Unbranding and Rebranding: IITs from the Drawing Rooms

A new season of IIT aspirants, a new bunch of wide-eyed, anxious parents, a new set of questions regarding the credibility of “IITs” as a system, a new range of doubts about pay-packets and lack of student interest….Somehow, we do not tire of talking, writing or thinking about IITs.

At least I do not….I will not give facts and figures in this article, will just debate the gossips from the grape-vines of academia. It’s been a three month long break from Iris. Have missed connecting with you all over this long hiatus.  Someday if time and space permit me and if I am really able to narrate, will narrate the stories of the past three months.

All through my life, I have been a rather boring talker and more of a curious listener who picks-up bits and pieces of drawing room conversations and sometimes weaves stories of them. There are no doubt a lot of valid points in these drawing room chats — some of which are meant as harmless gossips to be heard and forgotten. These drawing-room conversations are not always baseless — they are symptomatic of deeper issues that people would perhaps not discuss in a formal setup.

As someone who has been on both sides of the table: as a student and immediately after graduation as a faculty in the IIT system (believe me it hasn’t been any easy ), mostly I am in a state of confusion when writing “objectively” about a mega-system like an IIT. Let me confess my own subjective biases for the system even before I start writing. This article is a refusal to defend — but I would like to present my own picture of the glossy and not-so-glossy side of this system as I have experienced it as a student and then as a faculty.

Recently, in one of the drawing-room conversations, a friend pointed-out that IITs are “not” the best in education and that “these  engineers” are lop-sided and often “superficial” in their views and overhyped. They are not aware of social, and cultural issues, and it’s only the money that keeps them glued to whatever they are doing.  Additionally, there is the lack of “sheen”  in IITs. There is a dip in the pay-packets and students are unnecessarily pressurized from school days to get into the IITs by parents. Further, there is a lack of interest in students to read and learn — the pressure of “making” into an IIT is so high, that the post-burden of courses and education weigh high upon them.

There are no doubt some valid aspects of these points.  However, I have a strong disagreement with some of these points. Especially, when people in responsible positions including bureaucrats talk about these issues without giving the psychological dimensions a thought, it portrays a sad picture of the story.

I did not bring myself to argue in the drawing room scenario deliberately, but was making mental notes of these points so that will be able to discuss them on Iris. These points  might be also doubts that come into the minds of a bulk of our population.

The first aspect that comes to mind is the young age that students start preparing for IIT-JEEs. Perhaps, class 8th or 9th and for some it is class 6th or 7th. We come across this issue of parents forcing their children to make into IITs and after that being extra-possessive about their daughters/sons when they graduate.  While there is a lot of truth in these statements,  let us not forget that IITs are perhaps singularly the only system that have catered to the dreams of an average “middle-class” or “lower-middle class” Indian family to give a high-end education to their children.  Some of their children graduate to be the who’s who of Silicon Valley while some get into graduate studies at the best places of the world, including the majority of Ivy league colleges. The amount that a young IIT graduate earns at the age of 24-25 (including those with the least pay-packets) has been beyond the dream of some of their entire family’s income collectively put together. The gap of pressure and performance in IITs do not in my opinion come from parents only, it comes from the gaps in the economic standards of two generations. Moreover, the lack of public awareness for education, the complete ignoring of some of the promising pedagogic disciplines that have gone into disuse over time, and the lack of interest in alternative learning systems account for this excessive obsession that Indian population has for IIT admissions.

What is the average pay-packet of IITians? In our conversation people discussed the “low” pay-packets and the dipping placement scenario. I would say — that is pure fiction.  Those of us who have been through the grind and who have witnessed the  depressing placement seasons at IITs (I mean depressing because friends suddenly turn competitors during these seasons) are made to realize time and  again the value of money. IITs have been a few among institutions that have survived the onslaught of  recession. The average monthly income of an individual in India is Rs. 3000 (Courtesy: Express India). While in older IITs people crib about a 22 lakh package as “less than” their friend’s 29-30 lakh package, in the new IITs the scene will begin to clearly emerge after two or three batches start moving out and the alumni base starts strengthening itself with the pool. In an article in the “Economic Times” of December 2011, the highest gross package of an IITian in 2011 placements have been accounted as 75 lakhs (< http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-12-03/news/30471827_1_iit-campuses-final-placement-n-ramesh-babu>) . I am quoting money and placements here because perhaps that is something that immediately strikes an average thought.

It would also depend on how the young breed of faculty define a clear goal for their own IITs and steer the institutes along those directions. As far as my study goes, in the older IITs like Bombay, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras and Delhi, the first generation faculty members had a clear defined goal set for their institutions: to set-up a high-end undergraduate technical education that would match the best among the international standards. That was clearly achieved over fifty years time. But now what? Where to go next? We keep talking about “research” without getting into the dynamics of teaching and research.

In the Indian scenario, there is a strong political and public apathy when an institution over-reaches itself and establishes its autonomy beyond the state unlike the United States where an institution becomes a public pride if it does great work. I am citing the example of United States because Indian academia of late has been trying to follow a lot of the “US model”. This has been the fate of many brilliant Indian universities (I am deliberately not naming them) in the past . We go by the casual “chalta-hai” attitude and our ways are more of empty critiquing than constructive suggestions to build a system. We pull down systems with empty procrastination rather than building them.

