Don't Learn But Think- A Take On The Education System

Its been a week since i wrote my last blog post ..It's not that i was super busy to write anything and store it in my virtual memory forever , its just that i was collecting enough visual data to present the scenario in a better manner.I would love to talk a little more about the stark contrast i see here as compared to many "Top Schools " in my own country!!

India as people think to be. is the mutt of competition and competitive learning. People feel very proud to say that my son cracked this exam,he got such a great AIR( All India Rank), or has topped in his boards. Such delight and achievement right??

I would like to open the eyes of people from my blog post that what they think is WRONG!! They do not think about how much was lost in the time the person devoted his heart,soul and everything just to become a fucking search engine...Google .....completely filled with facts and figures...finding the quickest ways and memorizing them ..only to realize that a few months down the line he remembers shit.

Since the day i came here i knew there was something different in the air, something different in the education system . As i had mentioned in my last blog post how i saw many people here chilling alone glued to their laptops now and then,i slowly came to realize that not all of them were fools ..instead they were super smart people who knew how to "THINK". Most of these people were engaged in their research activities , trying to find answers to the things they didn't know about, trying to broaden their scope and move forwards from just being a search engine. Becoming people who could think, innovate, and create.

Just to brush up our facts, the kind of education system we now see in India and many parts of the rest of the world was indeed very necessary in the age of the Industrial revolution. People were built like machines, going from classroom to classroom , being taught by different teachers , like robots being programmed to perform tasks. But then suddenly we had a flash of light and boom, we had the space age device called the "Internet". The game changer.Now we no longer had to depend on rote memorization of facts and figures , something else could do that for us just in an instant.

USA was quick to realize this and moved to an new form of education system where people were allowed to be people and not memory machines. I have to tell you i am in the process of conversion myself after reading infinite number of books on this, and yes it does feel good.

Yes i have to tell you this, the US education system is much more logical, and creative as compared to MERA BHARAT MAHAN. Not only they have developed amazing facilities to empower their students , give them all the tools in their hands for them to play,just like we do with a small child by giving him toys and letting him explore the world. Yes they think like children. And they live life like them. With greatness in their minds and hard work in their soul. Definitely i am not saying that my countrymen are not capable of doing hard work. Instead i would say out of 70% of the Asians i see here 40% are my countrymen who are themselves building this nation.They had the resources to come here and actually see all this.

I have read about various programs in India , about people who are trying hard to get this change and i am well aware its on its way. But my only concern is with the pace of the change . I don't want to miss the train, I don't want my country to miss the train of rapid and radical change for the better.

Here we have classes in the curriculum such as "Creativity , innovation and thinking" in which people have a group discussion on Bio mimicry, that is taking inspiration from nature and innovating. We also have classes such as " Energy , Sustainability, and Earth" in which people discuss global issues and with great software's try to formulate the future of the present path and the possible alternatives. Things like these not only force you to think, but also makes you feel a little more human.( robots cannot match us right now on the thinking part!!).

I have been in "One of the best engineering colleges of India" now for 3 years and i must tell you i have learned SHIT!!. I have learned how to mug things up in the last few days and just take it all out on a blank sheet of paper on the final day. If this has been happening with me i am sure it must be happening with my friends as well reading this post. I urge them to stop learning and start thinking about what they are learning . Start thinking about what they are developing into. A little self reflection is never bad.

According to me learning should definitely become addictive. That's what i see here. Mad people learning , talking , exploring every day ,and on the weekend becoming even more insane to let it all out in the clubs. Learning and thinking should be like "dal roti" . Routinely ,and everyday.

I have made some great friends here who support this and also talk about the change they feel here. One is a PHD student from Punjab( he's the cool dude). One is a shy German , 25 years old, doing his internship in the Chemistry annex, another is a kick ass Brazilian lawyer who is also doing his thesis. I get to learn a lot from these guys, knowing about their culture and beliefs. All of them are at least 5 years elder to me, but age just seems like a number. Days are starting to blend, and i am loving and living each and every moment i spend here.Love the studious environment , being the geek i am.
Looking forward to creating a better world for my people when i am back!.

