तुग़लक़ी फ़रमान

“The core structure of any organization is dependent primarily upon the following 3 things: sound clarity of the goals, cogent analysis of the customer feedback and presence of a cohesive environment inside the firm”

Bus-Tea wale Sardar-ji

In my past works I have reflected that I am incapable of posting 3 decent blog entries in a span of 6 months. With the passage of time and increased frequencies of my brief 2-minute introspections, I have also observed that my blog till now has been devoid of any smart sounding quotes and is portraying me as a low-life thug, who writes articles in MS word and right-clicks on every third word for better synonyms. To tell you the truth, it didn’t come as a shock. There are even more juvenile things that I have written in the past. My strong desire to go back there and delete them happens to be a natural defense mechanism against any blast-from-the-past/throwback-thursday stemming out of the mild curiosity of a stalker-friend. But, like any responsible citizen of this country, who openly criticizes people listening to Honey Singh songs but dances in parties while loudly mouthing the lyrics of the same, I am prone to procrastination.

So, in this process of puking things out and lack of better ideas to do come up with anything new (like even a suitable introduction for this blog), I bring to you yet another conversation that was overheard in the Govind Bhawan Canteen, between Abhishek Techni-wal and Abhishek Por-wal. Naturally, you won’t be judged as a very smart person if you assumed that it actually took place there. Over the time, I have realized that the conflicts that sometimes arise in the functional parts of my brain are best expressed as dialogues. Well, that’s me being too proud. It’s always better for the sake of humanity and my mental (and physical, more so) health, that they’re left unexpressed.
Just so to avoid any well-read right-wing nerd and cutthroat liberal/leftist goon, here goes the generic disclaimer: The views are strictly personal. However, in case you have a problem with them, feel free to express. I am open for a healthy debate.
Overheard in Govind canteen, as Por-wal and Techni-wal wait for their Bun-Samosa and Plain Half-fried Maggi, respectively.

Techni-wal: Long time man.

Por-wal: Indeed bro. How are you?

Techni-wal: Fine as always. You look fucked, by the way.

Por-wal: Sigh.

Techni-wal: What’s wrong?

Por-wal: Nothing man. Nothing really.

Techni-wal: Okay. What’s wrong?

Por-wal: The grades for Compiler lab are out.

Techni-wal: Kya lagi?

Por-wal: Chaggi.

Techni-wal: Behn.

Por-wal: Yes.

Techni-wal: Theek hai. Not the first time you’ll be having that alphabet on your grade sheet.

Por-wal: See. This is the part that hurts the most. I worked really hard for this one.

Techni-wal: Seriously?

Por-wal: Of course! I mean I might have gone for at least 5 night-outs this entire semester on consecutive Thursdays.

Techni-wal: Oh. I didn’t know that you wrote all the codes for the lab on your own.

Por-wal: Well, there’s a catch there.

Techni-wal: …

Por-wal: See, I did stay up the whole night. But many times it so happened that I didn’t manage to debug the code.

Techni-wal: How many times precisely?

Por-wal: It’s difficult to say.

Techi-wal: There you go.

Por-wal: In my defense, you need to know that I don’t have no god-like coding skills.

Techni-wal: That lab does not determine the kind of programmer you are, homie.

Por-wal: Yes. But you need to understand that I did work hard for that lab. And then this happened.

Techni-wal: Yeah. Sad.

Por-wal: You want to say something?

Techni-wal: No. Nothing really.

Por-wal: Say it.

Techni-wal: You won’t be pleased to hear it.

Por-wal: Give it a try.

Techni-wal: I think in that lab, everyone of us got the grade that we deserved.

Por-wal: That’s not fair man.

Techin-wal: Told you so.

Por-wal: What? You want me to agree with you.

Techni-wal: No. I don’t expect that.

Por-wal: So why say it then?

Techni-wal: You wanted an honest answer. I just supplied it.

Por-wal: Care to justify?

Techni-wal: Not now. Maggi.

<The Half Fried maggi, without cabbage arrives>

Por-wal: That thing can kill you, you know.

Techni-wal: I think we have had weirder stuff injected in our body.

Por-wal: True that.

