I've moved now to newer - though scarcely greener - pastures.
ACT I
Scene I
Ahmedabad, formerly Gardabad and, by an imperial Mughal decree that was fortunately stayed at the last moment, possibly even Jehannoomabad.
The sun scorches the ground and the bricks soak in the heat, on a perpetual microwaved slow-bake. This is IIM Ahmedabad in the middle of a failed monsoon, a petulant recession and epidemic hysteria. The institute, as one soon discovers, is the cynosure of local tabloids, each laden with trite porcine puns and a healthy dose of adoration.
I was, as our case studies would have it, in WIMWI.
(A Well-Known Institute of Management in Western India - this is as good a reason as any to detest contractions, if you don't already - I rest my case.)
In short, I now live in a brick citadel complete with ramp and underground pathway. The architecture deserves more than a few words. Here are as many as I can spare: circles, arches, minimalism, exposed-brickwork, facade, Louis Kahn, genius, LKP.
(LKP: The eponymous Louis Khan Plaza, heart of the campus, a simple square of dry green, straddled on three sides by imposing balconies and the refreshingly cool Vikram Sarabhai Library)
It was freshman week all over again. But this time there were more than a few shocks and surprises - the traditional initiation culture that one keeps mum about. Forever. Till death do part the lips. And a black be tongue be yours, even then. So we skip ahead a few weeks.
IIM has, strangely enough, something much akin to sorority rushes. The campus abounds with clubs and special interest groups, each hierarchically structured into a bureaucratic machine that has been carefully engineered to kill all the fun. To join one, you (a fuchcha) would interview to work under your immediate seniors (the tuchchas). The reward: a measly line on one's CV. It was familiarity all over again, in a very potent form. The scariest part was the normality all of it had assumed, eliciting not the slightest raise of a sardonic eyebrow. It had long ago become the way of things, as I would soon discover. I gave the whole thing a cold shoulder, of course - a certain elitist streak within me will never consent to being judged.
Yet enough queue up to answer dreary questions and pretend to smile, to love work and every iota of responsibility. It is this hypocrisy that one learns to live with, a contradiction of sorts in an otherwise overwhelmingly supportive dorm culture.
(Dorm: three floors, thirty rooms, great bonding - and plenty that stays behind closed doors)
Dorms are the very essence of non-academic life in IIM A. Treats, birthday 'celebrations' , dorm names, hastily composed juices, plagiarized casework, trivial secrets, lives intricately linked forever ... they each deserve a post, but few will eventually get one. After all, everything here is fiercely competitive.
And now, I must go do one of the two things that occupy most of our time: prepare for classes. The other is of course sleep, blissful unattainable sleep.
Relax... breathe... gently close your eyes... now close them once again... Awake the Seven Sleepers... and cerebrate.
There is no lamp-post here to guide you, no compass to lead you there. But the entrance beckons and you can't help being swept in. Speak, friend, and enter. The door closes gently behind you. All dreams, they say, are but manifestations of old memories. After all, how can you imagine anything you haven't already seen?
Picture it now. First the music: the slow strains of an ancient guitar. The record plays, the LP spins smoothly, and the tortured chords of Pink Floyd greet you as you sink into a padded tub chair. It is a high-backed rosewood piece fashioned two centuries ago, when wood was still wood. The wide splat bears a carved heraldic crest behind it. The front is upholstered in cream silk with stuffed supports shaped to perfection. The legs are gracefully turned, sliding easily on the gleaming floorboards as you swivel around to take a better look.
The room is wide and dimly lit - with low candelabra casting just enough light to read under. Behind you, the walls are lined with books filling expansive shelves, their embellished titles visible only as a soft golden glow. A track ladder leans near the edge, carved out of Burma teak and resting on tiny wheels. The heady smell of leather draws you closer and you see that the books are bound, some in red and some in black, your personal sigil embossed on every spine. Your hand traces a line across the volumes as you walk along the edge of the circular room.
The monotony is broken by a tall window - from floor to ceiling - that allow you to gaze undetected at the world below. And the world is far below, you realize, as the boughs of a tall orange tree tap gently against the pane. You can't see much through the drizzle but the rolling fields offer a comforting, albeit blurred, familiarity. And somehow, through the thin glass (misted with your breath), you can taste the air without. Beneath the tangerine tang you catch the intoxicating whiff of petrichor (that sweet smell of damp earth) and you are rooted there while the minutes slowly tick away.
