Chronicles of Sathyabama - Part IV - (Placement)

It’s not that I really enjoy writing these posts about my life and times at Sathyabama because it reminds me of moments I want to forget. Trust me, if there is one thing in my life that I would like to change, it would be my grad college and if there is one mistake I regret the most, it’s filling up SIST on my list during AIEEE counselling 2004. I write these only to let the world know about the ugly place and the ugly faces that run it.

It might sound as if I am stretching things a bit too far. After all there were 1500 students in my batch, and 2000 in the one after that. Before me tens of thousands of students had received the degree with the same emblem printed on it and while I was there, the campus boasted of over 6000 students. I don’t know about anyone else but I certainly know one thing. Sathyabama tried to pull me back, push me deep and punch me hard. I don’t know how successful it was, but I do carry a few scars till date.

Chronologically the incident I am going to narrate here occurred much later in during my stint at the place but somehow I felt I should post it now because it says why I want to see the place destroyed and demolished and the people (the ones running it) there punished in the worst possible way.

I don’t remember the date exactly but if i am not wrong it was 18th of July 2007. We had just started with the 7th semester and it also marked the beginning of the placement season for us. That day we had appeared for the written test of the first company that visited our campus. I was as usual disinterested in anything to do with that place. So just a day before, I somehow got my passport photos done and had a new set of formals ready for interviews. It was about 4 o’ clock in the evening and we were waiting since 2 for the results to be declared. I saw my room mate Kartik calling me to one side of the half constructed auditorium. I went upto him and he told me that he had received a call from my mother. She had said that my dad is not well and is hospitalized but that he should give the news to me only after I reach back to my room. However he thought it would be better to let me know immediately as he could feel the panic in her voice.

Now this was the first time I had heard about my dad getting hospitalized and so I wasted no time in borrowing a cell and calling home. On picking up the call I heard my mom virtually breaking down on phone for the first time in life. She told me that dad had suffered a cardiac arrest and was undergoing angioplasty. For a moment I thought it was a nightmare and I wanted it to end right then. However moments later I realised that my mother is all alone in a city where we don’t have a single relative and few people to ask help from. If nothing, she needed a reassuring statement from me and while I spent the next 15 mins gauging the scene and making sure she takes care of herself, the first words I said were, “I will be there on the next flight to Baroda”.

It was decided. I had to be there as soon as possible. I discussed the whole issue with my roommates and we decided that I should appear in the interview the next day (I had cleared the written of course as declared at around 7 pm later that day) and leave on the next flight possible. Thanks to my dear friend Aditya, I was able to get a discounted ticket for 20th morning. Later in the night I was told my mom that by God’s grace, the angioplasty had been successful and things were under control. However I knew that she had had enough already to handle alone and I had to be there as soon as possible to take charge of things. So the next day i had to do two basic things –

1) Appear in the interview

2) Make sure that in case I don’t get through, I am permitted to skip the companies scheduled on the next few days and still remain eligible for placements when I return. (It was a rule in Sathyabama that one had to appear in all companies compulsorily unless he gets placed not abiding which would lead to ejection from the process)

Next morning after another reassuring conversation with my mother I was feeling much better and light headed. Dad was still supposed to be in the hospital for 4-5 days but was doing fine now.

So after appearing in the interview which went pretty fine, I approached the placement officer Mr. Arunachalam. He was initially too busy to listen to me. However, that was somewhat understandable. So I didn’t mind waiting. In the meanwhile I made sure I keep my part of the work ready. So I wrote an application and got it signed by my HoD. Later during the day, when I met him and told him my case along with the application, the first reply I received was –“No that’s not allowed!”

I said, “Yes sir, I know that’s not allowed under normal circumstances but under special circumstances there has to be some way out, right?”

He said,”Ya Ya I know I know! But I can’t simply allow that. Can you produce a proof? A medical certificate or something? Can you get a fax from your parents?”

Now I was beginning to lose it as I knew where this was going. I said, “Of course I will produce all that you require but how can I do that now? My dad is in hospital and Mom already has her hands full. How do expect me to get any of that now? I will submit all documents when I return.”

He did not seem convinced. I wonder what kind of person would ever have used such things as excuses. May be he himself, but somehow he wanted more assurance. But for what??? Bloody, proof for what??? It’s my life, my job. I should have every right to decide whether I want to sit for the company or not even otherwise unless of course it was a recession like in the current times. He told me to get permission from the Director.

