Miles to go...

This blog has shifted to http://jayajha.wordpress.com/. All the entries have been exported there. So, please post you comments there itself.

Ramblings by Jaya Jha

Friday, July 30, 2004

Why should I dislike attendance?

I attend all the classes, anyway. Then why do I have such a strong dislike for compulsory attendance? I almost hate it. First, there is, of course, a question of freedom, independence and learning to be responsible when freedom and independence is given. With it being compulsory, you would never learn to be disciplined towards it on your own.

But there are other selfish, personal reasons too :-) One was something I had realized at IITK itself. When attendance is not compulsory and there are people who indeed do not attend classes, attending classes certainly gives you an advantage over them in exams - in terms of it being easy for you to prepare for them and as well as in terms of getting goodwill of the instructor ;) Not a very noble way to of thinking, but its a fact.

Another thing I realized today. With some people not attending classes, the classes are less crowded and I almost always like smaller classes. When there is enough physical space vacant in the room and particularly around you, it gives a nice feeling. Further the discussion becomes more intimate, informal and giving it a direction is also easier. All this is assuming that I do not want to sleep in the class ;)

If IIML could give up this compulsory attendance thing! Wishful thinking....

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Sunday, July 25, 2004

A days spent in Lucknow

Today was a days spent in Lucknow.

(Come on Jaya. Can't you crack better jokes?)

Today was a day spent in Lucknow. Not the Lucknow of IIM and Hazratganj (Ganjing), but that of Nawabs and British! Adi, George and Apurva were here today and we did quite some bit of exploration.

Rest later - this is not exactly the time to blog with a presentation as well as quiz due tomorrow.

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Saturday, July 24, 2004

A rather long comment

This is the comment I had posted on the following -
http://vardan.blogspot.com/2004/07/fomenting-feminine-flames.html.

Became a rather long one and once again - deserved to be posted :-)

--

I see that the comments have already taken a different turn by the time I reach here. Anyway, blogger is in a much better state now - so I will get back to the original topic.

I do not claim to represent the "fairer sex" and will speak for myself. You are right - girls, in general, do not have the same kind of pressure as boys have for the career. But given what the world is - I find it more frustrating than fortunate. Because, amongst all the positive things it can mean, it also means that if one person has to make a compromise on career, it has to be the female.

If we could have a society where anyone is free to sit at home; nothing could be better. But since that is not the case, I do not see it as fortunate to have the choice. It means that my struggles would never be acknowledged, even if I struggle harder than men, because the society has given me an option of backing out. It means that my struggle, no matter how capable I may be to stand up to it, is not a necessity for the society and hence I can do nothing to get better than a secondary status in the mainstream of the society (historically consisting of men).

And yeah, somebody asked about "willingness to take househusbands". Personally, yes! So long as the man is sure that his ego would not be hurt.

Whom are you counting on to change the things? Women or society? Women have so many things to change for themselves, that they have to look upto you, because you are in majority (of the population that counts) and because you form the mainstream. And what is society? Men and Women. May be a mutual effort will do something.

If the intention is not of changing, well feminists have been whining for quite sometime now. Others have equal rights!

Further no one can change your opinion, if you do not want to change yours - believe me. So you are safe on that front :-)

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Past a century

Realized the MBA@IITK was my 100th post in this blog. A silly 102nd posting :-)

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Orientation vs. Induction

Any on-campus IIT(K)ian's blog invariably talks of "new faces on campus" these days. Posts in couple of blogs that I visited had enough emotional effect on me so as to compel me to write something. From Abhaya's post I was fondly reminded of our orientation. Particularly the mention of the fact that at every stage it is for the new students, by the seniors, made me compare it with the "induction" module here. What was it? A programme scheduled by the Chairman, PGP, a series of lecture by every possible professor, while senior students were attending classes, a continuous stream of threats and when seniors could squeeze out some of our time at 9.00 pm (till 2.00am) they gave another set of "sincere" threats that student council can not do anything if administration decides to chuck you out. How proudly was it proclaimed here that "you are first given a decision at IIML and later a hearing" and how proudly was it announced there that "you have an equal participation in the system; we have students' representation even in the academic senate".

This was Induction; that was Orientation.

Oh, how I crave for IITK!