Turn back to the table by the tub chair. It is a scalloped Chippendale tea set. Atop it is a jug and two glasses - though you're not expecting any company. The glass jug is filled to the brim with freshly fixed Sue Ellen's Nightmare and topped with lime wedges. Ice cubes clink enticingly against the salted rim... The drink is in your hand now, you savour the punch. The dream is going to end soon and you feel it - like seven seals slowly snapping. You recline in the chair and your eyelids flutter open. You open them again.
The child has grown, the dream is gone. You are now become... comfortably numb.
It is a chilly December once again, and I am a year behind on my promised journal. To jump right to it then: the PAF's are long past, the summer rolled by in a tedious and long (not quite, some might tell you. I was there: it felt like eternity) internship, followed by a longer and more eventful holiday. Then came the semester (quite the worst ever) and now: whiz-bang!
Hail the season of placements! Of interviews and GD's (patience, all shall be revealed), shirts and ties. Suit up and dig out the old comb. This be the season to be weary (If you are in the final year, that is (and have refrained, unlike a wise friend of mine, from the temptation of sitting the whole thing out). Otherwise, it's just the season to be merry.)
I have the rather (un)fortunate handicap of sitting behind my keyboard and a pile of novels (Midnights' Children and The White Tiger to start with), far removed from the action. For you see, Fortuna smiled upon me once again. Suggestively, I might add. She has delivered me from the arduous business of all the self-loathsome grovelling and bare-faced lying (read: facing interviews) that graduates seem happy to undergo. In short, she has landed me a job. (People usually rejoice at the sudden and interminable work sentence, but I think there's something obscene and sacreligious about celebrating this. Instead, I mourn the death of my former joblessness.)
And now I get to play bard. I can chronicle the toils of my fellow batchmates from afar. I rather think I shall enjoy it.
. . .
Forward to March. Immersed in books, I clean forgot about this post. So I begin again, scratching my chin, wondering what to fill it with. The placements are certainly on still but they proceed so slowly that a few sentences would suffice. Disastrous. Actually, a word did just as well. To elaborate slightly, half the folks graduating this year will be officially jobless, given the current status. I am told the other colleges fared much worse. Either way, I choose escapism and a general philosophy of disassociation. I have resolved to enjoy my last semester here and that's the last you'll here of placements from moi.
Oscar month just ended and as always, I watched each movie before the big event, finally waking up at an ungodly six in the morning to catch it. Red carpet theatrics were followed by more theatrics, courtesy Hugh Jackman. (Oh why couldn't they have let Jon Stewart host it?) This time, I'd specially printed out IMDB's Oscar Ballot to see if my predictions were on target. They were, for the most part. The Best Foreign Film was a surprise (I had expected Waltz With Bashir or perhaps The Class to walk away with the little gold man) and the two Oscars for Sound and Sound Editing felt misplaced, but the rest was exactly as I'd expected (and in some cases even hoped for). True, I'd have thought the best song was O...Saya rather than Jai Ho, but methinks Rahman couldn't care either way.
Which brings me to the great chest-thumping Indian element. While some think it sweet that the two Indian recipients on stage, acutely aware of their nationality, chose patriotically to acknowledge their roots, I found myself cringing ever so slightly at each speech. It was less about people and more about race. On the other hand, Sean Penn and Winslet spoke fittingly well and I couldn't have asked for a better choice in either category. Heath Ledger quite deservedly took away a posthumous Oscar and no-one was surprised. That makes him the second (I think) posthumous awardee after Peter Finch (for Network (1976), a true gem of a film - perhaps more relevant today than ever before).
I managed to catch all the short animation film nominees this year and House of Small Cubes was definitely the best. The Academy chose well. All in all, I find myself wishing I'd bet on the outcome - would've made me a great deal richer.
. . .
And now to that third, ever-looming element: nostalgia. I have an annoying habit of soaking (simmering, I should say) in it long before its time. Truth is, I already miss IIT. I've grown to love the place: the sylvan walks; the dilapidated hostels; the sixties architecture (strangely reminiscent of Dharma Initiative stations); the uniquely opprobrious slang; the vacuous mess-table conversations; the infrequent tum-tums; the fervent spirit of the PAF's; the flyers on the bathroom walls; the cows, dogs, cats, frogs, snakes, crabs, bats, worms and insects inhabiting each corridor; the midnight escapades for dosas at Hostel 13; the gymkhana moonlit at 3.00 a.m.; the hermetic isolation; and the people.
