What BIT Means to Me:
This is Piku, Civil 86. I was mostly seen on my off-white LML Vespa scooter busy in extracurricular activities in the campus. Reena, Rana and Priyaranjan were my group mates, who used to give me all possible help to successfully complete the sessionals and somehow clear the examination. Shailesh, Shanker, Rathoresir were source of distraction. I don’t know what happened to me in third and fourth year, I also started studying occasionally. Anyway, before taking the final degree, I was in U.S. – The FIRST EXPATRIATE OF OUR BATCH on 2nd December, 1990.
On 4th , I was sitting at Penn State University waiting for my turn to meet student advisor, not knowing where to stay in the chilly winter night. America was different those days; having very less Asian population. Very limited and expensive communication mediums (India $ 4 a minute). Yes, we could feel the distance at that time. At 6 p.m. in the evening, I could see the professor. I knew nobody in Philadelphia. I was scared, didn’t know where to go. Good hotels might cost dearly – cheap hotels may be dangerous. I did not know about America those days, which had negligible presence of Indians compared to present. I had a torn piece of paper where Dr. Vinay Prasad, our English professor, has written –few names and numbers of BIT alumni. I was trying to feel remaining currency of 1800 (USD) given by my father. I had already spent 200 dollars in commuting. Suddenly, I realized my stomach is upset due to acidity – could not eat anything during the day. Forgetting other vexing issues, I rushed to Ruby Tuesday and had something vegetarian (could not make out what dish it was). Then, took a bus and came back to New York. I reached Manhattan at 3 a.m. , waited till 7 a.m. and called up my only known person with whom I had a talk from India. His telephone was out of order. I tried to locate the address – address was incomplete. I had another interview at Columbia University in the evening. Dragging my big desi bag full of outdated clothes and books, I reached Columbia University at 11 a.m.. I saw few Asian faces there and tried to be friendly with them. They understood my problem and preferred not to come close. My reserve was depleting fast and was left with $1600, a chit containing name and telephone numbers of few alumni of BIT and one soft bag weighing 20 kg containing my junk clothes and old books. I was wearing a sweater which was not enough – wind chill factor was in negatives. I came to the Engineering school – sat inside a building and started thinking about family, friends and BIT. I felt like crying loud and I did cry my hearts out for almost an hour remembering faces very close to me. My turn to see the professor was over - I was sitting at wrong place. Dejected, tired and hungry, I was all alone. I saw a public telephone nearby – without even thinking twice, I took out numbers of BIT alumni. My four quarters got wasted – numbers were changed. Finally, I could talk to one Mr. Ravindra Kumar of 79 batch. Our conversation was very short. He just asked me to remain there. Within 1 hour, Ravindraji was in front of me with his wife. I hugged him tight and felt the warmth, very much needed at that time. He took me home. We had aloo paratha together. He was curious like a kid to know about my father, BIT Sindri, India... and I discovered home in America.
I did my masters from Brooklyn –Poly, NYU and later did Comp Sc. From Columbia and CUNY. I worked for different companies in different countries, held high posts .... Earned little money. First thing I did; took a four bed room large home equipped with all luxurious fixtures. My wife was studying medicine in India, I was alone. I was a fully satisfied person, when I started calling students from India to stay with me, when they first arrive at USA. I use to put flyers in Universities, in case a new student needs help. It was ultimate eternal pleasure to help many of the newcomers from BIT, Sindri. I consider it as one of the biggest achievement in my life.
Now, things has been changed, world has become a global village. Surprisingly, yesterday, I got a call from one of my senior, Mr. Rajesh, who got a guest from India. The guy, looking for a place to stay, is also from BIT Sindri (probably 2005-2009 batch) and is trying to get into Stanford University this Fall. Rajeshji is also from BIT and I am sure that guest from BIT Sindri has found a new home in USA.
THIS IS WHAT BIT MEANS TO US
Posted by Naresh on Behalf of Pikku
Thursday, July 22, 2010
संजय के कलम से
Team,
I am sure ever since Aameer Khan sang the song "Papa Kate The Bada Naam Karega, Beta Hamara..." with particular reference to "Koi Engineer Ka Kaam Karega.." many budding parents pre-conceived about the would be child to become an Engineer and as a result we have less B.Com or B.A. now and more B.Tech. in India.
