Captain Hook goes fishing

This one is solely for you, Sharan.


Ten Things You Wish You Could Say To People Right Now:
(you can withhold names if you want)

1. I wish I was there.
2. Patel Uncle, Vimal's - You have the brightest smile I've seen among shopkeepers. And your prices are the best. Thanks for keeping inkpens alive.
3. The five teachers in my life, of my life - I remain forever indebted for a million reasons.
4. Paridhi - don't listen to one word about 'not talking to strangers.' Those supposed adults are just plain chickens, and you're missing out on Cosmic Brilliance.
5. Arjun Singh and the Chinese Government - Fuck off.
6. Meryl Streep - you're a great actor. I'd like to meet you someday.
7. Roald Dahl, Alan Fletcher, Edward Lear, Robert Frost and Sylvia Plath - thank-you. So much.
8. Pearl Jam, U2, Michael Buble, Mohd. Rafi, S.D Burman, A.R. Rahman and all the bands and singers which have made the music I love and revere -
It's the terrible beauty in terrible pain
Like the smile of happiness you can't restrain
Stop me in the middle of an agony
And make me feel with bravery
9. Nani - Please don't worry about me. And please - don't ever leave me.
10. Kavita K. - You were a wonderful person. Thank-you for not forgetting me that evening.

Nine Things About Yourself:
1. I used to bite my nails.
2. I'd like to die free-falling.
3. I don't drink tea, but I can make it really well.
4. I hate it when people say 'k' while chatting.
5. I can't walk too long with my bag slung on my left side.
6. I like stroking barks of trees while walking.
7. I love dots, the sound of crunching gravel and dahi-alu-poori.
8. I don't think I can ever learn how to play basket ball.
9. I'm terrified of dying in the middle of a sentence.

Eight Ways To Win Your Heart:
1. Love life. It's incredibly attractive.
2. Smile.
3. Smell nice.
4. Write letters to me.
5. Make something for me. It could be a sock puppet or a song, it doesn't matter.
6. Enjoy silence.
7. Refrain from platitudes. Instead, show just the right amount of chivalry.
8. Be original.

Seven Things That Cross Your Mind A Lot:
1. You don't remember, do you?
2. Why?
3. Smile. Smile! It was funny!
4. Nice.
5. Just do it - it's simpler than arguing.
6. Bloody hell, that was scary.
7. You still don't remember, do you?

Six Things You Wish You Never Did:
1. Try embroidering a lion. I could never complete it.
2. Get up late on Holi ten years ago. I was in Lucknow, where the worst holis are played. Was woken up by being sprayed with water and sticky colours. Disgusting.
3. Underestimate my father.
4. Cheat in my class 11 Physics Final Exam.
5. Let my mother give away my purply-green pyjamas.
6. Take my music player to Thane. My sister lost it, and I've missed it deeply ever since.


Five Turn-Offs:
1. Negativity
2. Yellow trousers
3. Dirty nails
4. Smoking, drinking
5. Justifications


Four turn-ons:
1. Deep, earthy colours
2. Rain
3. Wrists
4. Twilight


Three Things You Want To Do Before You Die:
1. I'm not saying the first one here.
2. Learn tap-dancing and Urdu.
3. Make a movie for the hearing impaired and work in a circus.


Two Smileys That Describe You:
:Q
:!@#$%

One Confession:
Really now.
Anyway, just to humour you, I'm awful with sarcasm. I usually kill and stuff the corpse by taking it literally.

I Tag:
Shreyas
Jaya
Rohan
PS: Don't take the smileys seriously.

"Them Academic Suckers"

Them Academic Suckers. I never really liked them in the first place. For me, school was a place I ran away to from home everyday for a blissful six hours of pure fun and expression. Not that that was the original purpose of school. Duh, yeah.

And then those ASs. They'd always be wanting to get the highest marks in all the exams, assignments, even those goddamned class-tests... everything requiring pedagogic evaluation. At least two months before these exams were to take place, they'd be all over the place, creeping up to the teachers with their innocuous little doubts . It was all BS anyway, the rest of us knew perfectly well they knew everything and would go around asking only to impress the teachers. Teachers do get impressed if you ask them specific doubts. It means that you've read through the text thoroughly. Sheesh, I have to admit, they were smart on this one.

