We took the first train from Walldorf to Karlsruhe, a big junction, changed from there into a two-storied( yes that's not a typo!) train to a place called Baden- Baden- supposed to be one of the prime spots in the heart of the Black Forest.
Now, our plan was to visit as many places as possible in the two days and see as many interesting things/sites as possible. The problem with Black Forest was that there was no concrete thing to see- the forests stretched over hundreds of kilometers, the sightseeing trail itself would take a couple of hours by car. We planned to see around the city, asked around and found a rather benevolent and more importantly English speaking bus driver and took the bus to the city center. Saturday is the day of the equivalent of flea markets in Germany and a huge museum housing the information center seemed to have the whole street in front blocked by peddlers selling everything from pajamas to spices to sunglasses. The museum had a beautiful corridor adorned by beautiful wall paintings followed by a porch leading onto a garden that houses one of the biggest casinos in Germany. While Bittu was busy taking random photographs in the casino, we both found a couple in wedding attire, posing for photographs. While I was smitten by a bridesmaid and also paused to wonder if we could manage some food from the reception, Bittu focussed on getting some more equally useless photographs of this and that. Finally, we strolled across a nice park, with something like a brook flowing through it and finally we rushed to one of the bus stops to board a bus to the station...that took so long that I had almost started cursing the supposedly punctual schedule of German conveyance. Two hours at Baden-Baden, well spent!
The next train was from Baden-Baden to Konstanz. We boarded a train that was packed, as mentioned by one of the fellow passengers. Actually all the seats were occupied. It was nice to find people sitting on the steps to the upper deck while others used the seats to rest huge trekking packs and bags. No one seemed to mind though..that's the best part about Europe. After half an hour of squeezing between the rails and the parapet next to the seats ( I volunteered my seat to an old lady..ask Bittu!), everyone suddenly got down at Offenburg. We settled into comfortable seats, unfortunately all the people who took the seats all around us were not even remotely eye candy. So we did what you can do in such a situation..after fifteen minutes of babbling about this and that, finishing half a bottle of Pepsi and trying to capture the scenery outside( mostly unsuccessfully) using my digicam, we started dozing off. I remember I was drooling, when I woke up with a start to find a kid on the seat next to me staring wide eyed. Then I found quite a few people staring ( haven't they seen someone drooling while asleep before?). Anyhow the TV screen showed that a certain Triberg was approaching. I woke up Bittu as I remembered that this place was house to the largest waterfall in Germany. As the train approached the station, we decided to get down, with the assumption that there would be a train every one hour in the same direction. When the train screeched to a halt and we alighted( still not sure what the hell we were doing) I was spellbound for a few minutes by the station itself. It seemed right out of a postcard...vertical cliff on one side..tall coniferous trees on the other.
We rushed to a bus again and thankfully the driver again spoke English. The journey to the waterfall took us less than five minutes..a ride on a spiralling road upwards, picturesque views on both sides. When we got down at the foot of the waterfall, we had to complete the journey in less than an hour or wait for another hour for the next train. As it turned out we did wait one hour more..but it was quite a hike to the summit of the waterfall. The muddy road, slimy and treacherously steep at places added to the fun. Photographs delayed our ascent, every second junction ended right in front of the gushing rivulet. I got bored after the third time..in any case the camera was Bittu's property throughout the trip. Most of the places were barricaded beyond reach, a wooden bridge across the waterfall looked adventurous to walk upon, but its entry too was blocked. Then abruptly a cabin announced that the waterfall trail ended there. A bit disappointed, we walked down. Bittu Singh managed to find a spot to stand amidst the water and the moss on the rocks for silly photographs, but apart from that the journey downward remained pretty uneventful. Oh yeah, we saw a species of squirrel quite different from the ones seen in India.
As an afterthought, waterfalls are pretty romantic places I guess, something that we people from severely uncouth habitats( read undergraduate institutions) had given little thought to. Thus the scene of people at least a generation( or two) older than me making out besides the teenagers, did unsettle me a bit. Bittu cited the weather as the reason for the difference in culture, but that again is the topic of another article. Arriving at the station, amidst finding out time schedules for various trains, unsuccessfully trying to explain what a knife is to a restaurant owner (who seemed not to catch even a word of English), gorging half a chocolate cake with bare hands in absence of the knife, trying to explain what a rubber band is and ending up with cello tape for tying up loose ends, we did precious little else. Then we boarded the train to Lake Konstanz, finally reaching there at five in the afternoon.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Travelogue:Prologue
It's been a long time...let's start typing!
