Illuminated Power Centers

Illuminated Power Centers
Originally uploaded by SUM1T KUM4R

Celebration of a Lifetime

I might be quite late in jotting down my feelings about the triumph of the Indian team at the Twenty20 World Cup, arguably the biggest cricketing achievement of the nation in my lifespan so far. But as it turns out, today marks the 75th day of that indelible moment and might just be the right time to brush up those memories again.

Twenty20 cricket, though popular by that time in England and New Zealand, had never taken our imaginations to a high. India had played just one T20 match before the World Cup. Adding to that the absence of the three batting greats - Sachin, Rahul and Sourav, we always had qualms regarding this form of cricket. But as it always is, any form of cricket where the Men in Blue were competing was enough to take me to the TV Room, although the tournament painstakingly coincided with our mid-sem exams. (Our TV had broken down, and the new TV was just arranged in time a day before the World Cup started).

India kept on winning matches, except the odd loss to New Zealand in the first match of the Super Eight stage. Wins against South Africa and against Australia in the semifinals were always special considering the strength of these teams. The big day, the Finals coincided with the day my exams ended; I was just in time to watch the National Anthems starting when I returned after finishing my paper!

Some of the best moments (obviously not counting the winning moment, the lapsed "scoop" from Misbah-Ul-Haq) to me are best ascribed to in this video.

myth

कुछ लोग ये समझते हैं,
कि वो दुनिया से आगे हैं,
कि वो सबसे समझदार हैं,
कि वो जो करते हैं, उसके आगे किसी कि नहीं चल सकती....

पर अफ़सोस....
हमेशा,
उनसे आगे कोई न कोई निकल ही आता है,
जो उनसे भी तेज़ होता है..

A Lone Battle...

Today I stand alone..
With some shattered dreams, broken promises and lost faiths.
I move as if I am fighting ten battles at a time, all alone....
And with victory in sight in none of them.
Days have come and gone,
Earlier they used to bring with them some dreams..
Appeared to be Hopes at times,
But now there are none,
All what is there is to choose between....
Some self-seeking individuals,
A hazy path ahead, and
A solitary pursuit of scattered images.

What makes a Gentleman

Let's take a not very uncommon situation. You are walking down a street and you find two people fighting over something. Getting curious you come closer and start listening to their conversation. You figure out that one of them is an agent of some insurance company and the other is his client. The agent is trying to take advantage of the client over some issue about which the latter doesn't seem to have proper knowledge. Now you are in a similar profession and you comprehend how the agent is trying to deceive the client. To make it more clear and simple, let me put it this way : You can explain the whole scenario to the client in less than five minutes and this will save him from being deluded. What do you do?

Well, I feel most of us would do the following in such a situation. We would first get tempted to speak a few words. But then suddenly something from within stops us. We come to realize that what good it would serve by getting into others' matter? I was happily walking down the street when I saw this fight. Though I was curious to know what was going on, having found it out and having had my share of "entertainment" its time for me to walk on. Let the poor client be duped by the agent. How does it make a difference to me?. I know I won't be duped in a similar manner. So what's the point in getting into an argument?

By this try to present an idealist picture of ourselves. We say that, I am a person who never indulges in any kind of trouble, I lead a simple life, I am happy with whatever I am and so on. But do we ever think that being an idealist or to be more precise being "simple" in a way amounts to being selfish? Yes, this might be an exaggeration but the above situation might put this in a better perspective.

Of course we need to be protective about ourselves but that doesn't mean we should hide our selfishness with talks of idealism. If you tend to move away or turn a deaf ear towards the problems around you and in your society, you are simply a coward. You can't justify your actions (non-actions actually) by saying that you are a gentleman who doesn't like to get into a chaos. If that does define being a gentleman, then this world would be better off without such gentlemen. Our society is hardly going to gain anything from them.

The Grand Old HALL Has its DAY

IIT Kharagpur never falls short of celebrations. Just the seasons vary but with every new season comes a new form of celebration. But by any standards, March is the most hustling month in the Kgp calendar. The GCs are in their deciding phase and apart from this there is one big contention among the halls that takes centrestage during this month - the Gymkhana Elections. And along with the elections this is also the month when most of the halls have their pleasant and colorful evening, loosely termed as the "Hall Days". (Every hall has its own special version though).tut

Mentioning the Gymkhana Elections and the Hall Days together is not a mere coincidence. Actually apart from the celebrations, a larger-scale motive of organizing the Hall Day is to entice the first years, who till now hardly know anything about the senior halls, albeit their votes count handy in the election. So much so that the full attention in the invitations is paid only towards the first years. Pity those kids. Those very seniors alluring them during the Hall Day Season would present their real guise only in the next semester when they go to their halls!

Following the Kgp tradition, Patel Hall also decided to have its Hall Day this year. (Of course we too had the above-mentioned motives). We didn't have a Hall Day, which has been traditionally called Patel Utsav in my 2nd year. So this year we were all the more determined to present an exquisite celebration. The date was decided to be on 12 March and it was me and my wingies who primarily took over this responsibility.

The budget being limited, we had to bank on sponsorships. Despite our efforts, we didn't have much luck in this regard. However, going to the 15 km far Tamrolipto Park Restaurant did bear some results as they agreed to put up their stalls. They had their weird clauses nevertheless. The publicity was another major task. We organised two different "funda-sessions" for the first years. We also had posters in different parts of the MMM hall and other halls. Apart from this also came up with the invitations cards (these were mainly meant for the profs, who never cared to turn up anyway) and pamphlets (in Hindi and Telugu as well apart from English!).

As for the arena, we came up an idea of replicating a Taj Mahal like scnario. This was achieved by erecting a huge painting of the Taj and a water pool in front of it. To care of the dance we hired a DJ who came all the way from Kolkata. Although he made a mess of our Dandiya theme by playing not so conforming songs, the crowd was still on its feet. There also were some computer games to chill off. The attendance was good. This can be judged from the fact that there was a long queue in front of the TP stall all the time. All in all a nice evening and thoroughly enjoyed.

The Old and the New

The IIT system has seen a glorious epoch of over 50 years. An it won't be an overstatement to assert that these years have been glorious only because of the achievements, eminence and repute of the alumni of the IITs. I don't have to go on counting the names of such renowned and dignified figures. (Sandipan Deb has done it accurately in his book The IITians). The contribution of the alumni in reshaping the world, as Deb calls it has been the major contributing factor towards the creation of the Brand IIT.

Now that the alumni have bolstered this brand, shouldn't they expect some payback from the institutes. Some might argue that isn't the IIT the very institute which made them what they are. Yes agreed. Their names might not have been world famous had they not come to the IIT. But still, IITs have a long way to go in terms of a proper Alumni Management system. The occasional get-togthers and the PAN-IIT meets are more of an effort from the alumni themselves rather than from the IITs.

So it was a commendable effort on the part of IIT Kharagpur to start a "Global Alumni Meet" four years ago. This year we had the 4th edition of this meet on the 6th and 7th of January. It was a good experience for me being involved in the organisation of this meet. The best part though were the meals served during the meet. Beyond doubt those two days were my best "eating days" at Kgp. The meet was attended by over 200 alumni of different years. The participation was considerably higher from the batches of 1957 and 1982 who were having their silver and golden jubilees respectively this year. (They didn't have to pay the token amount of Rs. 1000 as the participation fee).

The meet consisted of addresses, cultural programmes, visit around the campus and to the respective halls of the alumni and a newly-introduced interactive session with the students. In Patel Hall we had the traditional bonfire after the dinner where our alumni (most of whom were quite old now) recollected their wonderful days of stay in the hall.