Howrah Bridge

“Accha hai, zindagi ka ek phase khatam hua ” Papa said looking at the group photograph. That was 24^th May 2006.

Phase was something that I have been long associated with. I was taught that there are 3 phases, red, green and blue and they all meet to end in a black neutral. There was lot to it that tormented me for these four years, but I could recall only this much at the end of the day. Which phase was papa talking about was not clear, but I was sure that it did not end in black. As in EE, all the phases rotate in a unit circle, life was also one hell of a vicious circle. First it was she, and then it was she. I could only rest on my friend’s shoulder. Recently a confidante of mine brought me to yet another unconquered angle of success. Should it be treated, as a failure is a matter of discussion? I leave it upon you.

I was thrilled at the proposition to meet all of them this summer vacation. This will not be the last, for I am sure time would bring more. Didi had just come back from her tour-de-Europe; the summer vacations of the four kids had kicked off. Of them, three were always on move, panchavati to salt lake and back. Their innocence always surprised me. When I was of their age, I used to be more worried about the rank in the class; they seemed to be more interested in everything else.

The fourth one, she seemed to have grown up.

The train was late by 1 hour 15 minutes. But my excitement even killed that time. In the scorching heat of Delhi, I was also developing an interest. I still cannot explain it to myself. The human emotions can tend to be irrational. Sometimes they cannot be explained in words. But she has a sweet name, abhee tak kewal filmon mein suna tha.

And so it started. I reached 2 hours late. There is something in the sultry wind of the city. My favorite part of journey is when the train enters Howrah. As I hung from the gate of the Poorva express, I was welcomed by the wind. The imposing Howrah Bridge overlooked me with its stark eyes. The gleaming headlights of yellow taxis, cacophonous horns of red buses, the caravan of people moving over it gave it a character of life. It always stood tall to see that I cross the holy river, which would soon meet its fate in Bay of Bengal. This ended with the stench of the fish at the railway station. Some things, it seemed would never change.

The worst part of journey is when the same scene is replayed, this time in reverse order.

A conflict was on the anvil. As expected, it caught me unexpected, or should I say that I created it unknowingly. It was me who had suggested a change in school. I encountered a challenge. There was a seeming contrast between the approaches and beliefs. Without any delay, I would put forward my point.

The first and the foremost requirement are to identify your long-term prospects. This should be without any bias and normally this is the easiest part of the journey to be set forth upon. After all, there is no limitation to dream big. Some aspire to be computer engineers; some aspire to set up VSCLs, some just to live happily ever after.

The choice has been made; she wants to be a computer engineer. In this era of cutthroat competition and reservation, no one can be that sure of a choice. But here we have a problem. She also wants to be an IITIAN. Here is where the conflict starts. Read on!!!

In a foray to the four years at Roorkee, I can elucidate certain characteristics of our lives. We are a bunch of mostly guys and a hopelessly low girl populace who have been a result of a rejection process (read IIT JEE). We are always career oriented. We thrive on competition. We are always made to believe that we are not the crowd. The opportunities and the accompanying responsibilities are both abundant in number. We are always kept on the toes. Demanding practical submissions, challenging tutorial classes, ubiquitous lectures and never ending evaluations always keep us on the move. But we do not crib over rigors of academics; it has been with us for a while now since we started to understand.

As this was not enough, we are responsible for one of the most thriving campus lives. Always studded with student festivals, tournaments, tours, competitions, clubs, sports, they end up in making a journey of a lifetime. These things find priority over eating, bathing, grooming and even sleeping. We fight time. We have an in house tendency to do every thing at the eleventh hour and still come clean. We have guys who end up getting the biggest pay checks in spite of a non-existent academic record. Most of us have a success story to tell.

But then there are losers too. These are those guys (mysteriously, you never find girls in this category) who were not clear of the end. Most of us are clear from the beginning of the end of the four years. We divert our energies in that direction from the day 1. So while some of us pursue projects, some of us write software and some do societal activity. There are distractions in the way, but then they were present earlier too. But our low or negligible sensitivity to our environment make us infallible. We are either not into it or get over it as soon as it starts to get into our career-oriented approach.

Those who get distracted, stray out of the way. They either don’t take the trouble to get into the system or else end up being out of the system.

Is it all that demanding? Yes, it is. IITs are the only places in the country where you would be surrounded by iitians only. Every one would want to succeed, and eventually does so. But what makes us click is as said earlier, is our clear-cut approach to life. We separate life into emotions and career, and pursue latter without the former. This strong-headed way has been instilled in us from the very beginning; from the time we made the first choice. There is always time for all those things, and success can be quick especially when you have a ticket to the IITs.