Well, engineering may have been commoditized now, but in our generation we were probably the last few who took pride and ride out the high flying Engineering process. Even during our days, it had started losing its charm, if you recall that saying - "When joining the Engineering College it used to have a Chief Engineer mentality, then next year Superintendent Engineer's and in 3rd year it would become just of an Engineer and on the way out after completing the final year we doubted whether we were Engineer at all !!"
I wondered during my early days as "Engineer", after working like a person who would arrange labors and resources at the work place which constituted mainly as a job of "engineer" (and soon depend on "jugaad" management of old timers in labor force to get things done) that why someone would put "Er." much like "Dr." prefix in their name plate. Well, there is nothing wrong in demonstrating your whole list of qualification in your name but there got to be a purpose to it else no one stops you to do something similar to the south India's film directors, do you recall the captions like these -
Produced and Directed by:
Mr. B.D.E.L.M.B. Dasari Rao,
B.Com, L.L.B.,W.C.E.E.,
R.D.F.Z.X., A.K.L.O.E......"
and it used to take the whole screen and in few seconds, I am pretty sure that no one could read them and even if you attempted to read, half of the degrees were never heard of but it used to be nice to see that there were some during those days who took pride in letting the world know that what all "paapads" they have "bellowed" before the final stay in movie world. It was much like a syndrome, since it did not stop only to the film directors but it used to be a spread out phenomenon to all, so even director of Photography and others would have something similar...
Anyway, coming back to main discussion... our generation had listened to that song many times and the next line used to have alternative option tan just become engineer of " koi business me apna naam karega..", may be many of us felt that it was too late for us to explore the second option since were already into Engineering line but many of us indeed changed the profession.
What I wanted to explore with our group was that how many of us have really gone in which profession? If you can answer yourself, it will be much better since it proves that your "Play button is functional and you have your own speakers in built in your music system", else if you can proxy for those who prefer to be silent - been on the "Mute mode" or prefer "amplifiers" to send sound to the external speaker, it works even then since we just want to hear the music!
We all started with a vague teaching on "how to fish" and some of us chose conventional route of fishing, I mean many of us have remained in hardcore engineering, where we all should have belonged to, to begin with..
Then many of us went with a new way of fishing which evolved during our time, I mean around 30-40% of us have migrated in newly found IT river/lake/ocean. Please do not go further in fishy topic of how much fishing technique taught to us are being used in IT since it is known to all that what all goes into IT :)
Some went to fish in other's territory (ours being Engineering) like Banking, Personnel Management, HR... not aware of who all are in that league (Reena perhaps I know of who is in HR...)
Then there are some who said that we will not depend on any external resources but have one of our own so I know some of us are entrepreneurs now - like construction business (Binny, Sudeep, M.P.Singh may be many more), management/engineering consulting or manufacturing/services (Todi,Saurabh, Shanti, Himanshu, Anant Ranjan, not sure about others), some went on to have "investments" like Sattu Pandey and may be many others...
Then we had some who went for teaching on how to fish or improve the fishing business, I mean they went into Research/Eduational kind of stuff such as Dr. Satyam Suraj Sahay became Research Scientist and some who became educationists (I heard of Dilkeshwar Pandey, Samrendra Chaoudhary that they have been in Engineering coachings or teaching in Engineering colleges etc.)
Then we have some who have gone for something like Discovery Channel's "deadliest catch" series...like one which we had never in our normal thought process imagined realistically of...like IAS/IPS, movies, politics, authors, media etc. I know of Jaydeep, Ajay Nand, not others in this "elite" category (elite because indeed it is not just effort but a lot other factors contribute towards it to make it happen...).
I deliberately would not like to bring in this discussion as who all have what designations (CEO,CIO,VP and what not), pay structure or which company they are working for, since that is not the aim but to see exactly which profession people ended up in.
