Jugaad!

If you have gone through my profile recently, you might have noticed an addition to my favourite books - 'The White Tiger'. This Booker prize winning book by Arvind Adiga struck a chord with me - not because it talks of India - not because it talks of Entrepreneurship - but because it has managed to substantiate a mere abstract idea of the rotten system in India into something tangible which he calls the coop - the cage.

However, I kept thinking once I was finished with the book - Is such a violent approach the only way to escape the coop? (For those who haven't read the book, Balram, the protagonist of the story murders his employer in his pursuit to become an entrepreneur). And then it flashed - Why? We have Jugaad!

Jugaad - as I would define it - is a roundabout way to solve a problem when the direct approach is not apparent or difficult. I don't know how successful I have been in defining it - I guess students in Engineering Colleges over India might be able to offer an alternative (better??) definition. Here, I would talk of Jugaad in the context of Engineering Education - however I guess it can be extended to other domains as well.

Proxies ->

Yeah! You got it!!

Proxy Attendance!!

There are thousand and one ways to give proxies and every now and then students come up with new ways to give a proxy. They are always one step ahead of the professors. There are times when 100 people would be marked present when only 50 were present. in the words of our physics professor in DCE, proxy may be defined quantum mechanically as psi=0 but psi squared not equal to 0. At times, a single fellow would sign or respond to multiple attendances and go unnoticed. At other times, the professors are sharp enough to catch them. They start calling out roll numbers at random. Well, whatever happens, Jugaad still flourishes.

Topa ->

This is a slang in Hindi which means - to copy. What do you do when you get loads of assignments? You resort to topa. One fellow does the hard work - and the rest copy. You might ask - is this not injustice for that one fellow who made the assignment? To that I answer - the one in question not only gives but also receives the benefit. The fellow who is the copied in one assignment might be the copier in another. And thus Jugaad flourishes!

Light Tracing ->

(Technically?!) Speaking, Light Tracing falls under the category of Topa. However, the technique is so unique that I thought it needs a section of its own. This is what many people do when they have to finish their ED (Engineering Drawing) sheets. I was tempted to give the step by step procedure for light tracing here but I have limited time right now. Mid semester examinations are knocking on the door - so I reserve the procedure for a later date.

Mass Bunks ->

I have talked at length before how mass bunks need to be an essential part of college culture - atleast in India - and why IITs also need to have mass bunks. You can read it in more detail here.

Solution Manuals ->

I was reading somewhere that it is the British tradition not to publish a solution manual of a book whereas the Amrican tradition demanded that answers to alternate problems be given. Then what is the Indian tradition?

Look at the solution first, then at the problem

Even I have found it quiet difficult studying from books which have no solutions. However, one can easily procure a solution of any popular book in the Indian Market.

Corruption (??) ->

Jugaad should never be confused with corruption. There is a thin - no thick line dividing corruption and Jugaad. Neither of them is a consequence of the other. There is a tacit rule about Jugaad - that it is non-violent, quiet and more often than not within the legal framework of the coop - the system. Corruption is an evil that needs to be fought and rooted out of the Indian society.

Jugaad is here to stay!!

About a Brand I Know Of

I don't think I would be able to post for some time now because my mid-semester exams are fast approaching. I like to stage-manage - cram some stupid stuff in my brain in the last moment and puke it out in the exams.

I don't wish to bore you with the details of a really excruciating process. I wanted to talk of something more refreshing and not related to IIT in any manner - my Alma mater DPS RKPuram. I won't be talking of what everyone knows and sees on the face of it - but certain things I found interesting & different in my school & would like to share with you. You are free to draw your own conclusion.

I am not a good starter - but I must start somewhere - & so I pick up this quote that I found in our School Magazine

Shirts that were in are out

T-Shirts that were out are in

This is how the school magazine spoke of the change in the school uniform. It has always amazed me how innovative these people at RKPuram were. To deal with the untucked shirts, they simply change the uniform. It not only takes care of their uniform but also promotes their

Business

I must say that the school treats education in a very different fashion. They treats school education as a business unlike many other schools. (& do they have any right to do so? I leave it to you to think over it).

There is a fee for everything in the school - the school bus, the school diary, the school magazine & even get-togethers. I used to crib a lot about it early on - because back then I did not know about the various other projects the school was involved in like the.

Anubhav Shiksha Kendra 

This is a school for the underprivileged that functions after the regular hours of school. Students are free(??) to donate whatever small amounts they wish as a 'token of love and appreciation' for the work that the school is doing. 