They would look down on the rest of us from the rims of their glasses, as if we were lesser mortals, born to shrivel up like plastic wrappers when near fire. Just before the exams, when the rest of us would be busy cramming and splitting our hair on those complicated diagrams, which used to look like the London Underground map and reassuring ourselves and others that it's just another test, we'll do it like we've done all the others, I used to see them flitting from one AS to the other, asking each other in hushed whispers. Once I actually eavesdropped on them, and I regretted doing it sorely. They were discussing something which was 178 pages after the last chapter specified. I was sorely tempted to scream, "Okay!! So you're smart. Can't you talk like normal human beings for sometime? Have the Martians got to us already??"

Once I was graciously invited to these post-examination discussions by a friend who was an AS himself, but not so severely so. I went along for the experience. Usually I would be found in the school-grounds experimenting with methods to dispose off chewed gum, or singing at the top of my voice "Born freeee...as freee as the wind blows...as freeee as the grass grows..." but that day I thought hell, let's see what exactly it is that goes on here. I was in for the most nerve-bending boring times I have ever been subjected to. The ASs had occupied a deserted classroom (and here I was thinking that deserted classrooms were meant for first kisses) and were sitting with the question papers sprawled out in front of their benches. They were all locked in a battle of who could shriek the loudest, and who could bonk the other with those irritating test-questions I had already blissfully forgotten, the hardest. There were some superior ASs who answered the last, and their answers would be the most complicated and long, and would invariably include everything the other ASs had written, and more.

A typical discussion went like this.

AS 1: "So what did you write for the sixth part of the twenty-second question?"

AS 2: "Well, I'm not sure I exactly remember.."

AS 1: "No no, come on, I too am not sure....I just want to confirm..."

AS 2: "Oh well, I wrote that a particle moving along one dimension, like the particle between two walls, is described by a wave function that depends on one spatial coordinate. A particle moving in three dimensions, like a single electron moving around a nucleus, is described by a wave function that depends on three spatial coordinates, x, y and z. It's for three marks, and I think she'll cut one mark because I didn't mention that the wave function gives the probability amplitude for finding the electron at the coordinates (x,y,z), and the square of the wave function gives the probability. What did you write?"

AS 1: "Something similar, only I also included an example that Helium has two electrons, so the stationary states of the electrons...."

For obvious reasons, I cannot for the life of me continue to enlighten you about this extremely engaging discussion on the answer to the sixth part of the twenty-second question.

When a week or two would pass by since the exams had finished, the rest of us would be evidently uneasy. This week would be the week when our papers would come after correction. Which meant either toppling off the cliff, or just hanging by the thread. The rest of us would be happy just to scramble over the cliff and be off. Our ASs, however, would be satisfied with nothing else less than scaling the cliff, standing tall and proud, and gleefully watching others scream and submit to painful gravity. Ouch. I know.

My friend and I would be standing near the classroom door, watching out with hawk-eyed precision for any suspicious-looking packages or papers our teachers would be carrying in their arms. As soon as we'd spot something dreadfully familiar, we'd announce it to our class. This announcement would evoke three kinds of responses. One kind would be a collective sigh. This would be from the people who were expecting to just make it. The other would be a deep-throated groan, accompanied with loud forehead slaps from those who knew they were not going to make it. And then, there would be wide "Look at my pearlies, will ya!" grins and ecstatic rubbing of hands from our ASs.

Finally the teacher would enter the class. The tension inside the four walls would be enough to crack open anyone's skull. Paper-distribution would be done according to roll-call. The teacher would call out the roll numbers, and the respective students would go up and take the answer-papers. The walk from the bench to that table would be the longest for us, and the shortest for them. It's another thing that we would always be sitting on the last benches, but it was still one hell of a walk anyway. The teacher would either give a smart nod, if it were an AS, or a drooling, evil smile were it one of us. And then, horror of horrors, the teacher would ANNOUNCE the marks. In. Front. Of. The. Entire. Class. I still don't understand what kind of twisted sadistic pleasure they would get out of this whole calling-out-the-marks ritual. There would be whimpers of protests, cruelly pillowed by the teacher's ominous voice.

