The Uncivilized Moderns

I was standing in front of fourth block of MIT hostels which is by the way the ladies hostel of my college with Shubhra (My sister). A group of maybe second years comprising 4 girls and a boy were standing and sitting near the gate. All laughing, cracking jokes and stuff. Everyone could pass by them without any notice and they would appear normal MITians. By their dressing sense you could say, they were all rich daddy's brats. Girls in all fashionable tops and thigh length shorts and the boy in low waist jeans and loose t-shirt. All signs of modern cosmopolitan lifestyle. You could look at them and expect them to be the upper middle class if not the upper ones with all the social qualities and characteristics one could possess.

They could've passed even my eyes if they hadn't done something which happened in the next five minutes.

A girl ("in her shorts and top") with a bottle of lime juice started walking towards the campus store which was across the road. When she reached the middle of the road, approximately near the divider, the bottle in her hand fell on the ground and broke with a loud churning noise. It caught everyone's attention.

The girls at her back started shouting about some guy she must be thinking about or something which i could not figure out. Now i dont know whether it was an accident or she deliberately let go of the bottle. But my guess would be that it was a deliberate action. Although she was going to put that bottle in the empty bottle crate kept near the store. She turned back and went to fetch another empty bottle which she probably had to dispose off in the crate. She kept the bottle back and since they were shouting, the matron from the block came outside and asked them to step inside as it was almost around 11pm. One of the girl started arguing with her that she was not going anywhere and they were going to be near the gate. The matron started telling about the recent bike accident that led to sudden unfortunate demise of one of the final year architecture girl. After some time, they went inside with me still looking at them. All of this happened but no one, not even the girl who slipped the bottle, bothered to move the broken chunks off the road and dump it in the dustbin.

AND THEY CALL THEMSELVES MODERN AND COSMOPOLITAN AND CIVILIZED.

I'LL TELL YOU WHAT THEY ARE. THEY ARE UNCIVILIZED,UNCULTURED, "STONE AGE CLOTH" WEARING TYPE, "I AM COOL BECAUSE I TALK IN RANDOM ENGLISH" THINKING BUNCH OF MORONS WHO DON'T EVEN WANT TO CLEAN UP THEIR OWN MESS.

At first, i started walking back to my bike but then something inside me started twitching that it could not be left lying there. Someone could get hurt. So i turned back. Me being in my final year was a little furious with the matter. I've lived in this place for four years and love it for its weather and cleanliness. I could not figure out what i should do. I thought of going and telling them that she should pick up the glass and throw it in the dustbin but someone who could shout at an authority like the matron would never spare me with remarks like "Why are you so bothered?" or "What is your problem? The cleaners will pick it" or something like that. And i could not risk an argument with them because of the recent developments in the college. I might get a Disciplinary Committee proceedings in last few days of my stay at college. Suspending seniors for arguing with juniors for any random reason has become a particularly common practice in my institute. Overall, i could not store the courage to go tell them to pick up the garbage, so i found out another method to show them their mistake. I started moving towards the glass and picked them up and threw it in the dustbin. But by the time i threw it, they were gone inside the block.

Although i could not teach them a lesson, i had a sense of satisfaction in me, that unlike them, i did not leave the stuff lying in the middle of the road which could've hurt someone. If i could not teach them a lesson, i could at least be a good citizen.

We see these things happening everyday around us, yet we ignore them and move on. This is one main reason that we cannot develop on par with western countries or even our Asian brothers. We are not habituated to clean up our own mess, be it the garbage on the road or anything else.

AND WE CALL OURSELVES THE MOST CULTURED AND CIVILIZED PEOPLE ON THIS PLANET.

The Wait...to do something real

It all started in my fifth semester(i.e. july-nov, '08) led by the great success of my organization as a category head of Energia category of TechTatva, the national level technical festival of MIT, Manipal(as i have grown used to writing in this format :D)..after entering a technical institution, we always talked about doing something practical within this whole web of books and notes and xeroxes(trust me, they earn more than book stores now a days)...something that meant something...something for the real world...something as an engineer..something out of our creativity..something which we can give back to society being a technical mind, which they can use daily..and i would one day proudly say, hey look at that, he is using something that i created(rather optimized)...something i can flaunt..