Two days...less than 48 hours, well I have had a few eventful couple of days in the last three years of my life, but nothing could have prepared me for what was coming when I had started abusing Bittu ( one of the protagonists of the travelogue) saying that he had wasted one of the weekends lazing and we are a weekend short on sightseeing. He came up with a brilliant idea- let's see the whole of Baden- Wurtemburg in one weekend!
Before embarking any further, let me give some background. Baden-Wurtemburg is one of the states of Germany in which incidentally both the protagonists were residing at that moment. Nevertheless it is a huge region, home to the Black Forest, the Lake Konstanz, the Hohenzollern castle ( that would be another tale, maybe I will tell that some other time), numerous other scenic places and last but not the least, the biggest game park in Germany, the Europa Park. A few things that came to our help - a huge detailed map, with all the spots worth traveling marked along with the attractions they provide( we covered quite a few), a daily Baden-Wurtemburg Ticket (shared between 2-5 people) on the weekend, on the spot decisions and a crazy mind accompanied by another one willing to travel anywhere under the sun!
This will be quite long, so I decided to break it up into a few parts..please bear with me ( or don't, what do I care!)
Let's start from Friday morning. Germany has this amazing website where people driving from one place to another put up the information on a website, so that other people can contact them and share a ride. The cost of the gas is generally shared- amazing alternative to trains ( which are ridiculously expensive without some offer). It reduces pollution and is cheaper for everybody. So when Bittu called me up saying that I could travel with a XYZ(female), I was more than excited. We agreed on a 6:30 Pm meeting..she went so far to describe she drove a Merc, had brown hair, not so long. I told her..I am Indian. "Not bad!" I told myself. With numerous brilliant prospects brimming in my mind, I rushed home at five in the afternoon (already the lab was deserted..so much for Europe and weekends!), tried to polish up in fifteen minutes ( Yeah, for the unassuming ones, I have a very optimistic attitude towards life) . When I reached at the meeting spot huffing and puffing by 6:40, there was no Merc to be seen. A few college students stole furtive glances inquisitively at me, giggling among themselves. I didn't have a good feeling- until one of them came and asked whether I was waiting for XYZ. She was around in no time - the Merc turned out to be a city car and not a sedan and XYZ turned out to be a cute girl, all smiles. While we sped from Tubingen to Walldorf, we had a diverse conversation on numerous topics, highways of Europe, flashing speed cameras, winters in Chicago, why India is not safe for female foreigners, studying theology in Germany being a few of them. I was still trying to imagine all the brilliant possibilities, till she told me her boyfriend was doing the one year service in the army and didn't like it much. By the end of the trip, I knew what her parents and all her siblings did for a living, how her boyfriend drives a long way to come back home and numerous other details not worth disclosing here ( people knowing me should understand by now how interested I must have been during the conversation!) Nevertheless she told me quite a few interesting things about education in Germany- medicine and teaching being two of the most opted and competed for professions. All in all, it was a good trip and although none of the brilliant prospects materialized, I wasn't that disappointed.
Bittu Singh, characteristically, made me wait for forty five minutes in front of his office, while he kept searching for me at some remote bus stop, despite giving me his office details in a mail. So when I was giving him a piece of my mind, he gave me the grin( characteristic again) and we started talking of old times. We entered his place like thieves ( apparently he couldn't have guests staying over), cooked Maggi, ate sandwiches, drank Coke, packed sandwiches, searched for nightclubs in arbitrary cities for spending the next night, discussed Cantor sets and Countability ( and friends and girlfriends and future career plans and how we screw them up), surfed though TV channels ( there were three porn channels amongst twenty odd channels- those and BBC were the only one understandable), talked about Bangalore and Germany...let's leave that aside...it would be another account in itself.