So here is my proposal, please update with your name or some one you know of in the categories as below and we will compile it later:
1. Engineering:
2. IT:
3. Entrepreneur/Business Person:
4. Non IT (HR/Banking/Retail/Finance):
5. Teaching/Research/Scientist:
6. Off beat (Politics/Movies/Author/Media etc.):
It will be really great if Naresh or someone good in "developing" to come out with a way to capture the names and later generate a statistics to see how diversified our group has become. It will give all of us an immense satisfaction that 20 years back we used to reassure ourselves that we will get "one job one day..." and here we are...!! And more importantly I sincerely hope that it will also bring an awareness amongst us and help in shaping our next generation by not pushing for stereotype conventional route of education to be enforced on them...
Cheers,
Sanjay Jha
================================================
================================================
That NMCT prof used to be Darogi Singh. We used to write the same program in FORTRAN 66, I guess, which used to be manually copy/pasted for years and some one later tried to run it and figured out that in manual copy/paste method many lines of code had been either distorted and/or missed, however, for years people got great grades who "reproduced" the codes in examination.
This was an extreme contradiction of storing the codes in our "mind hard disk or (which we used to erase just after exam)" and print out using the hand/pen "cartridge" on the examination paper while the program never got compiled in any system!
How about teaching Air Conditioner while we are seating in the class room (even fan was not working)?
Now, what really surprised me was that with that infrastructure and "expertise" level we had a new branch "Computer Science" started from very next year. Later, I found from one of the juniors of '88 batch that they were given some books to share and study together and also frame question and may be evaluate as well....now that was leaps ahead of even the most advanced education system in the world...
Cheers,
Sanjay Jha
===================================================
===================================================
Good that you brought this up. And a big thanks to Saurabh for being so loyal to his alma mater (those who do the work, do not speak a lot and vice-verse barring Alok Varma). I know this is an ape-age problem of BIT and in general of that region. Communication is so vital in success of one's professional and even personal lives, yet it is sorely neglected in almost every professional institutions. We did have Technical English as a subject where we were exposed to a very limited aspects of communication, in our case we could not go past one term called "MOM - Minutes of Meeting" (If B section - are you listening 106?, recall we used to have a teacher who used to have an artificial Anglo accent and spent hours and hours on overemphasizing what "minute" means in this perspective).
Well, communication is not only accent or vocabulary but able to express effectively. However, depending on what job one needs to go to, accent and polished manners may be required. So, my question to Saurabh and Alok would be that, did they find it not suited for the profile, or ineffective or with some local accent that they rejected all of them? Often, we all have learned (I am still learning...) from our experiences and so most of these new graduates need opportunity. The wider question is that can we do something in that direction for our institute? Can we speak to Director and help them by starting some optional courses which can help them expose them to basics of communication and prepare them for interviews and job (resume writing, how to face interviews etc.)? We can have a web bridge of sort and present some PPT, now that institute has Internet connection?
On a lighter note, bare minimum distribute copies of Rapidex English speaking course (Rohit, are you listening?) to them (it seem to have worked for some of us, agree?). In that connection did you recall "Barunwa" ka guide (Barron's guide for GRE which used to indicate that whoever possessed that in his room, was kind of had visa application for America, it indicated that the "elite" member of would be Americawasi is serious)?
I recall we had similar issue when we realized that campus and also for other companies, after getting through the written we would need to get past the GD and GT (do you remember the difference? SAIL used to have Group Task and ONGC would have Group Discussion). Suddenly, people got serious and started speaking Angrezi everywhere. They realized that academics was just one part of ticket to success, the other part of clearing the interview, GD/GT did not have any notes...!!! So,whether it was mess or Kameswar ka Dhaba...all over only angrezi!
It spread out like Azadi ki Ladai, like Netaji, Azad, Bhagat Singh et al there was an undercurrent...swadheentha ki aag me kya ameer, kya gareeb, har varg ke log is aag me kud pade the, sabkee manzeel thee aazaad bharat ka sapna!! I can not be like Prabhat Singh!! If you guys did not know this trivia fact then listen to this- Prabhat Singh, Electrical '86, room mate of Baalu and Shailesh Singh (room no 24 in hostel 10), had memorized the whole samaj shastra bhag -7 so he could start from cover page like "sankalan - Dr. Rakesh Singh, Bihar Pustak Prakashan Kendra,Patna dwara mudrit....Adhyaya 1 ....." trust me he could recall cover to cover and speak out...Shailesh confirm this if you recall this incident when he started reciting the whole book on one evening during the power cut...!!! I have never come across anyone having such amazing talent of memorizing the entire book chapter by chapter, line by line....!!!