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MBA@IITK

It is almost for the first time that I am talking of MBA@IITK with a neutral and rather academic interest :-)

I was comparing the Post-graduate Programme in Management at IIML and Masters of Business Administration programme at IITK, whatever little I know of the two. Certain things struck me. I do believe that the general level of students (to suit the requirements of MBA curriculum) seems better here - but at the same time, I dare say, the expectation of faculty from the students is higher at IITK. It does not make sense to keep asking students to read the assigned readings beforehand but conduct the classes in typical lecture-oriented fashion, instead of being discussion-oriented. At least in the first term, many of our courses, which should have been discussion oriented are much more lecture oriented. The expectation of class participation is much more real and demanding at IITK.

I would not be surprised, if in the long run, IITK attracts better faculty in comparison to IIML (I do not know the situation at other IIMs). Considering from the point of view of faculty, lesser number of teaching hours are certainly a plus. Now at IITK, a faculty member, usually takes at most two (very often one)courses a semester. Also, in the normal circumstances, not more than three courses in a year (two semesters). So, in a semester maximum number of contact hours are six and often just three. Here, for any of the first year courses, more often than not, at least two sections will be taught by one faculty (straight away 6 hours). In some cases the same faculty member is teaching all the four sections (goodness!). And then, if any of the second year electives are to be taught...

Right now, the library is certainly a big minus at IITK for management education and research, but that will build up in time.

Even if not thoroughly leveraged currently, the variety of people in campus with different concerns and vastness of the system gives immense opportunity for on-campus learning - much more than IIML can ever give.

Let's wait for the future, though.

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Recruitment

I started writing this as a reply to a comment, but it seemed to become long enough to merit a separate post.

--

The recruitment process (in India, at least) is that of elimination (no matter where you are) and not selection. Nobody minds losing a good candidate (despite all the claims to the contrary), but they would not want a "wrong" person in. And this "definition" of wrong could be anything, just anything. It could be too little of extracurriculars, it could be too much of them! A friend of mine did not get a job, which he very much wanted, because recruiters had to "make sure that they will be able to give him the kind of challenge his profile revealed he might want"!! I would not be surprised if one reason of elimination, they figure out, is discontinuance of extra-curriculars :)) But I am not losing sleep over it. And I have long back stopped taking advice of seniors. Its best to do what you "want" to do. You do not know what will work.

And you know what is the most uncomfortable scenario for me in such cases - when somebody asks me for an advice. Now, I can not advice people to do what I did in my IIML interview, or for that matter at my NTSE interview long back, can I? :-)

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Friday, July 23, 2004

The guestbook on my home page

I was going through the guestbook on my homepage today. Thought will pick up some interesting posts - positive as well as negatives ones (alas! They are invariably anonymous or under disguised names). And one of them, well I still do not know what was the intention of the person who posted it, not have I been able to establish whether it was meant to be a positive or negative comment.

The following two are the negative ones.

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Name - kaya Email - kaya@karoge.jaan.kar
Date -- Sunday, 16 November 2003, at 7:51 a.m. From - kaya karoge jaan kar

average site.
Highly kiddish content and poem.
I like only one line in the whole site
"Putting up my resume is not why I have made this web page. So, I am not putting in anything else here :-)"
But better than the previous one. That was pathetic.
Rest is ok.
Anyways don't get afraid. There is always a chance for improvement.
And newsgroups par kam posting kara karein.

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Name - Abhi Email - anunknownindian@yahoo.com
Date -- Thursday, 6 May 2004, at 12:48 p.m. From - And how the hell is that important.. let me see somewhere close enough to know what you are talking about !!!

Okay honest comments here... am sure you must be tired of these utterly pedestrian sychophantic eulogizing shitte... or may be you wallow in their warmth... what the heck... good site over all... writing is at best pedestrian... remember.. blogs need not have a narcissist hue... quotes... gawd what century you living in girl...waste of time...

