Farewell

Here is the speech i gave yesterday in the auditorium of our college for the BE farewell
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Hi everyone! Good morning and welcome to all who have gathered here today!

I’ll try my best to avoid the “Papa Kehte speeches of koi engineer ka kaam karega, business mein koi apna naam karega”


Its kind of funny that we have got to bid farewell to this college today only to come back in a few days to give our vivas and 8th sem exams. But then I guess we have to make do with what we have, and I’m happy that I got a chance to speak to all my friends from college on this occasion

I think that a farewell speech is probably the ONLY speech where students actually listen to the speaker (well I am hoping at least that is the case right now!)

Now that I have your undivided attention, let me share a few experiences I had during the past 4 years of my life in K.J Somaiya Engineering.

It was a scary feeling when all of us got in this college through the admission rounds at VJTI. When I came out of the inner hall with the confirmation slip in my hand I hardly knew anything about the college. It was chosen only for its proximity to my place. And what a decision it was – in return for an engineering seat in an unknown college I got back innumerable friends and loads of good times.

First Year Engineering must be THE most memorable year for any of the students out here. I think all of us would agree that the Symphony during our First Year –when Parikrama had been here - was the best one we had. The best part about FE was that the college management had not divided the students according to branches. This gave us a chance to interact with people from all the branches for one whole year. This helped a lot by keeping us acquainted, even when we were separated from the second year onwards. I can remember it clearly - FE classes in the old workshop building with temperatures reaching boiling point, all students fresh HSC graduates- absolutely clueless about what engineering is going to be like and the best part was - no screams of BE COMPS BE MECH or any form of branch rivalry. We all were the same and we all became close buddies.

From Second year onwards we all got into the mould of our respective branches. Personally, I got a taste of what Computer Engineering is like. I don’t know about you guys, but I had NO clue what Computer Engineering was about when I took admission. My knowledge of hardware was restricted upto which cd-writer was the cheapest and that of software was whether the latest computer game has cheat codes or not. It was a bit tough initially. The only difference we could make out then was that instead of writing assignments about Trusses and Kirchoff’s Law, we were writing even lengthier ones about stacks and queues. On one occasion, I recall we had even written a 40 page assignment and the total submission file size had exceeded more than 200 pages! But, as we all started learning, I realized it wasn’t such a bad deal after all. The fundamentals that were taught to us then helped a lot for courses in the next year.

The Third year got us firmly entrenched in the grind. The most significant memory was the House Cup that was started by the earlier council. It was an amazing event and really helped in building the inter branch-rivalry. Most of our college placements took soon after third year and lot of people got into good companies.

The Final Year has been an altogether different engineering degree by itself. Working on the BE Project, maintaining 75% attendance, completing journals, appearing for vivas, giving other competitive exams and the actual semester exam required the skill of a professional. However, all said and done, at the end of it, all of us have come through stronger. It has been the most eventful year of out engineering. The people who were unlucky earlier have got placed. We have geniuses who got calls from the IIMs, those applying for Masters degrees abroad have got admits from superb universities.

I think all of us can be sure of becoming fabulous managers after going through the past 4 years. We might not have sharpened our technical skills yet, but we definitely come up champions in time management. I think we can safely claim that engineers are the absolute masters of handling stress and work overload. If not in our technical aptitude as compared to the IITs, we can easily beat them in task execution capabilities! Now whether these qualities are inculcated in us by educational institutes intentionally or not is a different issue altogether!

It is a funny system – submission files over which you have toiled hard every semester getting holes punched right through them as soon as you give them, revaluation results declaring you have passed sometimes coming after you have given the KT exam. I don’t know whether it is BECAUSE of the system or INSPITE of the system, but the reality is that each and every one of us today has a bright future lined up for us. And it is after all due to our own - K.J Somaiya College of Engineering. I am indeed grateful to every person here involved in the process of making us into engineers. However, lets face it. Life begins on the day we step out, graduating from this college. What we had till now was a protected environment. Our biggest nightmare till now was something like not getting our certification in time. Now, bigger challenges lie ahead in life. But because of the last 4 years, this time, we know one thing for sure - we can handle anything that comes our way. Thank you very much.
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I am really glad i got this chance to express my views yesterday. It was a wonderful farewell with all the final year engineering students venting out their frustrations at the system yet rekindling fond memories. I will always remember these 4 years throughout my life. am sure same is the case with everyone who was with me in college.

Nostalgia

A thought has been occupying my mind for quite some time lately..

Its related to the fact that me alongwith hundreds of my friends in Mumbai University across several colleges are gonna graduate in about a month
People keep saying that we are really going to miss all the things we went through and experienced in engineering..
I hear Somaiya-ites from my college K.J Somaiya College of Engineering echoing this sentiment all the time these days..
The thought is captured fabulously in this blog by an ex-student..

And i wonder..