Fortunately after an hour of waiting outside the Director’s office, I got my application signed by him. He was in a good mood. Thanks to the strike that had taken place a year earlier, at least this part of the job became easy otherwise this could well have proven to be the toughest thing because the Director was an unpredictable man with a skewed sense of logic.

So I was relieved now. I had the Director’s permission. Things should have been fine now. But how could the great Sathyabama book of rules allow that so easily. When I went back, I found a surprised Mr. Arunachalam ( surprised that I could get the Director’s sign) telling me,” Look Ma, I will try but cannot assure anything”

“Try? What’s there to try sir? I mean what else do you need? I have the Director’s permission too!! And you are the placement officer. It’s all upto you. Where does the word try figure in all this? Moreover, what’s really the problem here? Why is it so difficult for you to allow me?”

“See, the rule doesn’t permit me Ma. A Rule is a rule. It’s for everyone. Today you come to me for some reason, others will come with another. All have big reasons Ma. I have to handle so many such people. I don’t know how the Director signed this as this is not allowed at all under any situation. I will talk to him. Otherwise tomorrow he will question me only.“

“You’ll talk to him about what? To ask why did he sign my application? You mean he shouldn’t have? Sir, at least apply a little logic!! What am I supposed to do then?” I was losing it now. I just couldn’t believe what he had just said.

“OK OK...I am busy right now. I don’t have time. I said Ma, I will see...” and he left the place. And I gave a fuck to what he said. The next day I was off to home.

Fortunately, I never had to rely on his mercy. I got through the interview I had appeared in and after I returned I submitted all the proofs and documents for attendance purposes(then too under lots of questions over the authenticity and sufficiency of my documents though)

I Got Robbed!!!

Well, right since my first visit to Bangalore last year, I have not been a big fan of the city. It never looked as great a place to me as described by some of my friends. Anyways while that is a pretty much arguable topic, Friday night brought an experience that definitely made my opinion about the city fall off the cliff.

Friday, 17th March 2009, I got robbed at 10:15 pm on a supposedly busy road of Bangalore in a supposedly posh locality. The culprit - An Autorickshaw Wallah of course!!
Well I have heard from people that autowallahs in Chennai suck big time (in fact autorickshawwallahs of any city suck big time) but believe me, from the various experiences that I have had, in my opinion the Autowallahs of Bangalore suck deeper and worse than any other place on this planet.

Here are the reasons-

1. First of all this is the only city where there has not been a sigle occasion when the bloody autiwallahs have not demanded extra money from me for some or the other reason.

2. I have heard n number of times from them that - "Saar, ye Bangalore Saar...iddar aeesaa hi hota Saar....iddar yei chaltaa...".

3. On Friday 3 people including the autowallah on whose auto I came from Hotel Leela Palace to Thippasandra 80 ft Road (which ideally should have costed jut Rs14 and for which I was already ready to pay Rs21), cornered me on a lonely road and literally forced me to pay them 7 bucks more.

Yeah, for 7 bucks they were threatening to beat me up.
Now some of you might ask what was the macho gajabkhopdi with his 'balshaali' Bihari lineage doing while all was going on.....
Well, fortunately or unfortunately this GajabKhopdi also happens to be a management student and he simply calculated the options and associated costs and the damages he might face under each one of them.
They were -
a) Fight - risking serious damage to the laptop on his shoulders and may be a few bad blows to the body
b) Pay 7 bucks and get done with it

Calling the police wasn't really an option as none of them was visible there and a phone call could have been equal to putting up a fight. Thankfully they dint really touch me else my Bihari Buddhi would have forgotten all calculations.

So what did I do?
Of course i paid 7 bucks and handed it over with lots of emotional dialogues like "Where is your conscience etc etc...bullshit" and walked off...

Funny part was that even though I had over Rs.500 in my pocket and a laptop on my shoulder, all they cornered me for was 7 bloody bucks...

But as far my experiences in Bangalore go, I am yet to have a good one!

Chronicles of Sathyabama - Part III ( ATM Timings)

This time jus a pic..... I think this in itself tells you a lot.....

Science Fiction writing at IIT Kanpur

(JUNE 15 – JULY 3, 2009)

Download announcement.
Download application form.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

We invite applications from interested people, both students and non-students, who would like to participate in a 3-week Science Fiction (SF) writing workshop at IIT Kanpur. The workshop offers an intense, immersive, content-rich experience that is a good first-step in training the next generation of Indian SF writers.

