Engg students : Best Vs Rest

You enter the lab to fetch the forgotten lunchbox from the otherwise empty bag and here they are….doing the assignment that has been assigned in the lab just preceding lunch….u feel “ boss assignment to agle week submit karni hai naa”. The next week ,the same day ,someone from the majority mob has their assignment in hand ….standing in the photocopy shop………..requesting, ”uncle is red right par aur signatures par white paper rakh ke 7 set photocopy nikal dena….” And someone shouts from the back ”abe oye…..2 set aur bol de yaar”


Accessibility to them and possibility of getting a response is directly proportional to your aggregate percentage…and inversely proportional to the row no of your seat[counting starts from front to back….gosh! had it been the other way round!!!!!]. They are like seasonal vegetables….we eat these brains only during exams. They are like chief guests….centre of attraction and away from action[action of course takes place in the backbenches]. They eat books ….drink ink…..and breath chalk powder on the first bench. They are toppers !


Toppers. They are a rare species. They are the lions of the jungle. The beast ! These carnivorous living beings eat out your head until you succumb and your grades die out in the viva. Lioness is better at praying than a lion. Following this analogy, the toppers also predominantly consist of the fairer sex. These Hermoine like girls always give other scholars [err, losers] a run for their money. They are peculiar, Identifying these people from a distance requires one to have a look at their attire….if somebody seems like first year ragging-afraid student, with a book , file ,or assignment pages hand-held , then there is a high probability of him/her being a member of this elite class. Other necessary and sufficient symptoms for identification are: spectacles[myopic of course!] , raised hand in classes, marks in midsem>=20, and-band beautiful handwriting, and variable x tending to 100% where x denotes attendance. The surroundings of these geeks is comparable to quinine…..good for health , bitter , and avoided in cheerful health.


Humour creeps into the situation when these are nominated as class representatives, while the rest of the class is classier [I am biased….can’t help it!]. They are also student representatives….rightly so, coz they probably are the only ones who can be referred to as students. The others better be referred as attendants [;)]


Attendants. The crowd ,the mob , individuals working in perfect harmony of an unbeatable team whose one and only aim is to survive. To Survive the hailstorms of shortlists [of attendance] , to survive the dreaded dragons in form of teachers who spit fire in words when an innocent attendant comes late to attend the massacre, and to survive the unnecessary semesters that somehow always manage to fall in between the prescribed sem-breaks [;)] . They have survived and they have flourished as a race, casting spells over upcoming innocent students and comminating them to expand their own race. Outside the classroom, they are the kings, living life on their own terms , obeying no one but their selves. Over the years they have outnumbered and outclassed the toppers but still they could not make their rivals extinct. The toppers still rule and continue to pass on the throne among generations.


Teachers, have the perception that toppers are god sent and attendants probably must have grown out of wild shrubs mushrooming down the road side. If topper commits a mistake, its perfectly human! If the guilty is an attendant then he better shield his butt…coz a kick is just coming in! Teachers are mentors for toppers, they are gods …second to none. To attendants they are like vampires that suck fun out of their veins. Teachers are biased ! For an example If someone inks into pages an answer that has already been penned down by the author of the book then what good is he? But still he[sorry to the she-toppers…U r gods too :D] gets the grades .On the other hand the innocent and morally correct [so called farzi] attendants who do not copy the text thus abiding by the patent agreement of the publisher get low grades because they follow the rules. Not fair!! [:)]


Thus ,with the referee[teachers] on their side, the toppers have dominated thus far .But with the arrival of newer and farzier teachers[छर्रे !! ] ,the tussle is getting more fierce day after another .The war between the two races will probably continue till eternity, and the farzis will just hope that some day they have their own king….The king of attendants. That day engineers will rule the world and the era of knowledge will doom!

Little things work big !!!

Sunday morning, morning stroll, cold and somewhat wet breeze…..thele ki chai. These are perfect settings. We guys have a seat discussing how Robin Uthappa made the day the last day by hitting two fours in the last over, and how exuberant young blood adds to cricketing excellence. Meanwhile, shaun[a friend] shouts out “chhotu ….teen chai” and I am left wondering how this whole species of waiters across uncountable chai-thelas got the name chhotu. My friends discussing crappy newspapers with such interest slowly faded from my thoughts and I started observing chhotu.

Three fingers partially dipped in tea, and a feeble support of the thumb enabling him to hold on to 3 tea glasses in each hand. He served us tea. A worn out shirt, followed by dirty knickers and bare feet was the output of my head-to-toe scan of this lad standing waist high. I got the answer …the name chhotu seemed justified. I though, was amazed to see how cheerfully that child was doing all what he does. He serves tea and poha, cleans up everything , collects the emptied glasses and when you offer him money he redirects you towards the owner of the thela . And in the process, he seems perfectly at ease with no regrets at all.

Sipping tea, I had a look at children playing cricket and football on the playground stationed opposite to this chai-thela. Little brats kicking the ball for a few meters and some others chasing a ball down to the boundary somehow seemed extremely ecstatic , rejoicing every moment of the Sunday that comes after 6 days of toil in their respective schools. “Schools, which chhotu might not have ever been to” This thought was about to brush me , but before that I thought of something else. I thought of Sundays he had missed, I thought of friends he could not make and I thought of this ecstasy which he could not experience. And then came the lessons he could not learn too . Had he invested all that enthu he has into something more fruitful , it might have helped him and his family more in the time to come. But then when today carries a much bigger question mark over their survival, how can he afford to go to school or learn something that is not of any immediate use. At least, he is not begging .He is helping his family, if any, to survive in this forest of much stronger animals.

In India we have growth, not development. Growth is vertical and development ,on the other hand , is horizontal. And that’s why rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer. In such climate, Children belonging to the lower echelons are bound to get suppressed, hence when they grow up, the next race is poor too. Its a vicious circle. The government provides them with midday meals, but what about them once the bell rings .Reality strikes them once they get out of the premises. And then we find these young but matured blokes doing an over time on Sundays to make up for the time they wasted in schools for one meal a day.

My cousin is working for an NGO that works for child labour , she keeps talking enthusiastically of how they are helping children break the shackles and pursue a better life. But the enthu gives way to disgust when she talks about her visits to slums, where half naked malnourished people demand for money and food even before listening to them. In these slums , the she-child goes begging or helps her mother out and the he-child finds himself something to do. Books supplied by schools or NGOs find uses which they are not meant for. Hands that should be holding a cricket bat look out for screw-drivers or empty glasses and dirty plates. But, still the child is angelic on his or her end. If breathing and learning are two options….I would choose breathing!

The next time I visited the thela,I heard chhotu blurting out hindi slangs [gaaliya] to someone,and instead of despising him, I tipped him. His hard-headed give-it-in attitude at this tender age made me exclaim “Hats off!”