Changing ISM...Will it ever be the same again?

It has been three years, since I joined this college and I am now in the final year of my college life. During this time I.S.M. has changed from the outside as well as from the inside.

Constructions galore in ISM! Be it the New L.H.C. Complex near R.D., or the Amber Hostel between Topaz and Emerald, or the Jasper Hostel in front of R.D. If any of our old alumni were to visit the campus they wouldn’t recognize anything else other than the Heritage Building, Central Library and the Diamond Hostel.

External change in ISM may be necessary, because it urgently needs to gear up its infrastructure to meet the increase in intake of students. But what concerns me the most is the internal change at ISM, The change in culture at ISM. Take for instance the following example…

The other day I was at the library entrance filling up the details on the entry register. As I filled up the details, I saw a boy walk into the library, that too audaciously, in lowers and slippers. Being the final year, I called the boy over and asked him which year he was and why was he at the library in lowers and slippers? The guard too pinched in and firmly questioned the boy.

To my astonishment, the boy in turn asked me who was I to ask him what he was wearing. Take that for arrogance! That too from a first year! Anger swelled up in me and I was about to slap him. But somehow I restrained myself and walked off in frustration keeping in mind the anti ragging affidavit we all  had given earlier.

Hahah!!!... Imagine this in I.S.M.!!! :D

If the same incident had happened 3 years ago the boy would have been probably ragged badly and all his arrogance would have been put to dust. But, times have changed. Today, seniors are afraid of the first years and not vice-versa, courtesy the strict anti-ragging regulations in the campus.

A single complaint is all it takes to get an FIR registered against your name in the nearest police station and ruin your potential career. Which idiot would risk his lucrative, potential career to rag a first year for five minutes of fun?

The current batch of first years have been vested with so much power and they are using it so blatantly that it has even prompted the Dean of Student's Welfare to give them a stern warning to be in their limits. This seems to have had no effect on our beloved juniors as they have turned the L.H.C. canteen, which was a place for numerous meetings of various societies in the campus, into a place for playing Truth and Dare in the evenings.  

I agree that unrestricted ragging is a nuisance, but restricting it totally is also a nuisance. Lack of ragging leads to lack of discipline and a lack of personality development among the first years. Even some of our open-minded faculty might have felt this while taking classes.


Ragging is a form of interaction of seniors and juniors. It creates that special bond between them. I.S.M. has its legacy on the senior-junior relationship. I have felt this personally, as in all the three years of my vocational training at various mines, I have always been taken care of by my seniors as if I was their own brother.

I guess the new regulations shall cause more harm than good. The legacy of I.S.M. is dying a slow but sure death. I.S.M. may never be the same again and the change may well be permanent.



P.S. - Ufff... I love the way you jiggle your semi-dried hair...if only, I could see you do it everyday.

'The Eyes'

One advice which I have been advocating to my friends, rather frequently these days is that…‘BhaiLog…Ladki ke Peeche Mat Bhago…Barbaad Ho Jaooge’. 

Having said that… what I advocate to them is what I follow academically. Special Thanks to one of my best friends (read as the lone student of the lonely tutor), who inspired me by his words, actions and motivated me to join the spicy world of ‘Laundiyabazi’.

God has been kind to me, for he has given me a special pair of eyes. Not only do they make me ineligible for a certain profession in India, but have also made my choice of profession much easier. In addition to being the source of my vision, they perform the added duty of communicating with my princess so often, when words have failed me.

So, equipped with my special pair of eyes, I craned my neck to scan the crowd for those bespectacled, almond eyes of her. Within seconds, I found them and it was just a matter of time before our eyes met.

I don’t know why, but I somehow felt that her eyes looked different that day. Apart from the fact that her moist eyes were unresistingly beautiful, I felt that they had volumes to speak to me.

I was ready to listen…she had volumes to speak…but as fate would have it…we were not talking.

If not the master, at least I have become the jack of reading from her eyes. I know that there is something that’s bothering her. From her actions and from her body language I sense that there is something amiss. I am concerned and I am worried.

But that was until yesterday…because today, I saw her smiling!

All that matters to me is to see her happy, to see her smile each and every day of my life.

If only, we had been talking.

P.S. – Be better than the best, faster than the rest and only then will you win all the races in your life.   

‘A Driver or a Kirana Store Owner?’

The screen flickered and the page began to refresh… I whispered my silent prayers to God… Please let this one be good. 
 

God did all that he could and I did all, but what I needed to… Hence the obvious result. Though my sixth sense had given me the signals as to what was about to emerge, I chose to consciously ignore it. Ignorance is not always bliss and so it turned out to be.