Goal & Plan: The workshop will help new Indian authors develop their skills and encourage SF with a south-Asian focus. Specifically, the students will read and critique some of the best SF writing in the field, both classic and modern. Second, the daily writing exercises and group-critiques of the weekly story submissions will reveal individual strengths and weaknesses. Finally, we will attempt to show how the subcontinent offers unparalleled story-telling possibilities, especially for SF.

Instructors: The workshop will be conducted primarily by two US-based Indian SF writers – Anil Menon and Vandana Singh, and one IIT Kanpur-based literary scholar in the field of SF – Suchitra Mathur. (short bios of the three instructors are included below for your information). In addition, there will be guest lectures by other Indian SF writers as well as some IIT Kanpur faculty who will share with us the brave new worlds opened up by cutting-edge innovations in science and their relationship with the world we live in.

Application Process: This pioneering 3-week Science Fiction writing workshop is being offered at the cost of Rs. 3000 (Three Thousand Rupees) per head, which includes boarding and lodging for 3 weeks in IIT Kanpur, as well as the costs of all instructional hand-outs given to you during the workshop.

To apply for this workshop, please send us the following documents latest by April 30, 2009:

1) A sample of your creative writing, NOT exceeding 5000 words (this does not necessarily have to be in the genre of Science Fiction, though that would be preferable)
2) A filled out copy of the enclosed application form

The documents may be sent to us electronically via email to: suchitra.mathur@gmail.com or anilm@acm.org

Or you can mail hard copies to: Suchitra Mathur
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
IIT Kanpur
Kanpur – 208016
Phone no.: 0512-259-7836/8234

Applications received after April 30, 2009 will NOT be considered. You will be informed by May 15, 2009 about your selection for this workshop. To confirm your attendance of this workshop, you will need to send us a demand draft for Rs. 3000 at the above address within a week of receiving our acceptance notification (latest by May 22, 2009).

Soft copies of the Application Form for this 3-week SF writing workshop may also be downloaded from anilmenon.com.

The Instructors

Anil Menon worked for about nine years in software R&D in the US, worrying about things like secure distributed databases and evolutionary computation. Then he shifted to a different kind of fiction. In his stories, he has been a kid who finds everything funny ("Standard Deviation"), an island chain ("Archipelago"), and discovered new physics ("A Sky Full Of Constants"). His stories have been published in magazines such as InterZone, New Genre, Strange Horizons, etc. “Standard Deviation" won an Honorable Mention in the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (2005) and "Archipelago" was nominated for the 2006 Carl Brandon Society's Parallax Prize. His novel The Beast With Nine Billion Feet (Zubaan) is scheduled to appear in 2009.

As a kid, a chance encounter with Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" led Anil to other great stories in Science Fiction. However, it soon became clear that western SF was based on an unwritten assumption, namely, that all the really cool adventures-- inventing crazy devices, meeting aliens, time-traveling, saving the world from comets, etc. -- were mostly reserved for Caucasians. The future is assumed not to be of ‘our’ making. This workshop will challenge this assumption by training a new generation of Indian writers to rethink and re-imagine speculative fiction.

Vandana Singh is an Indian writer living in the U.S., where she also teaches physics at a small college. Some of her science fiction and fantasy stories have been shortlisted for awards and have appeared in Year's Best anthologies. A number of them are collected in her recent book, The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet and Other Stories, which came out from Zubaan and Penguin India in 2008. She is also the author of the Younguncle series of children's books. Her most recent publications include two novellas, Of Love and Other Monsters and Distances, both from Aqueduct Press, Seattle. While both are journeys of self-discovery for the protagonists, the first is set on Earth and explores the life of a young man who has lost all memory of his past and is on the run from a shadowy figure most like himself. Distances, on the other hand, is set on a far-future planet in another part of the galaxy, and is a story of science, mathematics, art and deception. Vandana enjoys reading and writing fiction that pays attention to language and character as much as to ideas. Her stories attempt to examine the human condition against the backdrop of an infinitely engaging, mysterious and sometimes terrifying physical universe.

Suchitra Mathur comes to SF as a reader and literary critic. Trained in the respectable ‘English Literature’ canon throughout her formal student career, she wasted no time in shrugging of this hoary mantle as soon as she gained the power that comes from occupying the other side of the classroom. As a teacher of literature at IIT Kanpur for the past ten years, she has joyfully plunged into the world of SF, attempting to understand her students’, and the modern world’s, obsession with Science through an exploration of the marvelous speculative worlds created in fiction and film. SF, of course, is not new to her; she grew up as an ardent Star Trek fan, with a healthy diet of Asimov and Clarke to sustain her verbal cravings. These early encounters have now transformed into active voyages to discover strange new possibilities of science, what it means, and how it relates to the worlds we inhabit and envision. She has shared her discoveries with others through courses taught to IITK students on Science Fiction, and articles published on Indian science fiction.

