The Grand Theft

Sorry for the long delay. It was because of a combination of quizzes, lethargy, sleep, laziness and general boredom. Today, however an interesting thing happened. I lost 1500 bucks; or rather stolen would be the more appropriate word. I forgot my wallet in class today, but remembered it before leaving the class, which is about 3 minutes after I left it on my table, but by the time I got back to my table, it was already gone. Pretty obviously, it was taken by someone in my class itself, which includes all students of Mechanical, Aerospace, Civil and NavalArch students. I first frantically checked all the desks in the row I was sitting, but to no luck. I checked with the people who were sitting beside me and behind me, but there also no luck. I finally started spreading the message through SMS that I had lost a wallet. I was very scared by now, because it had my ATM card, student’s ID card (which requires Rs. 1000 for a duplicate one) and Rs. 1500 in cash, with which I was planning to treat my friends for my b’day. Fortunately, a good soul came and returned the wallet to me in my room, saying that it was found near OAT, which is quite far from where the classes are held. It had all my cards, but zero cash. Also, my mess food coupons were also flicked. My first reaction was that of extreme relief. I had told my parents by this time, and even though they didn’t make that big a fuss out of it, I knew that I had blown it big time here. Slowly, the feeling of losing Rs. 1500 started to sink in. Then, that of amusement, that the guy who actually flicked my money, also took the care of emptying my mess coupon booklet worth some 40 odd bucks.
All this got me thinking into one direction – the people who study here, are supposed to be the cream of India, and even though I won’t make any assumptions as to these people would be the ones who will lead India and all, but these are the people who can make a huge difference. But if some of these people don’t have the ethical sense of returning a wallet to its rightful owner, especially when it has a card which tells the finder about the owner of this wallet, then doesn’t it make you feel uncomfortable that some of these may actually become our leaders in the future. Do we really need to wonder where our Ramalinga Rajus come from? My final emotion was that of disgust because of the fact that I am studying with such students. This proves one fact - moral sense cannot be drilled into a person, it all depends on your character and upbringing. I am not saying that I will not be tempted if I see 1500 bucks just lying around somewhere. But if I know whom it belongs to, I will definitely give it back, because I know that losing something that expensive, causes a lot of stress. This comes from personal experience, because I myself am quite careless.
This, by the way, should in no way be treated as the general trend. I have made some really great friends here, who I can trust to any extent. We have helped each other countless number of times, and I realized that the friends that you make when you are in a hostel are especially close, because you literally live together. But a few people like these can indeed spoil anyone’s impression of the whole lot. I learnt my lesson today (as I did when I lost my mobile, my pen drive, my keys etc.). Be ultra careful with your stuff. Not everyone is your friend.

Coming of age

Today was my 18th birthday. Even though it was my 18th, it was the least eventful birthday I have ever had, because of the quizzes going on. My 18th birthday was spent in the workshop and the physics lab!
My friends gave me 2 awesome gifts and a card.


a pillow for the eternally sleeping guy!!


a doll which is supposed to be my daughter (whose name by the way is natasha)!



thats supposed to be my birthday card.

Quizzes

Before I had come here, quizzes meant a lot of fun. A guy asking random stuff about some guy who did something which is completely unrelated to what he eventually became famous for, was awesome fun for me, and I could participate (or watch) a quiz all day long. In 11th and 12th, I used to surf all these online quiz blogs, and I, along with a friend (and later another friend) started one here, though it died very soon, because of the pressure of studies in the latter half of 12th. Fortunately, here I have a lot of opportunities to pursue this passion of mine. But all this is history. Now, tell me that a quiz is coming up, and instead of jumping up and down with joy, googling, wikiing (and rereading the H2G2), I will probably ask you if you are sure, and then again, and then again............. and after that, when I am positively sure that you are right, I will remove the dust off my books, pick them up and start studying, stop sleeping in class, and ....... oh yeah, before all this, I might even die of a heart attack. You see, quizzes here refer to the periodic tests that they conduct to see how much we suck at a particular subject, and then give the best grade to those who suck the least. Honestly speaking, that’s not true for all subjects, but for most of them, this is the case. As you might have guessed by now, this post is coming from a guy who is in the middle of his quizzes, and has screwed up his first one badly.
I am not so much against the concept of 'quizzes', as I am against the way some subjects are taught here. I agree that a student of engineering might require knowing the basic concepts of quantum chemistry, but according to me, the professors just breezed through the syllabus, and I can assure you that more than half the people here would have just mugged up the formulae, vomited it out and forgotten all of it by now. And this is by no means an accusation, because I too am part of that fraction of the population. So basically, we spent 3 hours every week for 2 months, just to remember it for the end semester exams. I don't get the point of doing this.
But I can't blame this on anyone, because obviously the teachers teach with the purpose of making every student understand the concepts. It is probably our fault that we don't get it, and more importantly, we don't let them know that we haven't got it. No feedback reaches the teachers and hence batch after batch are made to recite Hamiltonians and what not, like parrots, and forget it soon.
Another interesting phenomenon that I have noticed after coming here, is that majority of the people lose the motivation to study almost completely. I mean, after slogging for 2 years preparing to get into this place, people completely lose interest in studies after coming here. I know that it's very clichéd, but it’s true. The popular reason is that once you come here, you have run out of the mental stamina that you put in for clearing JEE and you want to enjoy your life, and hence studies take a backseat. However, I don't agree with this reason. First of all, I don't think that something called mental stamina exists, and I don't think that you can get tired of studying after doing it for 2 years. That people want to enjoy life after coming to college, is also a lame reason because you can easily enjoy the availability of facilities and opportunities for extra-curricular activities here without it affecting your grade card, and there are pretty good living examples here in some of our seniors. The real reason for the drop in this motivation, I think, is the basic structure and method of academics. There is a very major and fundamental difference in the style of teaching in college and school – spoon feeding. Whether you like it or not, you must agree that we were spoon fed concepts, problems, theorems, their proofs and all, in school. However, here you are required to do a lot of homework on your concepts. In school, careful attention is almost enough to understand everything. In college, listening in a class carefully is not enough (doesn’t imply that you sleep, like I do). You have to do a lot of homework and come to class, or go back to your home and do a lot of reading. But the most crucial point here is that no one tells you all this. You are supposed to get it, like you are supposed to get the stuff they teach. Here, students lose out. Early on, due to lack of this knowledge, students start appearing lost in class, and then finally lose interest in the subject. This leads to students losing interest in academics, and just turning into high quality parrots.
I might be sounding like a big and monstrous hypocrite now as I, even after knowing all this, sleep in class and am not interested in some subjects. I won’t even try to defend myself. I caught on to this line of thought somewhere towards the end of last semester, and since then, I have been trying to develop a genuine interest in class, but in some subjects, am failing miserably. I intend to correct this as soon as possible, so as to make my stay here in college easier, and much more fun.

