The Illusion of Memories

Memory is a chimerical device. It takes a devious pleasure enticing and torturing the mind. I often think of memories as glimpses of the outside world seen from a speeding train. It leaves behind a plethora of half formed images, poignant in imagery but when reminisced, they seem as if from a spectral world of our self-conjured dreams. They are there but when you look closely, trying to dissect through their innards they vanish in a puff of smoke leaving behind an odor, that tantalizes you and at the same time forming a self-castigation for the futility of the entire effort. The more I start to peer behind those swirling clouds of confusing thoughts, the more pressed I become to question my own sanity. Every day forward erases the past by a bit. It’s as if all the laws of entropy have been vanquished by the forces ruling my mind and the perfect painting is peeling itself of those wonderful colors that once ensnared my mind, leaving behind a sketch that is a travesty of my memories. The pellucid waters are now a mire of confusion bereaving in the loss of their tranquility. The quintessential sense of the balance that my mind used to possess has become hoary and does not allow me to relax in its erstwhile comforting bosom. Reality has become an illusion and vice-versa. Sometimes I feel like I am floating outside my own self gloating in the chaos that preside the reality. Bewitching images from an illegible past mingled with grandiose visions of the future seem incongruous with the stark austerity of the present. I seem to be standing at the cross-roads where time has stuck and I can browse through past, present and future with equanimity and yet wonder when I am going to wake up. It seems that my spirit has detached itself from the travails besetting my beleaguered body and is reveling in this new formless and timeless existence that is beyond the scope of its own comprehension.

A Tryst with Reality

Today we finally embarked on the task that I have been the most apprehensive of- interviews with the parents. The data that we had collected pointed to the fact that an overwhelming, if not a hundred percent majority of the parents were involved in professions that would barely provide for a hand to mouth existence. While the kids had taken to us with an ease that surprised us, I for one had misgivings about what would happen when we would step into their lives after school.
For privileged people like us, who have never had to worry about anything concerned with financial affairs, it was a sort of conundrum. Which questions to ask and how delicately could we put it through to them that we just wanted to know the environment surrounding the education of the child without sounding too nosy or obnoxious at the same time. But six hours after we met with the parents of Monalisa Nag of Class 6 of R.E.C Govt School, I have trouble shaking of the image of that small asbestos roofed house entrenched deeply in poverty and the parents who hope against hope to see their daughters making a place for themselves in society.
Popular culture and media have often fostered the general perception that somehow uneducated parents somehow do not care enough for their child’s education. Think again. The silent despair that we were faced with when we put forward the question to Monalisa’s mother, Devaki, a housemaid, almost abashed us. While she wants to be a part of her daughter’s education, it’s almost gut-wrenching to see the helpless inability to do so. The enthusiasm of the father, Chandrasekhar who earns only 3000-4000 per month as a driver at the thought of his daughter becoming computer literate is infectious. It is not the aspirations that they have of their children that separate them our parents. It is the impotency of poverty and illiteracy that prevents them from doing so.
It is not charity that they want. While economic emancipation for everyone is an utterly utopian idea, the least the Govt can do is spruce up the levels of education in the hundreds of thousands of primary schools. Just making schools and giving free mid-day meals is not enough. The education that they are getting should of the quality that it makes a change in their lives. The society that debates all these topics sitting in the comforts of their homes is even more at fault. Of which I have been an integral part of all my life. I write this with the hope that twenty years from now, if I perchance happen to read it again I would not be smothered by the guilt and shame that engulfs me now.

Do You Remember

Do you remember the look of the hills flush with the green of the summer rains when we first set foot here. The roads were wet, everything was green and verdant. We were green. The anticipation of treading into a new and completely unfamiliar way of life, at the end of which we were expected to become men from boys. I guess anticipation and a mute terror of responsibility lay heavy on every heart on that fateful day in June 06 when we decided to be students at NIT Rourkela. It would mark the beginning of the greatest epoch in our lives.

During the counselling time, the auditoriom did not look so swanky as it does now, with wooden tables and chairs and the blackboard dusty with chalk. The AV Hall had those awful,spindly chairs where we first met people with whom we would be inexorably attached for the next four years. Most of us must have shuddered inwardly when we had our first glimpse of the erstwhile Hall-3. Dark, gloomy and forbidding, it was dusty with neglect and the absence of denizens and cobwebbed with countless memories.
Do you remember the first day at hostel, our first glimpse of the warden KRP, and meeting our room mates. The nervous anticipation of our first day at college. I think bathrooms at NITRkl never witnessed a longer line for the next four years. The memory of us in formals, clean shaved, cropped hair being herded into a line for the entertainment of seniors. We were divided into zones , which paradoxically had a more unifying factor than a divisive one.

Do you remember the subsequent weeks. The crowding into autos to go to the station to buy necessary daily stuff, including cheap porn magazines. The mind numbingly boring classes of DG Sahu, the gradual gravitation towards the last benches, the realization sinking in that we were not going to see girls for the next four years, the ragging that was slowly getting mundane.

