Convocation Day

Finally, the day most ppl dream of since entering an institute was here. The fifth annual convocation of IIT Roorkee. Time to see the seniors I haven't seen for the past semester and some I might not be able to meet for a long time. The nostalgic stories of fun, pranks etc and time to move on and leave this place for one final time.

Some juniors and friends asked me whether I will come back to attend my convocation. This question made me think. I agree that Roorkee as a place hasn't been good. Horrible weather, long classes, lots of bureaucracy, no social life etc. But are these the most important factors in deciding abt a place ? In Rke, I met lots of the ppl who changed me for better or for worse. I had the most fun I think I could have had with friends. I remember a quote I read somewhere "Experiences can be good or bad but memories are always sweet". The summary being, I would love to come back for my convocation if possible and meet once again those ppl.

I was celebrating as Convocation meant one extra day of holiday or so I thought. The classes of Wednesday have been shifted to this Saturday. This means a single day weekend. This is pure torture.

I just received a story forwarded to me by one of my friends. Its a long one but very good one at that. Hope u like it as much as I did.

In Brooklyn, New York, Chush is a school that caters to learning disabled children. Some children remain in Chush for their entire school career, while others can be main-streamed into regular schools. At a Chush fund-raising dinner, the father of a Chush child delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he cried out, "Where is the Perfection in my son Shaya? Everything God does is done with perfection. But my child cannot understand things as other children do. My child cannot remember facts and figures as other children do. Where is God's perfection?" The audience was shocked by the question, pained by the father's anguish and stilled by the piercing query. "I believe," the father answered, that when God brings a child like this into the world, the perfection that he seeks is in the way people react to this child." He then told the following story about his son, Shaya:

One afternoon, Shaya and his father walked past a park where some boys Shaya knew were playing baseball. Shaya asked, "Do you think they will let me play?"

Shaya's father knew that his son was not at all athletic and that most boys would not want him on their team. But Shaya father understood that if his son was chosen to play it would give him a comfortable sense of belonging.

Shaya's father approached one of the boys in the field and asked if Shaya could play. The boy looked around for guidance from his teammates. Getting none, he took matters into his own hands and said "We are losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him up to bat in the ninth inning."

Shaya's father was ecstatic as Shaya smiled broadly. Shaya was told to put on a glove and go out to play short center field. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shaya's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shaya's team scored again and now with two outs and the bases loaded with the potential winning run on base, Shaya was scheduled to be up. Would the team actually let Shaya bat at this juncture and give away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shaya was given the bat. Everyone knew that it was all but impossible because Shaya didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, let alone hit with it. However, as Shaya stepped up to the plate, the pitcher moved a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shaya should atleast be able to make contact.The first pitch came and Shaya swung clumsily and missed. One of Shaya's teammates came up to Shaya and together they held the bat and faced the pitcher waiting for the next pitch.

The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly toward Shaya. As the pitch came in, Shaya and his teammate swung at the ball and together they hit a slow ground ball to the pitcher. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could easily have thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shaya would have been out and that would have ended the game.

Shaya ran towards second base as the runners ahead of him deliriously circled the bases towards home. As Shaya reached second base, the opposing short stop ran to him, turned him in the direction of third base and shouted,"Run to third." As Shaya rounded third, the boys from both teams ran behind him screaming, "Shaya, run home." Shaya ran home, stepped on home plate and all 18 boys lifted him on their shoulders and made him the hero, as he had just hit a "grand slam" and won the game for his team.

"That day," said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, "those 18 boys reached their level of God's perfection."

Funny how simple it is for people to trash different ways of living and believing and then wonder why the world is going to hell.

Funny how I can be more worried about what others think of me than what I think of me

Murphy's Law

Murphy's Law states that

"If anything has to go wrong, it will go wrong at the worst possible time and in the worst possible sequence"

I suppose everyone can identify with this statement atleast once in his/her lifetime. The past two weeks have proved me that this is the most applicable law in day-to-day life.

Firstly, exams. Somehow profs are always able to find the portion I am not so good at and ask questions from it. The second part of the statement also cames true with 5 papers in 2 days. All the tough papers are on the first day and the easier ones on the second day.

The exams ended on Thursday. Thoughts of relaxing and watching some soccer crossed my mind but ESPN/Star Sports have stopped live telecast of La Liga (Spanish Football). With Real Madrid losing three matches in a week, my friends are not losing any opportunity to make fun of the Galacticos.

Continuing with sports, tennis has gathered many new supporters here with Sania fever spreading around. Federer was invincible as ever even when he played below par. Hewitt and Agassi both could take only one set each off him. Can't wait for Australian Open to start.

On the positive side, I watched the complete Lord of The Rings again. Somehow, we got an uncut version with one and a half hour of extra footage. Enough reason to watch the trilogy again. More than 10 hours later, I realized that LOTR is one of those rare movies in which eveything is perfect from casting, dialogues, cinematography,story, direction etc. Now I am back to reading LOTR again.

CAT preparations are going on at a decent pace. Quantitative Abilities is proving to be my nemesis in Mock CATs and I am working on it.

Time to go back and mug up some Quants and listen to some music.

Food for Thought !