IITs are in a crucial cusp at this moment which would define their position in the long run, and instead of following models if they develop their own model of education, then perhaps the entire South-Asia would have something to talk-of in terms of an educational capital. My limited thought is a strong PhD base along with an equally strong undergraduate teaching.It is only over the last few years that people have started recognizing the economic benefits attached to a PhD degree in India.  The time when we have the brightest of our undergraduate IITians or Central University students or high-end private engineering college students joining for research at an IIT instead of opting for a university abroad, I would consider that as the beginning of a new era of success and as the process of “rebranding”. The other part would consist of public support and more of research initiatives that would be of use to India in whatever possible ways. An institution should emerge as pride for the people that it serves.

As far as the lack of emotional, social, and cultural awareness in IITians (specifically “engineers”) are concerned, I would say that perhaps some of the best known names in writing and theater at this moment are from these institutions. It’s not one institution, the common sentiment among students all over the world is a lack of an appetite for reading or for socio-cultural issues.  History says that there have been motivating teachers behind a successful student (king in the ancient times).  A Chanakya was responsible for making a Chandragupta, an Upagupta was responsible for a converted Ashoka. It is not information that creates responsible students in my opinion, it is rather your attitude towards life and academics. How we create that attitude would more or less depend on us. Moreover, let us accept that the basic training in IITs are to make “good engineers”, how we add the responsive and emotionally balanced and honest individual to that list, would depend more or less on us as friends, parents, society, and teachers.

On that note…a warm weekend wish to you all . Ciao!

Need to Teach or Need not to Teach?

Walking down the stairs of my office for a class, I overheard a group of my students discussing about a colleague:  “yaar, that Prof is OK, but he makes us work so damn hard! Why? Why do we need to work so hard on assignments, projects, seminars etc. when we don’t need half of that in the courses? Why can’t we do what we wanted to do?” I smiled at the concern — very true.

I had no reason to interrupt, did not want to interrupt in the conversations either, so hurried down the stairs. But, have been thinking about these statements since then.  In fact, have been thinking of  a tea-time conversation during my student days, when one of my seniors said mockingly, “these young faculty members are such chameleons. The moment they turn their tables from student-ship to faculty-ship they think that they are Einsteins. Damn! they make you work so hard unnecessarily!”  In another instance, a student wrote, “she/he thinks he/she is a great Prof. and makes us work more than we would have worked in an Elec course”  …. True — very true .

Let us try turning the tables. A colleague who teaches in another University in Western India recently confided,  “I have a strange issue. What do I teach my students? They seem to be knowing everything from the Internet — whatever I need to discuss with them, they already know that. I am facing a problem of too much knowledge rather than too little. ” I gave it a thought and said to her,  ” is it the problem of too much-knowledge or half-cooked knowledge? Maybe we need to recycle  the knowledge already available on Internet and deliver the applications of that, so as it make it possibly more interesting for people who are learning?”

True that ignorance can be handled, but over-intelligence is a tough-nut. However, my observation is that if the world is producing over-intelligent, hyper-think-tank people, then where are the gen-next Einsteins or Keats or Sartre or Virginia Woolf or Wiener or Gallagher? No, I don’t mean to say that these were the only great people of the world or that there is some canon there — my concern is that are we actually finding academic egotism in places that are supposed to be higher in the so called “rankings”? Some of my friends who have not been in any Indian ‘great’ academic systems and belong to humble colleges across the country have shown much more intellectual breadth and  broad-mindedness than many of the ‘elites’. It is a subjective issue you would argue.

Why are we not producing lateral thinking, perspectivizing human beings, rather than ideologically stubborn, information-crammed citizens? In the last guest post that was published on Iris, a reader commented that ‘people comment on only love stories and Bollywood masala rather than on issues of social and emotional concerns’ (paraphrased). That is perhaps because we live in a world of denial rather than acceptances. Simply knowing facts and relating facts to knowledge  are two different things.

There is another aspect that comes to my mind when we are talking of teaching and learning.  This part pertains to the social dimensions.  When people have thoughts that they are over-working due to unnecessary pressure, there are also places in India including some legendary colleges and universities where there are NO teachers and where there is an acute shortage of faculty — forget about quality faculty. There are strikes and sine die in many Universities and Institutes just because there is no one to teach. There are learners but no teachers in these places. Many new aided-colleges across India have students who might have paid an amount that would be difficult for their parents or themselves to arrange. There are institutes of high repute which face faculty crunch due to geographical deterrent or else managements or cultural factors. The supply demand chain is highly skewed there — students are willing to learn but there is no one to teach there.

Places like IITs and Central Universities have been fortunate to attract some bright people as students as well as faculties. But on the one hand when there is an excess, on the other, there is also an absence. Sometime when you work in a village school taking a break from your ‘high-profile research’, you will be suddenly refreshed — not because there is a glorification of your education, but because there is a yearning to learn. An acqauinatance who is a senior scientist in a research lab came from a humble village school. He was the only person in that village who subscribed to an English newspaper during his high-school days and the newspaper would always be three days delayed from the date of publication — yet, he would enjoy reading it.

Another small example of the yearning to learn. This time it is Prof. P.C. Kar’s (I am deliberately taking his name) example. Those who know him, know that he is an extremely humble human-being, but one of the strongest academicians in Literature.  As a graduate student, I had once had a chance to  closely observe him during a workshop. We were making series grad-student presentations on theory. During each presentation I saw him quietly sitting in a corner and taking down notes. Whenever he had a query he would either request the student to help him learn or else he would go back read the notes, read and come back to discuss. Any new book that would come to the library, he would suggest: “If you cannot read the book, at least touch it and smell the pages — there is something very enigmatic about the smell of the leaves of a book”.