The people - all of whom I've now grown so accustomed to that to leave would be to lose all those fragile friendships, those eyebrow greetings and the predictable, corny jokes. But most of all I shall miss the LAN - source of my cinematic education, weekly television doses, wikiddiction fixes and all the music I could possibly hope for. And there is of course, routine, the first casualty of change. Blissfully comfortable, carefully tailored, perfectly honed routine: you are going to be sorely missed.
In memory of Robert Jordan, author of the best-selling and unfinished Wheel of Time series, who died on the 16th of September, 2007.
As we draw into that post-Potter epoch of fiction, many lament the void that the series has left, the final exhilaration that has given way to an acute sense of bereavement. It is perhaps a fitting acknowledgment of the most widely read books ever to explore the culture that spawned them.
Rowling was not quite the first to rule the realm of the fantastic. The genre, as old and varied as civilization itself, is replete with its own themes and overtures. It deals with the impossible – anything conceivable in the imagination but not in reality – magic, gods, beasts, quests, alternate worlds and mighty battles.
Although Fantasy fiction in its current form is younger than two centuries, its forebears have an extensive history. The establishment of the genre may be traced back to The Epic of Gilgamesh, a Babylonian narrative about the adventures of the eponymous hero-king and his friend Enkidu. Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, and The Book of One Thousand and One Nights are other prominent works of nascent Fantasy.
Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory dominates Arthurian literature and is regarded as the canonical form of the legend. The English romance The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser is an intensely allegorical poem involving knightly duels and combats against giants and sorcerers. It is probably the first work in which elves play the main part.
Modern Fantasy fiction begins in the nineteenth century with George MacDonald, the Scottish author of The Princess and the Goblin, who later influenced both J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. MacDonald’s other popular work, Phantastes, is commonly considered to be the first fantasy novel for adults. Another famous name of this era was William Morris, an English poet who wrote several novels including The Well at the World's End.
Despite their influence and fame, it wasn't until the turn of the century that fantasy fiction began to attain a large audience when Lord Dunsany established the genre's popularity. Many admired authors also began to write fantasy by then, including H. Rider Haggard, Kipling and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Several classic children's fantasies including Peter Pan and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz were also published around this time.
Fantasy fiction is now an established form with its own sub-genres whose distinctions are not always etched in stone.
Epic Fantasy is an elevated narrative that usually takes place in another world involving magic and strange beings. The author knows all its details including the cultures, history and religions. This depth brings the fantastic world of magic to life. Two major themes that characterize most Epic Fantasy books include the great struggle between opposing forces – light and dark, order and chaos, good and evil – and the quest that leads us there. A quest is usually an arduous hunt by the truly worthy for a magical object or person that can save the world.
Smaug, from There and Back Again
Lord of the Rings is the yardstick against which every other Epic Fantasy book today is judged. Tolkien put as much effort into creating his world of Middle Earth as his languages. Using his familiarity with speech, history, geography and geology, the author created a vivid past filled with its own cultures and races. Middle-Earth is an immortal rendition of heroic Europe, complete with all the elements of high fantasy.
Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry and Robert Jordan’s ongoing Wheel of Time series are fine examples of Epic Fantasy while George R.R. Martin, Terry Brooks and David Eddings have their own fan following.
Arthurian Fantasy is another sub-category of Fantasy fiction. The books are retellings of the legend, using its characters and themes, often in a new light. King Arthur’s is an enduring tale of honour, chivalry and courtly love – one that has inspired writers throughout history. The story has been retold from the perspective of Merlin, through the eyes of the women involved, and was once even satirized on the silver screen.
Urban or Contemporary Fantasy is a third variety of Fantasy. Stories in this sub-genre are set in our world where magic or magical creatures allegedly coexist with modern humans. The most frequently encountered creatures in Urban Fantasy are the residents of Fairy. They either cross over into our world through portals or live alongside people. The Artemis Fowl series by Irishman Eoin Colfer is immensely popular in this category.
