A Sad Day For India
The Story of Untapped Potential
Year was 2010. The start of autumn season. I was to juice the best out of the post-honeymoon-but-not-so-bad period of college.
The sense of camaraderie in the ‘wolf pack’ was at its peak and in the heat of that affinity we became quite the trouble makers of the class. Its worth noting though that by ourselves, we were big time sissies but when the last 3 benches of EnC-B-section were occupied by the “fuckin’ northies”, as we were affectionately catcalled by the intellectual highbrows of the class, lecturers had a real hard time corrupting our young minds with impertinent facts and figures. Faculty members resorted to the obvious methods of low scores and attendance shortage scares to suppress our rebellion but we were little Che Guevaras out on a metaphorical road trip around the continent of our residual adolescence.
However, our enthusiasm and the self belief of world dominating proportions came crashing down on the day the head of our department rushed in to our classroom carrying the look of doom on his face. He was a cool, rational guy. Students liked him and only something really terrible could’ve caused that paradigm shift on his ever beaming face. The six of us at the back, in that moment, had an epiphany. What if our reputation had taken a wrong turn and made its way into HOD’s office?
Anyway, so the HOD glanced around, absorbing the perplexity on all our nervous faces. We were SO not ready for a grim looking HOD.
He took a deep sigh and said, “WHAT.A.SAD.DAY.FOR.INDIA.”
My first thought was — Really?! Who died?.
The tension in the room could be cut with a knife. Eerily quiet. I could hear a siren blaring inside the Air Force Station, three kilometers away. It only added to the uneasiness of the moment. I never really found out what that siren was for. Nothing really happened before or after it. No planes flew by — nothing. In hindsight, it was weird to think about that siren in that moment. I admit, I have the attention span of a white headed capuchin.
“63 years of independence,” HOD emphasized on the number. I mentally calculated if it really were 63 years. Also, do you count 1947 as an independent year or not? I still don’t know.
“A leader in providing scientific and technological workforce to entire western world and yet as a country we are still third world. Why? Anyone?” he waved his hand at us throwing the ball of public speaking related insecurities into our court.
My train of thought really went off on this one -
Why India sucks at improving? Should I blame the politicians, but everybody does that. Could be that our rupee is too low against the dollar, nah, that’s stupid, I don’t know shit about economics and finance and let’s not even go there if I don’t know what year of independence it is. Somebody once told me that the root of any problem is humans. Always. So,provided any problem statement — start with them. Okay, what’s up with the PEOPLE of this country? They are poor, they are backwards, they are not interested in country’s development, too many differences, damn it, why is it so difficult to answer this question?
And it was in that moment of confusion and self induced hysteria, the jingle of Washing Power Nirma started playing in a loop in my head. Maybe my father was right — the problem with me is not my aptitude but my…
“Attitude?!!” answered a student to HOD’s question bringing me back to the classroom.
Yeah. Attitude. That’s the answer. I knew THAT.
“Exactly”, confirmed the HOD, “Attitude. We lack the attitude. There’s nothing wrong with our knowledge gaining skills. But its our attitude towards life, towards our responsibilities that are not pushing us any forward.” I could almost hear the Independence Day’s inspirational music rising in the background.
“And that’s why I am really disappointed to know that you guys — some of the smartest bunch of individuals that I have come across in my life…” well, while my chest rose at the sound of that, he kind of used the word ‘smart’ pretty loosely. There was a guy in that very class who believed that its called a 3-phase current because there are 3 holes in a normal power socket. Its hilariously stupid if you know electrical concepts.
“You guys… instead of utilising your time to gain knowledge and understanding the world around us, are indulging yourselves in life destroying drugs.”
WOAH. Everybody started eyeballing each other like drug sniffing hounds. The six of us were quite relieved because drugs — NAH. We only ever had enough money to buy lemonade at GK’s — our college’s own Booster Juice rip off.
But that relief was short lived.
“…and I am hearing a lot of complaints about students bunking classes. While I don’t agree with the policy of strictly classroom learning for engineering undergrads — these are some of the best faculty members in the country right now”, he casually pointed in the general direction of our Microprocessor lecturer whose face beamed with pride and a never-known-before sense of accomplishment.
“…Such actions force my hand to take stringent action against you guys,” HOD said bringing each of us to the edge of our seats, “You guys had so much potential and yet its all going to waste. I had such high hopes with EnC A Section and when I…”
“Did he just say ‘A Section’?” I asked my bench mate who had the same perplexed expression and most of the class, as I eventually noticed, shared the same confusion. A girl, who had once fainted in the classroom when she was told that she had finally scored lesser than 90% in an exam, pulled up the courage to interrupt the HOD.
“Saar.”
“What is it Hemalathashree?” Not her real name but it was on the same lines.
“Saar, its EnC B Section. A section is the next room.”
“Oh. Is it?” HOD’s body language changed from Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the lambs to Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story, with that world famous winning smile rushing back on his face.
“Oh. Well then. Don’t let me interrupt your learning guys”, he said with such warmth that it forced me to believe that the last five minutes were just a figment of my imagination. The entire classroom was still reeling with the shock of all the coulda-woulda-shoulda scenarios when, like deja vu, we overheard HOD’s voice, coming this time, from the A section.
“WHAT.A.SAD.DAY.FOR.INDIA.”
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