Do you remember us getting friends. The nite-outs, the apprehensive visits to JAM to sneak in a dinner without getting unwarranted attention from seniors, the GPL where my room was wrecked by the group slams. The sessions of khatti where we discussed everything from our sordid love stories, from girls to music, from our interests to general banal talk. We grew together in these sessions. Do you remember that antiquated PC of Chinu which became the hub of everything, from group porn watching to interminable sessions of playing Zatacka.

Do you remember those first exams. The first bonechilling winters of Rourkela, the tension of getting through with at least an eight pointer. And in the midst of that when everyone decided that Sushen should have his first bath in a month and it developed into the entire hostel bathing together in the corridors. Makes one laugh when you think about it now. Then second semester started and for the first time during the holidays we felt the absence of friends. It was the first time we realized what a second family means.

Do you remember when Beeshmoy and me tricked a hundred people into believing Peter speaks and the ensuing GPL that we received. My sides still hurt from laughter when I think of Anda and Sutta's reactions. By then most of us had got ourselves PCs and thus started the phenomenon of gaming that our batch will be remembered for. One chuckles when one remembers Mudu going from room to room to install CS. The afternoons of CS and AOE, the cacophony Zhenga created when we managed to beat Bibek at AOE are so hauntingly familiar. It was the beginning of the famous DZ and E_Clan and the rival Spartans and DRG Clans. Do you remember that Holi of first year, of Hadi clad in only leaves. Holi has never been so boisterous, so underclad ever since.
Second year began with the hoop-la of us being the seniors now with the impunity associated with ragging. That miserable first week when we had to sleep in half finished rooms, without electricity and running water in the B- block of Hall 7. Can anyone forget the day when 300 of us marched to protest against the unfair ruling in the ragging case against Bangu zone.

While the first year was about making new friends, second year was about developing a solidarity that transcended zones and languages and cultures. It was about getting initiated into branches. And what a branch Electrical Engg. has been.

Do you remember those long long chats in the room of Dipu. The outbreak of Herpes which mutilated the faces, bodies and in some notable cases the private parts of so many boarders in Hall 7. I remember being awarded the title of Herpes King by Dipu, something I wont treasure.I still remember that grand DSU Party where I was initiated to the pleasures of Whiskey. The herpes outbreak . I was taught the art of smoking by Nishank and Pranaya. I had become an engineer now I guess.

Fourth semester started with the panic of grade backs. I was not the one to miss out on that getting a back in Jack's paper. The engineering transformation was complete now. It was also the culmination of our writing skills with us transforming the institute magazine Renaissance from a lifeless tabloid whose sole purpose was to line the dustbins into Degree 361, which I for the first time saw being read by people. We had managed to turn it around by than 360 degrees.

Do you remember how we invalidated the concept of single rooms with me, Ari and Zhenga in the same room during the dying days of second year. It continued into third year with Zhenga and me still sharing rooms in Hall-2. I remember fifth semester for my whiskey heydays and our first entrepreneurial venture yaareyaare. It did not work out but was the precursor of the downloading spree that was to mark this year. This was also the glorious year of the most famous scooty we will ever encounter in our lives, the eponymous scooty of Hota, Chirag Hota. I hope in earnest that the scooty is preserved in Smithsonian for all generations to marvel at. I spent the best Puja Holidays of my life courtesy Ari and Navin in the North-East.

Sixth semester came and went in a flurry before we even realised it. It was the semester where I discovered the joy of beer and sharing. Sharing because there happen to be guys like KP and Debi around, who donot even mind sharing L'oreal stuff with impoverished people like us. Movies, Series, Dota, Beer binges and suddenly we found ourselves to be Final Years.

Do you remember the hope and optimism surrounding the campus when everyone was sure of landing themselves plum jobs. And it eroded as the companies decided to give us a short shrift. Desperation clouded the eyes with one unsuccessful interviews after the other. By the end of seventh semester it was a rush for any any job that came our way. Somehow or the other this semester has found most of us with some kind of a job. For my part, I celebrated minor successes and major failures at an unbelievable weekend at Goa with friends. Debi ran the naked mile after getting a call from IIM-A. We are still waiting for a treat from Bibek for XLRI and FMS. Farewell season has started with people starting to make guest lists and wondering about debt to be incurred.

I guess change is a constancy of life. The hills are barren now, bereft of any verdant vegetation. The auditorium and the AV Hall stand refurbished. The institute is a maze of construction and reconstruction. One doesn't see first years walking ina single file on the first day. In fact ragging is almost non-existent. People have lappies in the first year. They don't buy cheap porn magazines these days. Celebrity Nite is not held during the Spring Fest. Chirag's scooty is the verge of an honorable death. Saha spends more time with a girl rather than sleeping.

And the batch of 2006-10 is about to graduate in 40 days.