The Weekday's Preparation

So here i am at 5.07 Am starting to write this blog post ..jotting down the memories of the days gone by ever so quickly.

Weekends in this place are pretty laid back ,you rarely see anyone on the roads and in the buildings. Weekends means two days of no work. Me being a workaholic that is am ,I was a little disappointed to see that. To me it really seems like waste of many hours of productivity especially when you are busy doing household chores like cleaning cooking washing etc. Unfortunately or fortunately i myself have to indulge in this unproductive activity myself daily now that i am living independently away from the  comforts of my 4BHK palace back in my homeland(not that i miss it ).

I would not completely disregard the capacity of these household works to make you a better person though. To my surprise i know now how to make an amazing Cheese Egg Bhurji, Starbucks Coffee, and yes eating amazing packaged food( yes i did not make and pack this one)

I tried with all my strength to finish these trivial tasks ASAP and shift on to more important matters at hand. We made a good hands-on schedule for our short stay. To do this i had to log on to the university website , browse the "important" courses for me from a list of at least a 100 mentioned in the course catalog and then go through each of them to choose the few lectures i would like to attend from a list of 12 on an average  mentioned in each course.
So that's like choosing a few things to fill your week up effectively out of a list of 1200 items...Not to forget each one had its own timings so i had to effectively keep in mind the timing of each lecture as well and adjust it in the time table so as to fill up my day.....And yes as i thought it would lead to i ended up over packing my day with 8 lectures daily with a gap of 10 minutes each ( NOTE this included the travelling , and the eating time as well).

That's not all ...since we do not have an Internet pack in our mobiles here ( university Wifi can only be accessed inside the campus buildings not on the streets) we had to literally map the bus routes from one place to another , keep check of the time and also calculate the fair accordingly . But in the end to simplify our life we ended up getting ourselves a 15 $ all month bus pass.

Then came the big boom as soon as the weekday's started.Suddenly all the birdies came out of their nests into the wild open snow clogged streets packed with clothes running towards their respective lectures.It was quite a rush and i felt a little comfortable to see that after all , universities are not so different in India and the "almighty" USA.

Side by side my dance classes were going really well. I was taking my friend along with me to the classes and he was obviously having the time of his life looking at the cute "firangs" (not that i wasn't..:P)
My first dance class was quite a shock for me as this was the first time i ever danced on live instruments , like modern dance on a piano, drums and yes my favourite the bongo instrument.
The contact improvisation classes were without music and after a long time i had this feeling that i was floating in air after the class ( and yes i was not drunk ..:P). Scientifically speaking its a form of meditation or yoga, it causes an excess secretion of endorphins from your head which gives you the immense feeling of pleasure in silence.

In my next blog post i would definitely describe how interactive each and every class here is. How the teacher takes the extra effort to make it interesting for the students and how technology is deeply embedded inside each and every stream of knowledge.

Ps: Here are some of the snapshots of the experience in UIUC .

Mechanical Fugazi- First few days!

So here i am at 11.05 pm writing this big nice blog post about my take on the American life style . I call it the mechanical fugazi.

You must be curious how i got this name in the first place. I got the word "fugazi" from a movie i recently saw.The actor described a fugazi as " something which is not real, aauzii vauzii,fairy dust".

The first impression which i got as soon as i entered the university was in short "FAIRY LAND". This beautifully preserved silent paridise was like it had been preserved by the ice and the snow. The view was just mesmerizing. Ancient "clean" building could be seen here and there becuase this university was built in 1867. It was a blend of the latest technlgy with the best of history. The modern transportation system of busses connected bith the towns of champaign and urbana.1 $ a ride for visitors and free ride for students was a joy for me. It simply ment less money spent on loads of travelling.