Evan Esar once said, “America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week”. In India the scenario is skewed and strange. We cannot take the American model always in our own context — the Indian psyche works at a different scale. In my opinion, education here has a different rationale — we still need a lot of teaching along with the emphasis on research, because the level of education and understanding is yet to reach the global benchmark. The concern is not learning, teaching or ignorance — the concern is an apathy towards knowledge in a consumerist society.

This time the other section of my readers will complain that I have not got any humane tale to narrate for this weekend’s post, no Bollywood and no love stories — let us keep that for the Valentine’s week . Just a short unrelated gossip — late evening I heard someone singing outside with a dholak, “Saajan mera ush paar hai milne ko dil beqarar hai” (“my love is on the other side of the riverbank, and my heart craves to meet him”) … curious that I am, went to out to see from my balcony where the wedding was. To my surprise, I found a group of middle-aged women singing the song in the courtyard of the nearby temple. This happens only in India — we rationalize everything as philosophy.

On that note, signing off. Goodnight! Take care and keep reading ….

Other Side of the Coin: What Kind of Education?

The story that I heard today really disturbed me. I got a frantic call at 9 am this morning from someone I know very well. Tired, after a hectic weekend, I was in no mood to pick-up the call or talk to this person — however as goes my disposition, I picked up after two missed calls. This lady was calling me up to know what should she do with her twelve year old niece, studying in class -IXth? How should she counsel her? I was intrigued, asked her if there were those pre-teen age problems that many kids encounter these days involving friends, boys, and parents-children dynamics. She was confused and said I must hear the entire story before I can draw my conclusions. I am writing this article with her permission.

She told me that this young lady of twelve years has been harassing her eighty year old grandmother, to give her a complete control over her grandfather’s house and three bedrooms of that house. Not only that, she wants all the property like beds, chairs, sofas, and books, of her late grandfather removed from the rooms of the house and thrown out, because they are old and unnecessary.  She wants the house arranged as per the tastes of her and her friends. Moreover, she has apparently threatened the old grandmother to throw her out of the house if she is not given her ‘share’. I just couldn’t believe my ears — how can a twelve-year old say something like that? It’s a joint family property, the lady informed me and they have a lot of emotional attachment to these properties as the last token of memory of their late father.

Sleep vanished  and I replied “what!” How can such a small kid say these things? This is not possible — kids are completely beyond these adult skirmishes about properties and land. These are school-going children, how can they be a part of these unnecessary family quarrels.” I have briefly met this little girl before — she is a bright young lady, studying in a “good” school, getting fairly good grades. However, this came as a complete shock for me.

I hung-up and made enquiries from other family friends and they all confirmed the news. The old lady is petrified and she has been sent off to the home of some other relatives for a week or so. I called back my acquaintance and asked her that “how does this girl study? when does she get the time to study if she has been into threatening and fighting  her own folks? are the parents instigating her?” My curiosity was regarding the education and the way all these internal family disputes existing in the crumbling joint family structures affect the studies and psyche of children. As far as I remember, our parents were extremely finicky about our education. They went to the extent of being over-protective when we were studying, such that internal family matters, were kept out of the ambit of all children. We were not even invited to sit in the drawing room when uncles, aunties, parents gathered. And here is a child who is threatening her grandparent for a ‘share’ in the property! Completely incomprehensible for me.

I got a strange and intriguing response. The lady told me “You see these are the new generation children. They are very planned and focused. They know very well that CBSE boards have been relaxed and with the new grading systems, every other person gets a First Division and in fact good grades.  They are completely sure of the grades they want and the grades that they get. Moreover, they can threaten with suicides and other such steps in extreme cases, saying that studies are disturbing their mental balance. They do not aim for the best in higher studies — they know very well that a seat can be easily secured in the engineering colleges of their own locality, and after that a job in a company or a small startup is guaranteed. What else do they need? They just have to finish their school, engineering studies and go for a job. With a future as secured as that, what else do they need to do — spend time on Facebooking, talking for hours over mobile phone, or threatening grandparents to concede their properties. They are well-prepared for their future. They do not need parents to fight these battles — they can fight their own battle of inheritance.”

I am shocked  to hear this interpretation. Grades, schooling, higher-studies — everything build us up, true, but I had sincerely not thought of the moral and ethical dimensions involved in them.  It was shocking for me, because after years of higher-education, we are still unclear  about our own future — how can these kids be so secured? If they are then I would call it a dangerous level of complacence and a dangerous trend for a still developing society.

A few years ago my cousin sister-in-law had visited me at the hostel at IIT with her two and half year old kid. We went to shop in a mall. This little child was so sure of what he wanted to wear that I was completely surprised. She could not buy a single dress that was not his choice — if she did, he shrieked at the top of his voice and ran away to hide in the trial room . I was amused then, but later was scared of the coming generations. Children being completely isolated and purely independent at very early ages disturbs me. Many of our moms still buy our clothes and advise us what to wear and what not to, friends advise us what to choose, grandparents advise us what to think, dads tell us what investments to go for, we tell ourselves which advises to seek and which not to. It is a collective activity  …..