Comic fantasy is mainly humorous in purpose and tone. Normally set in an imaginary world, it often lampoons other works of fantasy. The sub-genre rose in the second half of the twentieth century with T.H. White, L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt as early contributors. Today, Piers Anthony's Xanth books, Terry Pratchett's Discworld and Tom Holt’s books afford good reading.
Historical Fantasy deals with the hazy parts of history by weaving wonderful yarns of a magical past. A writer might, for set their tale in Rome ruled by Caesar with the exception that sorcery and the Roman gods actually exist. A lot of historical research goes into bringing these stories and characters alive, and the extensive detail mingled with elements of fantasy make the books engaging and almost believable.
Juvenile fantasy is Fantasy fiction for young readers, by far the most popular. The protagonists are usually children or teenagers, uniquely gifted, with possessions or even allies that allow them to face powerful adversaries. The plot frequently incorporates a bildungsroman, where the hero matures as he faces his troubles. While Lewis Carrol could be called the forerunner of the sub-genre, it was C.S. Lewis, with his Chronicles of Narnia, who first realized that Fantasy was more acceptable to a young readership. Other brilliant writers in this category are Nesbit, Ursula LeGuin (The Earthsea books), Anne McAffrey (The Dragonriders of Pern), Phillip Pullman (His Dark Materials), Jonathan Stroud (the Bartimaeus trilogy) and, of course, Joanne Kathleen Rowling.
Largely owing to Rowling's Harry Potter series, which has become the greatest literary sensation of all time, Fantasy is now firmly entrenched in mainstream literature. The chartbuster success of several cinematic adaptations of fantasy novels such as The Lord of the Rings and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the critical acclaim for films like Pan's Labyrinth have helped strengthen its presence in the modern psyche. Fantasy continues to be an eclectic medium, encompassing closely bonded sub-genres that deal with mythic themes seeking deeper truths, taking us away, on feathered wings, to the wonderful world of fairy tales.
The net went out like a damp candle. The days are now shorter, the nights shorter still. In all the gloom there is still the flickering flame of the looming PAFs (for the present, read: plays). The atmosphere is visibly taking on a rather bellicose character. Men skulk about the corridors, trying to stay in the shadows. Every now and then one of them is taken away to the land where none wish to tread. It is a land right outside each room, a land that pervades every nook in every hostel. It is what I deign to call the Workplace. It is where the unwary are dragged to work into the ungodly hours of the LAN-free night, breaking their backs over bamboo brackets, twisting hemp and wet rope onto those rickety frames destined for their three hours of glory. Glue, papers bearing old news, and posters have something to do with it all, if I remember correctly from the early days of my captivity.
The more experienced, those who bear the scars of previous bondage (among whom I am pleased to belong), strive to devise feeble excuses to escape the military regime. More out of respect for our relative seniority than our cleverness, they leave us to our 'work', though not without a hackneyed and unenlightening account of what they conceive to be a man's duty to his hostel. As a man who regards patriotism to be a dangerous and subversive form of regionalism, these speeches do little to stir my sentiments.
I flatter myself to imagine that Anne Frank spent her last days like this, spending the evening in near darkness (perhaps reading under a lamp), making no discernible sound and feeding off rations that one has carefully hoarded. For to step out is to court danger. A visit to the hostel canteen is as clear a message as day that one has time and, more importantly, a hand to lend. The trick, some veterans hold, is to pretend that you are already involved - that whatever you are doing, be it munching on fried potato wafers or going to fill your water bottle, is of vital importance to the PAF. I, for my part, believe in the simple and time-tested idea of a passport. I carry about my person, at all times, a sheaf of printed papers that give false testimony for my absence to anyone who cares to question me. These sheets are a discarded assignment of mine that I claim I have to work on. Wearing a regretful expression that comes close to a grimace, I shrug as if I am powerless in my professor-governed life. It always works.
There is, of course, the rather more interesting part about working in the PAFs. But before I delve into that, it is time I introduced the ignorant to this mysterious acronym. The Performing Arts Festival (pluralized and often used to refer to each individual entry) is a fierce competition between the hostels in their efforts to host the best play. Held in the OAT (Open Air Auditorium), it plays host to mammoth sets where actors, actresses and dancers fight for space in a three-hour show judged by members of the faculty.