---

And see this one - left myself as well as Priya laughing for quite some time. Its a nice joke on the title of my poems, several of them are of the form "main xyz hoon" :-)

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Name - Ananymous Email - somebody@iitk.ac.in
Date -- Friday, 28 November 2003, at 11:47 a.m. From - iitk

main "PED" hun.
main "pahad" hun .
main "hawa" hun .
main "pani" hun.
main "khush" hun aur main "udas"
hun.
maine ye sab topic par poem likhne ka
plan banaya hai .isliye please in
topics pe tum poem mat likhna.
thanks(i really appreciate ur poems)

--

A simple, but sincerely positive (I would like to believe).

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Name - Deepak Email - deepak1603@rediffmail.com
Date -- Wednesday, 25 February 2004, at 1:47 a.m. From - Mumbai
Hi Jaya,
Was browsing through Ryze and came across your page and subsequently accessed your home page too.
Must appreciate the work and thoughts that went behind the creation of your web pages. Especially your blog which mentioned about thinking. After a long time came across a page which looks genuine and depicts the personality of the person creating this page. It even triggerd my though process.
Thanks.

Regards,
Deepak.

--
And man! This is the one I shall never understand - is it a complement or a sarcasm?!
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Name - iasug Email - iauh@nbf.idu
Date -- Wednesday, 26 November 2003, at 6:22 a.m. From - iweur

I am a mentally retarded mental asylum escapee....
I really like your site ... dear !!!
Your poems are so good...
No one else writes poems which can be understood by the mentally challenged like me ...
plz. continue


--

Have I done some shameless publicity of my homepage? ;)

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To do or not to do

I am wondering if there is really any harm in living a quiet life here for two years. Quiet being equivalent to keeping myself away from any extra-curriculars and more specifically any organizational task. They have several rounds of selection process for taking you into organization committees of various clubs etc.

Since I had applied to only three (yeah, that's only by the standards of the place) and have managed to reach to the second round only in one, the chances are anyway less that I will finally be in. But wondering if even giving this one a try is worth it. People are so seriously doing their tasks (a mini-project sort of assigned for the second round) that doing it half-heartedly won't lead me anywhere anyway. And my heart just does not seem to be into it. I have started liking the leisure to read and write extremely and am really not sure if I want to give it up for a line in my resume! I feel that I was a bit too much into organization at IITK, from the very beginning, to have been able to find time to participate in the competitions/programmes. May be, I should save time to participate here.

Interests don't count here anyway. If you talk of that you have almost proved yourself an alien!! Resume is not good enough a motivation.

And if my mentor(s) happen to land on this site, I will anyway be chucked out, won't I? :-)

Let's see.

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Thursday, July 22, 2004

Blog-addict?

This has almost scared me, but what the hell, did I already not know how many procrastination my blogging habits are causing? :-)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/27/technology/circuits/27blog.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=77438531c5b7b94c&ex=1090641600

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Sense and Sensibilities

Another one of Austen hacked today. Sense and Sensibilities was not as catchy as the earlier two I read ("Pride and Prejudice" and "Emma"). But nevertheless, as I have mentioned in one of the earlier posts, the simplicity (over-simplicity, you might say, and you won't be wrong) of narration leads to mental relaxation instead of mental labour for you. That's exactly what is needed when you are not in a position and mood to comprehend the "Glimpses of World History" through Nehru's eyes. I have a very strong inclination to continue with "Glimpses..." though. Let's see what the coming days have in store for me.

BTW, have acquired, besides Sense and Sensibilities, Mansfield Park and Persuasion by Jane Austen too. Not read yet. Probably what makes her novels so appealing to me is that at least the main female characters are not dumb as they usually are in classics or even otherwise. At the same time they are not portrayed like the ideal goddesses of Shivani's (a famous Hindi writer, who is now dead I suppose) work. The more humane presentation, with their qualities and failings, makes me identify better with them I suppose.

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Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Positives

At some point of time I decided that it won't do to be so negative about this place. So, I started listing out things which I like here. And here are they -

1. The balcony of my room. It shows dense population of tree, no humans and only glimpses of buildings. Its almost a bliss to spend sometime there in the early mornings, evenings and nights. I wish I had more time which could be spent there and no body buzzed me on yahoo messenger then for some report related queries!

2. The signal of my Hutch cell is very good in my room (never mind that otherwise in the campus, even in open areas, it could be 0%).

3. The chit passing some of the boring classes.

4. The mess

More will come as and when I locate them.

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I miss Linux!