I am not a sociologist or a psychologist to be able to comment on these changes in the society. I think from an idealistic perspective.  Even though single, I am crazily fond of kids — have an idea that children can do or think no wrong and if they are, then it is we who are to be blamed. But, I am seriously rethinking our own stance as adults in the society. Are we into literacy rather than education? Education teaches you to be wise and sensible, but literacy teaches you only alphabet that can cater to your hunger, not your wisdom.  What are we doing to our children? What are we preparing them for? The case of this little girl is not an isolated case –  have been hearing similar cases for some years. I often ask my students in the class regarding what literary books have they read? They reply with none or one or two cursory readings. I find it truly dangerous — reading and reading beyond texts is important if we have to develop the ethical, moral and the ‘thinking’ side of individuals.

Agreed, that children should not be over-protected and nor should they be pampered — they should be given rights to voice their opinion. Agreed, that some grandparents are conservative to the extent of being over-interfering in the life of grand children. But, is it desirable that children should be allowed to talk about inheritance and property at such early stages? If I were a parent, I would be extremely strict about such issues being discussed by my child. It would be  unacceptable.

I am confused and nervous about this parenting business. I have heard a statement that “men go for wives who they think can prove to be good mothers for their children”. I am rather unsure of the entire adult population now, men or women — you might call me old fashioned or conventional, but a generation that doesn’t care for its senior citizens will be insensitive towards a lot of other things in my opinion. You might agree or choose to disagree.

Being a Teacher: Theories and Praxis

“The law is reason, free from passion” …. Aristotle

I started my stint as a teacher after leaving IIT B, quarreling with Aristotle and with  a class of amazingly curious wide-eyed undergraduate technocrats who have possibly lived and breathed Eckert, Cerf, Shannon, Computer vision, Micro-controllers, fiber-optics, and TCP/IP . Today I look back upon my first anniversary as a teacher — and I celebrate . As an individual transforming from the eternally defiant student to the other side of the table it was sudden and at times excruciating because of my set principles and comfortable casting zone in the cool role of a student.

Traveling over the past one year through the length and breadth of the country’s educational institutions has been an eye-opener — students are similar as well as extremely unique in their own ways. Only through teaching and interaction does one understand these similarities and uniqueness.  As I review the past one year, it surprises me that I have lived and experienced three educational institutions — two of them being new IITs and one LNMIIT, Jaipur.  Last July, when I started teaching a course in Indian Literature at LNMIIT, I circulated a poster with some pictures to make the course popular. I began with 3 students — no one wanted a new teacher and a course that might not give them adequate credits. Girls from 2nd year (I remember their names ) came asking me: “what are you planning to do with us? How will you execute the course?” It instantly struck me as “WOW! I had not done this in my student days!”  And thus started the journey…from 3 students, we moved to 12 in the first week, and finally the class got locked at 28.

Life for the past one year has taken such a dramatic turn that it is difficult to sometimes collate the theoretical and praxical aspects that it offers.  Being a teacher has been perhaps the only thing that brought some degree of satisfaction in a chaotic, whirlwind, drama-queen kind of life that Anne chose through the last one year in an attempt to find her identity in the wilderness of brand IIT. Last time when I visited IIT B, some friends (PD in particular) mentioned that I should keep notes of my classes and the experiments that the entire class gets involved in, for posterity. However, that’s tough for a particularly lazy character. This blog post is a series of short experiential notes on my role as a teacher and the theoretical and praxical angles involved in teaching. There is a disclaimer attached here — this post is not a prescriptive model and I don’t claim through this post that i have been successful as a teacher. My experience in this field is far too short and the challenges are many.

My first class started with a quarrel with Aristotle’s quote cited at the beginning of this article. Actually, I must admit (citing my sources for my students) that I was inspired by the movie Legally Blonde and the movie had a deep impact on my psyche before I went for research .Being a rule breaker myself, accepting Aristotle’s ideas has been tough. It was difficult to convince the class that Aristotle’s opinion might be just one among many opinions and that — “Law without passion is no law”. Law-makers of the world are perhaps (including the great Aristotle himself) the most passionate of professionals. Similarly, literature or technology without passion is neither literature nor technology in my opinion…. Questions were many from the class and the skepticism in the tone of the 28 proved that they were tough-nuts to crack. As students (including me) we take for granted that if someone is of the stature of Aristotle then he/she ‘MUST BE RIGHT’.   The perils of passive acceptance are innumerable and questioning cliches and norms do not come easily to us who have been taught right from our childhood ‘NOT TO QUESTION ELDERS’ . However, Aristotle made it sure that the entire semester was not going to be an easy run either for the teacher or the students. For the first time in my life, I was learning that multidisciplinary studies (which was my favourite dictum as a student) is easier said than done. Teaching literature to technologists is not a cake walk. If they are not interested then you are doomed, if they are interested then too you are doomed . Parth had  asked me the day I went for my job presentation, “Ma’am how does one write a novel?” I am still attempting to find an answer to that question .The number of texts that we chose to read baffled us at the end of the semester. But there was a common element that kept us united as a class — PASSION to learn and drive to know. We explored the length and breadth of Indian literary history through the course of this semester.