After this, we would open our fates and read the red-inked reckoning, still glistening on our papers. But usually this would not last too long. At least it was behind us. Now the ASs would be in their form. There would be some sitting in a corner, with a oh-what-a-good-boy-am-I kind of grins, and we would immediately realize these were the ASs who'd got full marks. The ASs who didn't, however, would be in a frenzy indescribable. They'd crowd up in the space available between the teacher's desk and the first bench, their arms flailing around with their papers, fighting for....oh no, not their torn or lost map-sheet, but half a mark. Or even more catastrophic, one mark. "If she got it on that question, how come I didn't get it too?". I would almost shout, "coz they did it by the inky-pinky-ponky, and you got left out, dunkhead!!" I mean, honestly. They'd fight like the way kindergarten kids fight over whose glass is filled with more orange juice.

I used to look at these people, eyeing them from a mental distance, thinking, damn, why? Why the whole charade? It was bigtime basic knowledge that they were cosmically shining bright material. Then why the fretting over who wrote what, who wrote more, who drew more, who made what?

Another thing I couldn't digest about ASs was the whole thing about not showing off. If I'd ask them something as simple as, "So how many lessons are coming this time?" they'd never have a clear answer. And if I'd ask them something simpler like, "So have you done this chapter?" the answer would be "Oh no..I've not even reached there!". Yeah, I'm going to believe that. The OTT modesty show was something that really put me off.

AS 1: "You're MUCH better than me, look at how much you got on that one."

AS 2: "Oh no, just a fluke answer, man."

Cut the ribbon, and get done with it.

I think I'm done talking about them now. It's time for the others. It's time for the rest of us to come out from our closets. So maybe we won't make it to the top Universities or Colleges. So maybe we won't get the pat-on-my-head and goofy smiles from the teachers. So maybe we won't have normal parent-teacher "interactions". We have fun. In fact, that's an understatement. We have the time of our lives. We have a life, inside AND outside the school. We probably know the school better than the janitors. We will be remembered by the teachers as students who gave them a laugh, once in a while. And...we have (and are making) some of the craziest, zaniest and most beautiful memories ever worth telling our grandchildren. So there.

(This was a piece I came across in one of my drafts. I'd written this in a fit of righteous indignation while in class 9. The ferocity of the descriptions draws a temperate smile across my face now, but I love the spunk in this girl.)

Forgotten

It's half past seven in the morning, and Wre has to go for a bath. She opens the tap and lets the water rush in. The flow's impatience is duly noted. The water flows like a bunch of thick velvet ribbons, not uniform but leaping here and there, within a vertical essence. "Around twenty-seven days ago, a year came to a close at college," she says. "A year of swinging between the depths of despair, the heights of happiness and everything in between. After the hysterical euphoria associated with finishing the Final Exams, the autumn leaves of after-thought started rustling about in your mind. A year. An entire range of three hundred and sixty-five days. It was as if time had been sitting quietly in a classroom and you had skidded to a stop outside it, exclaiming in shocked silence to yourself, "You're over .. already?!"

She steps outside the steamy warmth of the bathroom and walks around to find her towel and clothes. She checks the store-room for a new bottle of shampoo, and finally steps back in with everything she needs. She hangs her clothes and continues. "Time seems to have played hide-and-seek, showing itself in leisure, seeking action from you when you would wait with impatience for a boring teacher's lectures to finish. Hiding itself with quietude when you would sit with a friend in contented silence, after a thought-provoking conversation. Time is a slippery reality. The present seems like moving in a cloud, the past is like footsteps you can't get back and the future like walking with an umbrella open in front of your face - you can see only so much far ahead."

She wants to keep talking, and the familiarity of warm water helps her. "An elastic concept of time seems biologically irrational," she says. "What it would be like for people with Alzheimer's or Parkinson's? How would it feel to be trapped in - "

The telephone rings. Wre hangs her head and sighs. Putting a little foam on the tap's top like a conversational bookmark, she wraps herself in premature dryness and goes to pick it up. She's tired of communication and doesn't want to make conversation right now. Her shoulders sag a little more when she sees the number. There are a number of social repercussions if she doesn't pick up this call. On the other line is Opa, a self-imposed friend. Suddenly, Wre gets a bright idea. She picks the phone slowly and hearing a high-pitched "Hello??" from the receiver's head, breathes slowly into the receiver's mouth. The indignant hello is shocked into silence and curiosity takes over her friend, enough to shut her up. Wre breathes again, this time making it sound sinister by flicking her tongue against her upper teeth. Opa promptly disconnects the call. Wre breathes - to herself. She goes back into the bathroom, stares hard at the foam on the top and successfully picks up from where she'd left.