DISCLAIMER: All the views expressed in the post are solely of the author, and any suggestion/criticism/opinion/brick-throwing/hurling abuse is welcome in the comments section.
P.S. If you find this post weird, I tend to be philosophical like this at times, especially after I have done badly in a quiz. Don’t worry; I will be back to normal in a few days (assuming I don’t screw up any more quizzes).

Superman

I'm more than a bird
I'm more than a plane
I'm more than some pretty face, beside a train
It's not easy, to be me.

Very meaningful lyrics, of a song called Superman, by Five For Fighting. I recently heard this song, because we were planning to play this for a competition, and the lyrics just touched me. The mind of Superman is very beautifully described here. We always think of him as a guy in red and blue who would just swoop down on (not always) damsels in distress and rescue them. That he might feel lonely when he is flying alone through the clouds(without Lois Lane, of course), may have never occurred to us. The song is also very soulful, with a nice blend of the piano and the guitar. Listen to this on good speakers, and it really soothes your mind. No wonder this song became very popular in the US, as a song for healing following 9/11. It's right up there on my list of soulful songs, along with Home by Michael Buble. Home was awesome because I was feeling a little homesick towards the end of first semester, and I chanced upon this song just about that time. I could totally relate to it. Not surprisingly, that song also has a lot of piano in the background.
I feel that the piano is the best instrument for songs that calm your mind down, followed by the saxophone. Somehow, I always relate violin to the peppy Balkan kind of tunes, which remind you of the Hungarian tap-dancing that we see in cartoons, or very melancholy Ilayaraja tunes, in which it almost sounds like the violin is crying. Acoustic guitars are also there, but they don't touch me as a piano or a sax piece does. You can call me biased, maybe because I play the piano, but then, its a matter of opinion, isn't it?



P.S. A Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. Hope that people like Ram Sena and MNS don't spoil your day. My day, was rather subdued, spent with David Griffiths trying to understand the intricacies of the Dirac Delta Function (rather unsuccessfully).

hello world

weird.
awkward.
sleepy.


That pretty much describes how I am feeling right now. I don't even know why I am doing this. Maybe, its because I have exams next week, and I am feeling bored, or maybe because "some" people can't maintain their blog frequencies. Whatever the reason is, as I am here, I have to tell you about me. Here goes.....
Name: Achyuth for some, Tempo for some.
Sex: still a virgin.
Age: 17.
What: 1st year student of B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering in IIT Madras, Chennai.
Why: exactly my point, why?
Where: err...... nice question. You see, I am an MFDNIGSIC (Mallu From Delhi Now In Gujarat Studying In Chennai). Not seen many of them, have you?
How: this doesn't fit in here, does it?
When: 18th February, 1991


Now that we have covered the questions part of the introduction, I think I may tell you more about me. I am a eternally sleep-deprived student, who fulfills his nocturnal lack of sleep in a building called CRC here in college. I love football, Liverpool, Spain and Torres. I also love music. I occasionally quiz, though I want to make it a more serious passion of mine.

I think thats enough about me now. Other aspects of my life will unravel as we go along (hopefully atleast into double digit number of posts). I think I better start studying something now.



P.S. the last sentence has been extensively repeated in a lot of conversations that I have had in the last few days, though it has never materialized.

P.P.S. 42.