I have completed my engineering. But, this post is not about how awesome my 4 years at IITM was. This is just a post I had written long before, but I hadn't published it. I would be releasing the story in parts. This is the first part. “Swagat hai aap sab ka break ke baad iss adhbhut khel mein
jise hum kehte hai KAUN BANEGA CROREPATI!”, boomed the voice of the star
himself, Amitabh Bachchan.
The guy sitting opposite found himself staring blankly into the red and blue neon
lights. And then the familiar male baritone sounded again, “Mere saath aaj hot seat
par baithe hai Durgapur ke Mr. Sayan Roy aur wo 25 lakh rupaye jeet chuke hai.”
His heart skipped a bit; one wrong answer and he would be
out with only Rs. 3,20,000. He turned to the audience stand, he could see his
Mom and Dad beaming, but dangling on the edge of their seats.
Big B propelled the game forward by asking the penultimate
question; “50 lakh rupaiyon ke liye ye raha aapka agla sawaal.”
Q. Which one of the following tranformations accurately describes
“Apospory”?
a. Embryo from nucleus b. Embryo from integuement
c. Embryo from egg of an embryo sac developed directly from megaspore mother cell
d. Embryo from egg of an embryo sac developed directly from a cell nucleus
It was a tough question, but deep down he swore that he had seen the
question somewhere. This was the moment of truth, if only he could crack this,
nothing could stop him. He was quite confident of his eidetic memory. In his mind, he ruffled the pages of the
botany book. The term ‘Apospory’ ringed a bell, but not so loud that he would
point out the right answer. He had used all the 3 lifelines; one on a question
of history, one on politics and the last one on Olympics! None of these were his
strong subjects.
But, this one was his childhood buddy. Biology was his life.
He could have thrived on chromosomes and cancer for his whole life. But, he
couldn’t believe that biology was ditching me, when he needed it the most. He
murmured to himself, "Et tu Bio?"
He eliminated the first 2 options by logic, but couldn’t
pick between C and D.
“Megaspore or Cell Nucleus?, he whispered, seeing the
saint-like face opposite to me from the corner of my eyes, begging for some
kind of help.
He only got a reassuring smile, but no answer came forward.
He had to take his risks, after all that is what he had learnt till now.
“Option C”, he said, removing the cough in his throat.
“Confident? Lock kar diya jaye?” Big B asked in his male baritone, about
whether he should lock the answer.
“Yes”, He replied.
“Computer ji, please lock option C”
He felt a sudden thrust from above, like he was caught in a
whirl wind of some sort. The answer clicked in his mind now. He had made the
wrong choice. It was D. But, he could not come back. It was like all his dreams
were being washed, one by one.
Just then a sudden jolt woke him up. It was his room-mate,
Anand. He spoke in a hurried fashion, “Wake up dude, it’s already 8.30. The exam
starts at 9!”
Sometimes, one feels that things and people have changed around him. But, most of the times, we ourselves change a lot. One of the most drastic changes come after College. It totally transforms every one of us. We experiment with many things, fail some, fall prey to some, loathe some and fall in love with a few. Change is a law of nature and Change is constant!!!
But, some guys start thinking themselves rock stars by posing in pics with a guitar, though they don't even know how to hold it, forget about playing it!!! They post pics of anything and everything, feeling that it gives a debonair touch to their facebook and orkut profiles. Most of this "DudeGiri" is exhibited online in chats, scraps and profiles.
But for a typical IITian, the change is too large because Kinematics and Magnetics used to be playing ground before, but after passing through JEE, people let their hair down. It is one thing to develop your personality and it is a completely diametric and idiotic thing to act like smooth talking dudes with virtual cool facebook profiles.
Life changes like quicksilver. In 2 years, most of us have changed by leaps and bounds. Some of my friends have changed so much after going to college that it now doesn’t even feel that we were friends before and that I knew them at all. I know it’s a great feeling to show off but sometimes showing it off like you are the only dude in this whole world makes you look a total dud.
Most of these “I am the only DUDE” attitude comes after college. It feels funny when you see one of the earlier greatest nerds in the school showing off in every possible manner and making a complete idiot of him.
I remember what it was like for most of us when we were preparing for JEE.