Anyway back to the topic...
Often people made their groups and made it mandatory to have a group discussion before or after dinner, much in line with CSR (Competition Success Review)'s pattern! I participated in some of them and I would not reveal their names but while it was a serious business, it used to be no less than any comedy movie! No, I till date did not laugh at their attempt, which was too little too late, but certainly a bold step in the right direction, but the approach! OK, get this:
Participant 1 (typically room owner where this show would be taking place) would invariably take the role of moderator, since CSR used to put remarks in bracket that the leader or moderator role is very crucial who can keep the whole discussion in command. Arguably that appeared to be the most sought after role since it appeared to be a sure success path to impress and exhibit "leadership" quality.
So, here is our participant 1 raising voice over others and at times thumping the chowki as well - "Mr. Singh, may I request you to give chance to others as well please..." or " We all will get 1 minute each to say something and get everyone to share their valuable viewpoint, please...so let us begin clockwise from me ...!" ( This apparently would establish him as a leader automatically...). If this worked out with the group then fine, discussion will start and Participant 1 would be mostly busy watching the clock and remind the speaker to let others speak....but there were occasions when same group has been meeting very often and say Participant 2 has been tired of not getting the coveted timekeeper (err... leader's) role so here he goes with, emotional tone- "Mr. Kumar, no...why always you...I will decide who all will speak and in what order...!"
Then we would have participant who would vomit the whole passage rattofied from CSR and it would sound so artificial and in between when his "mind to brain dumping network congestion" would take place, he will not let the opportunity go away so will kepp repeating -"I mean..." or "You know..." or "what is that called...." (sometimes I heard "Athee...", "Arey...", a long Bheemsen Joshi's alaap type -'Aaaaaa..aaaaa..." or a complete silence with eyes looking up to the roof and recalling all his points...). Some would give up very easily at that point and would either become complete silent (much like DD Sports which around the penultimate over would get signal completely lost) or there were some stalwarts who will ask for more time with loud, louder and louder phrase of -"One minute, wait, no wait...please...no it is my tuen,,let me complete...", as if this lifetime opportunity will never come back!
One good impact of CSR was that even after a lot of heated exchange, they used to remember that one needs to be polite to each other no matter how disagreed one may be with his point, so after a lot of such fights, much like fire and ice combination, the violent looking lion will become calm and cool like a deer and would start addressing everyone -"Thank you Mr. Pandey, very good point", even if Pandey had spoken something very stupid, but the lakshya was to impress the selectors by exhibiting that he is now in the ice-cool mode so he is appreciating...even dukhiya Shankar Jha, would start nodding to every point during such GD after a lot of heated argument,he was one who was hard to agree with anything under the sky but foir the sake of CSR's recommendation...!
There used to be insecurity as well and if someone even touched a point already covered, the "patent holder" of that point would reiterate and let the panel know that this point now and for the time eternal belonged to him because it was uttered by him first, so - "Mr. Prasad, I am sorry but I already had told about this.Please do not repeat "my" point"
Then there were spectator type participants who would not speak on their own and Gandhiwadee self imposed leaders used to try for some brownie points by targeting and enabling such participant to speak up. Group also used to generally agree since no one anticipated any fear from them. So here would be remarks from such silent ones, when given the opportunity to speak- "No, I agree with Mr. Kumar" or "I support you all, it is a very good discussion going on.." or some will just smile and will keep his mute button as is. There was a general suggestion by some one that "points" are important so there were few who would come out with a request -"If group agrees, can I speak in Hindi?" and you would expect that he had some good argument or point they had and for the limitation of language it did not come out but even in Hindi it used to turn out to be a damp squib!
