Back to Basics (Human society v/s inner instincts)

World is a place where numerous kind of breeds takes birth, breathes and dies a silent death. Unnoticed they come and dies in equally vague scenario. The things that happens in between is a different story all together with the same basic theme- “Fight for survival”. You must have noticed I said ‘breeds’ and not people. Yes, from where I see, we all lie in the same category with the same basic needs- Food, Mate and territory.

Sounds Bullshit? Let me place it this way.

1.      You work to earn Bread.

2.      You take a protective Stance for you partner (don’t you?)

3.      You want to rise and shine a lot more than you do right now.

In this context, territory needs a little bit of explanation. You see, in the animal kingdom, the territory is limited to marking a perimeter around the area where you live, warning others of consequences if they dare to breach in. “Marking your territory” is an act of dominance. Humans have evolved this concept and now it is not limited to just the physical space. People compete for a lot more- From mere promotions to huge take-overs, thrones to a sense of freedom, lavish lifestyle to uncanny desires- everything has become a part of Human territory and we are still the same old “monkey-gened” animals fighting for it.

Yes, we have evolved. But this evolution has not eradicated the ‘animal instincts’ we have. It has just structured its presence. We have learnt to subside our anger, control the urges and redefine the way we feel. But, at the slightest of chance, we go back to being us- fighting, loving and not caring about anything but ourselves and our immediate surrounding. Yes we are ‘selfish’, everybody is ‘selfish’, it’s the evolved part of us that disguise the fact brilliantly. This ‘selfish’ face, well as we know it, comes out in its prime when the person feels a threat to his survival, his territory or anything else that ‘basics’ may contain. I am not saying that there is no good ‘selfless’ deed done by people. I am just saying that most of these ‘good’ people will chicken out once their motivation (something that strengthens their ‘territory’ is gone!). For the very few that’s left, well they have learnt to defy their desires and instincts completely (and one may say that is so against the nature!).

“Pleasure is the structure of society. From childhood until death we are secretly, cunningly or obviously pursuing pleasure. So whatever our form of pleasure is, I think we should be very clear about it because it is going to guide and shape our lives. It is therefore important for each one of us to investigate closely, hesitantly and delicately this question of pleasure, for to find pleasure, and then nourish and sustain it, is a basic demand of life and without it existence becomes dull, stupid, lonely and meaningless.You may ask why then should life not be guided by pleasure? For the very simple reason that pleasure must bring pain, frustration, sorrow and fear, and, out of fear,violence. If you want to live that way, live that way. Most of the world does, anyway, but if you want to be free from sorrow you must understand the whole structure of pleasure.”

-J krishnamurti

The human society have laid guidelines for everything with the sole aim to chain the animal in us, but left loopholes for those few ferocious outliers that will break the whole system if not given the freedom to thrive the way they are. This was necessary because a single spark could start a fire-storm. Let the spark live his life and die in peace, than to air it and spread it!

Even though we know that we have our freedom and we are free to do whatever we want, it dies out when it comes to bigger picture and much bigger pictures.

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Giving this believe of freedom is the society’s way to suppress those instincts to fight for it. Those who rage against it satiates their desire to dominate, and the picture comes full circle again.

I could go ahead and include the establishment of monetary system as a way to pipeline those ‘desires’ in a constructive way (for the development of the society) and destructive way (for the real you.) but that will be simply go beyond the basics.

Every single beating soul on this earth have been given a gift- to live and living is not about redirecting your feelings, emotions and urges, its about how much you have contemplated and gave way to your instincts.  Paulo Coelho took the example of tie (as a ‘chain’ of social ethics!) and explained exactly what’s actually treasured by an individual:

“The only really useful function a tie serves is the sense of relief when you get home and take it off; you feel as if you've freed yourself from something, though quite what you don't know.”

This “something you don’t know”, is the act of suppressing the basics in order to thrive and ‘fit-in’. There is a way everything works and society is a way to keep everything in a state of acceptability. But killing the instincts is a li’l more than what should be accounted for it. Keeping a balance between what instincts demand and what can affect the existence of another is the way to go about it!

World is a wonderland

The world is a one big wonderland, and we are some puppets in a puppet show in this carnival that never ends. Having said that, there is more to life than you can ever imagine. The roles we play, the things we do and the world we create for ourselves is not just dictated by our choices and ability but also by those of people around us. Its easy to see the effect of the decisions your boss takes on you or that of your parent or one of your siblings but things doesn’t stop here. Even a person passing by you on a street, or a gentlemen travelling with you in a subway and even a simple smile of an innocent child can have great impact on your life.

For those who have read Rhonda Bryne’s “the secret”, this is just “law of attraction” and the “response of the universe” to your own thought. I don’t disagree with this, neither I’ll nod in perfect acceptance. A crippled man, no matter how purely he wish to walk again may not be able to do so. A person with genetic disorder may not get a chance to discover the other side of him that is in shadow of his shortcomings. But for a normal human like me, it may be possible to act on my dream and bring it down to reality. Its written in the book itself, act on the thoughts, grab opportunities else nothing works. You got to pick up the response of the universe. Unfortunately, every human being is not capable of becoming the master of his own destiny. If two people wishes for the same thing and works for it in the same way but still only one gets the chance to enjoy the fruit then it’s a shame on the universe. Okhay, he may get an alternative to it, but still he will never end up with the thing he started to work for in the first place.

