Ek IITian ki Maut !

It is all out finally. Both HT and TOI have reported the suicide of Vijaya Nukala - a student of 4th year Engineering Physics at IITB. He was in our hostel and we got to know of the incident on that day only. It was shocking . I had heard about some people comitting suicide in IITs before , but for student in opur hostel to commit suicide........

The blame game has started. The students are blaming the Profs and the system and the System is blaming the attitude of students. I will not venture an opinion in this case other than saying that both seem to be right in their place. It is the fault of the system , yes, but the students themselves are a part of the system , right ?

What could have happened to that person so that he chose to end his life. It is such a big decision that it cannot be an impulsive decision. He must have thought about it for some time. The final moment when he finally decided to end his life..he must have thought of his family, his friends, and all the world that he will never see, all the sounds that he will never hear. When slipping that noose around his neck, did he feel a last stabbing thought...that maybe i should not do it . What went so wrong.....so so worng... that this bright boy had to give up his world in such a sad way . Maybe he believed in life after death....a place where he can be happy again, where he can live his life....a place where he wont have to take his life .

Fresh Musings

Very long time since my last post. But past few days have been extremly hectic . Our exams have started and two papers are over. It was really hectic as we had Macroeconomics finishing at 6 pm and Operations starting at 10 am next morning. I have had to burn enough midnight oil that would have satisified Mumbai's weekly demand. As the term end approaches , the profs really start bombarding us with assignements, presentations and projects. And to add to that, inertia of the diwali holiday's wore off really slowly.

One thing which has surprised me a lot is that in most B-Schools, Work-ex junta seems to study much more than the Freshers. It really beats me how this happens ! I mean, come on , don't we give all i-am-a-fresher-so-i'll-learn-better funda in the interviews. While i am on topic of work-experience, there is another observation that i would like to make. B-Schools now a days prefer a batch biased in favour of work-ex junta. Their reasoning being that experienced people are in a better position to take advantage on B-School education. While that is a valid reason, we need to take a look another aspect. Work-ex people have a bigger stake in these 2 years than freshers. They have given up their job for this education. There is a huge opportunity cost involved. THus, they are very much concerned that they get the maximum payoff possible to offset that opportunity loss. As a result, they are too much focussed on placements. And this is not very good for any B-School. Placements are not the be-alls and end-alls of an MBA. It should do much more than just flattening your wallet. And because of their anxiety about placements, some experienced people do everything witht the final aim of placements in their mind. This is a wrong trend in my opinion. But to be fair to these guys, they really do bring in lots of diversity in class. And their experiences at different organisations can be really good learning for freshers like me . And then there are certain aspects of business education which make sense only to an experienced person. There is trade-off involved , i guess, but its really upto a person to make the most of these 2 years. Placement to ho hi jayega yaar :).

So chill junta and hopefully we frehsers can learn a lot from you.

P.S. IITB is really a zoo . In the last 15 days, a leopard, a crocodile, a python and a huge snake have been spotted . Wild Things !!

Ye Sunahare Pal

Posting after a long time :). There really is no reason why i have not posted for so long. We had holidays and i didnt have much to do. Many times i opened this page and started to write something but stopped midway. Just couldn't write anything.

It is incredible how much a person is affected by his atmosphere. Most of the people in our batch had gone home and the entire hostel corridor consisted of only 5-6 guys ( Me included :( ) . And man i have never completely wasted 5 days of my life. This was the routine of almost everyone who had stayed back

1. Get up by 12 noon. ( I had breakfast only once in 7 days )
2. Have a leisurely lunch.
3. Watch a movie till 4 . Those not inclined towards movies read novels, Those not inlcined towards anything slept .
4. Go To sleep .
5. Wake up by 5:45 and have snacks.
6. Watch movie, Read Novel, Surf Net, Play Games, Do TP .
7. Have dinner.
8. Watch movie, Read Novel, Surf Net, Play Games, do TP
9. Go to sleep at 3 am .

In between pick up some book and make a futile attempt to study. Struggle a lot to read 4 pages before finally giving up . Try to something creative and end up with the earth-shattering innovation of sleeping while watching an action movie. Do research on new limits of laziness. Try to get yourself into Guiness book of world records for maximum sleep. Drag yourself out of the room for a visit to the loo ( and an occasional visit to the cricket ground ). Admonish yourself and pick up a textbook only to fall asleep in 5 mins . whew....... sounds hectic :) .

But for all the time wasting that i have done, one thing i have realised is that probably i wont get such a time again . Where i have the total freedom to do what i want, without any pressure at all. No one to watch over me, no one to give me advice, just doing what i feel like doing. And especially when you consider todays world where everything is so hectic and people dont have time for small things ( writing blogs :) , it is all the more important to have such a time. It really refrehes you and energises you. like the song goes
" Pal rahe ya na rahe kal, Yaad aayenge ye pal " . Truly these five days were " Sunahare pal ! " . And like a Pal , this time also passed away in a moment .

" In sunahare palon ki yaad sanjoye baitha hoon ,
Dil mein kuch armaan liye baitha hoon,
ki mera har pal bas mera ho,
sone se bhi sunahara ho "

BTW that was my original composition. Comments invited :).

Corporate Life !! No Shit !!

Amazing stuff !!