" - your memories? If being walled in between your memories is terrifying, imagine what it would be like to consciously lose them. You remember the opening scenes of the movie, The Pianist, where a Jewish family in Warsaw is preparing to flee the city during the Nazi invasion on Poland? The family members are packing frantically and in pathetic absence of mind, the old husband asks his wife, "Do you think I should take this picture along? I bought it a long time ago, do you think I should pack it? Do you think I should take it?" His wife, interrupted in her nervous urgency tells him to do whatever he wants. This was one of the many scenes in this terrifying movie which hit you and got stuck in your head, disturbing you like an ant crawling across your scalp. What would you do if you had to pack all your things and just - leave? A critical element in dementia is ignorance - you just don't know. But what if you knew what you were leaving behind forever?"


Wre shuddered. The shampoo was supposed to comfort her with its lathering softness but the comfort was too dermal to reach her. She took a breath and went on.

"Something equally disturbing is short-term memory loss. Forgetting a past which consisted of recent seconds is like invisible sand slipping through your fingers. You know something has gone by, but your mind is like vacuum - the emptiness is too solid. There is nothing which reminds you of anything, not even a wisp of a recollection. It's like an absolute whiteness."

Wre stops. She finally realises she can't escape anymore. She hates the word 'maybe' and wants to try actually talking and remembering at the same time. Some conversations, like the ones she has with Opa make her drag her full-stops all the way to the end of her sentences, because Opa doesn't have a conversation, she just talks and expects a response. She doesn't understand reluctance. So you have to keep ploughing on with your sentence till you reach the end of Opa's patience.

Wre had tried talking to another girl at her college, but she realised it exposed the freckles on her memory retention abilities too barely. In school, she had heard her Biology teacher tell her class the story of two goldfishes in a bowl. They would introduce themselves every time they swam around the bowl and met each other, because goldfishes have three-second memories. She was the only one in her class who had not laughed. When she was twenty-one years old her parents decided to send her to a mental institution, because Wre was incapable of having a proper conversation with anyone, let alone live her life. Give her three minutes, and she would forget what and where she'd started, whatever she'd started. Her only friend, Opa, stuck with her because nobody had Wre's endurance abilities, and nobody else would talk with Wre so consistently, despite her mind mumbling off into the land of no recall more often than not.

She gets up, dries herself and continues. "I hope the medication helps you. As far as I remember, I think you're beginning to get better. You remembered the supervisor's name and reached ninety-seven in counting class. It'll be fine, you just need to give yourself some time."

Feeling sunnier, she puts her clothes on and dries her towel outside. The nurse announces that it is lunch-time, and Wre walks towards the Main Hall, singing a self-composed song to herself,

"An itch in an unreachable patch
Of my head, in my head .. "

In verted commas

"Love is sweet misery." - Cryin', by Aerosmith

"Reality - a pain for those in touch with it." - Unknown; seen at a raddi-wallah's shop.

"Choose ur own mate in life
Dn't depnd on ur mothr.
She wil bring u sum1
Who secrtly luvs anuthr." - Unknown; next to the window of an Ambernath 4:46 pm slow from VT.

"Deep rich chocolate mousse. So sinful, even your mother will warn you away from it." - Cafe Coffee Day's menu description for one of their chocolate mousses.

"I tried. I tried my best. But best is best only to me, not to them." - Molu in his sleep, a few days before his first Board Exam.

"Ethological research suggested that there was a major difference between the aggression patterns of the mammalian species and man - namely, that animals had evolved mechanisms to control their aggressive instincts, but humans had not." - Atkinson and Hilgard's Introduction to Psychology. (14th Edition)

On a lighter note,

"Freud isn't exactly obsolete. Psycho-analytic images still appear in animated films, with one of the more recent examples in 'The Emperor's New Groove', when a character argues with his angel and devil over disposing the emperor. The devil is the id, the angel is the superego and the poor critter in the middle is the ego." - An Introduction to Psychology by Cicarelli, Meyer, et.al. Probably the coolest Psychology textbook ever written.

"When we speak of setting difficult goals, we do not mean that we should 'aim at the stars.' In fact, a person who aims at reaching the stars may not even reach the rooftop." - Foundation Course - I, by Mr. K.T Basantani. A textbook which is a generic insult to intelligence.

"Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won the first prize in the lottery of life." - Cecil Rhodes, a British statesman at the height of British Imperialism. At one point of time, this tiny island ruled one-fourth of the world through her colonies.

"Your nearest alternative toilet facility is located on this level towards the spectator's viewing facility." - Sign at a Manchester airport.