The election time is over and we have a new General Secy (Fortunately from our floor). Once again ten days of promises, permutations & combinations and double crossing comes to end. Just hope that the new team can put aside their differences and work for the good of the institute & the students.
I read a post on freedom on my friend's blog (http://comingback2life.blogspot.com). He has raised some questions abt the current generation taking freedom for granted and abt patriotism. Maybe the current generation doesn't feel abt it because we never had to fight for it and hence, we take freedom for granted.
Still continuing with the agenda of seeing good, meaningful Hindi movies. Saw Mr & Mrs Iyer. Its a very nice movie abt how humanity in people comes to the fore in face of communalism with both Rahul Bose and Konkana Sen being perfect in their roles.
Another movie that I saw again was Swades, certainly one of my favourite Hindi movies of recent times and the best performance by Shahrukh Khan till date. The movie always makes me think abt lots of stuff. Let me explain it by an example.
When I was a child, I used to watch BQC regularly. In one of the episodes, the guest personality was Mr Mani shankar Aiyar, current Petroleum Minister of India. Derek asked Mr Aiyar that in India, parents tell children that politics is a bad profession and tell them never to become a politician. To this Mr Aiyar calmly replied that this is the problem. If good men don't go for politics and bad ppl do, u can't expect politics to be good.
Isn't this quotation aptly applicable even now. Many of my friends are appearing for GRE and going abroad for further studies with an excuse that India doesn't have good enough facilities. But if the best people turn away from their responsibilities, how can anyone expect India to become great ?
This is a problem which is visible all around us. For example, Thomso IIT Roorkee's cultural fest. The current team for Thomso is easily the second best because the best people didn't go for any posts. It seems that Cognizance, our techfest will also suffer a similar fate. Do we still have the right to criticize ppl who work for these events ?
Neways, enuff of heavy stuff for now. Hope next post will be a light one.

Books, Movies & Poli

I decided to see some critically acclaimed movies that I had put on the backburner in the last sem because of their duration or because I wasn't in a mood for the heavy stuff. The list also includes two Hindi movies, so here is what I thought of them

The Godfather II

I loved The Godfather but its not the best movie I have ever seen. The reason maybe that the novel was much much better than the movie and comparisons were inevitable. Godfather II has Robert De Niro playing younger Marlon Brando (the part from the book) and Al Pacino as Michael Corleone trying to cement his place. Robert De Niro won an oscar for his performance. The nasal, reasoning voice of Marlon Brando has been portrayed flawlessly by him. I still can't fathom why Al Pacino missed out on an oscar as I couldn't find nething to separate the two. The last scene where he is seen brooding & remembering the family dinner when he didn't want to become involved in the family business is just superb

Black

A long time since I sw an Indian movie like this. B4 this, I thought that Amitabh had given his best performance till date in Deewar (the old one) but I think this performance rates right with it. The role of a mentor for a mentally-challenged girl makes you realize that how much difference in one's life a mentor can make. I don't think that anybody else can come even close to challenging Rani & Amitabh for the awards this yr.

Masoom

I read the novel - Man, Women & Child by Eric Segal in the summers and decided to see Shekar Kapur's movie. Absolutely gr8 songs, presentation and performances. I guess its the only movie in which I liked Jugal Hansraj.

Next up is Muqbool, as soon as I can get it. In terms of books, still reading A Beautiful Mind.

Its time for politics in IITR as Students' Affair Council is to be formed. I see people involved in politics and can't help by wonder. Quite a few of these ppl, criticize Indian politicians accusing them of being two-faced, profit minded etc. But when it comes to them, they do the same double-crossing, buying votes etc. Another thing that comes to my mind from this. I know that ppl involved in various events bamboozle money. Same ppl are the most vocal in GDs abt politicians being corrupt. Can't understand this hypocrisy. I guess, somewhere I am thankful that Indian politicians are illiterate because a corrupt, illiterate politician is always better than a corrupt, literate one.

I think I am getting too senti abt this but this is what I feel. Neways, its raining 2day and I have a three day weekend. What else could I ask for ?

What's In The Name ?

I m back after a long lay off. I hope I shall be able to be more regular in my posts now onwards.

Since the day that I can remember, my name has been one of the unique ones. I mean how many of you have ever heard of a guy named Supriy? Since my school days, ppl have been making unnecessary additions & deletions from my name. The most common variations have been Supriya and Supriyo. There have been some weird combos in which even I failed to recognize that I m the person being referred to like Supbix Shakh, Surya and the latest one in the voters' list of my hostel Suopriy. The last straw was when I googled for Supriy Shah and google asked me "Do you mean Supriya Shah"

In my school days, this used to annoy me a lot with my classmates making fun of me. Slowly, slowly I came to terms with my name and stopped being annoyed.

Some of you might be wondering, why I am blabbering so much abt my name. The most weird case happened on our journey from Indore to Roorkee. There were 4 of us and tkts had been reserved by Kaddy. The ticket attendant came, checked the tkt and asked where is the girl Supriya. We assumed that it was the usual mistake that ppl make but he refused to believe us. On closer scrutiny, we found that the tkt itself had name of Supriy as Supriya mentioned as 21 yr old female. The tkt attendant refused to believe the truth and I would have been penalised for impersonating myself. However, we showed him my insti id and he accepted the error. I wanted to kill Kaddy at that point of time.

I guess that was not the last incident of its type and there will be many more to come. But hey, uniqueness has a price to pay.

In the meantime, I was able to read HP VI on the day of its release and also To Kill A Mockingbird. There have been many more interesting cases too but that for the next time.