What is Life in an Institution ?

Am I ready to blog about the theme "Life in an Institution?" 

I better be. I have so many posts to write, so much of back log. The last week has been very tough on me, being unwell feeling unhealthy.

I think Life itself is an institution. Like in an institution where you teach different things for different people, life also teaches you different things at different times as you grow.

What is Life in an institution? Growing up in school, college and settling down in life in an institution. I have seen Life in an institution from all perspectives. Maybe the best person to write this post!

In school, I  learnt how to fight with children, take sides in the close circle of friends, study,  rant, play book cricket ( I am not sure whether it is still done), play games at school play ground, fight and stand up for yourself among your senior students.

In college, Bunk classes and make others bunk them too. Watch movies without going to college along with friends (I actually preferred to go alone). More play and less study was the motto. Studying together with a core group of friends. Developing team spirit. Always complaining about the lack of facilities in the institution, be it in the canteen, hostel or …That was my Life in an institution as a student.

As a teacher : Envy the freedom with which a student enjoyed his life. Carefree, Not worry about anything atleast till they came into their third year of Engineering. All play and little study. Talking to parents occasionally about their child’s performance.

As an administrator : This was when I started seeing the true colours of students in an institution. In the hostels, I was appalled with the amount of food which would be wasted by students in their plates. And the answers the students would tell the wardens, Are we not paying the money for the food. Over the years, I have taught them the value of food.

I have seen some indifferent students too. One who told his father that the principal would not allow him to college without a Laptop and made his father, a poor farmer take a loan and buy him a laptop, only to watch movies in the hostel. There was one who had not prepared well for his internal exam and gulped mosquito repellant to avoid writing exam. Another, who brought the fees from his parents and spent it on something else and lost one year because of lack of attendance?

As Institutions grow older and make a mark, so does our life, leaving us to cherish the many memories that Life in an institution offers.

My Role models

Am I ready to blog about the theme for this week (42): "If you woke up one morning as your favourite celebrity/personality/role model, who would it be, and what would you do?

Yes I am, thanks to the holiday that I have got today because of incessant rain.

Actually, it is a tough question. Because I have never ever modeled myself on any one. And I do not adore anybody. I have had celebrity figures as my favourites in tennis, cricket, dance, music etc. But they have never been my role models.

It set me off thinking and I think we try to model ourselves from around the people that we live with. Who are the people who affect me? My uncle, my parents and my wife.

If I got up as my Uncle, I would love to imbibe his work ethic but I would definitely treat my employees better.

If I got up as my father, I would love to guide as many doctoral candidates as he has. On the flip side, unlike him, I would not believe everybody.

If I got up as my wife, I would love to exercise the way she does and not worry as much as she does.

All these people have had varying effects on my life and will continue to do so.

Ahem.

 

Week 33 A short story- Read on

Am I ready to blog about the theme for week 33:  The story starts thus

"It was past ten at night. I had finished clearing up after dinner, and locked up for the night. The rest of the family had turned in for an early night. I was looking forward to a hot shower, and then snuggling under the covers for a quiet read before dropping off to sleep.That's when the peal of the door-bell startled me. Who could it be this late at night?”

Such a horrific thought.

How could this happen to me? Why not?

Too many reasons. I don’t have a hot shower as I drop off to sleep. I don’t read a book before I sleep. So did the door bell startle me? Yes it did.

I started getting worried and was wondering who could be at the door at this hour?

Did something go wrong in the neighbour’s house? Was there any theft in the neighborhood? Did somebody steal my car or did a coconut or a mango fall on my car windshield in the parking lot? Was somebody unwell and had they come to call me since the cell phone signals were not reliable? Did somebody leave the gas stove on and was the building engulfed in smoke and somebody was trying to wake me up? Or was it a bold thief who was trying to ring the bell and standing with a knife at the door? Was it someone I had antagonized and was there for revenge?

I was startled by all these thoughts and woke up sweating profusely to realize it was only a dream. I have been startled by dreams so many times and it is always nice to get up in the middle of the night and realize it was only a dream.

What a huge relief!

Here is what I would like to change about myself

Am I ready to blog about the theme for week 40?  

I better be. I am a week late. 

What is the theme? If there was one thing I would like to change about myself, what would that be?

What a question to answer? Every one of us would like to think that we are always right and on the right track.

If this question is posed to my wife about me, the answer that I would imagine that she would give is, “There may be only one thing that I should not change and every thing else should change”. Well I guess, that is what spouses are meant for!

Facts (jokes) apart, What would my answer be to this question? It should border between procrastination and my job.  Procrastination may gain precedence. Given a chance I would like to do everything tomorrow. That is why I am writing this post a week later. There is absolutely nothing, including eating that I would like to do immediately, maybe except sleeping. Well, most of the time I do things only if there is a deadline. Otherwise, I will not complete any project. How I wish that I change myself.

Easier said than done!  And I will go back to procrastinating about the wish to change myself.

Back on Track, Hopefully

Am I ready to blog about the theme for Week 35, “If I could do something other than what I do now, what would I do?”  Yes, albeit a few weeks late!