There are a few interesting anecdotes that will always bring a smile — these anecdotes basically relate to the complete anesthetic feeling that modern educational systems insulated in boundaries of disciplines have inculcated in us. We live in the comfortable boundaries of disciplines created by our standardized egos — ‘I am a Humanities Person’, ‘I am a Computer Scientist’, I am a technocrat’. These students for the first time broke my own ego quotient as a humanities researcher. As a teacher, I observed that when these boundaries are suddenly broken, the impact is either that of a complete cultural shock or pure enlightenment ecstasy. For instance, the class was reading “Champak Blossoms” from Sarojini Naidu’s Golden Threshold. I was trying really hard to explain the joy of smelling the first blossoms of Champak flowers explored by Naidu in her poems. The joy of such an experience seemed a little far-fetched for these hardcore computer or electronics students, some of whom perhaps never have seen a Champak tree in their lives. The humdrum of labs and core-subject problems and before that the massive load of JEE entrances have made these young minds insulated to the subtle aspects of life. Nikhil immediately asked me: “Ma’am how does a Champak flower look like?” What was implied in his question is that “poets are boring to find pleasure in smelling and then writing about Champak flowers” .  We decided to search and look at the Champak flowers after the class. I knew that the champak blossoms were aplenty in the campus and it wasn’t difficult to find one near the academic area. The entire class after the class-hour stood by the corridor while Nikhil and I saw the Champak blossoms . Nikhil decided to pluck a few Champak blossoms and smell it. I and the others of the class were also presented some of these blossoms by Nikhil . Suddenly the watchman came running after Nikhil, but he was extremely puzzled and nonplussed when he saw the rest of the class, including me standing and happily smelling the Champak blossoms in the corridor! The purpose was experiential learning — we tend to learn fast from experience. Probably, a lifetime of explaining Naidu wouldn’t have worked the wonders that smelling those Champak flowers did.

I have been fortunate as a teacher — because I was given the liberty by the directors, colleagues, and the students especially who have been teaching me while learning from me. Tagore and Gitanjali is another such anecdote.  Reading Tagore is not an easy job. I just barged into my director’s office and requested him to let me have open-air classes, outdoor classes — he was a bit puzzled for a second and then smiled said, “it is your class and your call” .  Then on, Tagore happened in the lawns outside and I have never in my life enjoyed reading Gitanjali the way we did during those months of September-October in the slight drizzle and with the breeze blowing outside, creating an ambiance that perhaps Tagore himself might have had when he was composing these verses in the forests near Silaidaha. As a class we were rhythmically and collectively experiencing the joy of creativity that Tagore’s profound verses offer. I was myself taught Tagore within the boundaries of a classroom, but got a chance to experience Tagore as the eclectic philosopher-poet for the first time in so many years.

Nived, and some others came up with the title “Creatineers” for this small but extremely lit-savvy group.  We organized RAP sessions in some evenings where we spent hours in the cabal mode talking, discussing, and listening to creative pieces either self-composed or else from famous poets and authors. Dheeraj would always run to the city to get cakes, pizza and goodies . In fact, last time when I got a chance to visit Jaipur  for a day we had our 5th RAP session the night before I left.  We continued well unto midnight  reading and listening — they made my gloomy evening lively and full of joy.

A few days ago I called up my thesis supervisor and joyfully informed him, “Sir, Naman and Tanjul’s papers have got accepted in an international conference! Sir, they are my 3rd year computer science students!” He was overjoyed, and said “My blessings to my academic grand-children Anne! I am their academic Taaa taaa” . That day I realized the joy that he must have felt when my first paper got accepted in an international conference — hmmm, experiential learning.

Being a teacher for researchers has been a different experience altogether. We learn to question our needs through these sessions. The modes that researchers communicate in are unique and that’s what we have been trying to understand in a joint effort in the class. As a scholar myself (not very long ago), I understand the difficult job of “unlearning”. We have been collectively trying to unlearn in these classes. I won’t divulge anymore details about the research classes except the fact that no amount of theory can ever equate itself with ‘do it yourself’ mode.

Nostalgia is not a great virtue. However, I am continuously transported across time to my own student days and cannot resist narrating stories from those times. In the first year of my PG, a new faculty joined our department. That was his first class with us (well, he still remembers my defiant manners). He was teaching us “Metaphysical Poetry” (a favourite subject) and John Donne. I was chewing a gum and had an ancient copy of the “Metaphysical Poets” in my hand. The teacher saw the book on my desk while he was reciting the poem. Out of curiosity he asked me, “library copy?” I looked up and gave him a stubborn  look and nodded. He was even more curious, “where did you borrow this from?” I looked back at him in slight contempt and slight defiance and replied dryly with the gum still in my mouth: “No I have INHERITED it! That’s my grandpa’s!” So soon have the wheels of time moved and the tables turned ….

Time flies and I have realized that none of the teaching theories match with the moment when as a teacher you walk up to the teaching aisle and when you face the thirty odd eyes tearing you apart, questioning you, testing you, and eager to learn from you, and teach you.You have to really want to be there if you want to be there. Teaching is not for the fainthearted and again I would fight with Aristotle that “laws of teaching have to be free from passion”  .  Without passion a teacher is only an instructor. One of these days Ajay was chatting with me on Facebook and he shared, “Ma’am if I ever become a teacher I am going to start my class with that quote from Aristotle” …. I consider that statement as my greatest reward ever.

It’s 2 am now and I am listening to an old favourite, a song of Bob Dylan that uncannily matches my post here, ‘Times they are a Changin’” :

“Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’” — From Times They Are A Changin’

(This article is dedicated to my students at IIT Indore, LNMIIT, The Creatineers, and IIT Gandhinagar)

Youth: What Ideals and Which Direction?