Something I miss very much after coming to IIML is opportunity to work in Linux. After all what do you use more on your computer than powerpoint, word and excel while doing your MBA. And as somebody had rightly said about Linux that with all it excellent advantage "only if it could get the copy-paste of a word processor right."

I know its not a justice to Linux, but the fact is that any office-suite for Linux will not only have to be at least as feature rich as MSOffice, but it must be compatible and thoroughly so with MS Office. Simply because, more often that not, I have to share my reports and presentations with the world and they would be using MS Office. Though things like Openoffice.org take care of compatibility, but the look and feel compatibility is not good enough. I can not be sure that a presentation I have made using Openoffice.org would look exactly the same when I open it on the powerpoint. And its important lest you should not have to face embarrassment when you suddenly open your presentation before your audience on a windows machine. Same with the word-processor. Besides Openoffice.org (I am not sure of StarOffice) is extremely slow despite all the claims of speed having improved in latest versions.

I know the Linux supported techies would cry you can not expect all the things - if you have to import and export file formats, it got to take time. I can sympathize, but I can not help my need to sharing my presentations and reports with my group members.

And hence, I am booted in windows most of time, unless I decide strongly to spend some time with Linux like in those IITK days. This is exactly what I am doing right now.

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Monday, July 19, 2004

Jane Austen

Have read two of her novels in last one and a half months - Pride and Prejudice during the summer holidays and finished Emma, the day before. I dare say I do not find her novels to be the kind which give insights into the complexities of human character - no, her characters are rather simple, even if vanity is there everywhere. She does not maintain suspense for long. Its all see through, but that is exactly the kind of thing you would want to read at times, especially when you want to escape real world around you and read something pleasant without it being too taxing on intellect and without being cheap too. So, expect me to procure rest of her novels too soon.

Oh! And in case someone owes me a gift, you know your search has ended ;) :-D

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Saturday, July 17, 2004

A silent Human Company

Not the kind I usually write, but what the heck! Its worth having variety in life

--
I don't like the groups,
I don't like the crowd,
Claimed wish to live alone
Too looks like a fraud.

Suffering of words there,
Anxiety of loneliness here,
I want to be heard but
Topics to talk on are rare.

Inanimate things to see
Do not seem to interest me
What I need right now
Is a silent Human Company

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Thursday, July 15, 2004

Reverse the order

Hey, can someone tell me if there is a way to reverse the order of the posts in the blog, i.e. the latest one goes at last? If so, please respond back.

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Wednesday, July 14, 2004

First Love

There is a saying in Hindi - "Aurat apna pehla pyaar kabhie nahin bhoolti" (A woman never forgets her first love). The kind of obsessive love I am feeling for IITK these days makes me wonder if for the first time that "real woman" are arisen inside me :))

No, there is nothing more in this post. This thought just came to my mind and I wrote it down here. With the low level of socialization I am into at IIML, this is the only outlet (and not that I dislike it :-) )

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Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Attitude Matters

After writing my last exam in Computer Science, I had posted an entry here, in which I said "And at the end of it all, even if I am not much of a computer scientist, I am glad I had joined this department. Now, why it was a nice department to be in and why I could not become a computer scientist - both need one article each."

I guess its time to write at least one of them - why is it a nice department to be in. But I would write on a comparatively broader issue - why I feel glad that I spent these four years at IIT Kanpur and to add to that in this particular department.

I must clarify that if I feel proud of being an IITK alumnus and a Computer Science graduate, it must not be confused with IITK-Comp. Science arrogance. Its not that - its simply not that. I am not proud of getting xyz rank in JEE, which allowed me to take up Computer Science at IITK, or of the thought that I am a more talented person because I studied Computer Science at IITK. In fact in many of my earlier blog entries, I have rather ruthlessly rejected any such propositions of superiority. But I am proud of the fact that I stayed in that place for four years, in a capacity that allowed me to take the best advantage of it. Why I am inclined to write this long deferred article now is because in the form of IIM Lucknow, I have some clear examples of what was different at IITK which made me like it. And almost all these differences were more pronounced in my department.