"i was always interested in renewable and sustainable sources of energy..more like low power consuming which could allow us to use the current resources for a longer period of time"

thats all just some technical crap...i was only interested in making a device to get some exposure on real life manufacturing and designing equipments at my undergraduation level before i pass out...one fine day after TechTatva, my junior Abhishek came to me and said, "bhaiya maine SCV sir se baat ki hai. unhone 2-3 topics diye hain aur usme se ek mere ko interesting laga (bhaiya, i've talked to SCV sir. he suggested 2-3 topics and i find one of them interesting)..so that was the inception of the idea.."Design of a thermoelectric (peltier) refrigerator", the initial title..now i needed someone from electrical background...i looked around and found shubhra mohanti who was so willing to work but had never got any chance to do so...who knew she would become so dear to me one day...thus we became a team of three people...me, abhishek and shubhra..we began our preliminary work and thought if we went with normal speed, we would finish our project before i reach my eight sem..but then started the vicious circle of delays...i keeps rotating at the same point...it really takes a lot to do something on our own which is not prescribed in a curriculum or being forced upon us by some random structure..

we need to get the fire of exams on our asses to really know whats going on in any area of interest...i practically realized that while trying to get my proposal through my faculty guide..i gave my final proposal after coming back in 6th sem...the whole semester passed just like that..implementing random ideas everyday on the same thing and trying to get to a final draft which can be presented to the Manipal BOP(which is the funding agency for the product development)..but the final idea was submitted in proper format to him well in the same semester..and i dont know why or what he intended by not forwarding it to the BOP people..sometimes he said few things are missing, sometimes it wasnt in the proper format, sometimes he was busy..and he never forwarded it until he left the college..and he never helped even after that apart from delaying us and referring us to some random faculty who had no idea what was going on..whatever his reasons might be..had he forwarded the stuff in time, we could've completed it by now, because now we came to know how desperate the BOP people were to fund some idea..Sitting on a heap load of money with nowhere to spend it is a lot of burden and a pain in the ass..they had to spend somewhere..

and the time came when we were being abandoned by our own beloved faculty advisor since he had got an offer from an foreign university and its all about money money..i never disagreed..neither did i loathe him ever for aspiring to earn more money..but he could've forwarded the deal..

hence we had to take the initiative ourselves..after completing my second term of TechTatva as central team coordinator, i again concentrated on completion of the project..i forwarded the proposal to the BOP myself and they immediately responded..we had to run around cabins of a few faculties and BOP but finally we had a day of presentation...now presentation day is another funny day..

Me and jha(as i fondly call abhishek) were ready for our presentation.. we thought the place of presentation was 4th floor innovation centre conference room..i just saw conference room and thought it was the one in IC..never thought that its on 3rd floor in IC, not on 4th and the actual venue was university building fourth floor..so we kinda had to run all the way to university..fortunately we got an auto...so we gave our presentation which was decent enough..and hence started the actual wait...i think the wait before was just a prologue to the book...we had our first chapter written..they were pretty positive and asked us to get a faculty advisor ASAP...so we convinced one of my department's faculty and we had one...they asked us to submit a design report and an initial prototype..they told us they could give us some initial funding and some stipend too...WHAT???STIPEND???ARE U KIDDING ME???last 2 semesters went on thinking if it would even be selected...never thought of stipend..i just wanted to complete one project to add to my profile..i was literally pinching my arms to believe if what he said was actual...

so we submitted the design report..and one fine day my faculty guide called me and told me that he had received an intimation that they have sent the funds to the finance dept..i went and enquired and it was true...i was jumping 10 feet with excitements...carrying that cheque in my pocket and showing it off to shubhra (who was in her classroom by the way)...after a year long wait filled with uncertainties and anxiety, we had 12000 bucks to develop the initial prototype..The wait was finally over.. i could take a deep breath and say that " yes, my project is funded by Manipal BOP and i am working on it"...feels good...

As of now, i have procured assembly material but the work had to be stalled because my dear team mates were having sessionals and they couldnt contribute and i wont do it on my own..enough of lone work :)

lets see what happens...will keep updating

My first one

Hi blogger world,

Namaskar, salaam, hello...wie geht es ihnen? I used to think about how people get time to blog. But one fine day i realized it is one great thing to express, to let people know your ideas and feeling without any hesitations.so i started my search with wikipedia, what a blog is. It was "WEBLOG" abbreviated as "BLOG".. it was kind of little disappointment. i could not get much idea about what a blog should contain. then i read somewhere it is an independent way to express your ideas on net. Its kind of a net diary. So here's my first stupid and boring blog..Keep in touch friends. i ll be back...till then adios amigos