Seven Point Some one - What am I at IITK

Oh! It's the end of another semester. Till now, what have I accomplished? If I start thinking about it, many questions came up. Two and half years into IITK, what did I achieve? Am I the one who I thought I would be a few years ago? What am I going to do about my career, What am I going to do after graduation -- Civils, MBA, MS, MTech.....For the first time, I fear to take a decision. But may be I shouldn't look that far now itself. May be I should try to figure out what I have done in these years at IITK. Though I couldn't do many what-should-be-done-at-iitk sort of things but I did do some. Yeah, the five semesters were a superb mixture of both happy and sad moments. There were incidents when I felt most excited and of course most embarrassed. I have got new friends, many acquaintances, relations, feelings, experiences, lessons and a life.


I will start with the things I like(d) the most here. These are the positive aspects of my life here and few of them make my life here sustainable, recoverable and enjoyable. The first and foremost will be the Library. Yeah I don't go there at least once a month, but even I was surprised when I came up with this answer. There is some aura at that place. The Pillar of Knowledge, The Eagle-shaped Fountain and the pillars on which the library stands, all of them form an excellent picture of that masterpiece. If Knowledge is divine, then the Library is the Temple.

It was pretty hard for me to order or rank the events. I thought a lot about this before writing here. As I mentioned earlier there were many unhappy incidents in the past. But I came up, rose again fresher and with tempo. This became possible only because of my friends on and off the campus. I cannot mention everyone but a few--Anil, Rahul, Mani, Karun, Rohan,Vijay, Srikanth, Sai, Kranti, the whole TMS; Nandu, Udit, Atul, Kartik, Gurubhai and the C-Bot wingmates; my only friend in GH, Swetha. I wonder what I would have been if not for these guys. There are many more whom I couldn't write here. May be I will blog about them someday.

Then comes Music. I have recently seen a channel's ad saying that music is the sixth element of nature. How true it is! It seems like the other five elements Earth, Sky, Water, Fire and Air interact with each other via this music element. There is music in almost everything we see, hear, smell, taste and feel. All our senses respond to music, not just ears. This is the key element of my life@iitk. From my laptop or from internet, I frequently listen to music. Whenever I needed some relaxation, Music is my first resort.


Department of Computer Science and Engineering. I am proud to say that I am graduating from CSE Department at IITK. Only recently, I started fully knowing about my department. When I started linking up my interests with my department, I found wide areas of research opportunities. Number Theory and Computer Science, what magic the combination can do! In fact they are like inseparable twins. The building demonstrates the capabilities of the department and the faculty inspires students towards research. We have some of the best Professors and Researchers in the world in the areas of Computer Science and Engineering. Being in their presence motivates me to do something meaningful in life. This is the major reason of me looking towards doing a Masters degree.

Why do IITs succeed in many aspects compared to other Engineering and Technology Institutes? What's in IIT that is not in other colleges? I am making this statement general to all IITs. Best Faculty, Superb Administration, Excellent Infrastructure, Active Alumni Base, Genius Young Minds --All these are beautifully woven into the foundations of IITs. The community here has a lot of potential in it. I refuse to agree the remarks of some people that students at IITs donot know much about the problems of the country/world. Here I would like to quote something- IITs are not started to produce great Engineers but Leaders. This is the essence of views the founding fathers of IITs had in mind. IITs have produced great leaders in the past - Narayana Murthy, Manohar Parikkar, Arvind Kejriwal, Satyendra Dubey.... who excelled not only in their techno careers but also in politics and social welfare. What I liked is the way a solution is approached by proper discussions and from varied opinions on the campus. The problem need not be a technical one but a socially challenging one. I never looked at society the way I am looking after coming here. Yeah I am doing something here for the country.

This one is a bit ambiguous - Internet and My Laptop. I both like them and hate them. Being an enthusiastic reader, Internet became the major source of my Knowledge in IITK. I have never been exposed to such vast sources. Wikipedia replaced many books, Google Earth replaced atlases and ebooks replaced the novels. Music, Movies, Fun, Games...everything. I got almost everything I need from Internet and my laptop. Thanks to them, I am never far away from any information. Browsing and Chatting became my hobbies. Wikiing is the best pastime I have. Open Source, Love for freedom, Share your knowledge and all. Google has become a best friend who has solution for any problem! Topcoder to test my skills, Redhotpawn for chess, Eenadu and Hindu for News...Wow! I live in an exciting world...where everything is just a click away.