I was taking a walk this evening through the lanes of my new world and new campus. 9.30pm is not such a late evening I suppose. Post-dinner walk is a routine for me for the past many months — but lost as I am always in my own thoughts and my own world, more-so without specs, it’s difficult for me to recognize faces. Suddenly from one dark corner of the lone building someone shouted at the top of his voice, “good evening maam” — the voice was warm, mischievous and naughty, enough to jolt me out of my somnambulism . My immediate response was to turn around and respond with a “good evening” as loud as his, but he ran away and vanished in the fraction of a second. I stood there waiting for him to come back so that I can return his good-evening with my own response and in fact inquired from people around in order to know the name of this boy who had the powers of vanishing . Stood there for 10 mins or so, I knew very well that he will not come back  — perhaps he was afraid I might scold or complain, or perhaps it was just a part of a prank to make me aware that a world exists outside my own hemispheres. If the second case is true, I must thank my unknown benefactor.

Yet, I am concerned and slightly afraid of the trends. Not that am too far in times or social status to judge the present generation but there is something much more deeper and more troubling  which needs to be looked at seriously.  The first aspect that I am thinking of is regarding the safety of women/ girl students in smaller towns, localities or suburban colleges in India. How safe is a girl actually? How safe are her peripheries and her zone of movement? There is something extremely lurid in the depiction and imagination of women in India. However, if our role models are so problematic then what do we expect of a younger generation? On Friday night, I was just browsing through the news channels and happened to come across a late night edition of IBN Live ‘s show where Mr. Rajdeep Sardesai,  Mr. Suheil Seth, Ms.Nikunj Malik, and Mr. Siddharth Basu were discussing the fate of Rahul Mahajan and Dimpy Ganguly (I am desperately trying to search that video on net in order to give you an evidence of the tone of such a conversation, but the video seems to have been removed). Except for Siddharth Basu, the rest of the team seemed to take an unhealthy pleasure in maligning a couple going through rough times. In fact, the extent of the discussion was such that Mr. Sardesai asks Ms. Malik if she would like to get married to an eternal bachelor like Mr. Seth and further deeper innuendos on Friday evening and the social and cultural background of a character like Dimpy. Not that I have any special corner for either the couple or malign against the news channel but the kind of discussion that was on was simply in ‘bad faith’. On the one hand, Mr. Sardesai talks of Indian audience being extremely voyeuristic and on the other there is a vocal discussion of Friday late night jokes where the trauma of a family is open to national scrutiny. Personally, I feel that there ought to be no room for academic snobbery while sitting on the editor’s desk  especially to ridicule a girl as that ‘Dimply’ and with statements that would implicitly imply “she deserves it because she got married to a wife-abuser in a third-rate show”.  Is this what a nation condemns its women to? What do we name this? The media and national news channels are supposedly live schoolrooms where students learn not only General Knowledge but also facing the nation with a certain degree of respect and responsibility. Students learn the very alphabet of a code of conduct from the media that they get exposed to. If national televisions and news channels themselves are so dramatically bent towards publishing lewd paparazzi or superstitions then where do young minds of not more than 18-20 yrs stand in this ruthless onslaught of information? Many women are subject to not only physical but also linguistic and imaginative violence at every stage of their life. In this context, where does a young girl just out of her teens not even sure of herself, joining college for the first time stand her chances? I don’t have an answer….

The second aspect that troubles my thought is that I have been observing cultural shows and galas of late at various institutions. There seems to be a dearth of imagination and all the shows boil down to just dating, flirting and dancing for so called ‘love’ and the ‘moving on’ aspect post the one-evening love. These shows have either Bollywood or else TV shows with Swayamvar kind of content. Drama, especially theater where students actually learn to perform as well as understand texts that would enrich their vocabulary as well as understanding of life seems to have vanished somewhere. Everyday communication has taken center stage and there seems to be hardly the time to read, understand and assimilate. I am not sure if in the craze to make technology and communication ‘simpler’ we are trying to produce a crop of students who do not understand any other language except the ‘simplified’ language of MMSes, SMS, social networking sites or cliff-notes for studies. I am slightly pessimistic regarding the role of a teacher to motivate students to ‘read’. Remember Robin Williams’ role in the classic movie ‘Dead Poets Society’? All this seems very attractive and motivating on-screen but how far we are able to bring out that which we are supposed to bring out in the young minds…I am still in doubt.

A recent study published as an article in an online portal called ‘Boston Globe’ states that there is a sharp decline in students across the world regarding their motivation and the hours they put in study. The amount of time invested by students to study has dramatically reduced over the years to an extent that now students study less than an hour a day.  That is scary!  I have a very strong reservation against compartmentalizing academic disciplines.  We will prepare good servants not good leaders or bright futures of this society if we limit ourselves to academic disciplines. Einstein also read philosophy, Gandhi did read Ruskin (the economist) to prepare his political ideologies, and if we look at the people of today Nandan Nilekani or Narayan Murthy or Kanwal Rekhi, in my perception have not limited themselves to studying Computer Science or Information Technology. In order to rule the roost, the secret of any leader’s achievement is her/his capacity to read, understand and assimilate things across disciplines. We cannot and should not stop a mathematician to learn Sanskrit or Prakrit and we cannot stop a doctor to understand literary theory. If we intend to divide curriculum on the basis of disciplines and if as students we have the apathy in accepting a new thought, a new idea or a new stream of knowledge, it is our gross misfortune. The world  has opened up to disciplines — it has become interdisciplinary. The sooner we accept the fact, better it is for a growing economy like ours.