I could really never understand this initiative until I came to know of Padma Shri Awardee Dr. Chona's (our school Principal) daughter. She came into the category which these days we very subtly categorise as the 'differently abled'. I guess this had been the source of strength and inspiration for carrying out many such activities for noble causes.

Every week in the school assembly (we could have assemblys only once in a week or so because of the large strength of our school), Dr. Chona spoke of how they managed.

Quality and Quantity

hand in hand. I used to always wonder why she would boast of such a thing when the selection process was such that it took in only the very best. But then I realised that it is not just about taking in the best - it is about nurturing their talents.

All those who secured more than 90% in XIth in our batch were offered a tuition fee waiver. Our Principal had a remarkable knack in identifying talent & the guts to give them education for free - this is something that separated RKPuram from the rest of the schools in India.

And why does talent flock to this school? I would say because RKPuram has what is known popularly as a

Brand 

It is some sort of a cycle. Once the brand is built you have to work less. The best come to this place and produce astonishing results year after year. And like it is with all other brands - you have to pay for it.

So was the experience worth all the money? (Incidentally, the fees that I had to pay here was 15 times the fees I had to pay in my previous school)

Would I take the same decision if I were asked to go back in time & choose between the various schools in Delhi?

Whatever the merits or demerits of RKPuram, it was a different experience - much different from all my previous schools - the atmosphere, the competition, the pen-downs, the Farewell, the discussions we had with our Principal & teachers on Philosophical & Scientific topics - I wouldn't have had it all in another school.

I would still have chosen RKPuram.

03/02/2008

Well, this day is very very significant

It was yesterday

It was the first time I bunked a class in Kharagpur

I bunked the Maths class

Do you know why?


This is what I had been doing in the classes prior to the Maths one.

I was very very tired trying to follow some unrelated chain of events & formulae.

What do you say?

Should I bunk more classes?

Gults, Bongs & Madus

Again a piece on IIT!!!

I really can't help it. Living in an isolated campus 24x7 has kind of re-tuned my thinking - it is IIT & Kgp - that is all that revolves in my upper storey. I really wished to switch topics but I guess fate had it this way. To accentuate matters, I have been reading a lot of stuff on IITians - '5 point Someone' & 'The IITians'. And I plan to read 'Above Average' as soon as possible

You might find some mention of a similar idea in the book 'Joker in the Pack' - again a book on IIMs. When I read the book first, I did not think much of it. But the more I have thought about it, the more I have developed conflicting opinions on this very complex issue.

For the benefit of those who are not very well acquainted with Kgp lingo - Gults refers to those from Andhra Pradesh, Bongs to the Bengalis and Madus the Madwadis. (You get Gult if you read the word Telugu reverse). These are the students who constitute majority of Kharagpur's Junta. The rest - to put it mildly - are a minority.

So what are the implications of such a composition of the student community? What I have gathered from my sort stay here at Kgp is that these communities even after 7 months or so at the campus find it difficult to gel well. The same problems that we see in our nation reproduce themselves in the campus on a smaller scale.

The Gults aka 'Yentara people' like to roam about in 'gangs'. They like to sleep together, eat together and do this and that together. The CATC brought out this feature in a pronounced manner wth the Gults sleeping in a single file and the non-Gults in another file.(Incidentally, they sweeped the student body election's in our Hall of Residence)

The Bengalis, the Madus & the rest I would say is on the other side of the fence. Again, they mingle among themselves and do not risk getting into an Andhra 'gang'. They consider themselves 'cultured' people & dream of capturing important portfolios in the Student Bodies - they forget that the compostition of students this year is very different from that of years that have gone by.

This has really put me to think. Is Kharagpur really proud of its cosmopolitan environment?

When I was filling up my admission form and was consulting my friends already in IITs, their opinion was something like this

IITD=IITB>IITM>IITK>IITKgp

I have not been able to figure out till date why their order reflects a proximity to a city when it is very clear that one would be spending most of his/her time in the campus. So the only logical conclusion I can draw is that not only the Gults but the non-Gults are equally culpable for drawing the barrier. They have divided the IITs on regionalist lines. What is it that now separates an IIT from a Regional Engineering College. What is it that the IITs can be so proud of - a 6 lakh per annum placement? Some people are evn talking of having the rooms allotted on regionalist lines as it had been done previously.

When do we all mature?
When do we learn that IITKgp's beauty lies in the multicultural environment that it has. That it is only logical and reasonable to learn and share our experiences with each other. When will we see the Bong community, the Madus, the Gults and the others sharing and living not as members of their community but as proud IITians(or should I say Indians?)? I hope some day we get out of our shells and learn to interact with people from other cultures.

After all, Kharagpur is considered the 'Mecca of Engineering Education in India'!!