We don't have time. This is the answer you hear from any student here. A few may agree that they have time but cannot set the priorities right. I don't want to comment about this topic as I was/am a part of that group. I have wasted a lot of time in these two years on countless things. I always felt bad about it. Recently I have started using my time to do something useful to this institute and of course me. I am working as a volunteer in Alumni Contact Program, an initiative by the Dean Resource Planning and Generation, IIT Kanpur. Our work includes calling alumni of the institute and speak with them. We tell them about institute, the ongoing and planned events, ask them about their experiences back here and we help them have good contact with the institute. Finally we ask for some donations to promote research here. My main motive to join this program, is I know how important the alumni are for an institute to prosper and I realize it is important for the alumni to have good relations with their alma mater. I always wanted a similar thing with my school. I always wanted to have good contacts with my schoolmates and my school served as a centre for that. My school gave me a lot and I wanted to give back something to it. A similar thing goes for this institute. Whatever I am going to become, later in my life I will never regret that I went to IITK. I know I will learn a lot, I will become something and this instittute gives me that confidence and here that foundation is laid. So I wanted to join this program. Besides good amount of money, I got a lot from this program. I got back my confidence that I can do anything I want. I never know that I communicate well, not before being told by many alumni and my team mates. May be I had such skills before, but is one of those which I lost coming here.This program brought back that Goutham who never gave up.


Air Strip, Lecture Hall Complex, Outreach Auditorium, Book Club, CC Canteen are some of the places I like here. What a scene it is when fog falls over the campus in Winter! Tha Agra Tour we made in my first winter here. It was awesome. Wah Taj! What about late night parties, lonely walks and campus detours, Antaragni, Deepavali festivals, Lucknow trip...it's hard to stop writing about them.I have loads of happy memories to carry from the three years here.

Now comes the best part of the game, looking at the other side of it. As the saying goes, Every coin has two sides. The Brighter one side, the Darker the other. There is no day here, where I didn't feel bad at least once. The thing I most hated is my Laziness. Since my days of schooling, attending lectures had been my primary strength. Probably because of compulsory attendances in School and Ramaiah, I attended all classes. I am a very good listener and I take very good notes, which compensated for the lesser work I do. I am not used to study at home/room. Coming here, because of some inevitable circumstances I missed a few classes in the beginning. As I didn't read at room, I couldn't follow the course. So I started bunking again. This was severe in even semesters, probably because of the cold winters and my high affinity to catch cold. This bunking spread into me as a virus, developing itself into a monster called laziness. I became so lazy to take breakfast, to bathe, to walk, to attend classes, to submit assignments and even to think. Even this blog took ages to get started. I am trying hard to get active, may be I should go gymming or get some exercise. Observe the indefinite tone here, that's the effect of laziness.

The worst experience here I have is my first experience of rejection, a defeat. Though it made me a bit stronger in long run, it weakened me a lot psychologically that it took more than a year to come over it. It occured off the campus in TajMahal Intercontinental Hotel, Mumbai. I am talking about the interview for Aditya Birla Group Scholarships. It was the first interview in which I got rejected and probably one of the most rarest competetions I lost. I am not exaggerating if I say the number of competetions I lost since my childhood is countable on fingers. I got selected to the Top 20 of India from IITs and BITS and went to Mumbai for the interviews. I knew coming from the interview room that I didn't do great but had hope that luck favours me. So I wasn't selected. I didn't broke as it was the case in earlier situations. I was as normal as I was before and even enjoyed the next two days in Mumbai with parties and discos. I thought I was getting better, the first time I didn't cry for losing! But now I know, it spread into me like a slow poison, hidden deep inside me striking unknowingly, making me weaker and weaker. The effect was so huge that I never attended an interview for any post later in first year. I felt like I got deprived from something, like I lost my weapon standing alone in a battlefield. I wasn't confident like I used to before. I feared everything, I cried alone. I sought solace from friends but all my attempts backfired. I got weaker by day and I feared to start the day. I used to sleep on and on whenever I felt bad. Rejection from counselling service increased the pain. I really donot remember how I got back, I have no idea how I regained my senses back in second year when I started reconstructing my life, may be due to friends and stronger resolutions. As I remarked it took a while for me to come back and reconstruct, meanwhile I lost my CPI. But I don't regret my CPI now, looking positively forward.

I think it is time to end this post, not because it became lengthy, but I am too tired to go on. I am ending this on the new year day. With many confessions and a retrospection of my life here, I enter this new year with many aspirations and resolutions. I hope this year will bring me academic success and I hope I can achieve my goals.