Metamorphosis

Disclaimer: I am no fan of kafka and no one is transformed into an insect for godsake! :P

Time : 2 pm, some weekday
The sun's shining so bright that it's forcing it's rays through the towering pampa "apart-ments" into the tiny creaking window of my room and glaring it's beam on my half opened eyes.  "Damn it, another grand slam", I thought lazily stretching my body and putting my cellphone in silent mode which had been buzzing under my ear for quite some time. No it wasn't the alarm. I answered the unknown number. The voice sounded like prateesh " Enti nuvvu kooda grand slam ena", i mumbled and went on for 1 minute. After I came back to my sane senses I realized it wasn't prateesh. Taken aback, I bit my tongue in apprehension. It was my uncle who gen called to know my well-being.  He didn't understand what grand slam meant nor any of the words I spoke for 1 minute thanx to the insti lingo! I managed to manage in the end.  I put my head under the pillow to avoid the sun's scintillating rays and went back to sleep.

Am I the same person, who, never missed a class and in fact wasn't late even once for those JEE prep classes, despite the fact that they started at 4.30 in the morning! I needed to get up at 3 30 in order to reach in time. And I did. For 2 years. No excuses. No grudges. We'd have classes till 11 in the morning, Followed by tutions in the evening. We'd have to turn in an assignment the next day, or we'd be in trouble (that translates as getting physically and verbally abused). I'd sit till 11.30 to finish most of it and go to bed. At 3 30, the alarm would signal dawn, before any rooster could wake up.The day had begun. While all my 'saner' friends from school were playing cricket and living a perfectly normal life, I would be sitting in a shed-roofed room with 60  other like-minded caged souls, listening in rapt attention to people who treated you like you were a Jew at Auschwitz (except for the gas chambers). "We do it for your good", they'd say and you'd believe every syllable they said. You wouldn't talk  between classes, because you knew that if you did, you would be in deep trouble, to say nothing of talking during class. You weren't allowed to wear t-shirts, shoes, jeans, or anything that looked remotely non-ugly. "It's all for the best. Life at IIT is going to be amazing and worth every sacrifice now", I would tell myself. Fast forward three years. I find myself where I thought I wanted to bewhere I was desperate to be; the land of milk and honey, Valhalla, Zion. Call it what you will. But some things have changed. I do wear t-shirts most of the time now. I don't attend morning classes (morning has 'grown up' a little - it now means 0800), and give bad excuses (my faculties of creativity have taken a hit too). Where I would solve Irodov in my free time, I instead visit youtube and facebook,twitter,buzz and what not & wallow in dc++. Academics? Yeah, right. 6 courses on average, one night-out per quiz and end-sem, so that comes to less than 3 weeks of actual work during a semester. What about the remaining 9 weeks? Well, its party time – sporting activities,movies,fart not to forget LAN gaming – to be honest, I hardly feel that I study engineering.

Now for some reason that really struck me. I suddenly realized that I have no
dream; I was struggling to find one, but just couldn't. It had started out well, with an initial flourish in the first semester, accompanied by high enthusiasm and motivation levels. But soon, the transformation occurred. Where once, I would not miss a single day of coaching, I found myself sucked into the paradise of the 'grand slam'. Till 2008, I was crystal clear on what I wanted and it was just one thing – getting into IIT. Now, I am totally clueless. Quizzes come and go with the mandatory night-outs being put;
The same one night stand which made me topper in C slot quiz made me a cupper in G slot.I wasn't elated in c slot class neither was I depressed in g slot. I have become that emotionless person in the movie 'equilibrium', just because I give a damn about grades? Assignments are copied without remorse and guilt and with a ruthlessness that would make an army general proud - often I don't even know what question I am answering; lab sessions are hated as they eat up the entire afternoon.

Life in insti is not about getting S grade in all courses.It is a process of self discovery, where you realize what you like the best and are good at, and then go out and achieve it in life. It's more about that passion for something(which can be  engineering)that I think one should have – somewhere, I know that I have lost 'that' passion. I remember feeling thrilled whenever I solved a tough problem from Irodov or kleppner those days and when I used to read feynman lectures for entertainment, but that is a feeling that I haven't experienced in a long time. I think today, I am happier when my hostel wins schroeter, than when I finish a tough assignment problem, and am delighted that I have so much of 'hostel spirit'. Questions keep propping up in mind – is this a natural transformation in prioritizing that is an inevitability, or is this a mindset problem that needs to be addressed?


Now that I am in my sixth semester, I am keeping a count of the number of times I have been asked this question"what do you want to do in life? or simply put -what next?" I just don't know. Are you the one who feels guilty when prof.venkatratnam laments about the current attitude of the IITian's or when you see an inspirational video on facebook. Either You should bother or shouldn't. But If you are bothered for that moment and not after, You need some reality check. Remorse is one of those feelings you would want to avoid, otherwise you might end up as christian Bale in the machinist.

 And to the question that many ask- Have you done injustice to an unfortunate kid out there who didn't make it to IIT, but who loves fluid dynamics and would have made a great mechanical engineer?  Maybe this is how it should be. Life is quite a struggle, and I deserve every bit of what I have earned thus far. If someone lost out, it's his fault and bad luck. I don't need to feel sorry for the thousands who didn't struggle as hard as I did to get here. It's my business to make the best of this situation, no matter where that may take me. I don't see this issue being resolved in the near future, but as it so often manages to do, life goes on, just the way it is...

P.S: Few ideas are borrowed from an article I read somewhere.
       And do visit when u think the world sucks :P