Thinking aloud

“Will you write about this event?” – asked Sou.. I was reminded of my school days of diary writing. Often I used to spend hours on that. Several of my relatives who used to see me engaged would inquire – “Are you writing about me? Are you writing that I am having food now etc.?” Some used to get scared too. “Please, do not write this discussion in your diary.”

Here some student asked, “Writing, where?” Sou… replied – “Sir writes a blog. One post on Gour… was quite popular.” Then he turned towards me. “Sir, the posts are very long. Can you not make it short and sweet?”

The event in which we (few faculty members and students) worked together was concluded this evening with reasonable success. The dedication and the hard work put forward by the students in these two days as well as in the build up were unbelievable. There was no sign of fatigue or discontent at any point of time. It is always a pleasure to work with such a team. Hope, we’ll have the opportunity to team up again in future.

I fully agree with Sou.. and I myself also like those posts in others’ blogs which are short and sweet. But if the blog name is to be justified i.e. random thoughts, bandwidth has to be wide. Also I guess, my presence on this topics in real-life are like short pulses of higher magnitudes. That warrants the transform domain presence which is virtual to be longer. A kind of uncertainty principle! Enough of justifying one's misdeeds!! I think I have written enough to qualify this as a new post and I should stop here.

------------ The official post ends here --------------

The unofficial guests are welcome in this space!

What I write now is more of thinking aloud. It might create confusion, too. In my UG days at IITkgp there was one Prof. who was very strict but successful in making us learn something by posing hundreds of questions, answers to them were often contradictory. He used to say in every class, "Confusions are welcome. That forces you think. You learn when you think."

This evening in the dinner circle one tired student head of the event was lamenting that he is doing some project which is a mere repetition of a 2002 project work. Also the machine is faulty, beyond repair. Whatever result he is getting is not making any sense. Then he said that a student would love to do project work if it is meaningful or according to his choice. When I put few questions he admitted that (i) if the students are given the choice they will try to flock together to one place which is not sensible and (ii) the priority of a student is to work under a 'peaceful' Prof. than anything else.

This makes me somewhat confused. And while coming back from the arena after two days of serious engagements few thoughts came to my mind. Why did the students work so hard? Was it all inspirational, selfless service? Was it because of the peer pressure i.e. juniors do not have any other options but to oblige senior students? Do they enjoy that? Then, why did the senior students take interest? Will they take same interest in another project and put forward by another faculty member or even for a family event? Are the students expecting something more than “Well done!” What is that? Are we faculty members aware of that? If aware, are we exploiting them in some form? Is it simple ‘Give and take’ policy? Or does it have a more idealistic flavour?

Perhaps it is a mixture of both or the idealistic aspect may have more weightage. May be when they plunged into it they thought about certain issues which are more earthly. But at the conclusion of the event I think they gained an experience which is more than what they expected. Can we then say - it does not matter how one gets into a good work (i.e. pressure, benefit etc.) but the work, if good, will return more than what one was looking for. A sense of great satisfaction, scaling of new important verticals. Then if a faculty member puts some pressure it should not be construed as exploitation. As such IITians are smart enough to find an escape route if not interested.

Let us get even. What if similar questions are addressed to me? There are few senior people in IIT whom I respect so much so that if they request some thing it is always an honour for me to oblige. I am not overdoing if I say that their wish is my order. I have that trust and confidence in them that they will not ask me to do what is not good or me. And the rest becomes simple and understandable.