My professor picked me up from the Altgeld hall( The mathematics building-  Beautifully designed) and took us to the Illini Union..thats the main student hub. Illini Uinon is like a whole building dedicated to students ,with coffee shops and student societies offices...its like THE thing of the campus. Sudents could be seen everywhere in groups of "1" chilling and having coffee.
Yes you read it right...All i could see was people with no firends and no one to talk to ....sitting alone ...laptop,coffee,mobile ,facebook, maybe a book , headphones, and no sign of a living organism they was having a chat with.

This shit was really strange as compared to my college and its canteen.!!! I mean we have friends !!!
(ps: I have been seeing this everyday now )

Anyway moving on,we had a great lunch with my professor, who is a really gentle person and a very learned man.He showed us around the university and we were all set to go to our new place in the campus,the orchard downs .

Next day we decided to travel around the campus on our own to explore things out. Thats when the mechanical fugazi started. Everything in this place is spick, span and organized .Even the robotic human beings are well followiung their commands . I say this beacus the next day when i attended a lecture i witnessed something of this sort . The class was supposed to end around 10.50 Am. I was engrossed in this aazing lecture about nuclear reactors when i realized a suddent commotion . All the books closing symontaniously and the sound of the moving desks and chairs. Me and my friend were totally clueless what the hell was goujng on. It's only when the poor professor saarcastacally said that" you know that you guys are really good at keeping time" we realised what had happened. Felt like i was in a zombie mechanical world . It was like Times Up , Oops, Movement mode ON.

So moving away from this we came back to our appartment and made a good self customized schedule for thr time we were going to spend in the university.As the classes are ciompletely free to enter and learn we chose an assorted basket of lectures we wanted to attend,most of them being in the subject of innovation and design,renewable energy and dance/music.
Having everything in place we mapped out each and every route we had to take to reach the classes at their particular timing.

Now the wheels have started to churn towards self improvement and indeoendant living.I wake up at 12 am everday and wake up by 6 am sharp,excersise,drink loads of juice/ice tea and get going with my day.

I do not know if i would become a part of this mechanical fugazi in the next few days or not. But i feel yes we do need a little bit of rules followed lifestyle once in a while,a good mixture of everything.But definitely overdoing it like this place would make it a zombie land.

The days are rolling on pretty slowly but i am having a lot of fun!! Its something new,something different!!

A Journey Begins Again-Chicago and UIUC

I left for India on the 31 st of January at 2 am and arrived to the United States of America ..the land of wonder on the 31st itself( It's 11.5 hours behind the IST) at precisely 6.30 Am.
The flight was dot on time without any delays even though we encountered fog.
I decided that there will definitely be a big change in me as soon as i start this journey. I would grow as a person even more in this one month of Internship than i would ever in the same time duration in my home country India. the primary reason why i though so was because this was the first time i was out on my own,with a very dear friend Avinash Bansal(from the same class in DTU) but the bonus was there was no family around. why i say this is because i feel its an Indian tradition that even though you are as old as the UIUC(founded in 1867) itself your parents would always and always treat you like a kid.(mom and dad no offense)

So here i was dreaming big and happy that i was taking another major step in my happy go lucky life.
The first major change i saw in myself was that my impression of Air India airlines changed quite a lot.From being a shitty airlines ruled by Aunty's and Uncles, the age of my grand parents it was changed to well maintained professionals who did not remind me that my mom was travelling along.:P
Yes we ate like habshis on the plane asking for dinner twice..after all how much can you change engineering students when it comes to eating habits :P
During the flight me and my friend made an elaborate list of why we were taking this trip ,what we wished to achieve . We also jot down the points on a piece of paper which not sticks to our refrigerator in our apartment. It helped us focus and reduce our nervousness of stepping into the unknown.