As a nation, we are gifted with a population comprising largely of the younger generation. You must have seen the cola ad everywhere regarding ‘Youngistan’ a pun on ‘Hindustan’. What kind of nation do we want to build? Is there a nation to build at all? Is there an India? Why not call each of our states just by their individual names instead of calling the whole geographical chunk as ‘India’? How many of us agree to that proposition? None…because of some weird sense of a ‘hidden’ nationalism at the idealistic level, and economic as well as political reasons at deeper levels.  However, when it comes to positively building a nation by contributing in ways which can help those sections of the society which actually need our help, we back-off.  What kind of younger generation are we preparing for tomorrow? A generation that exists for itself? Selfishness, unscrupulousness and dishonesty in personal and professional lives — is this the kind of nation we want to give to the ‘Youngistan’? Are we building a literate mass that knows how to read and write and talk, talk ‘Hinglish’ and talk to the interview board with street-smartness not with integrity or knowledge?  I am reminded of an ad of a fairness company launching a male fairness-cream brand. The ad shows a good-looking smart male snatching away a job from the interviewers with his street-smart attitude and his good-looks. If that is what it takes to get a job these days then why are we setting up institutes of learning? We just need some companies to groom our looks and develop our power of talking confidently….

All these thoughts crossed my mind this evening…  ‘good evening’ to you as well!

Through My Lenses: Odisha Reflections

In my last post I had written about the trip to Puri and peppered it with visuals from Puri highway and Bhubaneswar.

Towards Dusk

Before getting away to a different destination one last remark about evenings at Puri. Puri is a great romantic get away for people who believe in a dream date who takes them to the sea beach in the evening, clear moon lit night and the roar of sometimes Turquoise and sometimes Lapis-Lazuli Bay of Bengal with your loved ones close by. Hmm! Keeping aside the romantic quotients, the Puri sea beach is well endowed with restaurants, inns, bread and breakfast and hotels. In the evening the beach transforms into a makeshift shopping ghetto selling trinkets, accessories, conch and mother-of-pearls, beach wear, kurtas and comfortable sleep-ins. If you are lucky then there might be a Beach festival running in the vicinity of the sea, a real visual bonanza. However, of the less luckier ones like me and for an affordable luxury one might like to hire one of the plastic chairs that cost 10 rupees per head for an hour and enjoy the evening in languorous silence sipping a local chai at 3.00 rupees, interrupted by nothing but the roar of the vast black stillness spreading upto the horizon.

Luxury Hotels by Puri Beach

Hawkers and Stalls

This post will again have a lot of visuals, but not everything is going to be about the ‘beautiful’ and magnificent Odisha.

While the main highways and the roads are being cleaned, decorated and made a visual treat, there are loopholes in the maintenance of housing areas and suburbs. Take for example the most populated suburb Sailashree Vihar in Bhubaneswar. The suburb has  houses and plots sold by the Housing Board Societies. There are attempts to build schools, parks, recreation centres and flower nurseries by the BMC (Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation) at several places throughout the locality. However, there is one basic feature lacking in the region — civic amenities. The by-lanes are mostly half-built, dotted with potholes and ditches, and  left in complete darkness without streetlights.  I understand the necessity of saving electricity, but do not comprehend the idea that roads and lanes should go without streetlamps. I still do not understand which logic is more essential — security of human lives or saving electricity? especially, when there are highways in Bhubaneswar which are lit up day and night with beautiful wrought-iron lamps. These lanes are infested with goons and petty thieves, who take advantage of the darkness and loot ladies wearing gold chains or earrings and snatch purses from people returning from office at late hours. Moreover, these by-lanes are so ill-maintained that most of the times the potholes are filled with mud and dirty water during rainy season,  or else the water pipes which are supposed to water the  saplings planted in the newly built parks, actually end up watering the roads and lanes,  difficult to even swim through to the main highway .

Conserving electricity is a great idea but then the need to conserve water ?  What about hydro-power? Well…what we conserve and how much we conserve also depends on our priorities and our insight into things and requirements great and small. These days in the name of conservation we waste more than saving.

State of a Bylane in Bhubaneswar

A closer snapshot of this gorgeous puddle in the locality would perhaps benefit us a little more. So here are some more pictures of the same spectacle. Instead of parks, the lanes are being generously watered.

Water, water, everywhere...

A Closer Snapshot

Let us move to some other  trivial aspects of my traveler’s diary;  to some aspects of my personal-professional life . I started my career as a Lecturer in a small technical college 180 kms away from Bhubaneswar. I had just completed my Post-graduation and was doing my M.Phil when this job came my way. I considered myself lucky because in those days technical colleges were not very common in Odisha and  that place gave me my first exposure to teaching and also to Internet. I learnt browsing useful articles and educational sites. However, now the scenario has changed — entire landscape of Odisha is flagged with technical colleges. A new college comes up each morning. There are at least 100 engineering colleges in Odisha (while writing this post). You will be surprised to know that more than 9000 seats are vacant at this moment (till Oct, 2009) in these colleges. And the quality of the so called engineering students and facilities in colleges — you should visit once to know better. Now the question arises – how much they deliver….??? People tend to question your credentials if you happen to teach or be associated with any of these colleges at any point of time. I have been questioned by interviewers time and again about the validity of teaching or working in  these places while documenting it in my CV . I make it a point to retain that aspect as my first job experience out of a kind of defiance.

