suddenly checked myself. I was shocked by my own narrow-mindedness. My parochial outlook towards a pursuit as pristine as academic (yeah, I belong to the old generation that way) left me very disappointed. In myself.

And as someone reminded me later, “all you PGPs seem to care about is grades.” “Engineers”, I corrected her, “we have always been that way.” Not that I was very proud of what I said, but I kind of hoped that she wouldn’t generalize the engineer’s malaise to those of us who haven’t emerged through four years of a cauldron of the engineering zero-sum game, where someone’s good grades means someone else’s bad ones. “And since grades seem to matter,” she finished, “congrats on the good **** grade.” I sensed the sarcasm but preferred not to say anything. When you know in your heart that you are guilty, it is impossible to convince yourself, or anyone, otherwise.

Even during those last days at IITK, during those endless discussions on the rainy late April days, we used to reflect on this, and we concluded that this is probably the saddest part of learning. We knew that we were all good, but to actually feel that condescending twinge of success because you managed to present your exam paper better than others – I guess our education failed us there. Or did we fail our education system?

I had decided back then that when I go into further studies, I would do it for the learning and not any more for the grades. But I haven’t managed to distinguish myself, either in grades or in the pursuit, so it turns out that everything is back to usual. It is the same race we all run, chasing those elusive alphabets and numbers, and any victory is at the cost of someone’s loss.

Sad as it is, I am now engineered that way.

Food for Thought?

I don't have much to write, with things settling into such a rhythm when in full flow that often the only feature to distinguish between the days is when the weekend arrives.

An aside, but we defeated both IIMA and IIMK in our annual sports meet over the last two weekends. With an earlier defeat of IIMC in their homeground in first term, this makes it three victories in a row! Or to be precise, as some of the slogans that were being shouted after our victory last weekend, "B-Schools ka Raja kaun" "Bangalore, Bangalore!" :D Hats off to all the sportspersons!

And now for the real purpose of the blog. There is hardly much these days that comes by your eyes which you might savor reading or recall with relish. I stumbled upon one of them a few days back.

Q: What's the only thing worse to being bad (either in your thoughts, capabilities or actions)?
A: Not knowing that you are.

Loaded statement, this one. I just stopped and didn't move for a minute. There is so much that these little words put together convey. Or so I thought.

Another aside, but watched Pan's Labyrinth of late. Absolutely beautiful piece of cinema. (I don't allude to the grossness in the movie, but the way the movie is made :P) A highly recommended watch.

Reflections

2007 passed by faster than any other year in living memory, which is to say, pretty much the fastest in my existence. The latter half was especially accelerated, though in all due fairness, I often have to actually think what all did I do in the first half of the year that that went by so fast. By my standards, and I daresay by any standards, this was a stellar year, one where pretty much everything I wished for, and even those that I didn’t, fell in my kitty. Barring the one blip of a disastrous first term at IIMB, this was a perfect year of achievements. Not to say that the blip is insignificant, but in face of what all I managed in this term, it indeed isn’t much of a dampener. On an academic as well as on a personal front, this is not a year I am going to forget and run past in a hurry.

Every year end presents crossroads and forces thoughts of quo vadis, although this year it seems more assured. At least, there is a fair chance that I might just determine my future career over a period of few weeks in summer. I also might not, but at least I won’t complain later that I never got the chance.

The year ending also coincided with the ending of term II, which went by much faster than its predecessor. I guess with an increasing involvement in non-academic activities, it is only to be expected. This term wasn’t much by way of learning, as most of the subjects were dull and uninspiring, but other activities that went on were sufficiently engaging to make sure that the end terms were around even before you realized. I found a bit of my groove though, and the initial discomfort, which hung around for much longer than I would have preferred, seems to be thankfully waning away. Of course, in hindsight, the first half of the term, belonging to the pre-summer placement era now seems like a different era altogether.

Learnings this year and personal growth? Now that it is difficult to point out. Unlike last year, this year didn’t have me asking a lot of questions of myself and seeking answers, thereby discovering more of me. Once you are strapped on the roller coaster that is IIMB, it is difficult to stop by for a moment and let life pass by as you ponder over its idiosyncrasies and of your own.

I was at my grandparents’ place after a long hiatus of 5 years, and spent the first new years’ home in this century. On both occasions I was reminded of a time when growing up wasn’t such a big deal, and that few things and people are frozen in time so bad, they seem to be forever etched that way. When playing late until forced home, when the proof of knowledge was found in hard prints and not in few clicks, and when life was so simple there was no way you could have made it complicated – all those times that I have left behind as I relentless march along pursuing God knows what.

I might even have found something special this year, though I can hardly be sure at the moment. But I guess I can wait. As they say, patience may be bitter, but it bears sweet fruits.

Some of the dates this year will stay with me for long – they are just special in their own ways. Starting from 3^rd January, 17^th March, 27^th April, 7^th June, 22^nd September, 11^th November …. The happiness felt after a long long time the day IIM admission results were declared, the unforgettable Ind-Aus encounter on an unforgettable weekend evening in Mumbai, the relief, albeit with a pang on November 11 ….. As I said, I am not exactly forgetting this year in a hurry.