When we landed at Chicago airport O'Hare it was anything like what i had imagined. It was a small airport ,very small indeed.There was just one place ..our friendly neighborhood hero restaurant Mr McDonald to eat in.There wasn't even a waiting lounge for people waiting for their connecting flight.
Anyway while waiting for our shuttle to arrive which we had pre-booked before leaving i was jumping and bouncing like a popcorn waiting to go out.The temperature outside was -7 degrees.When the doors of the airport opened and we started to walk towards the shuttle a burst of fresh air hit my face and i felt rejuvenated. I thought it was the cleanest air i had breath in  a very long time(keeping in mind the dust and pollution of the capital where i come from).
When we were walking towards the shuttle we had to cross the road to reach it . At a distance i could see a police patrol vehicle approaching near...I wanted to run and cross the road but i resisted the Indian Urge.To my surprise the police man stopped his car at-least 10 meters away from me and waved me to carry on . This is not a very big incident but i was impressed ,even though it was on the slightest scale.

We boarded the shuttle and made good friend from South Africa ,the driver Logan. He told us that he had changed his name because the Americans couldn't pronounce it very well.He had changed his name form Orkert to Logan the wolverine. He told us about many such examples that for tourism and job sake many people tend to change their names within a months time of arriving in Chicago.

As we moved on we could see the high rises of the Downtown towards our left.I did not pay much attention to it because i was busy in the mind-blowing beauty of the falling snowflakes in front of me.Felt like i was in heaven.!!!!

Ps: Post written in a lot of hurry as i have a Basket Ball Match between Champagne and Urbana to attend to ;)

The Shahzada- Rahul Gandhi's Reality

So i have read a million status by people about the interview between Mr Rahul Gandhi and Mr Arnab Goswami...I frankly feel they are not detailed ..

Mr Rahul Gandhi before you question the fundamentals -first question your own people and your party's propaganda technique.!!! Look into your own functioning before you can think of bringing about the bigger change.
I strongly feel he is uneducated about his surroundings ...Feels like he is actually a SEHEZADA who has grown up in all the riches and luxuries, powers and is now trying to get his "placement" in the Indian politics based on hierarchy(not to forget he condemns it after taking full advantage of it ) ...feels to me he is really uneducated about the sins of his party's past...he thinks talking big about what he wants to do but sugar coating it is not gonna really change the reality of his party..
I have a good feeling he is caught up in the black coal mine of the congress party and does not have to power even to base his opinions on particular cases openly.
So frankly speaking he has started to study on the last day of the exam....started to know about things when his arse is on fire for the presidential election .
I feel definitely there is a lot and i say again lot of communication gap among themselves in the Congress party.They are trying to run a company without running an active board...Clearly shows in the confusion Mr Rahul Gandhi has.And maybe this is the reason he doesn't want to answer even a single question clearly and specifically.

Actions speak louder than words Mr Gandhi....neither your actions nor your words speak loud and clear. The questions he asks are definitely legit....but his actions don't match up to i given his enormous power...or maybe he doesn't have any and is just a puppet....doesn't have the power to throw the junk out of his own system and plans to change the landscape...such immatureness such confusion.

PS: Clearly you can see the sweat on Mr Gandhi's face even in the air-conditioned room..and not a drop of it on Mr Goswami's ....What does it tell you?

So my vote is DEFINITELY not going to a party whose Presidential Candidate is so fucking CONFUSED!!!

Here's the link for you to verify---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB_eWW5ttaM

BYE BYE DICKHEADS

I still remember the day ...it was the 19th of July 2010 ...a big day indeed in my life on mother earth(yes i am dramatic!!!)...the day when i left the unholy boundaries of my school which i hated more than Justin Beaber ,and took a giant instinctive leap of freedom to achieve my goal....

Procedure-

1)Convince yourself that it was an awesome decision i was taking to leave the school and feel extremely happy and proud of my brilliant thought ie to fuck the thing which was fucking me for soo long

2)Go to dad's office and interrupter him in an important meeting to tell him about your awesomeness 

3)Spend 2 hours and 30 minutes discussing(actually it was convincing ..:P)with him and his best friend about the implications of leaving the school and studying at home,making them believe that whatever i was doing was the best thing for me and that i would at least be happy whatsoever happens ultimately, because it was my decision and i wouldn't have anyone to blame it for(3 idiots ..the famous Bollywood movie definitely had an impact on me!)