I had misinterpreted that the Baden-Wurtemburg daily ticket could be used only from 9 AM. Thankfully that allowed us some sleep..something of which we would get very little in the next two days, before boarding a bus to mark the beginning of one of the most memorable weekends of my life.
Two days...less than 48 hours, well I have had a few eventful couple of days in the last three years of my life, but nothing could have prepared me for what was coming when I had started abusing Bittu ( one of the protagonists of the travelogue) saying that he had wasted one of the weekends lazing and we are a weekend short on sightseeing. He came up with a brilliant idea- let's see the whole of Baden- Wurtemburg in one weekend!
Before embarking any further, let me give some background. Baden-Wurtemburg is one of the states of Germany in which incidentally both the protagonists were residing at that moment. Nevertheless it is a huge region, home to the Black Forest, the Lake Konstanz, the Hohenzollern castle ( that would be another tale, maybe I will tell that some other time), numerous other scenic places and last but not the least, the biggest game park in Germany, the Europa Park. A few things that came to our help - a huge detailed map, with all the spots worth traveling marked along with the attractions they provide( we covered quite a few), a daily Baden-Wurtemburg Ticket (shared between 2-5 people) on the weekend, on the spot decisions and a crazy mind accompanied by another one willing to travel anywhere under the sun!
This will be quite long, so I decided to break it up into a few parts..please bear with me ( or don't, what do I care!)
Let's start from Friday morning. Germany has this amazing website where people driving from one place to another put up the information on a website, so that other people can contact them and share a ride. The cost of the gas is generally shared- amazing alternative to trains ( which are ridiculously expensive without some offer). It reduces pollution and is cheaper for everybody. So when Bittu called me up saying that I could travel with a XYZ(female), I was more than excited. We agreed on a 6:30 Pm meeting..she went so far to describe she drove a Merc, had brown hair, not so long. I told her..I am Indian. "Not bad!" I told myself. With numerous brilliant prospects brimming in my mind, I rushed home at five in the afternoon (already the lab was deserted..so much for Europe and weekends!), tried to polish up in fifteen minutes ( Yeah, for the unassuming ones, I have a very optimistic attitude towards life) . When I reached at the meeting spot huffing and puffing by 6:40, there was no Merc to be seen. A few college students stole furtive glances inquisitively at me, giggling among themselves. I didn't have a good feeling- until one of them came and asked whether I was waiting for XYZ. She was around in no time - the Merc turned out to be a city car and not a sedan and XYZ turned out to be a cute girl, all smiles. While we sped from Tubingen to Walldorf, we had a diverse conversation on numerous topics, highways of Europe, flashing speed cameras, winters in Chicago, why India is not safe for female foreigners, studying theology in Germany being a few of them. I was still trying to imagine all the brilliant possibilities, till she told me her boyfriend was doing the one year service in the army and didn't like it much. By the end of the trip, I knew what her parents and all her siblings did for a living, how her boyfriend drives a long way to come back home and numerous other details not worth disclosing here ( people knowing me should understand by now how interested I must have been during the conversation!) Nevertheless she told me quite a few interesting things about education in Germany- medicine and teaching being two of the most opted and competed for professions. All in all, it was a good trip and although none of the brilliant prospects materialized, I wasn't that disappointed.
Bittu Singh, characteristically, made me wait for forty five minutes in front of his office, while he kept searching for me at some remote bus stop, despite giving me his office details in a mail. So when I was giving him a piece of my mind, he gave me the grin( characteristic again) and we started talking of old times. We entered his place like thieves ( apparently he couldn't have guests staying over), cooked Maggi, ate sandwiches, drank Coke, packed sandwiches, searched for nightclubs in arbitrary cities for spending the next night, discussed Cantor sets and Countability ( and friends and girlfriends and future career plans and how we screw them up), surfed though TV channels ( there were three porn channels amongst twenty odd channels- those and BBC were the only one understandable), talked about Bangalore and Germany...let's leave that aside...it would be another account in itself.
I had misinterpreted that the Baden-Wurtemburg daily ticket could be used only from 9 AM. Thankfully that allowed us some sleep..something of which we would get very little in the next two days, before boarding a bus to mark the beginning of one of the most memorable weekends of my life.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Happy Memories
Returning from the now frequent hibernation with a concept very proudly copied from a blog that I am increasingly admiring these days- here's a list of things that have made me happy in the past and continue to do so as life passes by.
