Being Sheep
As a kid I always loved those weird ass cartoons that they showed late in the night after 1 am and and guaranteed an adulthood filled with certain unexplained and objectionable tendencies/habits. One of them was an extremely beautiful piece of art, filled with inspirational stories, intellectual conversations, profound puns and an idiosyncratic lyricism (<- whatever that means) in the verses created by its artists: Sheep in the Big City.
I didn’t get that joke as a kid. I was not the cool kind.[/caption]
I always admired the intellectual depth of the creators who made this cartoon: A paranoid General with an angry scientist in search for a sheep who, by the creative prowess of the creators, is named Sheep, to power its Sheep-powered ray-gun for conquering the world. If you’re wondering that Sheep in the Big City might have been some kind of allegory on the transnational neo-liberalism or post-colonial digital humanities, then you should’ve probably stopped smoking whatever you were smoking a long time back. Sheep in the Big City was as literal as it could be: It was the story of a sheep in the big-city.
If you even remotely remember my previous creation, dear reader, then you’ll also notice the newly renovated design of this blog, which like million others is just another humble addition on Wordpress; created with minimum effort and maximum amount of time and echoing guilt in the voice of Gananath Misra saying CS ke hoke bhi ek website nahi bana sakte tum Bc. In the honest opinion of all technologically profound individuals around me I am, and I am sure that they mean no disrespect, an abomination in the name of geeks. Even though I successfully installed and fashionably worked on Ubuntu during the internship at the end of my second year, developed a fully functional prototype API during the stay at Samsung and survived all the Labs with respectable grades in the last 3 years, the extent of my technical know-how stands at pretending to understand what two developers are talking about, supplying the conversation with some occasional “Yeah, you’re right but is it possible…” or “Of course, that’s exactly how it’s gonna work…” and knowing when to shut up and join some other conversation.
To be honest, this post comes as a remembrance to the great time I have had in IITR. Truly, in all my arrogance I can say that this place hasn’t had any effect on me since I was born a roman-emperor with phenomenal oratory, orgasmic charm and brains that could give Einstein a boner. As my naive days come to an end and the professional, more older and sober me looks over the miniature freshmen, I get goosebumps from imagining the idea of going out in the real world, earning my own bread, butter and Nutella, paying bills and taxes and paying for the internet. This entire idea of growing up is overwhelming from a distance but in reality, it’s even more scarier than I had imagined. However, unlike the way I had expected, and I am certain that it might hit me some time later but at this moment, this particular moment after the events of last one year, I am left with little nostalgia. Yeah. Honest.
The tears dried up a long time ago. The farewells seemed another excuse to get drunk and dance for some time, so that you can get to drink again and sleep out in the AC at Premdoot.
This place however, has had an interesting impact on the way that I have grown to perceive things. Although I do believe that I was, and still am to some extent, the same awkward kid who entered the college 3.5 years back and believing that Ayn Rand was a guy writing thick novels in small fonts, making people uncomfortable with his cliched opinions, cynical attitude and unforgivable attempts at humour, and judging everyone as a degenerate for not liking Indian Classical music.
But I think I have grown more liberal by the passage of time.
Only if liberal means knowing when to keep your trap shut and minding your own damn business.
Baa.