When two humans are involved in a same situation, time or opportunity, they are bound to affect each others lives. In the beginning I said even a man passing by you on a street can have a great impact on your life. Consider this, you are working on some great presentation and you are certain to make an impression next week when you will be going up against your rivals. You went out to the market to buy some paper clips and folders to keep yourself organized. You complete everything two days before just to be sure nothing gets messed up. But on the day of presentation, you realize you have fever and caught cold. Your boss takes over your presentation and gets all the credits which was actually meant for you. Now where did you go wrong ? did you not act on it? Certainly you did! Oh wait, the store guy, he had flu and he communicated his disease to you. Did he plan to do that? Did universe conspire against you?
Lets not look at the universe with a crooked brow. The guy affected your life. He was meant to do that.
Just like the other day, when the guard of your society suggested you to park your car in the parking space even if you are in a rush ( He might have saved you from some heated argument! ), or the girl who made you visit the jogging tracks quite often than the usual ( congratulations! You just earned yourself a couple of healthy hours for yourself. )

The world is indeed a wonderland where a joker makes you smile, the rides gives you adrenaline rush and the magician dissolves the difference between the dreams and the reality. Its funny though, how you can avoid everything. You can predict the joker’s act and consider it to be a retard and failed attempt, you can just stand and watch the rides instead of getting the actual feel of it, better yet talk about its technicality and risk factor involved in riding such things (geeks! I tell you… ) and deny the existence of magic even when you cannot understand how the hell that man with the shiny coat pulled out a bunny out of the hat. Funny isn’t it ?

Truth is, we waste time figuring out what life is, trying to mould it in every way that suits us. We are like that stubborn bunny, which is so reluctant to get out of the hat, that he may even kill the magician. We love our comfort zone so much, that we are not ready to give up on it. There is no magic, that is true, but there is definitely thousands of smiles worth the magic trick. You are born, you are part of the show and you are a performer until and unless the curtain falls. The mutual existence is something more important than the selfish act of living in a comfort zone. Let the impossible dissolve into the reality, make the difference disappear. Magic works if you believe that magic exists!

Indian University for an average Student

There is a different perspective of every individual when it comes to education in India. While government officials are busy flaunting the relentless effort they put in making the education system work and function properly, there is another world of innocent minds still wandering to find some place to satiate their hunger for knowledge. Apart from these two worlds there is another flock of lucky youth that actually got a chance to study in the Indian universities (not that it’s any kind of prestige!). In this group there is another division, a big one when seen from top to down, one that consists of the “creamy-layer” of the students: the IITs and IIMs (include the IISc, if you must) and another of regular kids that attended the same school back then, and saw the same dreams as the “creamy-layer” of this country. So is it fare to make them feel that they aren’t worth of achieving the goals they set for themselves?
Before going any further, let me be very clear that I have a lot of respect for the students who worked their ass off to get into the IITs and IIMs, and they truly deserve the Brand value of it. Nonetheless, I have new found love for the average student who was not able make the cut and is now caught in a vacuum for at least an era of his education. Both the clan started with the same ABCD..., 1234... , and the nursery rhymes but now there is a gap, a gap so huge that the society is not able to recognize the clan that was left behind. I agree it’s a rat race and every one has to be at their best at all times, but what about the rats who did not give up and were still running even after being left behind? Shouldn’t they at least get a chance to reach the finish line?
Sadly, there is not a single university in India which is counted in the top 100 universities of the world, and the irony is that a large portion of the five year plan is allotted to the education system itself. And in this already struggling education system, there is none that come even close to the IITwalas and IIMwalas.
Let’s talk about the average student and his actual encounter with the university.
After losing the initial battle to get through the 100s of screening tests and being declared ‘not-eligible’ by several top-notch university, he somehow gathers his pieces of broken confidence and gets into a normal college with the hope of making it better this time. Little did he knew that even though the fees charged and the funding that college gets is nothing less than what is charged by a top notch college under any world renowned university, the story is very different in here. He struggles to find a connection between what he wanted his college life to be and what his college life has actually become. He undergoes the tests only to find that it is never checked and thus never counts. Internal assessment they say? What are they assessing, how good the student is in being the name a teacher can remember?  And the practical examination: an examination where all means of cheating are allowed from chits to smartphones. Take a picture to clear the scenario! There is hardly any genuine practice that is given to the student. Vivas are an interaction between the dumbfounded student and a person who can never be called a teacher. The home assignment becomes an art of copying the stuff in several different ways. The external examination is a piece of cake with the previous year question papers and beating around the bush always comes in handy if the actual answer is missing.