4)Having a party and enjoying the decision that was going to change your life (for good..;))...10 people ate approx 7 kg's of chicken in that sexy terrace barbecue party..record

5)Going to school next day taking all the papers and documents possible ...so that i could get away from the hard chains of hell ..throwing them on Malayalam Mrs.S face (not literally though,i am not that agressive with 100+ people  ...:P)...signing exit application form....taking the TC .....and finally SMILING!!

Bye bye dickheads ....

PS:Sorry guys for being disconnected from my blog and its readers for many days because the college has just started and suddenly i have been burdened down with a lot of "studies"..:P...New face of college life...will also write about it when the 2 years journey finishes .;)

PARASITES IN THE MIND.....

In this post, my friends, i will be discussing about the well known breed of humans called as the "parasitic people"

This breed has existed on our holy planet since the origin of Homo-sapiens and continues to persist despite efforts of countless people who have tried to cure them and proved them wrong again and again....

The basic definition of "parasitic people " as i would like to quote is "this breed of homo-sapiens DOES NOT believe in the concept of LIVE AND LET LIVE"

This breed itself of no use ....also believes that people who they see working are useless like them and find magnificently brilliant ways of distracting them....which sometimes actually does the trick (in positive as well as negative ways)

I was also under the influence of one of these breeds..and maybe this was also one of the major things that made me leave my already so rotten school...

This happened on a sunny afternoon(wow !!i suddenly sound like a professional writer)...During the usual useless non working hours of the school i was hard at work to prepare for my competitive exams.....

I don't know when one of the agents of the soo famous(useless things are usually VERY FAMOUS in SCHOOL) parasitic tribe did their act on innocent(not at all now...you can get that from my blogs..:P) "Mr.Gayab"(me)

While I was studying (i don't want to write this...but i was also looking scarily champu) the inhabitants of this tribe clicked my photograph .....labelled it with an abusive word(the most famous....starts with a C...ohh c'mon you are close!!..yes you are right the CHU word..:P) and posted it on the most famous Social Networking website....

.........

The Impact on me -MIND BLOWING(Literally ).....

When i saw this beautifully labelled picture of mine it gave me an electric shock...went on high voltage ...and blasted

It was a Public humiliation and that too a very serious one to totally disrupt the functioning of the MIND which is kinda imp for exams...(though not totally as taught by my teachers..:P..some things should also be done by instincts..;))

Every wicked thought started to run from that day onward in my mind on how to take REVENGE!!(sounds so filmy..)

As my mind was already so disturbed ..the instant reaction was that what will my parents would think if they see this....how would my friends respond....how i would become the joke of the century...

To add to this ...reading the soooooo funny comments of the useless parasites on the same picture boiled me everyday....I actually couldn't take a good night sleep for the next 4-5 days and had really extreme dreams about how i would be killing these parasites when i grow up.......(AGAIN I SAY-FEEL THE EMOTION)

It was a really tough time ...the adding burden of my lagging studies and a totally messed up frame of mind took my worse condition to new and enormous heights.....and this was the time i decided than in order to continue on the journey that i had started i had to take a major decision....I HAD HAD ENOUGH!!

Another incident that i remember of this parasitic invasion in a student's mind was narrated to me by my very good friend.....he told me that some of his parasitic influences also angerd him a lot as they humiliated him by saying that "he was worth cow dung and couldn't clear anything"....

My friend in-turn became more aggressive towards his studies and made these parasites eat cow dung themselves by performing ever so brilliantly in the competitive exams and getting a national rank of below 200

So this influence can also turn you into something that you would have never imagined yourself to be ........

What i learnt from this incident of mine was that if you TRY to ACTUALLY LEARN SOMETHING IN SCHOOL....my friend..it is totally IMPOSSIBLE because of these scumbags....