The Arrogant Me

The inevitable happened. After weeks of irritating and pestering , "Ramakrishna" finally blustered. A dramatized version of what he said -

"You know it is not always about you! Your intelligence, your scores, your norms in life. Other people have a life too. Who are you to call them "dumb" or to "trivialize" their existence. You need to acknowledge that life is a learning process."

My problem with this was not "what he said or the way he said it". The problem was that at some level I already knew what he was saying and my oblivion in the past, meant now there are miles before I start feeling a degree of freedom. It is nautral - "If you are arrogant and unaware of your arrogance you are in bliss. If however you are arrogant and aware of it - Dude you are fucked up!" Now as usual I have a confession to make. Here it goes.

I have been sharing my flat with a co-researcher for the past few months. We have been working on the same project and over my interactions I have formed an opinion that he is not very bright. He is unable to solve cursory problems satisfactorily even after trying for long periods of time. His own dissatisfaction is quite perceivable. However my impression is that he has developed a defense mechanism wherin he refuses to admit his failures. In addition he is extremely careless. He leaves food in the pantry which gets infested by ants, never switches off the light before leaving a room and forgets to flush the toilet : ( I have hence formed a strong opinion that academics is not ideally suited for him. He should take up a job where he can earn a decent salary and live a rather idyllic life which is what he is anyway living. Now the ruminations.

I do realize that I am being bitchy. I cant help it! : ( Better come out with it outrightly than let it seethe in some corner of your heart. I do realize that I am being condescending. I have formed an impression only based on the limited interactions. I do not have enough evidence to coroborate that his life is indeed idyllic. Further even if I for a moment assume that he has all these shortcomings, it is unclear what gives me the right to doubt somebody else's choice. After all each one of us lives with varied degrees of rationality and the heterogeneity makes this world beautiful.

This is however not the worst problem. The worst problem is that over all this period of our interaction, I have derived a fair bit of intellectual satisfaction from looking down upon him. So, in some sense I do not want him to take the corrective measures. I want him around me so that I have somebody who I can look down upon and feel great.

In conclusion is a shabad from Sri Guru Nanav Dev Ji

Naanak baerree sach kee thareeai gur veechaar
O Nanak, the Boat of Truth will ferry you across; contemplate the Guru.

I seriously hope the boat of truth ferries me across.

-Satnam Waheguru

Dinner Table Discussions

It happened again. So often I tend to say something foolish or potentialy offensive on the dinner table and realize it moments later. The usual reason for the occurences is that I have misgivings about the ability of person I am in conversation with or for that matter the coterie he belongs to. Now this feeling has to in some way or the other become apparent. It cannot stay hidden forever and hence in due course it does evince itself. In any case this is what happened today.

I was sitting with three guys who are currently enrolled in the MBA program. I have a serious grouse against most mangement graduates. I feel most of them exhibit pretensions of being intelligent or smart while at some level they themselves know they are not. I donot know where did I inherit this skepticism from. Now this guy on the table says that he has been shot listed in one of the companies. I assumed that since Deutche bank was on campus he had been shortlisted in Deutche.

However I felt this guy was talking way too foolishly and was not the kind of person one would expect to get shortlisted in such a high profile job. I must make it clear here that I dont myself covet a job in an i-bank. However the very idea of a person around me making huge amounts of money fills me jealousy ( I dont know why and I hate the phenomenon:( ) In any case in due course of conversations it turned out that he had been shortlisted for some software startup for the designation of a "Relationship Manager". Now the next genre of stereotypes kicked in. Software guys are really nerdy, donot have any imagination, are incapable of exhibiting emotions and sell their soul to write mundane code. Unfortunately I once was a s/w engineer and still continue to be one : ( By this point in conversation I had amassed enough stereotypal energy and started on a sarcastic note - "So is relationship manager similar to Field application engineer", kind off like treating the manager of a bank like a cashier.

This was too much of an insult to the class of Business Graduates. How could someone trivialize an ISB MBA to such a ridiculous position. So one of the guy's friends got hurt and started rambling on how different the two roles were. I immidiately realized what mistake I had commited. Now instead of admitting my mistake or even keeping quiet I started eulogizing how FAE's are among the most exalted human beings to inhabit planet earth and any body should be proud of being an FAE.

I really wonder at times why I behave with such immaturity . I hope God gives me the strength to accept my stereotypes, not carry them around like shields.

The Power of Truth

This is my attempt to confess and warn the world of my invidious nature. The inspiration from this comes from a recent incident when I confessed to one of my close friends Ramakrishna that I did not want him to get a better GRE score than mine. As puerile as it may sound it was a big deal for me and my constant habit of making comparisons had forced me to subject him to crass bantering. The confession proved to be wonderful. Ramakrishna took it sportingly and I felt really relieved. I intend this to be a series of articles where I expose my true nature and thoughts to the world.

I have reached a point where the learning curve has becoming essentially flat. This is not the first time that this is happening. It happened once before when I had just entered IIT. Let me chronicle how were things then and how they look very similar even today.

