The State of Affairs

                                                                                The State of Affairs

Recently I was going through an article on “Census of India 2011” and I came across an information that was a pleasant shock to me. It said “In the last Census, over 6000 languages and dialects were recorded in India, PG Stalin,a grade-1 stastical investigator with the Census Department ,tells us with considerable excitement” and for a moment I questioned myself as to how many people would share the same excitement as the statistical investigator. This lead me to a more deeper question of “Indianness that we share” and the answer was not affirmative. I was predictably drawn to the Telangana issue,the  Bihari  Mumbaikar clash and then finally to the association system that is prevalent in our college.

State wise associations, as all my fellow mates shall concede, play a significant  role in the events going around in the college. They share influence in the daily lives of students, cultural activities and most shockingly technical events where regionalism has got nothing to do with knowledge and management abilities. I sometimes try to figure out how the association thing might have started and following points rush into my mind-

-Elections for the different posts?

-Feeling of insecurity in a new place?

-Requirement of enough people to pay enough money to go and enjoy in a     luxury hotel and restaurant.

There is not a single reason that can be pointed out. It can be a cumulative effect of these and many more reasons.

When the first yearites come they are forcefully or under the pretension that they shall be helped in many ways are made to join one of the associations based on their state affiliation only to limit them to a group of 30 students from their own state. The seniors say “we are giving you a group to enjoy and share problems with” but it seems they don’t realize that its good to allow a person to select 10 good apples from a group of 50 rather than randomly select 40 and give it to him and say ”njoy”.

The result is that we start seeing different states of people sitting together in separate groups in the mess, going out in separate groups, organizing events in separate groups. People tend to adjust themselves with this way of living and rest of the college life is spent among  a selected group of people of their own state. So finally a Bihari is limited to Bihar, Rajasthani to Rajasthan and a Tamilian to Tamilnadu and with this the whole point of studying in an institute of national importance is gone.

But all would agree  that even after all this we have students forming groups with other students sharing same notions, beliefs and thinking irrespective of the state they belong to-the trademark of an intellectual society.

Associations just divide the exuberant youngsters and are a barrier in promoting multiculturalism. They don’t help in bringing Indianness nor are they successful in creating  love for their own state because they enforce it. Do you think we need associations for people to realize and value the fact that  a few of their college mates belong to the same state. The idea of Bihar,Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh or any state for that matter is not so parochial. Even if we don’t have these associations, students from  a particular state are bound to share a special relation which will be more meaningful when not enforced and helpful in the long run.

So associations in the most pragmatic way are a system that is redundant and must be done away with. They run because of a few selected  people who behave as either guardians of the state only to diddle away some money for their personal use ( Just like the politicians do)  or feel uncomfortable among students of other states because of inferiority complex issues.

 It is rather an irony that we have divided ourselves on the basis of different states when Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel himself devoted his life for the unification of different Indian states after India’s independence.

So guys and girls, break the shackles of these associations. Your statehood and the love for it is intact even if you are not a member of such associations. Just go and look out of your state. There is so much to experience and learn in these four years of stay at SVNIT. India and the world has so much to teach you!

The " M "class

I was bemused about my next blog topic when it hit upon me to write about something that the whole world is watching and commenting. So, I opened YouTube and had a glance at the most watched videos. But still nothing amused me so much except for that regular guy who makes funny videos on Justin Bieber and Rebecca Black and so I reverted to some less popular ones and suddenly “Anna Hazare” came to my mind.

This man has gained so much importance in the past few days. He is there on Facebook, twitter and all the news channels are recording every act of his. All young people are joining hands asking each other to forward his message and so the internet factor is working for him. I even received an email from a website that guides IAS aspirants about his earlier achievements and his new plan about the Lok pal bill and related specificities. Daily newspapers are full of editorials expressing their take on the kind of protest that he is leading.

Well I am not here to give my views on his way of protest, to which some feel offended apart from the politicians. What vexes me is the behaviour of the people. We all must accept that we suffer from the NIMBY syndrome (NOT IN MY BACKYARD) and for us especially the middle class it’s a clichéd topic. We prefer to bribe the traffic police than to pay him the exact penalty. Middle class people like you and me vote the least. I am 20 and I am still to vote.

To tell you the fact at one level or the other we are all corrupt. Its only when the world presents itself in a more corrupt way that we start shouting and abusing the system, calling for a reform. So the sudden outpouring in a way suggests that the level of corruption has increased much beyond what is being done by the middle class. So what happens when things get back to normal and we don’t come across any big scandal???Yes you are right we will become calm and this whole Lokpal bill will become a trash. I am not being pessimistic, I am just trying to analyse the issue based on previous response( the JP movement in 1970 and the V.P singh movement in 1980).

Things have worked like RTI but you see the MP’s have stopped giving funds to such schemes as it acts against their position and I am sure they are going to make it(Lokpal bill) impossible to pass. Hope the middle class shows the same amount of enthusiasm at that time.

World of negativity

With all that reading for these many days I have come across as many words that hold a negative sense as there are trees in this campus. But not as many good ones. Words like sue, scathing, uncouth, vandalism, vitriol and many more like that. They are so common apart from the college parlance that of course is the trademark of this place. But its not something very particular or can be attributed specially to this campus but to any campus on  earth. Its something that is the manifestation of what we learn here if I am not scathing(u see I learnt one and this is truly negative).

Its morally incorrect. To blame something so prestigious(I consider it so) requires courage, courage to do wrong and then it is fashion to express it as if it were an every day affair. But its not taught. Its something that you learn by virtue of being here and it has nothing to do with books but more with the external world that somehow drives you to learn it and we do it as part of our reaction to that force. Imbibe it, embrace it so deep that it is no more kind of a force but something to be acknowledged silently and then allowed to grow as if  now we are the clandestine ambassadors of it. We pursue it all through our life and hence this world is moving towards negativity just like entropy’s increasing and exergy’s decreasing. Goodness is there but few are in search for it.

All looking for faults, after all, that’s the easiest thing to do and then this thing keeps adding if not multiplying when it hits back on the face( You can question how but I have deliberately omitted it).

What I have written is universal. You can connect it to your lives but if you have an affirmative answer you are someone who has to learn to be a bit more positive and without exception I say everyone requires changing.