Though I would have loved to deny it, but the reason of this difference is the perception of being at the top. You do not have to be apologetic about your existence, you do not have to compare yourself with the best and try by all means to prove yourself. You can be what you are and do what you are supposed/want to do. Its true that you run a risk of becoming complacent, but after looking at the overall result, I would prefer running that risk than being apologetic or unnecessarily boastful about my existence. The perception of being at top gives a sort of satisfaction with oneself and that prevents people from becoming sadist or frustrated. Teachers in such an environment are expected be more open-minded, less inclined to adopt forceful means of getting respect and with an easy-going and fun approach to learning rather than believing in holding stick (not literally). The teaching and evaluation methods are also likely to be more mature with such teachers. I know, I know that someone would flare up saying that IITK, too, has ample examples of the professors with negative traits I am talking about and I would not deny that. So, I would be careful enough to mention that its all relative stuff I am talking about. But even this relative difference is great and that is what makes me write this article. The effect is more pronounced in the department, because this department has still stronger perception of being at the top and hence even inside IITK, this is the department of some of the most healthy practices. We do not keep writing quizzes till last moment of our stay, we have maximum number of open as well as departmental electives, ample opportunities of pursuing research interests and much more sensible evaluation, which does not aim at merely causing trouble to students. Again, its all relative, since you will find examples which prove otherwise. But again, this relative difference is great. I am not so particularly proud of having a B. Tech. Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Kanpur. But I am proud of having spent four years at IIT Kanpur, particularly with the people in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Being considered to be at the top may not matter, but the non-apologetic, non-boastful, confident attitude it brings does matter, even if you do not realize it until you have felt the difference for yourself.

Last bit of disclaimer: The way being at the top is not the guarantee of each individual of the system possessing the positive qualities mentioned here, not being at the top is also not a guarantee of not possessing any of these positive qualities either. So, do not flare up trying to prove that people not from IITK (or institutes at the top) also possess these qualities. I am not denying that.

And I do hope, that you do not find it an outburst of arrogance. If you do, well, you have just proved my point that "Attitude Matters".

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Monday, July 12, 2004

Well on my way

I think I am well on my way of maintaining a low-profile here. People are already asking me to "Live life, Jaya" :-)

Only if this Post graduate Programme in Management, deemed equivalent to Masters of Business Administration by UGC, involved little less of group oriented task, I could have achieved complete isolation. Well, nothing is perfect!

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The Homepage Mystery

Its finally solved. Thanks to Abhaya for pointing this out that the culprit was a trailing slash. Please follow http://dilbert.iiml.ac.in/~pgp20095/ or http://dilbert.iiml.ac.in/~pgp20095/index.html to access my homepage.

Some security paranoia or precaution, depends on how you look at it :-)

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Consistency

It comes to me as rather funny when people point out that my academic performance has been pretty consistent. Why? Because I scored 83.4% in 10th, 84.8% in 12th and had a graduating CPI of 8.4 from IITK. All pretty close, aren't they? This appears to me to be the biggest example of the fact that micro and macro behaviour can be immensely different. None of these numbers can tell you what ups and downs my academic performance has seen. Just to give an example, following has been the record of my SPI in 8 semesters respectively at IITK - 9.7, 8.7, 6.5 (!), 7.6, 8.6, 6.6, 9.6, 9.1

How does that look? :-D Very consistent indeed. Little ironies of life.

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Friday, July 09, 2004

Change in homepage location

My homepage is shifted to the new location on IIML server. Seems it is little slower to access, but there was not other option. The CSE-IITK server could not be relied for much longer - It may go off anytime. Further updating it was not possible. So if you are still visiting the page on cse server, please go to http://dilbert.iiml.ac.in/~pgp20095. No new content is there as of now, but expect some soon.


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Degradation...

...to Science.

