Some Original Thinking

While speaking of my transition from a junior college student to a senior college student, one thing that I’m currently undergoing is the competitive examinations. And let me tell you that they’re ample and annoying.

Well, in my case they are ample because I’m giving a lot of exams. From Engineering to Arts, the only exam I’ve not given is CPT for the CA entrance and the IIT-JEE. But I’ve covered pretty much everything else.

One thing I have realized in giving these exams is that they truly cannot gauge one’s aptitude for a subject. I saw this picture on Facebook in which a man sitting at a desk proclaimed to a zoo of animals, “To decide which the best animal is, we have arranged for a simple task as the examination – all of you must scale the tree behind me.” The comedy of the cartoon was in the fact that there were elephants and rhinos in the crowd of animals.

What defines an aptitude gauge for a student seeking admission? Is it just the Board and competitive exam marks? Or must the government see beyond those answer sheets and take a look at a student’s personality, his intelligence?

A relative in my family was talking about her neighbour. “Brilliant guy. He topped the CAT entrance and knew every concept in Business Administration. But he scored 56% in his 12^th Boards and failed his university exams. They chucked him out of the college without another word.”

Have grades overridden intelligence? Have textbooks replaced intellect? More importantly, do we even need intellect these days? It just takes a little bit of hard work, a little bit of luck, an attitude to accept rules without a thought and lots of money to get us admitted to tuition classes that can teach us everything we need to know about tackling entrance scenarios from an entrance exam to a personal interview. However, it takes less intelligence and more rote learning. It is often not a representation of what our point of views may be; it is a representation of what our point of views are meant to be.

I do not oppose people conforming to thinking within the box and not wondering beyond what we aren’t supposed to know, even if, for the sake of maintaining the rules and regulations of the organization we’re affiliated to avoid anarchy and annihilation of hierarchy. But does that mean squashing our one true gift given by God – freedom of thought? What difference is between man and other animals, apart from a conscience and an ability to think? I’m not trying to encourage stupid daydreaming or hatching plots to cause disruption on any scale. I’m simply telling people to achieve their life’s goals by doing some thinking on their own.

There was a time when people studied at night after working during the day. They had no help to get them through. But these days, with the opening of a plethora of tuition classes for every subject imaginable, the procedure of getting into the industry has been made an industry. And the universal, or rather, sole method of getting around in this industry is money. Apparently, the colour green doesn’t just allow cars to proceed; it also clears the way for you in a traffic jam of people.

Today as I sit in meditation of the exams I have recently given, a small fact makes me proud – that I studied for these exams on my own. How I have fared is something I don’t know as of now, but at least, the results are consequence of my hard work and not the spending of big bucks that are proof of my parents’ hard work.

Remembering the Past Image

Around twenty years ago, the West was *the* place to be. Everybody loved following western culture. Everybody loved adding the unfamiliar western twang and slang to whatever they spoke. And most importantly, everybody loved being remembered as a “Westernized” person.

The culture of my country, India, is perhaps one of the oldest known in the history. The amount of scriptures, prayers, gods, languages, dialects, traditions and beliefs that India has can’t be matched by any other country.

And for a lot of time, we wholly took pride in our culture, until the advent of Westernization. And since then, our people have begun to abandon our cultures to adopt the westernized ways of living. Joint families were replaced by nuclear families. The respect of elders has slowly started decreasing. People have become shallow and have started caring too much about their social image and status.

And this is where we went wrong. The West never taught us all this! Sure, these things more frequently do happen there, but we conveniently ignored the efforts the Westerners take to keep their families together, the amount of time they spend with each other, how they follow their cultures such as Thanksgiving dinners and celebrating their festivals with gusto. We never picked up their love for sports or their sportsmanship and their drive to be a prospering country in every field possible.

The ironic thing is that the West is curious to learn about Indian cultures and traditions. People travel thousands of miles to come to India and be amazed and refreshed by the meditative, enigmatic atmosphere that is found in every city of India. The foreigners know more about our culture more than we know it ourselves!

Why have we given up on our culture? Is it because a sarod is not as funky as an electrical guitar? Is it because most Bollywood films are Hollywood copies and hence, we see everybody as a wannabe? Or is it simply because it is easier for us to act like we’re cool and amazing than to follow the rules of living a good life?

I’m not saying that the changes have been entirely bad. A lot has changed in this country for which we must thank the foreigners because, without these changes, we wouldn’t have been able to cope with the New World. But I think while we’re busy adopting an awesome way to live life, we must pay attention to not leave behind our intuition, our cultures, our rich heritage and most importantly, we must remember a past image of our true selves. Because only when we know where we come from, do we know where we can go.

The Green Light on Corruption

One of the major topics in the country up for discussion is the plight of corruption. Starting with the Anna Hazare campaign to the millions who collaborated and supported him in the movement, the count of the people who want to put an end to the unwanted plague is on the rise. Everybody wants to live in a country where you don’t have to pay ten different people ten different times to get government work done. Everybody is sick of politicians scamming and stealing from every single budget that is financed to an operation.