The subtle but inevitable feeling of happiness in my mother's eyes these days as she realizes that her son is not going to have a tough time as far as building a career is concerned. Somehow she feels that all the troubles and sacrifices she undertook in my childhood are fully justified. I, for one, am still striving hard happily to fully justify them.
Having my opinion considered seriously as far as family matters are concerned.
Being fortunate enough to have had a wonderful group of friends since school, being in contact with many of them even today-all the moments spent in classes 9, 10 and in plus two from the banging of desks to all the jokes and stories that we shared- and of late the wonderful times that pass by whenever I reunite with some of them back in Durgapur.
Maintaining a good academic record since school, performing well in examinations of various kinds-and yeah, all the adulation that still accompanies that.
Clearing the JEE..not only because it was going to shape my career, but there was also a point or two to prove to myself.
Securing scholarships since a tender age, that always somehow made me feel financially independent ( It's a good feeling no matter whether you need them or not).
Getting the opportunity and exposure to very good books since childhood- and developing a habit of reading that fades down now and then but never dies out.
Seeing the smile on the face of anyone I have ever helped-physically, academically or financially- and the nod of recognition that comes along with it.
Feeling responsible and being treated like a responsible and earnest person.
Being loved and liked by a certain few persons who really matter a lot to me and who realize that most of my behavioral follies are unintended.
Getting the opportunity of being taught by people like Gupta Miss, Suvro Sir, Roy Sir and Krishna Miss.
The list would keep on growing indeed, as and when I remember something new, I might add it to the list.
P.S.: Credit for coming up with such a list in writing should go to Mr. Suvro Chatterjee who incidentally maintains a similar list on his blog. I never knew plagiarism would make me so happy!
The subtle but inevitable feeling of happiness in my mother's eyes these days as she realizes that her son is not going to have a tough time as far as building a career is concerned. Somehow she feels that all the troubles and sacrifices she undertook in my childhood are fully justified. I, for one, am still striving hard happily to fully justify them.
Having my opinion considered seriously as far as family matters are concerned.
Being fortunate enough to have had a wonderful group of friends since school, being in contact with many of them even today-all the moments spent in classes 9, 10 and in plus two from the banging of desks to all the jokes and stories that we shared- and of late the wonderful times that pass by whenever I reunite with some of them back in Durgapur.
Maintaining a good academic record since school, performing well in examinations of various kinds-and yeah, all the adulation that still accompanies that.
Clearing the JEE..not only because it was going to shape my career, but there was also a point or two to prove to myself.
Securing scholarships since a tender age, that always somehow made me feel financially independent ( It's a good feeling no matter whether you need them or not).
Getting the opportunity and exposure to very good books since childhood- and developing a habit of reading that fades down now and then but never dies out.
Seeing the smile on the face of anyone I have ever helped-physically, academically or financially- and the nod of recognition that comes along with it.
Feeling responsible and being treated like a responsible and earnest person.
Being loved and liked by a certain few persons who really matter a lot to me and who realize that most of my behavioral follies are unintended.
Getting the opportunity of being taught by people like Gupta Miss, Suvro Sir, Roy Sir and Krishna Miss.
The list would keep on growing indeed, as and when I remember something new, I might add it to the list.
P.S.: Credit for coming up with such a list in writing should go to Mr. Suvro Chatterjee who incidentally maintains a similar list on his blog. I never knew plagiarism would make me so happy!
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Returning from Exile
Some thought the blog was dead, others prayed the blogger died....but as luck(or ill luck) would have it, I am back finally from the prolonged slumber with some thoughts to think aloud.
A summers in Switzerland, well spent with a huge group of batchmates and lots of fun- as a wise friend of mine pointed out he would have written a book had he been to Europe - but this blog isn't exactly about the Eurotrip. I set foot in the first world scrupulously, aiming to be at my courteous best. With all the previous discussed notions of cleanliness, etiquette and public discipline swivelling in my head 24x7 , I could hardly be blamed. I started on my first day to office extra carefully, taking care to neatly tear the bus ticket into two and drop it into the dustbin(with quite a feeling of satisfaction I must confess).