Are these the feelings that we really have? Are we really missing the submissions, the boring lectures, the tyrannical attendance regulations, and the constant pressure to perform in the exams?

Right.

Didnt think so!

So the memories we carry from the past 4 years are more likely going to be in the category of- canteen lukkhagiri, bunking, proxies.. you get the idea..
But even so i doubt these are the reasons we are bound to get teary eyed for..later on..

These are simply symbolic..for our lives till we graduate..
An existence completely sheltered from the big bad world where competition is lurking at every step of the way.. in your career and in your life ..

Never do we get to come back to this protected environment, and hence we will always remember this phase of our life with fondness

Pretentious education

Man am i angry.

Been hearing a lot of bullcrap over students protesting over reservations in IIMs and IITs..
Now if you have wandered over here wondering whether this is another ranting blog over the stupid reservation system and how the upper castes should have their own reservations instead..BUZZ OFFF!!

My point is this..for all those who are suddenly in a state of uproar over the "proposed" hike in percentage of seats reserved for OBC students in the IIMs and IITs -
"Where the #$%@ were you when these reservations were conducted for professional colleges?!?!"

And some of these so called angry rebels are the losers who have a chance of getting into an IIM/IIT as much chance there is of Mohammad Kaif hitting a century on current form.

Were u dozing in your pathetic rocking chair when similar reservations were announced for the engineering and medical colleges?
When you were affected, you were too busy trying to squirm into the 0.003% of the seats that were left for the open category after the Gujrathi/Kutchi/Sindhi/Malyali/Air Force/Kashmiri/Chemist/Watchman/Dhobi quotas that were drawn.

Why should these reservations be any more important?
No yaar, these are our country's pride..the premier institutions of our country..the last bastion of our education system which has been corrupted by reservations and populist policies.

Hmm.. so its ok for "premier" institutes not to allow people from a backward background to come into their campus while the thousands of universities in the rest of the country struggle with under-qualified professors, undeserving students and churn out substandard graduates so that the IIMS and IITs can be glorified?

This simply stinks of double standard shit and i am sick of it

Firstly, we introduce reservations for the lesser priveleged backward classes in colleges starting from grade 11 right upto final year engineering and medical streams. When the entire system becomes extremely competitive, resulting from millions of aspirants trying to get into their desired college, we do not even raise a squeal of protest.
Depressed students committing suicides..parents worried sick over their child not being able to attend "the good college with the decent people in our neighbourhood only"..but we dont say a word.
Maybe only crib about it in weddings..social circles - "the country is going to the dogs because of this Mandal Commission Report and reservations, i tell you"

But raise a voice against it?
Write letters against it?
Wear black arm bands about it?
Write emails..make petitions about it?

No thank you. We prefer to silently suffer, accept all this as government policy, at the most protest in the most mediocre way possible by giving your vote to the more forward looking party of the two.

Now, when the time comes to announce a proposal for increasing reservations for the countrys premier institutes....noooo how can they do this!!
This is absolutely outrageous...50% seats reserved!!!

Brotha, this doesnt matter about 50% or not.

You accepted reservations meted out to you like a lamb when you were in the same situation.You not only accepted it, you got admission through this hypocritical process, completed your education,forgot about raising the issue for others and are concerned about this reservation since it might concern you.
But when the same case is repeated for the hyped institutes where u barely have a chance of getting in, nooo..u will go ballistic..."this is downright unfairrr!!!"

Either accept the reservation system uniformly or do away with it altogether..
And try not to ignore the broader system

Wonder when i will hear about the administration and people, both more concerned about the millions of unlucky souls suffering in hell-holes called professional colleges than a batch of around six hundred people getting paypackets of 50 lakh rupees per year.

La..la..la ..LAAA

"If music be the food of life-play on"

I dont know to which person this line is credited, but it sure captures the true value of the emotions a simple word called "music" can conjure up in our minds
I heard somewhere that music is not the aim but the means to a higher sense of satisfaction. After listening to a seemingly incomprehensible fabulously captivating rendition yet of Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra(the guys that were the S part of the memorable S&M collaboration with Metallica or Beethoven's 9th, i can finally grasp what this could mean.

What is it about a melody that enchants us, whisks us to a place only our mind can create?
We simply need to look at the astonishing variety of music enjoyed by people all over the world to realize that it could be the single uniting element within all of us.
If there is one aspect which is truly void of gender,race,caste or creed it has to be music.
There really is no explanation why i am fascinated with an Arabic song i happen to hear or why a German could find the vocals of M.S Subbalakshmi mesmerizing.
The only answer i can come up with is the thought i offer in the beginning of this post- it is a medium ,not an end by itself.A communication ,with a higher entity,perhaps.
Rock,Pop,Classical,Country,Hindustani,Carnatic,Gospel,Hiphop,Jazz,Ballad etc etc..the genres might be exceeding a 100 but they all serve the same purpose. To reunite us, to connect all us through a common experience to a bliss like no other

Fi-ga-ro!