I packed my bags and began to leave. In my mind were questions, unanswered…

How did it happen? Why did it happen? And most importantly, what implications does it have???

All my efforts and pains had resulted in no gains. They say ‘No Gain without pain’ but ‘why is there No Gain even after so much Pain???’

I have foundered badly this time and it’s time to introspect. Fate has rapped me on the knuckles. My bones are broken and I am shattered, just like when you have been struck by a rude jolt of lightning.

Some would say that you require such ‘jolts’ at frequent intervals to keep you on your toes. But what’s the point of such 'jolts' if they derail you completely? What should you do? Continue mechanically despite these ‘jolts’ or…?

In fact, everything I do these days is mechanically motivated. I attend classes mechanically just to say ‘Present sir’ as my name is called out on the roll call. I eat food mechanically just to satisfy my hunger, despite the food's awful taste. Even my smile is mechanically motivated just to please others.

I have forgotten what it is to smile from the heart. When was the last time I did it? Frankly, I don’t even remember. Damn it! But I am mechanically happy, being mechanical.
 

So, post my mechanical dinner that night, I lay on my bed thinking of, what alternate career options I had, if I failed miserably in all the planned ones. I came up with two weird, but funny ones.

The first one is to become a driver of one of the ‘Vayu Vajra’ (Volvo buses in Bengaluru) busses in Bengaluru. Not only, would it satisfy my passion of driving those huge busses but it would also allow me to stay put in Bengaluru and drive endlessly on its arterial roads. In addition to it being a Govt. job, you get  to collect lots of money from the passengers. On top of it, you get to be in A.C. the whole day!

Imagine me as the driver of one of these!

The second one is to borrow some money and set up a ‘Kirana Store’ (a provision store) in her locality. All you need is some basic common sense and a bit of arithmetic to keep you going. Moreover, it’s a decent occupation (at least you can make out a living!) and would give me a chance to be close to her, despite being far.

I will have to set up a 'Kirana Store' like one of these...or else in this age she won't even look at my shop. Competition!

After laughing mechanically at my, rather foolish thoughts, I decided that I better go to sleep and not denigrate myself by acting upon these stupid ideas. The reasons being…

What if she came onto the bus I was driving and asked me… ‘Bhaiya M.G. road ke liye ek ticket dena’ or she came to my ‘Kirana store’ and asked me  ‘Bhaiya ek kilo cheeni aur ek kilo namak dena’.

Oh My god! I Can’t take that.

Aaaahhhh!!!! Bhaiya My Foot!!! 

P.S. - Have you become invisible or it's just that I have become blind?

Selfish Or Selfless???

The ‘Race’ is on and the ‘runners’ are running faster than they ever have. Some of the runners are professionalized-amateurs who can see nothing but the finish line. Some of them are running just because they have to and don’t care a damn about the result. They are just content with being a sportive participant.

Then, there are runners like me, who were in the race initially but lost course in the middle because they couldn’t understand why they were running after all, and now don’t know whether to continue running or take a break and change track.

I see that my legs are moving, yet I am going nowhere, because I am practically running at the same place.  When I see the runners, who put on their ‘roller skates’ and skated fast enough to beat us by almost  a mile, I ask myself weren’t you and they equals at one point of time?

The answer is an obvious one.

As I frantically try to find a scapegoat I could do no better than to look at my own feet.  Oh! This was easier than I thought… I didn’t have proper footwear!

My twice repaired and now torn Woodland sandals which I had bought in my first year and my now sole less Addidas shoes signify my dilapidated condition. I am so lazy and afraid of the worst that I could neither get them repaired nor replaced, but have been switching from one to the other so that neither of them gets completely redundant.

What’s with this new miserly attitude of mine ah? I refuse to spend even an iota of money, (I don’t have much of it either!) even for my basic amenities. Earlier, I had a crispy wallet but now it’s an empty one. Sign of things to come? Where has it all gone? I know it will comeback…but when?

It continues to rain here and despite knowing the repercussions I continue to get drenched in the it each and every time. The sails of my ship are torn and the ship will very soon be scuttled... but I still remember each and every comment on your facebook profile photo…why???

A place I once considered ‘Heaven’ and wanted to return to as soon as I left it is no longer as alluring as it was. The inmates are giving the hints one by one and to the best of my abilities I am correctly interpreting them.

On top of all this I have this silly question cropping up in my mind…

Have I become more selfish or selfless???

Or

Should I become more selfish or selfless???

Any answers?????