Remedis Amoris

So far so I have seen lots of kinds of love. Also the miserable endings. Love at first sight, which continues until one of the pair discovers true sight. Blind love where the saga continues till both the protagonists are blind to everything else. True love which continues until either of the pair discovers a truer love. One-sided love which is always doomed to die a lonely death. Unrequited love where your better half doesnt give a rat's fart about your feelings.

But coming back to what I was saying, the past few months have been a heart-break season here. People have been breaking up left, right and centre. In fact it has been so prevalent that I guess Cupid's agents must be playing hookey. Otherwise there should be no logical reason that at NIT Rkl, the place which sees more anomalous pairs than anywhere else, there should be so many break-ups.

Suddenly there are more morose faces, a greater quantity of alcohol consumed than the regular, people watching more chick flicks than the usual, more unbearable love-lorns songs wafting across the corridors. I have been assured that these are popular cures for love-Remedis Amoris.

I did some investgating into it and found some incredible facts.In Tallinn, Estonia, The  Raeapteek drug store has been preparing and dispensing a concoction of marzipan to ‘relieve the pain of love’ since 1422. There must be some modicum of truth to it for otherwise it would have been drummed out of business since long.

Picking up a few chunks of potent marzipan may literally be easier to swallow (and safer) than some of the other cures that the store stocks like the grease of dirty sheep’s wool, pieces of ancient mummies, burned bees and the like. In fact, most ancient remedies tend to concentrate on weird exotica, from bulls’ testicles (famed as an aphrodisiac in Spain) to lizards soaked in urine, periwinkles mixed with powdered earthworms to the Spanish fly.

Even Nietzsche’s remedium amoris — “The cure for love is still in most cases that ancient radical medicine: love in return” — doesn’t hold good in these fickle days. Who knows you may land in a deeper pit than you were in before.

My prescription for this malady-heaps and heaps of self love. One kind of love where you donot have to suffer from any insecurity, rejections, no costly dates to keep your girlfriend happy, no use of recharge offers. All you need is to bask in narcisstic glory. Besides, why take the risk of falling in love once again when statistics suggest that for achieving one successful relation you need to experience 5 unsuccessful ones. 

Seven Sins, Revisited

Its amazing how life forces you to change your outlook, how it manages to rein you in when you seem to be getting ahead of yourself and how it makes itself come to a grinding halt altogether. It is not yet one year since I had written about my own Seven Sins. And I marvel how I have been made to eat my own words after one year. I have been made to eat the humble pie. Now I am not flying with eagle wings, soaring above the nondescript multitude. I now cannot afford the magnanimousity I had taken to be granted of myself. Never before have I had to look forward at such a bleak and uncertain future. It is with a radical change in perceptions that I now rewrite my thoughts on my sins. 

Pride- I used to be proud. It did not matter to me whether it was for my benefit or for my loss. I thought myself sheltered from people or things because of a monumental ego. It made me wax with pride to believe that I could revel in mediocrity while being above it and being aware of it. But what of it now, that I have rendered myself mediocre in all eyes-be it that of others or mine. Where does that leave me now? When self-doubt gnaws at my pride, eating at the remnants of self confidence and making my knees go weak. I think I never missed being proud as I do of this moment.

Envy- It is human to be envious, I concede now and not the lament of the weak-willed. The nonchalance that precedes the apathy at the success of your competition, always leads to failure in the long run. It is envy that makes you hungry, doesnot let you sleep in peace, harangues you until you decide to either rise up to the occasion or slink away unnoticed into pall of failure where it consumes you. But that is life. It is as fair as you decide it to be.

Wrath- I am wrathful. The anger that turns inwards burns my whole soul, arresting my whole being in paroxysms of self-hatred. It does not leave me in peace for a second. It does not let the bygones to be bygones. It twists the fabric of me and wishes that it had the tremendous power to wrench the part of me that has brought this day upon me.

Sloth- This is the sin that describes me best. This is the part of me that decided that I should be the grasshopper and not the ant. It has a faithful sidekick too-Procrastination. Amazingly I used to be proud of this pair not long ago. Its only when you taste the bitter fruit of failure that you have to rethink of everything. And yet knowing all this, I tremble to think of Sloth's overbearing influence on me.

Greed- Nowadays I am not just greedy about the small things in life, I am also greedy about the larger things and if I do admit, especially so. I am materialistic since now I know it is easiest to be non-materialistic when everything is within your grasp. Love and companionship, the things I used to be greedy about are intangible, not a blue-chip investment for one's greed. Greed is best served when it is meant for objects that can be attained and not pipe dreams.

Gluttony-When you have remained hungry for the better part of four years, one knows how to value food. And this reminds me of beer, something that I believe can sustain me now. This one sin is not going to change hopefully under any circumstances.

Lust-I dont believe myself when I re-read what I wrote last year. What positive frame of mind possessed me to see that vision in red, I do not know but I now assure myself I am well cured of it. My lust is common and ordinary now, hopefully to my satisfaction.