I remember facing it since the first Economics lecture in class 11th. "Economics is a Science" and then whole lot of arguments followed as to why it is a Science. At various stages I came across almost an obsession in humanities people to prove that their discipline is a Science. I do not understand why people are so mad after it. In fact, personally I think Humanities and Social Sciences degrade themselves by trying to prove that they are Science and I can see that I have already started meeting people who would say "Management is a Science". Why on earth do you have to prove that? Why can't you accept that you deal with subjective things and there are uncertainties and feel proud of it because that makes your discipline only tougher to deal with. (I do not say do not use objective measures or numbers - I am trying to deal with over-stretch which almost demeans the complexities of human behaviour)

I remember a lecture during Techkriti this year at IITK. I do not remember who the speaker was, nor do I remember the details, but the lecture satirically pointed out how management education has been trying to follow the development in Science since the end of 19th century. The arguments might be an over-stretch, but it was interesting and did point out a certain tendency. The argument culminated on a very dramatic note. It observed, after giving examples of suitable paradigm shifts in past, that management lags by approximately 15 years behind Science in recognizing the nature of human beings and because Science now is talking of emerging systems, management education will make the startling discovery by 2020 that "Human Beings can Think"

Ah! Am not a loyal, dedicated management student yet, but who needs one?

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Thursday, July 08, 2004

Over analytical

As I had discussed with Priya sometime in the 8th semester that over-analyzing oneself might become injurious and possibly its best to leave one's self wherever it is, after a limit. I am afraid I am again getting into an "over analysis of myself" phase. On the one hand I do not seem to get over my days at IITK and on the other hand, I start wondering if I am dwelling too much on the past and in the process foregoing what present has to offer to me. It an infinite chain of analysis of "what is going on inside me" and it does not seem to end. Possibly I shall leave it at that. Fine, I am dwelling in past, but so seems to be the doing of almost all the IITians around me :-) (Do I sound like an arrogant IITian?) So, let me dwell in the past anyway, if it is some respite from the boring present. May be things will be better in future, may be after I start off with some extracurriculars, may be after some more qualitative courses and better instructors come, may be after some miracle happens and then I will enjoy present as much as I enjoyed the past. For now, let me dwell in, as I said, "where loyalty lies" - my loyalty!

By the way, someone (a non-IITian) told me the IITKians are much more loyal and attached to their alma-mater than IITians from any other place. Ah! I do not want to start an Inter-IIT debate. But thought will just share this with you :-) And I had no reasons to refute any such claims ;)

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Where loyalty lies

When somebody suggested that I should give up the yahoo id which has "iitk" appended in it, I blurted out without even thinking once that that's where my loyalty lies and I am not going to change it no matter what. Feeling becomes stronger as I talk to more people and live every other minute here. I listened to the IIML alumni during the induction programme, but I did not start imagining myself at their place, which is something I always did at IITK.

Not that a yahoo id reflects much. Most of the people with similar id, I know, did change their ids after graduating from IITK and as such it did not mean much to me. Neither did I ever consider so consciously that I am or am not going to change it. But the suggestion from someone else that I should change it because I have left IITK and am at IIML did not seem digestible. In fact it almost hurt me. So the matter of fact is that I am not changing my yahoo id :-). Certainly not as of now and yes, my loyalty lies with IITK and possibly will lie there.

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Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Present Missing

Somehow the present seems to be missing from my blog these days. I am not writing much about life here, the way I used to do at IITK. Let me not explain why. It will come here someday when I pass out, because the voluminous series of mails "For the first time in my life" has lots of what I could have put here. But certainly I am going through a lot - not necessarily pleasant, not necessarily unpleasant. While some of the feelings are explainable, there is some sort of an anxiety which I am unable to explain and which I can not get rid of. Am I nervous? Of what? Possibly for quite sometime, good or bad, right or wrong, my identity was established at IITK. People had very clear conception of who they are interacting with and I could just play the role they expected and get done with it. Now suddenly everything is new and unknown (Sure, it is so for everyone - but I am talking about myself now). But what the heck! Was IITK once not similarly unknown to me, was DPS Ranchi or Navodaya not similarly new to me when I went there? What is causing this anxiety, I really do not know. Is it the place? Is it my decision to come here which I was never sure of? Is it the school like environment here? If it "for CV" attitude of people here? Is it the much more formal way of doing things here? It could be all of these or possibly none. Don't know. Extremely useless rambling, but whatever!

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Scarlett

Had started reading this sequel to "Gone with the wind", during summer, with rather prejudiced mind, since reviews were almost invariably against it. The most common criticism was that Scarlett was not the Scarlett of "Gone with the wind". Possibly true, but then that is the whole point. If she did not change after blows of time, if something would not be different, a sequel could never come out. It would have been a repetition. She could have married a fourth and a fifth time and what would come out is another "Gone with the wind". I believe that the criticisms were not really justified. I enjoyed reading it, as much as I had enjoyed "Gone with the Wind".