Cracking IIT

Cracking IIT was a big deal for me. In fact is was such a big deal that I have yet to overcome its effects. Part of the reason for this is that I have never been able to realize why it was a big deal. I had spent two years preparing for the exam and here I was in the month of May with the propitious news that I had got a rank of 202 in the exam. You know how it felt, nothing, nothing at all. It is like you spend two years of your life chasing an elusive dream and at the end of it, it turns out to be absolutely nothing. I remember pestering my Mom again and again asking her if she was happy. After a while she got irritated and said that she was happy but did not want to say a thing because that would have made me over confident.

Then I remember how I returned back home from the railway station (I had to travel that morning) and calling up all my close friends and confirming their ranks. It gave me immense pleasure that none of my close friends had a rank even close to mine. The closest was probably Ankush whom I had left behind by a 94. See, I still remember the number. Well that was how that day was and I remember little of the period that ensued after that. The interesting period for me now is probably when I finally entered the gates of IIT.

My First Few Days at IIT

I entered IIT with an attitude that I now regard as a sure shot recipe for failure. I had decided that after a long toil of two years that it no longer made any sense to study. I assumed that everybody around me would adopt the same attitude and the genius that I am, I would attend all the classes and would get exceptional grades while other were groping in darkness. Little did I know.

The first few days were extremely hectic. The seniors would constantly rag me. I did not care, in fact I kind off enjoyed being the object of attention. I was good at running when compared to rest in the batch but not amongst the top notch. I was the second best table tennis player and in class X picked up a fair bit of Basketball due to the notion that playing Basketball increases height (more on the height issue some other time). Now, add to all this the fact that I was better looking and had no beard so I immediately got the title "chikna". Before I move any further I must confess, in my four years at IIT I have been unable to find a person as gullible as I was when I had entered. The attention that I received immediately led me to adopt a condescending attitude towards all my friends. I thought at that time that all the guys around me were a bunch of maggu bookworms and I was superior due to the fact that I participated in all the extra curricular activities. However I could not don this attitude for long.

The freshers period at IIT ends up with a freshers skit. The fact that I had no beard made me an immediate choice for the role of a bandi in the skit. It was very natural that I disagree at first. However, my lack of self respect (or my sporting nature, now I wonder what I should call it) forced me to take the role up after receiving a brief speech from one of the seniors. Two quaint incidents took place during the preparation for the skit.

I was insisting on not missing the practicals and afternoon lectures for the practice of the skit. I don't remember the words that I used to do the same exactly but I recall they had tones of pompous self righteousness. "Sungha" (one of my seniors) got irritated due to my remarks and said - "Dekhte hain tu kaisi GPA laata hai (We'll see what GPA u get!)"At that point of time, I tried to dismiss his remark in my mind thinking that he had no idea of my scholastic ability. However the seed of doubt had been sown. I unsurely thought to myself - "I will show this Sardar what a stud I am."

The other incident was one with Tarun Bhool. Bhool was an immensely talented sports person and an equally blessed actor too. However being new to the hostel I was unaware of Bhool's talents. He was directing the fachha skit and I faintly recall my inability to say a particular dialogue to his satisfaction. This annoyed him and he started shouting at me. Thing is that whenever somebody other than my mother or sister scold or criticize me I turn extremely callous. My immediate response is to find out something in which I am better than him and use that to shield myself from the persons criticisms (whether the criticisms are justified or not). At this point my participation in sports became my shield. I thought to myself that this guy doesn't know what a good sportsman I am. He has no right to criticize me just because he knows a thing or two about dramatics, surely that is nothing when compared to sports. Little did I know that Bhool was amongst the best sportsmen in the institute, someone I have always wanted to emulate but never been able to even come close.

The first fifteen days flew past me because there was too much to be done. I was however during this time extremely regular at least as far as attending the classes are concerned. I recollect little of the next twenty days but remember that I had spent this time in making two friends - Merani and Dasa who turned out to be my best friends at IIT. More on that sometime later.

Right now I must recall the first Minors. The first examination was that of MA-111, introduction to analysis. The problem was that prior to IIT I had no exposure to mathematics of this sort. I had only dealt with algebra and calculus and regarded that to be Maths. After all what was Mathematics without equations? The problem was further aggravated because the course had been hyped up because it had previously been taught by a strict professor (Amitabh Tripathi) who had failed around 30% of the class. It was now taught by a useless professor Rama Mishra. Now I was still in the same mode of "Mein to intelligent hoon, yeh sab in sab ko nahin samajh mein aaega, mein to samajh hi jaonga". The result was that I only attended the classes that too with partial attention. I took no efforts to study the course prior to the exam. The result could have been expected. I failed perilously in the exam.

That was the moment when I took a 360 degree turn in my attitude. This was the first time I started doubting my abilities. I remember standing in the cycle stand after the exam explaining Jappi (one of the guys with whom I had studied the subject) how I had overestimated my abilities. The confession was not very deep and but still brought significant relief.

The Problem I Still Face

The change of attitude as I see now did not persist. Although I did accept that I was not one of the most brilliant chaps around I still could not tolerate being taught by someone. The condescension is still a very noticeable feature of all my academic debates where I don a pedantic robe. The problem is that I have become extremely narrow in my outlook and choose to dismiss all new information that I get. The periods of learning are characterized by an initial period where I put a significant amount of effort to understanding the concept. Once I have understood the problem reasonably well I clog my ears and refuse to listen to any more insights. This makes rational discussions with me impossible. Currently I am passing through a phase where learning has been stalled. I am not able to move in any direction and am unable to realise what to pursue.