But is the government only to blame? Or are we too?

Only today, while commuting by rickshaw, I was gazing out and happened to see a peculiar incident (actually, it is a very common incident but I’ll tell you why it’s peculiar later). A traffic policeman was standing at a car’s door, arguing with the driver. The next second, the policeman calms down. The second after that, he nonchalantly looks away while slipping his hand inside the window and the driver slipped him money.

Like I said, it’s a common incident. But, it’s peculiar because I’d seen this same guy (the driver) propagating the Anna Hazare campaign at the railway station a few months ago.

Is corruption bad only when it’s done by the government? Is the common man supposed to be exempted from punishment if he does the same thing? Sure, the driver probably wanted to save his time, but does that mean he’s allowed to not abide the laws?

What about donations in college seats? Sure, the college is out to make money and they are at fault, but they’re not the only ones! It’s we who encourage them to continue taking donations! It is we who give the green light on the flow of greens!

I touched on this issue because I think my generation is at the point where we can decide whether or not to follow the bad examples set by the previous generations and try to make this world better. So, sometimes we’ll end up paying hefty fines. But at least, we own up to our mistakes. Sometimes, we may not get what we want. But that’ll only happen because there’s something else waiting for us that is better for us. And most importantly, we’ll be people with clean consciences and strong wills, which is something that money will never be able to buy. And the things that money can never buy are the things truly worth having.

Finding Oneself

I love watching TV shows. From Chuck to Criminal Minds, from Seinfeld to How I Met You Mother or from Touch to Grey’s Anatomy, I watch everything. Without watching Coupling and The Wonder Years, I never switch off the TV.

It’s fun to see the awkward situations people get themselves into in sitcoms. It is interesting to see unusual cases being solved in those crime shows. And thriller shows just make everyday boring life slightly appealing.

But do these shows really entertain us? Or do they make us realize everything that we can’t do in our normal lives and help us live our dreams through them? Is watching these shows making us miss out on the special moments we could have experienced in our lives?

I recently got my TV connection. Before that, the last time I had watched programs on my own TV was almost four years ago. Yes, I didn’t have a TV connection for almost four years. My dad had had it disconnected so that I could study with one less distraction.

Of course I hated him for doing that. I mean, it’s a supply of entertainment, a source of time-pass, a means to do mindless activity after hours of mumbo-jumbo studying. All my friends would discuss the latest episode of Castle, while I didn’t know what the heck they were talking about (no, I didn’t watch it online because I couldn’t – I had a connection that had a speed of 112.5 KBPS).

I used to play the piano in class four, but I got bored of it by class five so I discontinued playing. But during these years of no TV, I played the piano to relax. I also started reading books, too. And, most importantly, I learnt to play the guitar on my own (I hate taking music lessons. It doesn’t make sense to go to learn music twice a week – you don’t learn anything worthwhile in an hour packed away among heaps of others in the class).

Today, when I have college admission interviews, I feel like I have more to present to the Board than what I would have if I watched TV all those years. Those four years made me discover so much about me that I feel more confident as a person and when I talk to people, I think I make a good speaker. In fact, if I wouldn’t have had all that time, I wouldn’t have gotten interested in writing either!

These days, I watch TV because only creativity inspires creativity. It freshens me up and changes my mood from the study (read: war) zone it is in to the person who composes music and loves writing. I’m not saying that my dad was right in disconnecting the TV because there surely are more ways to discover the real person that we are. But, I think I don’t have any regrets or anger because I’m happy to have found myself.

Identity Issues?

Earlier this evening, I saw a guy with brightly-coloured streaked hair walk by my dad and me in the mall. As in India, streaked hair is still an uncommon sight, it caught our attention.

“Look at his hair,” my dad said. “What need is there to colour one’s hair? It’s understandable if you colour it when you grow old – although, I still haven’t done it because for me, looks don’t matter. One should age gracefully.” I nodded along to show that I was paying attention to what he was saying.

“But these young people,” he started off in his previous (and most favourite) vein. “Everybody wants to look cool, everybody wants to look different. Why these people have so much identity crisis, I don’t understand.”

I immediately rooted for the poor teenager who’d walked past us not five minutes ago and didn’t even know that somebody was ill-talking about his choice of hair colour. “These days, people are very artistic and they take a stand for things. They denote their difference in opinions—”

“Being artistic is fine. But attracting unnecessary attention is not. If you do good work, people are going to recognize you. You don’t need to look like a parrot or walk in slim-fitting clothes. You…”

I tuned out of the conversation since I knew how it would go on. Instead, I began to wonder. Is today’s generation really just a show-off? Do we really care so much about shallow things like our looks and the number of relationships we have?

Being a musician myself, I sometimes wish to colour my hair, because I think it goes with the image of the band and all that. But is that the real reason behind my wanting to colour my hair or not? I mean, am I subconsciously looking for ways to attract attention to myself? Despite of how I think I’m so mature, am I, in fact, a very shallow person?

I don’t have any answers.