Techni-wal: But this Maggi row had its own effect.

Por-wal: What exactly?

Techni-wal: People seemed to have forgotten the IIT Madras issue.

Por-wal: Well, people have better things to be worried about. Disappearance of Maggi from our lives is bigger than freedom speech.

Techni-wal: True that. Imagine the horror of those overly health conscious Mothers. Must’ve been a whole Stephen King combined with Robin Cook experience for them.

Por-wal: Yeah. But there’s a possibility that its consumption would continue.

Techni-wal: Of course. People can virtually eat anything for the taste.

Por-wal: So about the Madras Case…What do you think about it?

Techni-wal: Why’s that relevant? The issue’s over.

Por-wal: No I just want to understand what’s your take on it.

Techni-wal: Why? So that you can write something for your facebook feed, like
you did the last time with my verdict on IITB’s Sexism issue?

Por-wal: Shit. How do you even remember that?

Techni-wal: Never mind. But tell me if I am wrong.

Por-wal: I just wrote what I felt like after you said those things to me.

Techni-wal: Rubbish. Your crush shared a post and you had to write something in her support. Tell me if that’s a lie.

Por-wal: I didn’t know you used facebook that extensively.

Techni-wal: Stalker and proud, bitch.

Por-wal: So yes. She has shared a similar post by some Youth-Ki-Aawaz guy there. Your help would be appreciated.

Techni-wal: Alright. What do you want to know?

Por-wal: See, I know the basic premise of the whole thing. Some random student body crossed some RSS guy and IITM Dean went full Hitler on them.

Techni-wal: Well. That’s it really. Except that bit about RSS guy. The complaint was anonymous.

Por-wal: Yeah, right. And the reaction of the IITM administration was also surprisingly quick.

Techni-wal: No. I don’t think the reaction of IITM administration was surprising. If that was IITR, even then the action taken would have been the same.

Por-wal: So you’re saying that it was justified, what they did?

Techni-wal: No, idiot. I am not saying that. I am just stating that one of the few things our IITR administration is capable of doing is giving out a solid knee-jerk reaction. Exactly what the honorable Madrasi profs did.

Por-wal: But that’s wrong. As adults we all possess the right to freedom of speech…

Techni-wal: Yeah, I know. I know. Don’t need to start here. But this issue was way more than that, by the way.

Por-wal: What else? Casteism and all..?

Techni-wal: I think that was the beauty of it. This issue turned out to be like a complete set of Funskool play-dough for a lot of people.

Por-wal: I don’t get the analogy.

Techni-wal: See, you know what our country has all sorts of people. Like from an average Starbucks-going and Twitter updating IT guy to a daily-wage
labourer whose whole family survives on him.

Por-wal: Come to the point.

Techni-wal: Yes. So all of these people, they are basically resources for a person whose living rests upon the approval of all of them.

Por-wal: You can use the word politicians. I am not that dumb.

Techni-wal: Feel nahi aayegi fir. I mean any random guy who calls himself a leader.

Por-wal: What’s your point?

Techni-wal: My point is that this issue has everything that you need for a loud Freedom-of-Speech Friday evening with Arnab Goswami to a revolutionary Facebook-share that might eventually get you laid with that buzzfeed-following, selfie-clicking, pseudo-feminist girl you have been stalking for ages.

Por-wal: Alright.

Techni-wal: Apart from that, this also had all the material that was needed for a politician, suffering from Dunning Kruger effect, dying for the betterment of his public image in front of the intellectual, meme-sharing junta.

Por-wal: Rahul Baba.

Techni-wal: This issue also has an angle of Caste associated with it, courtsey of the name Ambedkar. So you can guess…

Por-wal: Yup. No need to add anything here. Someone might just hear something offensive.

Techni-wal: And then the show-stopper — Hindutva.

Por-wal: Holy shit.

Techni-wal: Yes. And that too saffron orange colored.

Por-wal: Whoa. Easy.

Techni-wal: It was an unexpected political Carnival man, for the jobless opposition these days.

Por-wal: Oh. You really think then that our government is doing what it is supposed to do? Like you actually believe in the capitalist mindset being endorsed by Modi and co.?