"For NASA, space is still a high priority." - Dan Quayle.
"Got a lot of numbers on it. I reckon it's the Budget." - George Bush.

"Eighteen arduous months later, after a long and agonizing process, Rand and I plunge into a love affair - with the knowledge and consent of Frank and Barbara." - Nathaniel Branden, describing his interaction and life with Ayn Rand. Frank and Barbara were the spouses of Rand and Branden respectively.
"It was while making newspaper deliveries, trying to miss the bushes and hit the porches that I first learned about accuracy in journalism." - Charles Osgood, host for CNB Sunday Morning.

"Intelligence has much less practical application than you'd think." - Response given to Dilbert when he asked his senior colleague (who was the President of the local Mensa organisation) on why he worked at their firm if he was so smart.

"The heart has reasons that reason cannot know." - Blaise Pascal.

Loss

(Two friends walk along the Promenade till they reach the tetrapods at the tip of Nariman Point. It's a quiet evening and the sun shines feebly behind them. The salty air is bordered on one side with the wind and on the other side with the sales pitches of the kulfi and peanut sellers, interrupted intermittently by the slow sound of waves lapping up the shore.)
Di: (scrambling on to the nearest pod) This is it, El. Welcome to the edge of our city.

Ello: (sits on the stairs) Seems strange, doesn't it - this sudden territorial finality, like there's nothing I can touch and feel beyond this point.

Di: It is a little surreal, to see the roads come to an end. You think this unsettling feeling has something to do with why people feel seasick?

Ello: I suppose so.. (stretches her arms). I don't know, I'm not very sure. But to stand here and know that you've reached a point in this huge city is almost like standing at the edge of a cliff, and seeing land turn into wind.

Di: The end of land, the end of physical motion. Which is why we find it so odd; to be living in this maniac city and to be coming to a stop.

Ello: Doesn't happen too often, does it?

Di: (scales another tetrapod successfully) Not at all, I think. We're like particles rushing in continuum .. stopping, opposing, resisting doesn't happen. It's a very preoccupied force.

Ello: (breaks into a light smile) Oh yes, Dadar, Kurla and VT are sparkling testimonials to that.

(A little boy in rags walks by, with an ice-lolly in his mouth.)

Di: They say it's all in the mind. I don't entirely agree with that.

Ello: (as if distracted) Hmm.. you don't?

Di: No. I mean, look at us here. Physically speaking there's no further we can go. But mentally, we could cross these seas in a second. And yet we're so stilled. And it's ..
(stares at the horizon, thoughts trailing off with the breeze)

Ello: (after a while) It's like death.

Di: This?

Ello: Isn't it? An apparent end, of sorts. Like these haphazard tetrapods seem to pause my city here, seem to tell me there's no further I can go. But this could also be a beginning. For something to begin, something has to end. Maybe I have to end, before I can become a part of a new beginning.

Di: (Reaches out with her legs on to her third tetrapod) What about memories? What about energy? What about the personal magic somebody has in them, which makes them what they are?

Ello: It's like a waterfall. It's a fluid journey; we flow. Memories, energy, the personal magic you talk about - they all come to an end with you. That's the only way you can begin again. And because we spend so much time and effort creating and constantly taking care of these things, it becomes difficult to draw a line.

Di: (plays with her hair in her fingers) I think realising that you need to let go, realising that you've reached a corner is important, or else you keep searching in a circle.

Ello: This could be true for anything. I think Pygmalion couldn't realise this when he created Galatea, and we don't realise it when we lose someone we're very close to.

Di: Whether it's a physical loss, or the loss of a person in a person, or a loss of ideals.

Ello: (after a while) True.

(The sun has left. The darkness plays with the light being reflected on the ripples, as if tempting it out of the waters. The sounds of cars and bikes take over with vengeance. The peanut seller and the kulfi man have long left. Ello and Di finally get up and leave, breaking out of that inertia which always envelops you when you're sitting next to the sea.)

Home

Sharan, Hen, Ashwin and Mayur.

Thank - you. For opening my eyes.

