Reinvention

It was never about ‘D by DX’s or asymptotic lines which never mean anything! It has never been about swallowing a few pages up whole overnight and spitting the pages out, without having the goddamn decency to assimilate even a few captions… It has never ever been about dirty un-understandable balances or the fact that 2100 is a boundary condition for turbulence!! We have been lied to.

The foremost institutions of learning have pulled the bloody wool over our eyes; our eyes, only too willingly, have submitted to the shroud. We sit here today, indolent as ever, unwilling to put in even that small ounce of energy into understanding what we came here to do. We sit and we get tired of sitting. We get bored. And we begin watching a movie – a movie which propagandizes a well known foreign institution – lifting it a few notches further in our heads; Awesome has just become God-level. And then we curse. We curse the books; the profs; the methods; the exams; the whole f*#ing system! And we sit in awe of those people sitting abroad, going about their jobs with ostensibly effortless ease.

I don’t know where to start. Is it the professors? Is it Us? Is it MHRD? Is it…

The professors, of course, have failed miserably to perform their basic function – to mentor the student. But they aren’t here to mentor us; are they? They aren’t here out of choice… They seem to have been dumped here. One advice to all those who are thinking about pedagogy as a career: Teach if Teaching is your first love. If you are going to teach because you think you have no better option, then kill yourself. That’s better.

But you can’t really blame a professor, can you? They probably were subjected to the same means of education as we are now, and they know no better. And they don’t want to know any better. But that can’t stop someone who claims he chose Engineering for his life, can it? And in no realm of earthly imagination can Engineering sound boring… So what is it?! Why do we think that life beyond the IITs, far away across the oceans, is all lovely and beautiful; life eased by push-button technology and magical inventions. You can bet your four years in the college that they slog their backsides off like we can hardly imagine. Nothing comes easy.

And why does every one of us feel that it is a pain to go through what we are being taught. If there is one thing I have learnt, it is that Work doesn’t remain Work once you start loving it. And Science and Engineering once stood for everything that I believed in… Where has that gone now? It is only plausible that I have fallen to a devil called Disillusionment. But then, so has everyone else! How the hell does it make sense?

How does it make sense that the highest ranker is so oft looked down upon and is subjected to ridicule rather than veneration? And how does it make sense that the highest ranker in a class studies for the Grade, without love for what he is doing? Why does it happen that 'Management' becomes a fall-back phrase as the senior undergraduate year approaches? Life is not about eliminating opportunities and choosing what you hate least. It’s about what you love most.

If you don’t love anything, your existence is irrelevant. Obsolete.

Today, I met a man who explained to me why his name was prefixed by the phrase “Doctor of Philosophy”. I am afraid I have met him too late; beyond the point of no return. He explained to me the ways of nature, the ways of an engineer and the ways of an ideal engineering institution. He told me about the oneness of man and machine… the union of all the disciplines at the pinnacle of human achievement… And how nothing is possible without effort, observation and intelligence…

Did I get senti? Hell, yes. But can I do anything about it…

The Song Remains The Same

Clear the desks; pull some chairs
Stash the bucket in the shelf…
Shroud the books; slay the sheets
Get up! You’ve got work to do.

Hoard some cash, be very tight
Do not buy and do not give.
And then all! Splurge it all…
Fling it all: Y’ know when to.

Let the windows give away
And let the sky come bursting in
Making way for endless fumes
Of smoke of evil and endless joy.

Grab the caps, light the flares
Get the speakers out once more
Let the cake come, when it must
Fix the old bulb up tonight.

Draw out crapes ‘n streamers encore
And write the names upon the walls–
Splashes of paint and sparkling text
The magic canvas is a glittering hall.

Revive the jukebox from days forgot’
Relive those old joys born anew
Reset the table; Repeat the song
Renumber the spirits alphabet-wise!

Get the knives and spoons and forks;
The dinner is ready – delectable, grand…
Steady the staircase – that infinite one
Which will take you to heaven tonight.

Keep the phone nigh – at hand
To answer all those midnight songs.
Now set the beat and up the heat –
And wait for Earth’s complete round.

Don’t forgive but do forget
All that past that wasn’t right
Indulge! Rejoice! Promise! Ascend!
There will be a party tonight!

ABC

Accompanying the cacophonous ultrasound of Light meeting Death, each note converting the spinal cord into a lightning arrestor, was the beginning of a captivating little scribble - creamy white on pitch black. Scrawny and ungainly in proportion, one could but scoff at it in distaste, if it wasn't for the creator of masterpiece. For it is considered rather inappropriate to chastise the dribbling toddler who has just managed to blueprint the first of his fertile thoughts.

The figure lay static, incomplete, with bunglesome protrusions demarcating its realm until the emaciated boundary line faded into oblivion. The clumsy representation thus remained an unfinished, semi-open scrawl yearning for completion. It took a long while but it did come - and in the form of stable albeit inefficient strokes. The newer portions of the art seemed to inherit atavistic knowledge from the ancient; it grew stronger, faster, higher and more profound. There was a sense of power which endorsed the firm slashes of the blade.

With the coming of age, the jagged juvenile edges were smoothed and the beginners' habits were discarded with disdain. He began to learn from himself and from his environs. There was influence and then there was pressure to perform. He adapted fast and learned to live. He watched his compatriots race and often he lost out on speed, although making up in aesthetics and skill. He learnt from each man who bettered him and soon his 'crosses' became a work of art. He fell in love with a girl and all he managed was to learn from her - he mirrored her works the way she mirrored her 'F's.

There were times of struggle and disagreement, where two conflicting powers would often try to establish themselves on the man's style. Neither could succeed while the other survived and feeble pacts were forged. But the blend of styles gave birth to genius. The 'Tittles' were no long dots but narcissistic micro-circles. The edges were no longer straight; there were curves all around. What once stood reliably erect now carried an enviable tilt. He walked with a swagger now.

He slowed his hand to grip the edge of the penultimate alphabet and he slid down with consummate ease. And then he finished signing his name, slaloming twice and then punching with precision. A Handwriting was born. But was it his?