All was going well until I got the first jolt the day we went to a place called Fribourg to check out the nightclubs. At 3:30 AM in the morning, I saw a couple of drunken guys, about my age peeing on the street with their backs to the walls. It was quite innovative to me and although the sight made me feel nauseated, I couldnt help feeling satisfied seeing the youth of the first world behave in a way that is considered uncouth even in India. Over the next three months , there were several instances when I saw the natives of that country break their own rules-crossing the streets ignoring signals, to littering the road with waste -you name it , they did it. But that is not the point here. The feeling which used to get me frustrated at times was the conscious effort that I thought would be necessary in order to be at par with the citizens there. Come to think of that, I even throw waste into dustbins in India without thinking! Why then the automatic feeling of servility, insecurity or whatever you want to call it? More importantly, if we can make a conscious effort to maintain ourselves publicly over there, why do most of us become so casual in our homeland? Some of us would argue that in India majority of people are just like that and breaking of rules is much more in abundance than obeying them as opposed to Europe. I agree with that but why can't each one of us just try to maintain the same consciousness in India too. One's apparent indifference to public discipline and cleanliness in India and the same person's over enthusiasm to abide by the same rules abroad seems like an irony, bordering on almost an act of crime especially since he is aware of the fact that he is being impassive to rules in India.
This is getting boring I realize, but I seriously wanted to lash out at somebody, maybe even at myself...hence this babbering.
A summers in Switzerland, well spent with a huge group of batchmates and lots of fun- as a wise friend of mine pointed out he would have written a book had he been to Europe - but this blog isn't exactly about the Eurotrip. I set foot in the first world scrupulously, aiming to be at my courteous best. With all the previous discussed notions of cleanliness, etiquette and public discipline swivelling in my head 24x7 , I could hardly be blamed. I started on my first day to office extra carefully, taking care to neatly tear the bus ticket into two and drop it into the dustbin(with quite a feeling of satisfaction I must confess).
All was going well until I got the first jolt the day we went to a place called Fribourg to check out the nightclubs. At 3:30 AM in the morning, I saw a couple of drunken guys, about my age peeing on the street with their backs to the walls. It was quite innovative to me and although the sight made me feel nauseated, I couldnt help feeling satisfied seeing the youth of the first world behave in a way that is considered uncouth even in India. Over the next three months , there were several instances when I saw the natives of that country break their own rules-crossing the streets ignoring signals, to littering the road with waste -you name it , they did it. But that is not the point here. The feeling which used to get me frustrated at times was the conscious effort that I thought would be necessary in order to be at par with the citizens there. Come to think of that, I even throw waste into dustbins in India without thinking! Why then the automatic feeling of servility, insecurity or whatever you want to call it? More importantly, if we can make a conscious effort to maintain ourselves publicly over there, why do most of us become so casual in our homeland? Some of us would argue that in India majority of people are just like that and breaking of rules is much more in abundance than obeying them as opposed to Europe. I agree with that but why can't each one of us just try to maintain the same consciousness in India too. One's apparent indifference to public discipline and cleanliness in India and the same person's over enthusiasm to abide by the same rules abroad seems like an irony, bordering on almost an act of crime especially since he is aware of the fact that he is being impassive to rules in India.
This is getting boring I realize, but I seriously wanted to lash out at somebody, maybe even at myself...hence this babbering.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
For starters...A Middle Class Approach
This one is going to be crap...I'm afraid. Now what wouldn't one do to evade a life devoid of creativity interest and fun....seems like most of us would go to extents to prevent it. Let us anlayse the stuff from a poor confused lad's point of view...The stereotypical household from which I came offered limited room for creative exposure but I wouldn't say that I didn't get any. The problem mainly lay in the way things were implemented . Everything seemed to be imposed like a burden! "You gotta learn Music"!!! Now how does that sound? And when the guy next door gets seriously interested hes put off on the pretext- Music won't get him anywhere! "It's too tough to excel in such a field and how many cases can you enumerate from households like ours? Better concentrate on your studies instead." The steadfast rule that you gotta make a living after graduate school and after pursuing academics and academics alone semed to be an etched out rule with an explanation that it is the field that requires minimum sweat! C'mon man you gotta let the person decide what he wants for himself.