College Buses

On one hand these colleges promise a degree in technical excellence and give a B.Tech or a B.E. degree to the students who opt for it. A degree is fine, but technical excellence is doubtful. Students go out and get some job in corporates and software sector but how far they rise and make a mark for themselves in the long run is an unsolved mystery. Coming to teaching, well there are many good students in Odisha who have either not opted to go out of the state or have neither the means nor the financial support to pursue higher education.  Yes, there is a business and a clear-cut business motive, when the management can employ ten faculties for a cheaper pay packet why would they prefer one ‘academically better’ faculty who would cost them a fortune? What difference does this faculty make? The system is such that whomever and whatsoever the management hires, delivers ultimately in equal measure. I have reasoned about teaching in a ‘mediocre’ (that’s what the puritans call them) technical institution with one reply — “who is to be blamed for the mediocrity of any place? Faculty? Students? Management? Society?” Everyone — collectively.  IITs or Central Universities, if they are to be considered as ‘hallmarks’ of ‘better’ education, are sustained by a collective will of all the above members of a society. Moreover, it is the “R” factor or the “Research” factor which puts them in a class apart. There are many such “technocrats” from the mushrooming technical institutions who may not even know that Linux is an Operating System or that MATLAB can be used to derive the diagrammatic projection of a set of data entered.  But, that is not their fault (not 100%). The same students if they have the passion or the zeal to learn go ahead in life and opt for higher studies and return better equipped. As someone who taught, I confess that I did not myself do my homework as well as I was supposed to have done. The question regarding  why other places in India are not at par in education, is almost like the last instance given in this post regarding the beautification of highways while leaving the by-lanes and the gullies to rot. We are in love with shortcuts and easier paths. How much we put at stake and what we want to achieve is something that the students, the faculties, parents and the government have to decide for themselves. For the time being however there is a mushrooming of engineering colleges which either promise to deliver or deliver in newspapers.

However, it is not the mushrooming of technical institutions or the ‘quality’ of education that affects me. I feel disheartened because of the lesser sympathy or let’s say apathy of the students and the society towards liberal arts, literature, humanities studies and cultural studies. I am not sure how are we going to sustain the superstructure of a megalithic educational setup, without sustaining interest in liberal arts and humanities? In Odisha the trend that seems disturbing is the general tendency to interpret humanities, especially language, literature and aesthetics as no more than Personality Development and Communication Skills or else Call Centre support system. I wish we realize and respect the immense potential concealed in roads lesser trodden, that is our own culture, and the government and centres for higher education consider these subjects with equal seriousness.

I have been taking you through the alleys of higher education and civic amenities. But, now we will venture a little deeper into the smaller towns, villages and the State Highway of Odisha. As we move from Bhubaneswar towards Berhampur (business capital of Southern Odisha, closer to Andhra Pradesh border), there is a diversion from the National Highway that takes you on a State Road towards a smaller district called Nayagarh. If you are a party lover and shopping freak, such destinations may not be your cuppa tea.

NH-5

This too is a part of me

If you are an ardent nature lover, or if you are person on the lookout for adventure, then these are the right destinations or let’s say milestones for a traveler. However, be prepared to spend nights in Dawk-Bungalows or in smaller motels with mosquitoes and lizards. The roads are jerky, and you can find nothing but paddy fields extending as far as your eyes can take you or else small farming villages flanked by large banyan trees, dilapidated shops or else a freshly whitewashed primary school building.

A School Complex

The Primary Schools or Higher Secondary Schools are particularly interesting. Modestly built with limestone or red bricks, these schools are immaculately clean.  The outer courtyard of the schools are neither cemented nor concrete. However, the earth and mud finish of the courtyards are swept and mopped with such perfection that one gets a romantic longing to return back to school days and study in these schools. Especially as townsfolk who have the ‘privilege’ of studying in Public or Convent schools, and who think that there is no education ‘alternative’ or matching our kind of education, these schools invite rethinking. In fact, some of the top educationists, civil servants, IITians, literary figures and doctors, actually come from these ‘humble’ educational set-ups and even ‘humbler’ homes.

Home

Across The Green Fields

There are a lot of things which are undergoing transformation for either good or worse. This time when I traveled to Odisha, I realized that there are still many things that haven’t changed like the evenings, the hamlets lit with one small lantern or the people who spend time gossiping about ‘bigger’ things like politics and terrorism with the local newspapers at their favourite tea and samosa stall.

There are also many things that have changed like the infiltration of liquor and goonda raj on a grander scale or the setting up of international schools charging a whopping 2-3 lakhs per anum from children of well-to-do families, and so on. This article does not aim to elucidate on either.  You might investigate and find that out yourself. The purpose of this write-up was to take you across into a state that remains a mystery for many. From huge multi-star  luxury hotels to the humblest dwellings, you can find all if you have the zeal or the curiosity to look deeper than the obvious.

Odisha is not to be understood as a state whose places are relative to the center or Bhubaneswar. There are many beautiful landscapes which do not come close to the perimeter of the capital.  One has to look beyond the “golden triangle” of Puri, Konark and Bhubaneswar, in order to explore the  essence of the land. I have not been able to capture those landscapes and their life and style for my readers.  Maybe in some other post I might be able to write about those places….

Till then…bon voyage!