There are two types of reactions I get when I tell people about my home. Some people nod their heads as if I just said, “Meena Bazaar, Lucknow”. For them, it’s just another address. But for some people it appears as if they heard me saying, “The Vespasian Crater, Neptune”, because their faces become a human phenomenon of surprise and awe. I remain pacific both times, but the latter response always sends a secret flush of pleasure through me :)

My relationship with IIT Bombay has been like the one you have with a sibling - I’ve not always loved it. There have been quite a few times when I’ve felt disconnected from any other place. One disadvantage of living in a campus which is highly self-sufficient is that you never grow beyond it. Sometimes I feel as if I’ve lived in IIT, but missed out on living in Bombay. You don’t need to go to the public libraries downtown, so you never learn how to travel by local train. You don’t need to go beyond a kilometer out from the campus to buy clothes, so you never experience the Great Indian Bargaining Experience at Fashion Street, VT. Or the chaos of Crawford Market. Or the samosa-pavs at Dadar. It’s not a matter of personal effort; if I wanted to, I could go to all these places on my own. It’s also not about the self-sufficiency of resources. It’s about the self-sufficiency of life. IIT is like a compact ecosystem. This is good in some ways, because the students aren’t inconvenienced. But as someone whose life doesn’t revolve around IIT, it’s like being stuck on an island which has everything you need but nothing you’re curious about.

[NB. Valfi – short for Valedictory Function. When a student is about to pass out, it is customary for him to invite his professor i/c and his family to a dinner at his hostel. Things get a bit awkward with the student having to play host not only to the professor but also to his family. Dressed in choking formals which make him look good but feel quite the opposite, he is later taken apart during an extremely ego-bashing ritual called “Profile Padhna” which is a sparkling example of piercing IIT humour (more later). This is the only time that students get to interact with their professor’s families]

Living in IIT also means that for a long time, there’s a gulf between you and the students. The memories I have as a teenager stuck in a hostel during a Valfi are quite a blow to socialisation. You’re always a professor’s daughter first. And that is by no means a harmless preamble to opening a conversation with a student. It’s suicidal. Sometimes they would stick around for the stipulated be-polite-she’s-a-girl time period and then quickly shuffle away. I felt like gently telling them, “It’s my father who bites, not me.” It would become even more uncomfortable if your father and the nice fellow you were talking to were incidentally in the same branch. Worse, if daddy dearest was one of his professors.

Sometimes students are genuinely puzzled because they cannot imagine that their professor can also be somebody’s father. I reckon that’s quite natural, given the enormous cross-over in the roles played. It’s pretty empowering for a teenager telling someone who’s almost a decade her senior about how she wheedled her father (his professor) into buying her an assembled collection of Linkin Park, Nickelback, The White Stripes and Avril Lavigne CDs, including Harry Potter’s second book and a Parker ink-pen, all in one day. For a teenager, that’s parental extortion I would be proud of. Now of course, I laugh myself blue about it, because I know the patient fellow listening to me would already have a pay package of around 20 lakhs a year. But then, that’s a nice IITian for you.

“Nothing is good or bad, it’s just different.” - G.

As I said, the relationship between IIT and me is almost consanguineous. It’s an absolute thrill to have someone you can share or even better, create secrets with. It’s an incredible feeling; having an entire place to yourself you can call home. ‘Home’ is actually an extension of the usual residential concept, spreading over every square inch of IIT’s 550 acres. I feel at home under the dusky light of my table-lamp next to my bed, and I feel at home lying in SAC at night, watching the stars in their twinkling conversation. (To Hen, if you’re reading this :). The crumbling buildings along Main Gate, the swallowing darkness of Panther Road, the eternity stretching out through the Corridor, the abstractness of IDC, the photogenic brilliance of Guesthouse, the silent splendour of Gymkhana, the composure of Powai Lake, even the annoying odour of Three Poles. The familiarity which greets you every time you go anywhere is so invisible you scarcely notice just how comforting it is.

I came here as a potty one month old, mesmerised by the sheer opportunities to explore. Fifteen years later, not much has changed about that feeling except that the exploration has become an implosion of sorts. Time and time again, this place transcends what the world thinks it stands for. I think there is something very brave about having the protean ability to constantly alter, remove, develop, destroy what you were and create something from nothing except spirit. And do they create! Every Mood Indigo, every Techfest, every PAF has been an exuberant expression of the strength of the mind and its triumph.

Thanks to having quite a few friends as IITians this year, the concept of having fun has become multi-dimensional and suddenly more inhabited with colour and originality. Now, it’s not enough going for a walk – we go for a walk in a group and laugh like a bunch of rambunctious apes, just recently freed from civilisation. We sit across the lake and debate fiercely, till a patrol jeep drives over, checks our IDs and sternly tells us to “go back to the hostel like respectable kids”. We sit and sigh at the architectural magnificence of Hostel 12 and 13. We eat fluid-like chocobars at the seedy Staff Canteen. We feel humbled and insignificant while looking at the quiet dignity of the department buildings.