I failed, miserably in driving this point to her. She is an emotional cutie pie; she would start to cry when she will not find a ganda bhaiya at home. She is my beautiful kid, who is too young to get distracted.

But I trust her that as always she would never let us down. Her success means more since she may eventually make me realize that there could be another way to success, a way where the mobile phones play a much larger role. I sometimes find myself at the crossroads. At one point of time, I need to be a stern guide who would not let his pupil get distracted, at others a weak brother who cannot see his gudiya cry. I have now left it over her to get me out of this conflict of interest.

And so my journey was an eye opener. I failed to instill any kind of inspiration in my kinsfolk. I realized that with changing times, there will be resistance to my approach. What appeared to be a futile waste of time to me then, may have assumed greater importance today. Those three musketeers would never listen to me unless I talk nonsense to them. But I must say that M&D were clever enough to make me do most of their holiday homework.

I came back through the same route; summer was at its peak. Finally I left Howrah. I now wait to move to my next destination, a place in south. I now wait to return back to Howrah to meet them all.

It all began one fine day

26th July 2002; My first day at the college, a revered institution, a fervent passion of every callow in the country who aspires to be more than an engineer. I was in the IIT of my choice, destined to become an Electrical Engineer. They say that this place was the first engineering institute in the whole of imperialistic British Empire.

We were asked to assemble in the Senate Hall. This hall spoke of the tumultuous times this institute witnessed before being accorded the status which started the race of other institutions clamoring for the same. The hall looked as if this place left the argument to be in consonance with time long ago. I started to wonder whether I made the right choice by coming here, my friends in other IITs had already hinted against it, the sultry weather further aggravated my thoughts.

But my perspiration did not long last, as she entered the hall; I was led to fantasize, I was no longer a part of the babble going on in the first JEE batch. In a Blue green salwar sout, she adorned the moment. Her hair tucked in a pony tail, were all beaming to life, as if they were eager to explore the adventure that lied ahead. The lucky few had the opportunity to stroke her forehead. She was beautiful, her spectacles added to it. She should be having the smile of Preity Zinta, the same dimpled cheeks. That was my first guess. Wow, we had a star in our campus.

My day dreaming was broken with the Director arriving at the scene. Calling it a scene would be most appropriate, the chaos that prevailed on the registration with the DUGS shouting at the parents made it clear that administration was still uncertain with their new found identity. It did not take long enough for me to realize that the institute faced an identity crisis, as magazines and news papers repeatedly misquoted on the number. We were now seven and not six, seven, just like the seven colors of the rainbow, well may be.

It was where I discovered the joys of being at the threshold to enter a new phase that had just begun. My transmigration from an adolescent to…. a young man was besotted with; I even did not know her name. I soon realized that the director had invariably put the burden of building a resurgent India to a bunch of naïve freshmen. After all, IITs are known world over as leaders in technical entrepreneurship. I now belonged to bandwagon which included top honchos of the Silicon Valley and the Indian IT Industry. I recalled that few days back Bill Gates was quoted as saying that B2B no longer meant business to business; it was modified as “Back to Bangalore”. I could not agree more.

After the speech, we were to proceed to our departments to get oriented. I hurried to know her name, especially the department. There was a good and a bad news. The bad one was she was from a neighboring department, the good news was she was to be in the same batch with me for the next year. One year, I chuckled, was more than enough, my infatuation overcoming my senses. I was again woken up by my mother. She was waiting outside the hall. Mom and dad had a reason to be happy. They were; cautiously happy.

And then it started. I entered into the mystique duniya of dreams. I could see her, I could see a B.Tech from IIT, and I could see a handsome paying job, everything so exquisite. Who would want to wake up from such a dream, but dreams, they are meant to be shattered, and they did.

I soon realized that I was too much a idealist. Things never work the way you think, they are too be made to work. The rigors of IIT were never easy. At the end of the year, I found myself to be an above average far from good student academically having nothing extra to boast of. I never managed to say a “hi” to her, even when all that time I could see her sitting next to my bench. May be I wasted to much time fantasizing. Taking her down on a piece of paper only made me sulk.

But every thing was not that bad. IMG happened to me. This group gave me a reason to smile, actually to be hysterical. Sadly though, the coordinators decided against her, she was not to be taken. This was the first group that took future into account while deciding.

As the coordinator of the group three years later, I thank them, I would not have been what I am, and I would have gone into oblivion.