In schools, we had declared our teachers as useless as they could not solve Irodov or the innumerable problem sheets given by our coaching institutes. So, we spent most of the time bugging the teachers. Most of the evenings were spent in coaching institutes, where we slogged through continuously. In school, girls were very evidently present, from their sudden shrieks of untimely laughter and chuckles, but one had to control the high testosterone levels if he wanted to keep the IIT dreamboat afloat. No prejudice against the fairer sex as we just love them but pretty faces are not the best inspiration when solving Calculus or brooding over Electrostatics. They may be the best for fuelling imagination when writing novels, composing songs, poems and while painting. But, it is certain enough that Mascara and Mechanics don’t mix well like immiscible liquids. So, even if any guy liked a gal, he would not commit to it, otherwise there’s 99% chance of him screwing up the ARMAGEDDON, the all important IIT JEE .
It then comes to the D- day (2 months after the V-Day, most of us were mugging even on that day!!!) and it gets narrowed down to 6 hours of unmatched concentration. Some pass the litmus test; some miss it by the hair. In the end, mostly the ones who could control their androgen for a record 2 years go through.
And then everything changes at a lightning speed after entering these esteemed institutions of national importance.
The nerds try to become smooth talking wannabes overnight and fail miserably in doing so. Their facebook page cries it aloud “Single” and it reads “Interested in: Dating, Friendship”. All of these have profile pictures in all weird angles to make them look suave. They end up exaggerating it making a joke of themselves. The male to female ratio in IITs is disastrous and the chances of finding a single good-looking girl in IIT is worse than that of finding a tiger in the Sariska forest or even worse than that of finding Ganges in Thar desert !!! So, these poor guys are left with no choice but to start dating on the social networking sites. Every guy starts posing with a guitar in his hand with expressions as if taken straight from a live music rock concert. They even start using useless applications on facebook like “Who’s your Lover of day?” and “Who’s your friend of the day. These applications give them a chance to talk to the girl whom the application chooses randomly. So, basically in the virtual world, these applications act like cheesy one liner which desperate losers use as their opening line. The friend list of most of the IITians depicts a mirror image of their situation in IIT with the skewed sex ratio. Even in this virtual world, only 10% of the some 400+ friends are girls.
The love deprived, grade impoverished start smoking cigarettes to cover their lousy love life or because they are fed up off the IIT pressure. Some smoke out of frustration, some smoke to socialise, some smoke to cool off their nerves and take them to an instant high. But, some dumbasses smoke because they think smoking is KEWL (Yeah, Most of these wannabe dudes even spell COOL as KEWL!!!). They smoke cigarettes like they are themselves a blast furnace inside. I don’t have any problem with anyone smoking a cig. It is your life and why in the world should I give a damn. I am not Anubamani Ramadoss to take up such moral responsibility. I just have problem with people who think that the guys who don’t smoke cigs are UNKOOL. I seriously doubt their quotient of KOOLNESS, but still for the record: If you can kick 30 cig butts in a day doesn’t mean the other person can’t. It merely means that the other person doesn’t want to die of Bronchitis or Lung Cancer. It is more of a man to say “NO” to smoking, rather than roasting yourself to ‘Classic Mild’, ‘Regular’ and ‘Gold Flake’.
After the frequent online proposals and their instant rejections, the great young minds turn to one single resort: BOOZE. It is better than a girlfriend because it gives you a greater high, never ditches you, never bothers you with endless questions, and you can then sleep like a log. There’s always a negative shade. If you can’t hold your drink, you would mostly end up waking up in your own vomit. But, if you can hold your alcohol, then Vodka becomes your lady love and Pink Floyd gives the perfect ambience for a romantic candle-light dinner with this lady love! Booze becomes a mandatory routine after each quiz/midsem/endsem gets over. I have encountered incessant occurrences of guys serenading “Magic Moments” and “Royal Challenge” when the minds are as blank as that of a blonde. Sometimes, one needs to resort to these to close the conscious mind and feel the subconscious mind. As profound it may seem, most people start throwing up all over the corridor and end having a awful hangover.
We all have transformed in a couple of years, but we should remember the most important thing that our essence should never change, whatever be the situation...