Techni-wal: Let’s not change the topic.

Por-wal: Don’t tell me that you’re a Modi supporter…

Techni-wal: I said that the opposition these days is jobless. That doesn’t make me a Modi supporter. They are pitching in the same apprehensions the NDA did when it sat on the other side.

Por-wal: Well let’s keep that discussion for some other day, then.

Techni-wal: Sure.

Por-wal: So what’s your take on this particular issue?

Techni-wal: The Madras one? I just told you, right?

Por-wal: No. You just told me how this is molding clay for any politician.

Techni-wal: Well, it was just a student group. It had every right to exist.

Por-wal: Did you take a look at their fb page?

Techni-wal: Yes I did.

Por-wal: Then you must have noticed how right they were! They were actually arguing against all the propaganda that is being fed to us by our current government. Against the beef-ban, crony capitalism et cetera.

Techni-wal: Well, I don’t know about right or wrong, but I did notice how left they were.

Por-wal: I don’t get you.

Techni-wal: See, I am in full support of their criticism of the beef-ban and other issues that they raised and later offered an intelligent scientific explanation, accentuated by statistical facts and figures. Being a man of statistics and a global mindset, that’s enough for me…

Por-wal: Where are you heading?

Techni-wal: But almost on all occasions, by the end of their every post, they professed the existence of a hidden conspiracy theory featuring some right wing Hindu organizations trying to control the country and propogating anger against the foreign religions.

Por-wal: Wait. That bugged you?

Techni-wal: No it did not. It made them like any other organization criticising the government. Nothing exceptional.

Por-wal: And is that bad ?

Techni-wal: It’s quite adamant that you’re trying get something out of me. Here let me make it clear — It’s bad what happened to them but it was not surprising though. The IITM administration constitutes old and middle aged people who are trying everything in their might to please the HRD ministry. And it’s not all of them, okay? The division of power on the top level of the institute governance rests in the hand of a very few people. The situtation is same here in Roorkee. You just wait for the coming International Yoga Day.

Por-wal: You didn’t answer my question. An organization criticising the government gets screwed in broad daylight. What do you have to say?

Techni-wal: I’d say that the guy responsible for writing letters from HRD ministry to IITs is an idiot. We are living in the 21st century in a country which has so many people that it is virtually impossible to be an extremist and morally right at the same time. If there are people working on a conspiracy, then obviously they are not very smart. APSC was unknown till yesterday. Now people like you and I are standing in its support and debating on the students’ right to free speech in college. Some plan that was.

Por-wal: But just like you said! The Yoga classes, the open promotion of Sanskrit and Hindi in our college, the beef-ban, the separation of Non-Veg eating junta, and I have barely even scratched the surface! How do you explain that?

Techni-wal: I’d say that it’s just a case of spineless IITR administration which is determined to please someone in power. The government can be a bully whenever it wants to. In BJP’s case it takes the form of its paranormal Hindutva policies, churned out by Khaki-colored boxer wearing, sanskaar-promoting visionaries. In Congress’s case it was the economically destructive reforms and a lousy-accountless administration. Elections gave you a choice to choose the lesser of two evils. My point out of all of it is that the government will always be at fault. And it is the duty of people to stay aware of the mistakes it makes and take active part in discussions to make amends whenever necessary. It is actually a good sign, to see all the intellectuals coming out and debate. The whole essence of Democracy lies here.

Por-wal: I don’t know. Your views are too utopian. You are forgetting that people, in general, are idiots. They get swayed by factors of caste, religion, language et cetera. Most of them don’t care anyway. Any person with some muscle and right surname can become a leader here.

Techni-wal: Well, that’s why our country might be officially fucked up, as much as you’d hate to believe it.

Por-wal: I don’t believe it.

Techni-wal: That’s the spirit.

Por-wal: But..

Techni-wal: But what?

Por-wal: Something doesn’t feel right.

Techni-wal: The grades for Compiler lab are out.

Techni-wal: And also, one point two billion and counting, my friend.

<silence>

<Techni-wal stands up>

Techni-wal: And also, one point two billion and counting, my friend.

<Techni-wal leaves>

<Por-wal stares at his Bun Samosa in silence>