What am I doing now is something I keep wondering a lot of times? Such thoughts were probably one of the reasons that I gave up my job as Principal of an Engineering college. I thought I was doing nothing constructive except spoiling my health and doing mundane things like worrying about water in the college, current in the hostel, stupid fights between students over IPL matches where none of the teams have players of that state playing and parochial feelings running high among the students. I thought I would be better off not doing administrative things and it would give me a lot of time to do things I would love to. Those days, blogging was definitely one thing which I would have liked to have been involved with. And thanks to this project, that did become a reality.

What are the other things that I would have loved to do which I am not doing now?

When I was just completing college, I used to teach dance and had about 10 students with me. And then, I started working as a lecturer in a Polytechnic college. There were a few polytechnic students for whom I would take tuition classes in the evening. And slowly my dance teaching faded away and dancing took a back seat as engineering college lecturing took the front seat.

I would love to go back to dancing.

I loved watching dance. Photography has been close to my heart and I would have loved to become a good dance photographer. I miss not becoming one though. I love listening to devotional songs and these days, I feel I should spend more time, understanding the meanings of those songs. I would love to supervise and guide at least one PhD student to complete his degree and I would love to get at least one project sanctioned in the field of Mechanical Engineering. I am planning to start an international journal of engineering sciences and industrial applications.  My list of what I would like to do is never ending. But at least this post gives me an idea what I should be doing for the next few years or so!   

An instance when my presence of mind did not desert me!

Am I ready to blog about this week’s theme, ‘An instance when my presence of mind did not desert me’

I have been thinking about it for the past one week since the theme was announced. I remembered a few incidents which made me feel happy. Happy, because mostly my presence of mind has not deserted me. I instantly thought how it would have been, if the theme was about how my presence of mind had deserted me.

The incident that I am narrating here is one which I will never forget. The presence of mind that I had exhibited that day is not something that I get to do every day.

I was then working as the Principal of an engineering college. I think that it was the first graduation day and college day that I was conducting as the principal of that institution. As a part of the celebrations, since our new library block was coming up, it was decided to have the inauguration of the library building along with the graduation day.

Like in all cases, the building was handed over to us only a day before the inauguration and somebody suggested that it would be nice if we could shift all the books from the existing library to the new block.  There were more than 10,000 books and it would have needed me hours of hard work and labour to shift even one-third of them.

I had the librarian and a few faculty members shift the books from the morning itself. By lunch, we must have shifted about 1,500 books. It was after lunch that I had this idea. I called a few Heads of Departments and some faculty members and told them my plan. It was to cancel the classes that afternoon.

I decided to form a human chain from the existing library to the new library block, right up to the book racks, consisting of about 150 to 200 students. I asked the students to pass the books by hand. I had about 10 faculty members to ensure that there was no pilferage of books.

When I found that this idea was successful, I immediately asked other classes to be cancelled and in about three to four hours, I was able to transfer all the 10,000 books to the new library.

There was some resentment among the students thinking that I was trying to save the money. But when I went to the class after the celebrations thanking each and every student for making the inauguration a success with their help, there was genuine happiness in their faces.  They knew that they had helped in accomplishing such a mammoth task.

I think this is one incident which each of the student present that day will never forget in their life and neither will I.

How Internet changed my world

 Am I ready to blog about “How internet changed my world?” I would not have even thought of this blog name if it was not for the internet. 

When was I attracted to the internet? Not in the early days though. 

I started off with a Hotmail account maybe in the early years of the internet. I remember my uncle buying a book about Internet and its use for me for 100 rupees in 1998.Not that I read much. It was around the same time my father in law gave me a laptop to use. I don’t think we got an internet at home till around 2001.

I was very slow to make use of internet. I must have been having a hotmail account, which was created by my wife, for more than 10 years. I have mail written by my wife when she visited the US in 2003 and a record of her stay for more than 2-3 months and I keep refreshing my memories reading them.

Hotmail account was followed by a yahoo mail account created by a PhD scholar for me, because it was considered to be good and fast to store lot of literature review material collected from the net.

When I was doing my PhD, internet was an important tool. It was easy to search for papers. My guide always used to tell me how difficult it was to collect research articles when he was doing PhD. Those days in the absence of computers, writing everything on paper was so difficult. When I wrote my thesis, I realised how much easier my life was because of computers and internet. I could write what ever came to my mind just the way I do today and edit by cutting, copying and pasting. Imagine doing all this on white paper.

I always tell my students that all that they have to do is google and you will have the answer immediately. A luxury which we never had as students. Such beautiful power point presentations, animations.....

I have become so addicted to the computer or a laptop for the past 15 years that I have forgotten how to write. I find it extremely difficult to write and an irony it is, that I have so many pens.

When did I get into facebook? I don’t remember but the credit must go to the spouse for getting me a facebook account I guess. It is a wonderful tool to connect with friends. I did find my college mates through this. What more do I need? The spouse ensured that I had a blog and along with that, a g-mail account and a chance to rediscover my capabilities in writing.

And finally, all of you who read this blog? You would never have come into my life, if not for the internet. Makes me think of the song Dorakunna ituvanti seva?

What about all the banking services, e-ticketing services and other features that internet offers us? Is there an ending to how Internet changed my world ?

Thanks Internet for making our lives so easy, interesting and communicative.