Atlas Has To Shrug

I have always been proud to associate myself with IITM. It is the place that has given me so much. I came here because it promised opportunities to those who worked to deserve them. Hence, it is with a tinge of sadness that I pen this post.

The situation that IITM is pigeonholing itself into reminds me of the bleak scenario that Ayn Rand so luridly paints in her magnum opus, ‘Atlas Shrugged’. Every direction I look I see rules fettering the activities of students and faculty alike. I mention the faculty taking note of how many of them noncommittally they say their hands are tied on the issue of student attendance. However, being a student working his way through his seventh semester in the institute, I confine my attention to what the students see. The reader will excuse the mood of the post. Being subject to innumerable rules can feel like being in a penitentiary and one never feels blithe in such milieu.

Having taken up the issue of attendance let me take it to a conclusion. Sitting through a class where one does not seem to gain any new ideas can be like watching paint dry or worse. The casus belli for the senate, which issues the fiats, seems to be the matter of respecting the teacher. I can assuredly tell them that if there is involuntary attendance in the class, there is also the simmering discontent that can by no stretch be construed as respect unless you do not look beyond the occupation of benches. Let us assume the problem in question is students not learning or dawdling their hours away in their rooms. It is no secret as to how much is absorbed by a student who forcibly attends a class that he or she detests.

Consider the alternative of having no rules but classes that are more interactive. That would mean that jumbo classes have to be done away with. There are classes with over six score students where at times no public address system is used or more likely does not work as expected. When this happens, it is unfair to criticize the back-benchers for an occasional loss of interest. Let us consider the leviathan class strengths in ID110/ID120/BT101/HS305. It makes little sense to broadcast the lecture live in the adjacent rooms. For all practical purposes, it is the same as students in Somalia gathering together to watch a video of IITM professors giving classes in Chennai; only that most of us do possess computers to watch it at our convenience. I am sure that at least in this supposedly elitist institute, most students are responsible enough to attend classes which they find profitable. As for the black sheep that are glued to gaming, why should they determine the actions of the rest of the institute?

That brings us to the gags on network usage, some of which are plain paranoia and the rest ludicrous. Who would ever turn off the network every few minutes just so that the game freaks are foiled? I am in the middle of a perfectly innocuous chat online and I see the client disconnecting and reconnecting enough times to disrupt the flow in the conversation. Let us examine something worse. I am working on a deadline for a submission that closes around 4 AM IST. The network shuts down at 1 AM promptly again to make sure some mindless folk go to sleep. Whoever said the administration cannot be a good nanny? However, someone obviously did not understand that the whole world does not follow Indian Standard Time.

The above concerns seem peccadilloes in front of what I am about to castigate. I had spent my last seven months in two different universities abroad, four months on exchange and three months on a summer internship. Both have been great experiences and needless to say that I have benefited immensely from them. The internship in particular was beyond my expectations and convinced me that I wanted to do research. Still looking back fondly at the experience, a message from the Academic Section strikes me like a clip from a horror movie. From my interaction with one of the key decision makers, I do know for one that he professes concepts like sacrifice while believing that life is a zero sum game. But this takes the cake.

INDIAN INSTITUTE TECHNOLOGY MADRAS

Academic Section

F.Acad/07-08/B2/2007 Dated: 10.08.2007

Circular

Sub: Summer Training Course – Reg

It is informed that students will be permited to undergo Industrial Training (in summer) only in organizations/institutions within India at the end of Sixth Semester.

It is may kindly be noted that no student will be permitted to go abroad for Industrial Training (in summer) from Summer 2008 onwards.

/ By Order /

The mail effectively bans internships from being done abroad. Though it does not affect me directly, everything about the notice seemed repulsive to me, not including the spelling error in ‘permited’. License, quota and permits were after all what stifled India’s growth till someone had the courage to break the paradigm and open up the economy. World over, people are embracing globalization and riding on the benefits it is seen to offer. Even China, one of the last havens in the world for communist control, is seen actively courting a capitalist cloak.