Whatever may be said of the making of the sets (and I have nothing to praise there), the acting and the dancing - since they are done by those who passionately participate - is, I presume, quite enjoyable. For my part, stage-fear grips me like a vice and I decline even the most unpromising roles. With my two left legs, dancing is quite ruled out and I settle to playing the part of spectator, which is by far the most enjoyable role.
Then there is the FA (Fine Arts), the painting of the sets, posters and sometimes even the costumes. On all fours in the lounge of their hostel, they diligently bend over a vast white space and let their fingers do the imagining. The result, if not because of skill then out of sheer size, is quite breathtaking. When it is all put together after two nights of somnambulant labour, the stage is set for the PAFs and from that moment on they cease to be mere plays.
The PAFs have only one constraint: originality. Everything from the script to the dances to the music score is a work of the student community. All their efforts converge to that one night replete with dancing and general merriment. The cast of a PAF is significantly numerous, with almost everybody queueing up for a role, no matter how minor. The limelight of the PAF has a magical affinity to it that most find hard to resist.
On the penultimate night it is downright dangerous to stay in one's room, for the demands transcend mere toil. Tables, chairs, lamps, tube-lights, and even clothes are taken as a sort of blood money that the PAF demands. Democratically unbiased in their choice of victims, it is only the articles that interest the 'tax-collectors'. When they set their eyes on something that could have a part in the PAF, more often than not they get it. That day looms near at hand and my next post shall cover every PAF, if I make it through till then. The day is quiet. It is the lull before the storm, and I am caught in its eye.
There was something in IIT I've never criticized - the food. Most writers who have eaten four years' of meals here tell everyone who has not how terrible it can get. I disrespectfully disagree. I could not have been more pleasantly surprised when that first piece of (paneer*, was it?) slid past my lips and didn't make me regurgitate. Since then, I've rarely come across a bad meal (and I've tasted some pretty apalling stuff) at the messes here. They may not be fit to serve for a grand dinner but they are never inedible. Part of the glamour, I believe, lies in the criticism - it unobtrusively places one at a level above the common hosteller (a word almost always replaced by the annoyingly erroneous 'hostelite'), proclaiming to all who may care to interpret it that one has been brought up on the grub of kings.
Occasionally, a truly dreadful dish does enter the weekly menu but more often than not the long arm of democracy hurls it back out, leaving behind only an unpleasant aftertaste and a enlivening conversational topic for those otherwise subdued dinners. Tonight, as of now, I shall digress from my mildly cynical stand and speak of more pressing issues through my own biased eyes. To get straight to the point: RGgiri. This dreaded word is a popular term for an unpopular trait. RG is the IITian acronym for Relative Grading, a concept thoughtlessly borrrowed from the west along with countless other trifles. IIT does not encourage intellectual brilliance - it promotes relative brilliance. If you shined in the past there is every possibility that you will be outshined here. But it is also possible - nay, probable - that collective ineptitude will rule the day. Relative Grading is the institute's way of differenciating between its many students and it is by far the worst way to judge people.
The near-universal acceptance of this system of grading does not deter me, for I am a witness to the bitterness that it can cause. At the end of every quiz (read: test) or exam, the average IIT student is not so worried about how well he has done; it is others' misfortunes that delight him, their mistakes his gains, their success his bane. This mentality, if strictly restricted to classrooms, would not be half as deteriorating as it otherwise is. Students however have the unnerving capacity to compromise their standards and fall in with the system (of grading). They act in accordance with it and turn competitive to the point of boredom. Hostility, though very covert, ensues and any chance at a close-knit student community is tossed out of the window.
The reason we still have some of the camaraderie talked of outside is perhaps because not everyone falls prey to the invidious grading. There are those who shun academics as an excuse for nothing better to do with one's time. I am inclined to fall in with this latter lot as I see them less dependent on the shortcomings of others for their enjoyment.
Some would claim that a relative system would make it easier for companies to efficiently pick the best guys. But since when has IIT's priority been the companies? Why must the students live in such an inherently hostile environment for the sake of companies?
If it appears that I am exaggerating, count the suicides from these elite institutions. Recently I stumbled upon a blog of a friend of one of the dead and read his forthright and angry article directed at the faculty. Academic pressure in IIT is high enough to burst any bubble of protective apathy, and sometimes it drives a student to the other side of the tunnel. The tunnel of light, the tunnel to the Other side.
FOOTNOTES * Paneer is the Hindi term for cottage cheese.
