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'!!

Follow Through

Spring Fest’s 50th Edition came to a (grand) conclusion at 2200 hrs on 25th January 09. I would not exactly describe it as grand – because the finishing of SF was a complete mess.

Aficionados of any sport would know the importance of a follow through in the perfect execution of a shot. If the follow through is not there – the shot is a mess. The SF organizers need to learn a lesson or two from the sporting domain. The 2nd & 3rd days saw the event at its peak with the like of KK and India Jazz Suites gracing the stage. By the final day, however, SF seemed to have run out of steam. All the enthusiasm and tempo had died down.

SF Team needs to sit down, look back and analyze the four days of the festival. Their job is not yet completed. Again the question of follow through. They need to ask themselves hard questions – why some things went wrong when they shouldn’t have. Why were events not conducted on time? Why were timings changed so frequently? Why did the crowd go out of control at times? Did they require 170 odd volunteers – could they have done a better job with smaller team of more dedicated volunteers – and given them something more than just a (worthless) certi(ficate)? Which events saw enthusiastic participation and which ones saw only scanty participation? Could they have had the events in a better order? They need to brainstorm now, ask their batchmates for suggestions and pass on not only what they already knew but also what they learned to the junior batch.

Let us not look at making SF bigger and bigger in numbers. Let us try to bring in some more quality into it – do the necessary trimming wherever required and look at making brand SF even bigger.

Looking forward to an even (bigger) better Spring Fest in 09.

Let the Spirit of Youth Triumph!!

Why no Mass Bunks?

One of the major differences that has come from changing my college is that I have had to attend more classes in IIT than I used to in DCE.

Have I become more sincere?
Or is it mere coincindence that I attend more classes in IIT.

I thought about it and concluded that the difference was due to the absence of mass bunks in Kgp.

Isn't that a good thing?

Good or bad - atleast I do not like the complete absence of mass bunks in Kgp. Although, one can always bunk classes as an individual, the fun factor goes away. Moreover one would lose his/her attendance for the class.

Probably I am being a bit nostalgic, but I really miss the mass bunks that we used to have in DCE. Mass bunks are a part and parcel of college life in Delhi University. You may consider it to be a subset of the jugad culture that exists there. The absence of such a culture as well as the stringent IIT system has made it almost impossible for mass bunks to happen. College Festivals would have been a reason for mass bunks in DCE. In IIT, the festivals have been made to coincide with weekends. Again, we would bunk when we disliked a particular professor. But here, almost all professors are so well qualified that a guilty feeling creeps whenever we think of mass bunking. Tutorials which we always bunked at Delhi are almost never bunked here in Kgp because we are marked during the Tutorial classes. Plus the over-competitive environment has made it very difficult for the students to work as a team towards a common goal.

Oh! how I wish, the IIT system would be a little considerate of the students! Or the students who wish to attend classes a little considerate of their fellow students! However, kintu, parantu, all hope is not lost. I appeal to all Kgpians to join hands in reviving (if it was ever there) or atleast bringing some hint of a mass bunk culture in the IIT system. Some human element in the very stringent IIT system!!

Virtual Reality Kgp

I must confess that time and again I am and will be regressing back to IIT, Kgp, JEE and related topics. This is because these have formed a major part of my life in the past 3 years and continue to be so.

So what is it that I call 'Virtual Reality Kgp'?

Or to be more precise, why do I use the adjectives 'Virtual' & 'Reality' to describe Kgp?

What is 'Virtual' in Kharagpur?
Kharagpur does exist, doesn't it?

Well, Kharagpur does exist. More specifically, an IIT exists in Kharagpur. But in the eyes of the Kgpians, the world does not exist.

Nonsense??

I do not know. Whatever little I have been able to gather from my little experience in Kharagpur, what I have realise is this - Kharagpur does not (want to) know the real world outside. They have created a virtual world governed by tempo, fundas and tradition. They seem to be unaware of the fact the the government is spending crores on IITs which could well have been used for the welfare of the poor & backward.

Kya Bakwas kar raha hai?

You might feel that I am a pessimist, a sceptic, but the truth is IITians not just in Kgp are wasting away the resources that they have at their disposal. A large chunk of IITians are ending up in non-technical professions because hamne tho classes attend ki nahi thi. Hamein tho apna CV banana hai. Even if I am a 6 pointer, I will end up in a good job because 5 point someone says so.

My dear IITian, I don't think any software giant is going to recruit you because you are a good dramatist or a guitarist. Or for that matter an electronics recruiter is going to take you because you were an inter-IIT participant

No, no, no - you are getting it all wrong. I will be my own boss. I will have a start up of my own and earn crores. Very well then. How are you going to have a product without any technical skills?

I do not know why but (most) IITians have a very narrow outlook. That is why you rarely find an IITian reaching the levels that many engineers abroad do. And a big culprit here is the JEE.

Scrap the JEE

What? Why? How? Isn't it a time tested means of getting the best analytical brains in the country? Moreover, how else do you select good candidates?

Rubbish.

All JEE has done is churn out JEE problem solvers who cannot think in a straightforward and simple manner. My suggestion would be to bring in the time-tested and good old Board Exams to select the candidates. You will get more complete individuals with less people precipitating into drug addicts and alchoholics. But they won't have those analytical skills that a JEE cracker has, would they? Ask a 9 ptr or a 10 ptr in IIT what analytical skills has he used to get his grades? Hard work and smart work. Those two skills even a 95%er possesses. Moreover, the problem of the skewed gender ratio would be solved to a great extent.

Radical views?

I do not know. Most successful engineers in India are non-IITians.

Why is it so?

Because the IITs and the IITians are in a dream world of their own which I would call 'Virtual Reality'

Touch Typing

What is touch typing?

Typewriting in which the fingers are trained to hit particular keys. Typist can read and type at the same time. (S)He need not look at the keyboard. A touch typist knows the location of the keys through muscle memory.

Why should you touch type?

• It is ergonomically better. Fingers are not strained while typing
  
• You can concentrate more on your work than on the keys while touch typing
• Maximum use is made of your 10 fingers. Hence typing is very fast
  

How to touch type?

Touch typing involves placing eight fingers in a horizontal row along the middle of the keyboard(the home row) and having to reach out for other keys. Most computer keyboards have a raised dot or bar so that the typist can feel them when his fingers are on the home row.

It is recommended that you download a software such as SeSType or Typing Master and follow the instructions given there. SeSType is a freeware and focuses on accuracy whereas Typing Master focuses more on rhythm. It usually takes 1 to 3 months to learn touch typing depending on the effort put in & the grasping capability of the individual.

Typewriter vs Computer Keyboard

You could also join some typing classes in your neighbourhood where they might teach you on a typewriter. Typewriter has the advantage of having the different rows of keys at different heights. So it is easier to feel and type on a typewriter for the beginner. One might graduate to the computer keyboard after some time and then finally to the laptop. Laptop keyboard offers the best speed because of the proximity of the keys. However, it is upto the individual to decide what sort of keyboard to choose depending on his/her comfort level.

Accuracy vs Rhythm & Speed

Again it is upto the individual whether (s)he wishes to go in for accuracy or rhythm & speed. Both have their advantages & disadvantages. One point to be kept in mind though is that the more inaccurate you are the more backspaces you have to press and as a result your speed goes down. Again, accuracy comes when your rhythm is good. So both the aspects are more or less inter-related. A balance is what is required