Chronicles of Sathyabama - Part II (Bad Manners)

I assume that the reader of this post has already read the 1st post of this series. In case you have not, I would request you to do so. That will help you grasp the reason behind some of my reactions during the incident I am about to narrate.

So my 1st university exam didn't quite start on the right note. Anyways, I tried to forget what happened...err....rather remember what happened and I went to the exam hall 'Clean Shaven' once again. Perhaps that was the first time in my life when I shaved for 3 consecutive days. Well, here I enter the exam hall and Lo! What do I see....Oh No!!! Not the same invigilator again. The more I looked at her the more ugly she looked to me. Don't know if she thought the same about me. I could see the "Yeah baby!! It's me again!! tanaaaa!!! " kind of look on her face.

But I had no reasons to worry today. I was 1. Clean Shaven 2. In formal shirt and pants 3. Having decent size hair 4. Wearing formal shoes 5. Wearing no wrist bands, rings, kadas, etc - in short - upto the mark on all of Sathyabama's Rules on the way one should come to college. And so, managing to hold all the accessories I carried ( pens, pencils, calculator etc etc) in one hand I confidently put the other one forward to take my answer sheet. BUT....I still don't get the sheet. What I get is a killer stare and a question - "Where is your right hand?"
"On my right!", I said.
"Don't act funny!! Don't you have any manners?", was a quick, sharp retort.

Damn!! What's the problem with her? What did I do now? Oh wait...Is she...Is she...HOLY SHIT!!!....Is she really pissed off at me because I put forward my left hand to take the sheet?

Yeah...I was so damn bloody right!!! That was precisely the reason. Now I don't know what a reasonable and a practical person would have done or should have done at that moment...but here's where my last day's experience zoomed into view and I did not pull my 'left' hand back. Instead, I said,"Well, Is this a rule too?"
Believe it or not but I had a wide grin on my face.

The next moment she shouted at 200 decibels saying,"No!! That's not a rule! But that's basic manners which all humans follow. And you have to really be an animal not to know that!"
I don't know what made her think so but all I could reply was,"Ma'am...err....I am a left handed animal it seems."
Now I am not actually left handed (am ambidextrous though) and one can say that here I was being unreasonable and unnecessary picking up a fight and I won't argue to that. But given the frame of mind I was in, one can say I forgot that I had a right hand too.

I still had my left hand stretched and there was a pin drop silence in the class. Then I could hear some whispers approcahing me which sounded something like,"Abey Oye! Right hand se le le na!" but I had not only forgotten my hand but had also gone deaf (thanks to some high decibel attack on me a few moments ago)

Next thing she did was to throw the answer sheet on the desk in front of her and shout,"Here, take that.....you ill mannered brat......and come with me to the examination office after the paper....you need to be taught a lesson."
What I said next could well have been a final nail on my coffin. I said,"Wow!! Using left hand is ill manners and throwing an answer sheet so disrespectfully is so much of manners!! Thank you maam for showing me that some of us still live in medieval age... by the way, after I complete the paper, you would like this to be returned with left hand or thrown back?"

Yeah Yeah I know that wasn't the wisest of words I have said in my life but it did actually shut her up for some reason.

So, yours truly next wrote the paper amidst some really heartfelt curses and drilling stares and followed it up with yet another interesting conversation with...you guessed it right... Lady Invigilator the great!!

"Where are you from?"
"Pardon Maam?", I asked while leaving my answer sheet on the stack.
"I asked where are you from?"
"Ma'am, from as in?"
"Don't you get it? I am asking which place do you belong to?"
"Well, India I guess..."
"Shut up!! Don't act oversmart with me. Else I promise I will make sure you are not able to appear in a single exam hereafter...which state are you from?"
"Ma'am seriously I don't have any other answer to your question. My ancestors belong to Bihar, I was born In Jharkhand, lived in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and now... Tamil Nadu....which state should I name?"
"Where do your parents live?"
"Gujarat"
"So, In Gujarat, people use their left hands for important things?"
"Don't know.. may be they would have done...if they were all left handed"
"Your school, your parents, nobody taught you this?"
"Well, they taught me to be logical...and right now I am not able to come up with any good logic why I should discriminate between my own two hands. Sorry Ma'am, be it hands or states, I don't discriminate between them."
And I left leaving her speechless. Fortunately or unfortunately, I never saw her again.