I won't however blame the parents entirely. They have seen the same thing when they were young and it really requires a brave stand for somebody to allow a change - especially when it's your offspring's future that's at stake. By the time the poor guy reaches High School, if he is from a thoroughly conventional(mind you I didn't use the term "orthodox") middle class family that live in a relatively well informed city in India you hear the parents blurting out.." You gotta go to IIT ".When I grew up, in most cities of Bengal and other states that simply refuse to grow up you only had two options - You become a doctor or an Engineer. And how do you decide that? If you are good at Maths or have an aversion towards Biology or don't want to study much, you go for Engineering. Sounds remarkable, doesn't it? Doesn't matter whether you have any interest in electronic gadgets or not, doesn't matter whether you even know how to work on nuts or bolts...you are expected to learn all this once you go to college and (forgive my saying so) and forget it even faster and concentrate on only what gets you a job. Now this concept of job itself is pretty interesting from a middle class view. Will explore it later maybe...
So where were we? Ah..we were going for Engineering. The story of the doctors is pretty much more disastrous. You become a doctor if every third person in your family is a doctor(That doesn't make you a middle class guy though..) or you can memorize things like hell or simply if you are poor at Maths and your parents want you to make it big! So what, if you don't like Biology? " You don't develop interest in everything overnight. Over time you will grow a "taste" for it." Bravo!!
The winds of change however have struck the coasts. In all big cities now you will find a host of career opportunities that eventually might let you earn ten times an Engineer. But consider the irony...they are still referred to as " alternative career opportunities." It feels really good to expect that the guys even five or six years down the line will not hesitate to claim boldly that they really like painting or fashion designing and the parents will actually support their view. But what you will see in the initial stages is the utter disdain with which the middle class treats these alternative career opportunities in a few years to come. I remember my dad saying how people used to look down upon Engineers 30 years back when a pure Science majors was in vogue after High School. Now the wheel has unfortunately reversed...
Well let's let go off this. We were talking of our poor and confused hero. The problem was that he liked nothing...you can guess no innate interest in any form or Science or art. So what does he do? When his parents spring up IIT as an option, obedient as he is and all the more so sly that he is, he immediately realizes that it's an easy call. Slog your ass off for two years if you want to get there, slog off for another year if you want to get a good branch and hey presto! You are there after your undergraduate studies and everybody back home is celebrating! I , for one, am not at all undermining the hardwork that our protagonist puts in. IIT, for those who know and for those who don't know, is not a piece of cake for any guy no matter how brilliant you are. It requires a lot of brains and coordinated effort to land up with a really good rank. But that's not what I am talking about. Why are there people here who don't have any clue about why they are here and what exactly they want to do in future. Pathetically enough you fill up your options on the basis of your rank. half of the guys don't have any clue as to what they are interested in. Listen to the parents again from middle class families and you can't help getting amused.." The 'higher' branches have better jobs with higher salaries. It secures your future. So you fill up the choices in the way everybody fills them up." Sure, that's the way the world runs. Then what is the point in developing interest in some field or the other. Or do we mean to say that the rather alarmingly high Middle class population doesn't believe in creativity,interests,doing something out of your own urge ? Anything besides school academics is largely seen as a pastime, hobby but the moment you turn serious about it the society around you considers it as a largely unnecessary pain in the ass. Hopefully most of you haven't faced the direct brunt of it. But in some way or the other it has affected 'our' lifes. The 'our' is again debatable and our poor confused protagonist leaves it up to you to decide how far this 'we' reaches upto. Looking for comments definitely as I end here pretty lamely simply because nothing much is coming to mind. As I said in the beginning...it's largely crap!!!
