The Inside stuff

The following article has made some observations, which I hope will be seen in the right context and I request nobody to take it personally.

The long and possibly most exhausting semester of my time here is drawing to a close. (It’s still not over!) I have had a pretty eventful semester. Well for one I just did not manage to find the time to RELAX! Suprising isn’t it? Well I am sure you would get a similar response from quite a few people around. After the blowing of the Saarang Bubble (Ya I found it boring!) and the drab period of February, one gets sucked to the plethora of activities that happen in campus. It also doesn’t help if one decides to contest in the institute elections. Yours truly thought he could do it all. However, elections, I realised were not meant for people like me. You got to be willing to do things which might not be morally right or seen as the right thing to do. I decided to go all alone on this one and not surprisingly I ended coming out of it empty handed. What I realised is this: Elections is never about the deserved candidate winning.( Okay I am not whining here!) I can now safely say that I was NOT the “right candidate”, I just thought I was.

A “right candidate” should in my opinion be:

- One guy who can converse in various languages (and consequently befriend the various networks)

- Should not worry about bunking classes (big factor, It cost me!)

- Should have a very good information gathering system (because nobody will tell you on your face that they are not with you!)

- Should be willing to play “dirty” ( I cannot elaborate on this, because I did nothing!)

-And finally should be never believe that he is winning until, the actual results are out.

I might have lost the elections, but it did give me a whole new perspective of the “other side” of campus life. I got to meet a lot of new people (M.Tech students in particular) and just realised how apathetic they are to the cause. You have people who don’t give a horse shit about who is going to win. In fact most people in campus fall under this category. It is only a handful of people, who having something at stake, that think about picking the “deserved” candidate.

I had heard from people that if you had a practical and well thought out manifesto and if you were able to put it across in a convincing manner, you would win. However, things are not that straightforward in this place.

At some level I feel the whole process of elections is screwed up. Over a period of five days, one is expected to meet and convince 5000 odd people, and at the same time carry on with the other activities of campus, like Schroeter and coursework.However that is not the most infuriating part of the whole thing. Here is the WORST part of it all: The “Soapbox”, an official public forum where contestants are given an opportunity to present their manifesto and hopefully woo people towards their side, is held in one of the most remote locations in campus: At the corner most hall in the fourth floor of the library! The whole point of the holding such a gathering is lost, when in fact there is no gathering!

I thought I would be able to manage my academics during that period. However I found very difficult even to make it to classes, leave alone completing assignments. During the whole period of the election I got the feeling that this was not meant for me and the thought that the whole system was tilted in favour of those who, cared just a little less about other stuff happening in campus, kept running through my head. The victors were those who put their mind, body, heart and soul (and god knows what else!) in seeing it to the finish line first.

Recently I was reading a piece written by the Middler on the extent of the extra curriculars in campus and I could not agree with him more when says there is just too much to do and too little people doing it. His point that there is just too much happening in campus for one to handle is well made. I mean, at the end of the day, we must all ask ourselves this question, why are we here? Is it to go and win Schroeter(which btw, Ganga under my leadership managed this year) and then LitSoc and if that’s not enough try and win TechSoc (and if you are still hungry for more… try the elections, followed by a coordships and ah.. the coreships!)? How do you expect people to have the time , energy and motivation left to do some academic work done when they are constantly being pushed from one extra curricular to the other. I think the whole calendar of campus life needs to be reviewed. The cynics would say that one has to cater for every taste in terms of activities and it is an individual choice to take part in whichever activity one feels like. But more often that not, one sees the same set of people doing most of things, while the rest are happy doing nothing. THAT is the root of the issue which needs to be addressed. Enough has been said on this and it is time something is done about it.