IIT Bombay is a place you should come if you think that magic is either a fictional affair, or just plain scientific trickery. When you see fireworks blazing across a moonlit sky in SAC, when you’re at the Central Library and are sandwiched between towering shelves full of huge books, when you’re at the Arc and you hear your voice being echoed throughout the length of the Corridor, when you’re at the terrace of Hostel 12 and you see the sun playing with pink and orange, when you’re in the Biotech building and you see specimens being kept in nitrogen by people in white suits, when you see monsoon’s first kingfisher outside your window, when you see a wind-tunnel experiment in action, when you stand right in the middle of Convocation Hall’s stage and your eyes close automatically, when you see a group of students animatedly discussing PAF preparations at 3 o’clock in the morning, you know that this place makes you believe.

And that is why this place is, what it is. This place is not great just because it’s the best institute for technology in the world. It’s great because it’s a celebration of the human spirit, and what humans can achieve, if they believe.

Remember, remember, the sixth of December

There have come days in our calendars which make me want to wake up to the rubber-faced caricature of "India Shining" and spit on it with force. And one such day was today.

As a nineteen year old woman, I'm (predictably) fiercely independent, so despite being duly warned by my parents about Dadar being a little more than just anti-human as it usually is today, I brushed their concerns aside. I read about a seventeen year old girl talking to a Hindustan Times journalist about how it was impossible for girls to travel during these two days, with equal dismissal. After all, there could be nothing could be worse than Shiv Sainiks letting loose their deeply secularist whims and fancies, could there?

Apparently, there is something even worse.

Eight o'clock in the morning, and Dadar was fairly as normal as it could get. Then I reached college and forgot everything about how somebody's death anniversary celebrations could possibly affect me adversely. It was 6:30 in the evening when I entered Dadar station and ten minutes later, I was on the bridge. The area around the flight of stairs leading to platform one was like a bee-hive in April - multitudes of people in white, pushing and shoving like the space around them had punching bags and not other people. I took a deep breath and pushed my five feet three inch frame ahead.

If you have ever been in a similar situation, you'll know that a mob is very similar in its mental and physical tendencies. They think alike and also move alike, so there is absolutely no control over something as personal as where you want to go with your own two feet. Climbing down the bridge was therefore nightmarishly difficult, and add to that an invisible number of starved, hungry male hands spreading their way all across your body like Medusa's hair, all wanting a piece. The free-for-all stopped only when I entered the first-class compartment. Which was packed with women and kids, all of whom obviously had valid tickets. I got off at my station thirty minutes later and made my weary way home.

Throughout the journey a million questions banged and bruised my head. Who was Dr. B.R. Ambedkar? Was he the same harmless fellow we studied as kids in Civics, who'd written our Constitution? Who'd vehemently opposed caste-based reservation? Who'd warned us against the very thing he feared would rule Indian Democracy one day - hero-worship - and sadly became a posthumous pawn in the grand scheme of things?

A billboard with his face splashed all over it spawned seven metres of my sky-line home, and I suddenly felt a sporadic moment of intense hatred towards him. You're dead, I thought, so you don't have to see what you left behind. Your legacy is asphyxiating my country. Your words are being twisted so horribly out of context, solely so that they can be capitalised to put blinders on the sensibilities of India's millions. Your good-will, your sacrifices, your keen foresight died a quick death with you 51 years ago.

It's tough to blame accurately when you're boiling inside. It's not and never was Dr. B.R Ambedkar's fault. Maybe his only fault was to try and logically streamline the divisive forces of Indian politics. It is devastating irony that when our politicians play reservation politics, the one man who resolutely opposed the introduction of any kind of quota is their favourite poster-boy. Is this what he strived for so hard his entire life? Is it chilling prolepsis when he talked about caste not dividing labour, but labourers?

My anger energises me with a wild kind of force to do something. Simultaneously, I also feel trapped in my helplessness, when I realise that I am placed very low in the hierarchy of people who can make a significant difference in Indian politics. But there is always a hope, a belief that I can and I will change things. And although everybody reads the newspapers and shrugs their shoulders, I will remember not to forget.