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Tuesday, July 06, 2004

New Title

Finally, I have little better title for my blog. Though no one directly told me, still I guess people did feel the older one was rather plain. So, it is "Miles to go..." now. Can't say it is particularly witty, but better than earlier. Also is open to interpretations - Miles to go for life, for blog or for something else. Though I am afraid it might create problems in this page being located, if my name is searched on google. But who ever reached here by searching for my name ;)

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Hitler and Nehru

I did not do much writing as I had expected after finishing Mein Kamph and went on to read some more. Before leaving for Lucknow, I had started reading "Glimpses of World History" by Nehru (Am far from finishing it now). The most interesting thing that I noticed, having read Hitler so strongly talking about National Feeling as "the feeling to be respected and trying to support it with history" was the way Pt. Nehru has synthesized the thesis that Nationality is a very recent concept. In Europe, at least, the old empires (The Great Roman Empire, Later the Eastern Roman Empire, Arab Empire) aspired to be the world conquerors. There was no notion of state. It was Empire and world. Even in India, he mentions that the term "Chakravarti Raja" indicated similar tendencies. Though somehow Indian kings hardly went beyond India, exception being some of the islands in the sea surrounding the country in South. Possibly Indian kings had enough land to conquer here itself. Similar seems to be the case with China.

Another thing about this book is that History textbook writers as well as History teachers in schools should take a look at this book to understand how the broad purpose, history education should serve, can be served at the school level. Written for his, then rather young, daughter, in a really simple language, it has an excellent style, which puts things in perspective and emphasizes need for analysis. It makes an easy reading too and need for mugging reduced to almost nil. One simple example of his elegant style is whenever he talks of a particular country or an event, he invariably talks briefly of what was happening in the rest of the world, even though its a repetition of what he has already said, so that the reader can put things in perspective without any strain or the need to go back and forth between the pages and match dates with the events in other places.

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The pending Ones

I think I would put down the ones I wrote in my diary in the summers. I did not write as much as I would have liked to. Somehow typing has become essential for me to be able to write English. Its still different with Hindi, because typing is still tough there.

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June 11, 2004

Readings


Finally have been able to finish 'Mein Kamph' and now I think I can get into writing a little. Am thinking on finishing the report on Navodaya Work also, now itself.

Books I have read till now include Mein Kamph, A tale of two cities and Scarlett in English and 'Teen Varsha' (translation - 'three years') in Hindi. Next ones in line are Gora (English translation of Tagore's Bengali Novel) and Rangbhumi by Premchand. But before starting on these ones, as I said earlier, I would write something. Not much, few blog entries - on the readings and the report on Navodaya, which I mentioned.

Why Economic independence is essential for women


This is how the novel 'Teen Varsh' by Bhagwaticharan Varma ends (You might directly skip to the translation, if you are not comfortable with Hindi or Hindi written in Roman script):

"Pratyek Sambandh mein len den ka vyayhar hota hai. Stri purush se uska dhan chahti hai aur purush use dhan deta hai, sukh deta hai, jeevan kee sabhie suvidhayen deta hai. Aur apne dhan ke badle mein purush stri se uski shraddha, uski shakti, uski agyakarita pane kee asha karta hai, lekin Prabha, tum lene ko taiyar ho - dena tum nahin janti. Hamare dhan par aashrit ho kar bhee tum hamaree gulami karne ko taiyar nahin ho, balki ulte samanadhikaron kee duhai dekar aur visheshadhikaron kee aad lekar tum purush ko gulam banana chahti ho...."

Translated (I can not at all claim to be good at translation - even if it sounds rather literal, I hope it conveys the meaning):

"Every relationship involves give and take. Woman wants money from her man, and the man gives her the money, he gives her happiness, he gives her all the comforts of life. And in return man wants her devoted trust, her power, her obedience. But Prabha, you are ready to take - you have not learnt to give. Despite depending on our money, you are not ready to submit to our slavery, on the contrary by referring to equal rights and by taking the shelter of special rights, you want to enslave men..."

