बड़ा ज़ाहिल है इश्क़ मेरा

बात बेबात की बात करता है,

रातें जलाता है,

बेमतलब हंसता है,

बड़ा ज़ाहिल है इश्क़ मेरा | 

दामन छोड़ के य़ू उठ चला,

न सोचा न समझा,

ऐसी अल्लहड़ सी बातें करता है,

बड़ा ज़ाहिल है इश्क़ मेरा | 

मेरे हिस्से का नशा सितारों को पिलाता है,

वो नीला आसमां भला कितना ऊपर जाएगा,

देखो बावरा सा दिल मेरा,

बड़ा ज़ाहिल है इश्क़ मेरा |

From the writer of : चाय की थड़ी से

Ajay Singh Rathore
Y09 Undergraduate, The LNMIIT

You can buy the book here 

What Makes A University Great?

“You may not learn from the lectures by these elite professors, you may not learn from the books in the library, but you will surely learn from your friends in hostel”  

At first when I pondered about this, I thought about the things I discuss in hostel and on mess table, what mostly boys discuss are girls, seasons, movies, sports, faculties, mess food, campus news, companies, gadgets, games, this can be a long and lurid list.  I was not able to conclude what this statement actually meant, until I observed it all over again. I observed that people were really discussing ideas, ideas wrapped in stupidity, craziness and frustration. Imagine how boring it would be to discuss something like “organizational structure of a company” instead you just say” if my girlfriend ditched me because of money, I’m gonna open a company” and this is the moment where ideas start flowing, you broach and others join.   

It’s not the infrastructure and building that actually make a university; it’s the ideas that have made impact and rest of the success parameters followed eventually. How the mess table conversations can really shape someone’s mind? How connected minds work together? The depths and eruditeness of the things one gets at mess table, let me assure you no book can provide you that much of learning appetite and attitude within such a flick. One cannot understand whole theories on the mess table or memorize the whole formulas, but you can always absorb the ability or inspiration to work on that thing. New TED talk, new book, the content of the book, a small idea like “I googled this and discovered a new thing” can really kindle a zeal to work on big projects. 

Philosophies, quotes, political insights, new opportunities, carriers, you name it and they will tell you what they discussed about it. Albeit mess tables and Hostel galleries are not always occupied with nerdy project ideas, nor is the case that you keep on talking about Gaddafi and Obama all the time, but whatever discussion is going on, inclusion of gamut of examples is commendable.

The beauty with these discussions is that even if you are in a technical university or in a B -school, the topics broached in those old hostel building are not confined to their curriculum. You can find technical students talking about Nietzsche, freud or Yeats and the profoundness with which they talk about all of them inculcates a habit of projecting excellence in whatever you do. It’s in the culture of  these varsities that they have kind of milieu that can make you contemplate about things. Profoundness is buttressed at these places.

In all these group discussion and team work, I’m not saying to forsake idiosyncratic ideas, time for self, importance to reflective transcendence shall not be emaciated. I was underlining the way people collide, the way they share ideas. How a bunch of people coming from different walks of life instigate something big. Structure of companies like Infosys, Flipkart, Indiabulls and many more were gestated only in these dorms and mess tables. 

It’s not the size of the books or studying hours that make leaders and entrepreneurs out of these educational institutes but it’s certainly something really different. It’s the environment at these places, way to think and attitude to take on things that brings real change. While I’m writing this in my room, free and frolic hostel galleries continue to brim with haphazardness, jokes, claps, cackles, philosophies and  above all, they will be remembered for the silent excogitations beneath all this pandemonium. 

Ajay Singh Rathore

Final Year Student, The LNMIIT

What happened to the rejected lot?

In India IIT’s are looked upon as the beacon of excellence, the triumph of hope, the sacrosanct temples of science and technology. Every year more than 5 lakh aspirants coerce to get in these temples, but after rigorous preparation of years, decision is based on one six hour examination i.e IIT-JEE, perhaps the only exam where first you have to clear tests to get paid coaching to prepare for the exam. If you crack JEE, you are pundit of the temple and rest all are untouchables.

Nobody cares about the mass that missed IIT by few marks, no matter 5 or 2, you are just not selected. Everyone talks about toppers, but where are the pupils who also fought to get in, no one cares about them. Students renounce their homes just after passing 10th class to get into IITs, their parents invest huge amount of money to see their child hitting the clout, laden with hopes and aspirations, one starts preparing for that day. All sports, fun and the frolics are relics. He is alienated from the outer world. Some of the students pre-realize that IIT is not their game. Some of them don’t even know why they want to be an engineer? Why is getting that tag so important for them? Leaving these doubts safe in their brains many keep on fighting. Two percent of them make it and others confront their first rejection. This saga is true for any other examination but what’s so special about IIT-JEE? What makes it different? What makes it so sacred?

One of the major reasons that I feel behind considering this exam so tough is that the quality of the aspirants and the complexity of coaching, the mental agitation one goes through while preparing for it. More importantly, they don’t even test you much on your knowledge, you may have all the knowledge about a reaction of chemistry, its usage, its process and all other various parameters but what they demand from you is aptitude, you can be a professor of that subject but you still can be wrong while solving that question in limited time. The average age of the aspirants is just 18, this major setback at 18, leaves student bereft of hope and his faith in hard work is completely shattered. Many take this as the end of life. There is no research or data available about the no. of people who commit suicide after JEE. Many require years to come out of the depression and some of them even develop a sub-conscious fear of fighting competition. Killing a potential talent at the age 18, isn’t it a crime? Who are the culprits? IITs? Coaching factories? Parents? Society? Who is to blame? Whoever it may be, but before we decide, we already lost a talented chap.

Those of who don’t commit suicide are vulnerable to smoking and crapulence. Self esteems are at new low. The cases of delirium and hidden phobias are innumerable. Sometimes I wonder how can one single exam, one single day, exactly not even a day, just six hours decide so much of someone’s life. Why put so much pressure on everyone? Pressurized students, pressurized parents, teachers, siblings, so much of hoopla over an exam in the nation where 35 % of the population is not able to read and write.

The major concern should not be method of intake but it should be on incremental value of IITs. What they add to the student? Concern should be pedagogy post JEE not pre JEE. An institute is not known by its bachelor’s degree but from the quality of post graduation and research inside it. M.tech and M.S students are least talked about, while they are the real backbones. When you actually try to search IITs on the world level, we are nowhere as compared to the premier world level institutes. We only take pride in the fact that we select one out of hundred. Come on!! We are not even sure that we did it rightly or not?

Success stories that allure almost everyone are even apocryphal. Only few get lucrative packages and the rest of them settle down on an average job. I don’t want to question sanctity of IITs but just want to broach the point that IITs are not the end of life. As said by Robert frost “Life goes on”, things definitely go wrong, many times you feel dejected, rejected and forsaken but nothing marks the end of life and whatever you call it JEE or ISEET, it’s not going to be an exception.

Ajay Singh Rathore