I won't however blame the parents entirely. They have seen the same thing when they were young and it really requires a brave stand for somebody to allow a change - especially when it's your offspring's future that's at stake. By the time the poor guy reaches High School, if he is from a thoroughly conventional(mind you I didn't use the term "orthodox") middle class family that live in a relatively well informed city in India you hear the parents blurting out.." You gotta go to IIT ".When I grew up, in most cities of Bengal and other states that simply refuse to grow up you only had two options - You become a doctor or an Engineer. And how do you decide that? If you are good at Maths or have an aversion towards Biology or don't want to study much, you go for Engineering. Sounds remarkable, doesn't it? Doesn't matter whether you have any interest in electronic gadgets or not, doesn't matter whether you even know how to work on nuts or bolts...you are expected to learn all this once you go to college and (forgive my saying so) and forget it even faster and concentrate on only what gets you a job. Now this concept of job itself is pretty interesting from a middle class view. Will explore it later maybe...
So where were we? Ah..we were going for Engineering. The story of the doctors is pretty much more disastrous. You become a doctor if every third person in your family is a doctor(That doesn't make you a middle class guy though..) or you can memorize things like hell or simply if you are poor at Maths and your parents want you to make it big! So what, if you don't like Biology? " You don't develop interest in everything overnight. Over time you will grow a "taste" for it." Bravo!!
The winds of change however have struck the coasts. In all big cities now you will find a host of career opportunities that eventually might let you earn ten times an Engineer. But consider the irony...they are still referred to as " alternative career opportunities." It feels really good to expect that the guys even five or six years down the line will not hesitate to claim boldly that they really like painting or fashion designing and the parents will actually support their view. But what you will see in the initial stages is the utter disdain with which the middle class treats these alternative career opportunities in a few years to come. I remember my dad saying how people used to look down upon Engineers 30 years back when a pure Science majors was in vogue after High School. Now the wheel has unfortunately reversed...
Well let's let go off this. We were talking of our poor and confused hero. The problem was that he liked nothing...you can guess no innate interest in any form or Science or art. So what does he do? When his parents spring up IIT as an option, obedient as he is and all the more so sly that he is, he immediately realizes that it's an easy call. Slog your ass off for two years if you want to get there, slog off for another year if you want to get a good branch and hey presto! You are there after your undergraduate studies and everybody back home is celebrating! I , for one, am not at all undermining the hardwork that our protagonist puts in. IIT, for those who know and for those who don't know, is not a piece of cake for any guy no matter how brilliant you are. It requires a lot of brains and coordinated effort to land up with a really good rank. But that's not what I am talking about. Why are there people here who don't have any clue about why they are here and what exactly they want to do in future. Pathetically enough you fill up your options on the basis of your rank. half of the guys don't have any clue as to what they are interested in. Listen to the parents again from middle class families and you can't help getting amused.." The 'higher' branches have better jobs with higher salaries. It secures your future. So you fill up the choices in the way everybody fills them up." Sure, that's the way the world runs. Then what is the point in developing interest in some field or the other. Or do we mean to say that the rather alarmingly high Middle class population doesn't believe in creativity,interests,doing something out of your own urge ? Anything besides school academics is largely seen as a pastime, hobby but the moment you turn serious about it the society around you considers it as a largely unnecessary pain in the ass. Hopefully most of you haven't faced the direct brunt of it. But in some way or the other it has affected 'our' lifes. The 'our' is again debatable and our poor confused protagonist leaves it up to you to decide how far this 'we' reaches upto. Looking for comments definitely as I end here pretty lamely simply because nothing much is coming to mind. As I said in the beginning...it's largely crap!!!
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
My First Blog
Wow!!
Is that supposed to feel exciting?? Not much in a mood today though..However let me see...I feel like pouring my heart out now and then..(the now and the then being spaced quite substantially separated on the timeline) hence my tryst with this site...The profanity that once in a while I refer to as life..seems to have come a full circle now...
Seems pretty confusing, doesn't it?? well it does to me too...Further details will have to wait for the time being it seems..
It's time to celebrate now... my first blog , hmmmm...Indeed!!!
Is that supposed to feel exciting?? Not much in a mood today though..However let me see...I feel like pouring my heart out now and then..(the now and the then being spaced quite substantially separated on the timeline) hence my tryst with this site...The profanity that once in a while I refer to as life..seems to have come a full circle now...
Seems pretty confusing, doesn't it?? well it does to me too...Further details will have to wait for the time being it seems..
It's time to celebrate now... my first blog , hmmmm...Indeed!!!
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