What does the present move seek to achieve? Honestly, at this moment, I do claim to read the minds of the powers-that-be. Do they intend to ‘make the budding minds work within India for three months and improve the country’? Why not go the full distance and ban students from applying for higher studies abroad? Internship is a period of time where one explores a field and understands one’s interests. There have been a couple of cases last year that are very illuminating. Both internships were done abroad. An internship at an investment banking company convinced the student it was not what he wanted to get himself into. Another found his research internship not so inspiring and took up a consultancy job instead.

It may be possible that none of these reasons actually led to the decision on banning internships abroad. A few offending black sheep spam obscure universities in exotic destinations abroad, fly over and enjoy an all-expenses paid vacation. Should they determine whether the whole herd is to be castrated? But then again, it has become a typical tendency to severe the arm if there is a fly perching on it.

This tendency to solve problems with the imposition of rules is not restricted to the hallowed campus of IIT’s alone. Why else does the country have scads of amendments to the constitution? Several companies that my batch-mates worked for had unimaginably draconian restrictions of internet usage. It goes without saying that the restrictions had the look of well-seasoned Swiss cheese with all their loopholes.

The institutions abroad that I have seen closely work on honor, trust and soft coercion. If the IITs were largely built on the model adopted by the successful Western Universities, what dictates that it turn antediluvian in its mindset? The tendency worldwide is adopt the policy of ‘Laizzes-faire’-let things be. Of course, it cannot be taken too far. Some checks and balances are necessary to keep things from drifting into chaos. But far too many of them just serve to stifle productivity and achievement. We can never know how far and how high we are capable of flying until we leave the ground. It is time we loosened the chains that bind us.

Elixir of Immortality

He spotted the land at last. It was there gleaming in the midst of the vast expanse of the sparkling blue ocean water. Fortune seemed to have finally relented and decided to place it right there for him. He had traveled many miles in anticipation of this one moment leaving behind his worried family, staking his reputation on this mission. Purportedly saner men had derided him and called his enterprise a lunacy. Now he had a chance to prove them wrong…

It did not take long for them to disembark on the island. His crew was thoroughgoing professional and left for the island as though they were heading out for battle. Little did they know what awaited them. Elsewhere someone was closely watching their movements.

They were in a clearing. Lofty trees and luxuriant vegetation greeted them on all sides. The explorer looked up at the azure sky with a seagull streaking past and smiled. He guessed he got more satisfaction that day than in all his life before it. It was as though he found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that his life and efforts represented. Everything in his life seemed to have found new meaning now. He had lived his life by his ideals and came to where he had always dreamed of being.

Suddenly someone in the touring party dropped dead without so much as uttering a scream. The attack was swift. It was bloody. The native cannibals could possess no mercy. The explorer’s crew retaliated with all their might. It only made sure the natives knew that they had subdued a formidably equipped foe that day. Having well-nigh decimated the crew, the natives wisely retreated before the reinforcements came rushing in.

The crew was left counting its losses. They cried out for their leader. Ferdinand Magellan was his name. He was lying there on the blood-drenched ground with a smile on his face, a smoking gun in his hands and a fatal arrow sticking out of his chest.

This semi-fictional account of Magellan’s death was written in response to a question posed to me on who I would want to be-a pioneer or a settler. I did not have to think twice about my answer.

However, to lead such a life and die by it if necessary requires a lot of gumption. Plenty of people start their life with a lot of idealism. But somewhere down the line, they get stuck in the quicksand of mediocrity and monotony. Indeed, it is much more tempting a peaceful life where you earn your bread doing a routine if not mundane job, raise a family, stack up your savings, buy a house…the whole nine yards.

I fervently hope that I do not succumb to it. Right now there is youth coursing in my veins. Someday, maybe when I am old and crumbling, and when I have to look back on the life I have led, I pray that there is the swell of pride that washes away all possible pain. I long for the ‘immortality’ that Greeks sought. I wish I could say, ‘Remember us’, the way Leonidas said it when he changed the course of history with his last stand.