The article which saw me through(II)

Ints, floats and the rare googly……

Seated deep within the awry labyrinths of the ‘wise and the intellectual’ here at IIT Kharagpur is an oasis of virtual rest and relaxation ,a domain of peace and tranquility, a bit secluded and segregated from the delusion that has falsely established itself as the epicentre of ‘knowledge’.

It is supposed to be regular and so inevitably ‘dreaded’ practical laboratory sessions going on inside PC-lab 2 of the Taksashila complex, but a closer look reveals otherwise. The magnanimity and the aura of the person at the centre of it all, that individual and his ‘karma’ so loving and endearing to students(a pun might be hid somewhere here)-yes readers, you must have guessed it by now-we are intent on throwing some light upon no less a person than the Professor, his very essence juxtaposing against the more naturally emerging vibes in his proximity.

Never-the-less, and despite the overwhelming presence of the ‘Teaching Assistants’ around, the students manage to ‘orkut’ their way through the whims and fancies of the prevailing tyranny and basically in the process upgrading their general acquaintance with the world of sports,entertainment and the like….

With almost everyone, except the Professor adhering to the nationally accepted Indian Standard Time norms, the class reaches the peak of its attendance nearly half an hour after the scheduled commencement. The centres of attraction, the ‘cynosure of the party’ as some may prefer to term it, remain the TA’s. Diverting their attention though, from the vicinity of the lone female figure in the classroom and re-channelising it towards the general upliftment of the masses remains a herculean task, egaliterianism being a dead concept in our era anyhow….

The canteen in the proximity of the building appears to be a far more lucrative option to many after a couple of hours of rigorous warfare against the towering odds set free by the Professor, as the centrifugal forces of attraction drive the general public one-by-one towards the exit gate for a snack or a coffee.

As the lab session draws to a close, the students learn much about the harsh realities of life, its sophistications and eventually how to trace out a balance path between the so many options available to them, especially at the mere click of the mouse. Yes, lab sessions play a pivotal role in the enhancement of the managerial skills one gets to see in IIT graduates because in no other dimension of their so-called academically centred life is multitasking taken to such gigantic heights as when they sit in front of their monitors in some not-so-dreaded corner of Takshila…….

 

The article which saw me through(I)

 

The silence of the lambs…

The curtains fell on what was pre-dramatised as the supposedly play of the ‘year’,but the marginalization of the precious ‘y’ in that word led to the play of the ‘ear’, here today at the Kalidasa auditorium where the annual production of the ‘English technological dramatics society’ referred to as ETDS in most circles, shot off.

Apart from the overwhelming fact that they never got a real taste of the oratory prowess of the supposed to be ‘English speaking junta’ moving around in the limelight, the people not in the midst of all the ‘mind boggling’ action seemed to have enjoyed the fun and frolic on stage. Yes,dear readers we leave it to you to stretch your conscious imaginations to its wildest possible realms and possibly portray a dramatics production where the microphones are out of order and most unfortunately perhaps,all the ‘electrifying action’ being conceived and taking place at the circumference of the glittering spotlight. A murder mystery based on Agatha Christie’s ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ was being depicted, one learnt later after much interrogation.

The audience though was partly to blame for the on-stage debacle,as the dramatis personae got a dose of ‘hooting and jeering’ of such gargantuan magnitude as one usually witnesses while standing on the periphery of an ongoing street show in some busy bylane of metropolitan Kolkota.

Humor levels touched unprecedented highs when an ETDS member suffering from a mid-stage amnesia as far as his dialogue is concerned, scratched his head for a couple of moments and then vented his frustration at those responsible for all the anarchy downstage-that being the only audible aspect of the entire play which sadly though could not be put down in writing keeping in mind our reader’s sensitivities.

The play never-the-less proved to be a rigid platform for our dear freshers to learn, grow and mature multi-dimensionally, thereby evolving into versatile torch-bearers of our institute. Cutting across vividly varying socio-cultural lines, it was really heartening to perceive a couple of dozen students so merge together in heart and soul, that even in the face of adversity, where the very intent and purpose of their being together had so collapsed, they still displayed the brevity or perhaps as some quarters of the audience put it as ‘audacity’ to come forward, holding hands and say “We are even now the proud members of English technological dramatics society-2007″.