Frankly, even I have enjoyed these perks of being in a normal college. But you know what? I miss the person I used to be back in school days, when everything had a purpose and being competitive kept me going! Speaking about competing, the university has successfully installed a system where it gives you the right to equality. You worked for the presentation you get 80, you have not worked for the presentation, you get 82! Sadly its cyanide for the student community. If you don’t get the rewards for your work, what is the point in working for it? And why to work for better, if you comfortably scored 82 while watching porn all night!
The human, like any other animal, is not designed to work harder than required! And if you provide the lazy ass couch to crash on, why the hell people will bother to run?

Now when there is no scope of improvement left in an individual and the urge to dominate still prevails, there comes the inevitable birth of politics! The student has left with no option but to follow the simple rule: “if you cannot run ahead of a person, pull the person back instead!”, and that my friend, is the birth of the black-hole. Walk past one, and get sucked into it!

Teachers in such university come in with the mentality “IIT nikal nahi paye, dimaag kya khaak hoga inke paas!” or “hum bhi inhi ki tarah the! Humein pataa hai pardhna likhna toh hai nahi inko!” etc etc. I don’t know where I heard this but it actually made sense to me “there is no bad student only a bad teacher! “. A lot of teacher (and I mean a lot) has little or no knowledge of their respective subject (understandable, since “they were like us” in dearth of good teacher.), the small no. of teacher who actually has some knowledge are busy flaunting their endurance and pursuit of knowledge instead of actually teaching the stuff! (Dear sir! We are not interested in feeling guilty about having internet and cellphones which was not part of your upbringing. If we follow your advice, then mankind should still be chiseling scripts and dancing naked around fire!). Teacher are supposed to be a whole package, a motivator, a guide and a person to look up to when it comes to acquiring knowledge. An average student seldom meets a teacher whom he can make a standard for measuring the amount of knowledge he need to achieve.

The projects: an application of the knowledge a student has acquired! Rs.3000 per piece. I remember a teacher advising my senior “beta tumse toh hoga nahi, ek kaam karo purani dilli ya district center se kharid lao and report ratt lo! “, and that’s what puts the period at the urges and curiosity declaring the average student as an ineligible candidate who has become so dependent in his last span of education that he cannot display what he learnt.

When teacher, HOD and other respectable post holding people says that there is no quality of student in there campus and so they are helpless in producing result, I feel insulted and not only me about 70% of the average student feel insulted and I say 70% because the 30% of this crowd had already lost their will to chase their dreams!
An average student, a clan who dared to dream but was brought down by the Indian Universities! A clan that sow seeds of brighter future in barren fields of education system. With every passing year, a million of students are losing their curiosity and thirst for learning (we talk about placements instead!), whom to blame?
we are the youth, we tend to do things we are not supposed to. Society and the system is designed to guide us and if we are failing as a whole and not an individual then its fault of the system!

Given the right amount of funding and fees, I presume there is no monetary pressure on the institution. 

1. Take a break for all the present student to complete their degree and start afresh, seniors are a huge influence on the freshmen batch and they tend to adapt a similar attitude.
2. Design the examination system like you want the student to actually learn, it should not be difficult and if it is copy paste it from a reputed school ( it will work! ). Design the books for your university, average student are not dedicated enough to go through three or four hefty book and scribble notes (a fixed course and flexible examination is better than a wide course and previous year question papers!). 
3. Students will learn, only if they trust their teachers! It’s a fact that student will have no interest in class taken by a person who he thinks (rightly or not) is not knowledgeable enough of taking it.
4. There will be disturbing elements in every class and they should be warned against their activities and extra class should be given to them. The student should live close to their college, a lot of time is spent on travelling by the student these days and so college should come with a p.g. system or a college hostel.
5. Labs are meant to be put in use. Flaunting several sophisticated lab is not enough. Proper care should be taken of smooth functioning of the labs and make sure that student can acquire more than the prescribed practical knowledge. It’s the only thing that keeps us hooked to learning!
6. Assignments and assessments should be taken seriously! When marking is taken seriously, student will fall in line! This does not mean punishing a weak student again and again. There should be special sessions for these folks (they might have missed a little something that is acting as a missing link!) 
7. Students should host all kinds of fests and competitions and even society runs. There should be joint community of student and teachers and a system should be put in line to make sure the monetary transaction are on the basis of no profit and no loss.
8. Make the student feel that they need to work to deserve the perks. Start houses and assign club memberships! Design competitions to get into the clubs/houses and actually let them have the incentives of it! (They are worth it!)
9. Keep a running project in every semester or introduce one in switch-semester breaks (let it be related to the domain of knowledge they are learning and a little bit intersecting with the one coming next!). Application makes it easy to understand and value the knowledge.
10. Every individual has his limitation when he enters the college. Work with them to sort it out. Lessen the effect if it cannot be eradicated!

There is a dire need of revolutionary change in education system if the average student should survive. It’s the largest group of future workforce! As soon as the quality of the education escalates, the society will experience a change and a positive one indeed. Most of the point I made may be already a point of the existing education system. If it is, then there is an urgent need to check there implementation. Corruption has no place in the ground level. The future is building right in these campus, if you expose us to dark, we will adapt to it! 

The shiny IITs and IIMs cannot transform the bigger picture alone, they certainly need their high school buddies with the same dream and the same force to achieve it. Make us fall in love with education again!