Am not going to analyze it in the context of the novel, but only want to point out the essentiality of economic independence, if the equality of genders is to become a reality some day. Because of the kind of society we are today, being able to secure a means of livelihood is not something that can be taken as granted. The arena of the means of livelihood is the battle-field of human kind, where the winners and losers of the society are decided. Even though arguments can come in favour of or against the taken-as-granted situation of domestic work and its inclusion in economically productive work, the situation that remains today is that it is (emphasis) taken as granted (/emphasis), whereas means of livelihood is not. If the gender association with the two kinds of work was not taken as granted too, in addition to the nature of domestic work, situation would have been different. But that too is not the case here. Now, because of difference in the social value of the two kinds of work, to prove the worth in this society, women will have to proceed towards becoming economically independent. Otherwise the expectation of slavery will always be there. Hitler had lots to say about the way, masses "reason out" the things. :-)

June 12, 2004

Mein Kamph


There is a lot to be said about 'Mein Kamph'. Firstly, my belief that Hitler should be saluted as a leader of masses has been strongly reaffirmed after reading this book. My bad luck that the edition I had was a bad one. Can't say much on the quality of translation but missing or misspelled words from the sentences and missing or misplaced letters in the words sometimes leaves you scratching your head to understand the meaning. Guess its a problem with the particular edition from the particular publisher.

Anyway, back to the contents - seriously if you are thinking of leading masses, you must read this book. Its not possible to find such an explicit and bold acceptance of the power as well as stupidity of masses and how that stupidity can be availed to use that power to achieve your ends, my assumption in mentioning it here being that your end is a good one :-) Of course no one stops you from using the same tactics for evil ends.

Several things like problems of democracy, rule of majority, importance of history, characteristics of masses etc. are as relevant today as might have been to Hitler then.

And don't be surprised if the way he deals with his promises about superiority and inferiority of race leaves you indignant. In fact it makes me wonder after reading the way he describes the stupidities of people of the so-called "most superior race", if he really believed in this innate superiority of races. Certainly there is no justification anywhere for this pre-destined superiority or inferiority of races. One of my propositions is that knowing the stupidity of the masses, he needed some really provoking issue to rouse the masses. Race was one - or could be made one and he was ruthless enough to use it to the extent he did.

But then if I say he was not that foolish to believe in the innate superiority or inferiority of races, somebody could say that he can't be smart enough to see how far-reaching and advantageous to him the issue of races could be. Don't know where the truth lies. Any recommended sources? Adolf Hitler didn't write a diary, did he? Too bad!

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Sunday, July 04, 2004

Ekta Kapoor

Like all other times, take "Ekta Kapoor" to mean serials by her as well as by those following her ways. I was forced into watching some of these soaps this summer. I live at a place where number of channels provided by cable operators is limited. And no matter which of the channels you turn to, you find a serial of that kind (Star, Zee, Sony). If you do want to see some serials where is it that you are supposed to go? I have started wondering if people, now, actually see them because they like them or if they are simply suffering from lack of choice. What do you watch anyway? Fine, one would talk of movies, music, sports etc. But none of these are really substitutes to the kind of entertainment a good serial can give. Movies shown on movie channels are not necessarily great ones and they get repeated so often! Same with music. Sports of course may not be for all :-)

As for me, since Star Plus is what my mom stays with, I continue with that during holidays. Krishna Arjun, Sanjivani and Saara Aakash used to be some respite, but Sanjivani has almost turned into one of their kind. I do hope Saara Aakash does not go that way. And things like "Star Parivar Award" only encourage giving the same bend to the serials. You need to have all kinds of relatives in the serial and some role for each of them to prove themselves "Favourite whatever", right?! This is the only way of getting maximum awards for your serials.

But hey, is there some hope? SET not to buy fresh programme from Balaji. When would Star Plus learn?

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Friday, July 02, 2004

First impression...

I wish I could honestly put down my first impressions of this place here, but I guess I won't do it because if the kind of communication that has been done is what represents reality, I might be terminated on "disciplinary grounds" for voicing the opinion publicly! Further I do want to hope that it is not as bad as the first impression is. I love to feel positive about things around me and would like this to happen here too. Waiting is all I can do then.

Lots of blog entries are pending, only if time permits...

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