What used to be another interesting observation was about the kind of topics being selected - Nuclear Arm Race, Cold War, How can poverty be eradicated, Right of Education, Religious Harmony in India and so on... and the participant used to speak like an authority who appeared to have "owned" the problems in their hands and desperately needed a solution out of the current discussion only! They used to be so concerned or stressed during the discussion, as if he was answerable to that problem!
The other problem was that one had to make early call on his stand (per CSR, one needed a "for" or "against" approach), so if one ended up on the wrong side, would later after the discussion often remarked -"Dutt sala...oo side me jada pointwa sab tha..."
I can't stop until I share with you guys the part which I have till date not forgotten - there used to be a room where on a regular basis such practice session used to carry on. They used to end their GD session with clapping !!!!!!!!!
Oh my old days of BIT!!! I am convinced that ours will be much superior version than 3 idiot if we could make a movie with all the experiences captured...!!!
Cheers,
Sanjay Jha
==========================================
==========================================
U R Right about Sindri and BIT's current situation. BIT Sindri name itself has become khandhar... It used to stand for Bihar Institue of Technology and then there was a rumor tat it will become Birsa and now I hear that it is just BIT..
All good Professors are gone, no new drive or leadership to hire new ones...Jharkhand division has not helped the cause at all....not sure why they are not making it an autonomous institute and let it attract new sources of investments....same logic as for Sindri whole, this institute has one of the best infrastructures in India....why not introduce new courses, let it find its own way to generate revenue and let it survive on its own....
Sometimes, I feel that Jharkhand has the best from God but politicians and government officials have spoiled the whole progress and I feel that it is getting worse day by day...If things are planned better, Jharkhand alone can generate huge employment opportunities, so much so that Thakres would like to come and give a slogan that "Maratha Manus need to be employed in Jharkhand since we are Indians, Jai Bharat!!
Cheers,
Sanjay Jha
==============================================
==============================================
How can you miss '"Huzur Dhaba"? There was one near Goshala gate, where the white haired old owner of dhaba used to carry a very dirty "gamcha" which he used to dust off the bench while saying loudly -"Aaieeen hazur....baitheee...." and then he used to almost shout in full authority -" Ayeee Sanaaatttan...labo panee da babu sab ke....". That person Sanatan would hardly show any sign of urgency but the owner used to be always in top gear and would ask us before even we could settle down -" Ka khaib hazur?" and we would say -"Kya kya hai khane mein?" and he would go like this -"Sab kuchh fresh banal ba hazur, meat ba, macch-aree ba, aalo gobi ke sabji ba, kautohar ka sabjee ba...bolee hazur ka khaib..." His way of speaking "khantee" Bojpuri and repetitive "Hazur" had made it a very popular dhaba.
There used to be another dhaba opposite Thacker's called "Tapan's dhaba" that also used to have very good food, particularly naan of that place used to be very popular. Another good point of that dhaba was that it used to have th tandoor and main kitchen in the front of it only, so it used to have a good "inviting" feeling.
Dubey's dhaba used to have a very good combination of truck drivers and BIT students together all the time. Also, that was the only dhaba used to have many "khaats"- a true dhaba feeling.
Oh...those old good days!! Now, a big question, can any of us eat again there?
Cheers,
Sanjay Jha
I am sure ever since Aameer Khan sang the song "Papa Kate The Bada Naam Karega, Beta Hamara..." with particular reference to "Koi Engineer Ka Kaam Karega.." many budding parents pre-conceived about the would be child to become an Engineer and as a result we have less B.Com or B.A. now and more B.Tech. in India.
Well, engineering may have been commoditized now, but in our generation we were probably the last few who took pride and ride out the high flying Engineering process. Even during our days, it had started losing its charm, if you recall that saying - "When joining the Engineering College it used to have a Chief Engineer mentality, then next year Superintendent Engineer's and in 3rd year it would become just of an Engineer and on the way out after completing the final year we doubted whether we were Engineer at all !!"
I wondered during my early days as "Engineer", after working like a person who would arrange labors and resources at the work place which constituted mainly as a job of "engineer" (and soon depend on "jugaad" management of old timers in labor force to get things done) that why someone would put "Er." much like "Dr." prefix in their name plate. Well, there is nothing wrong in demonstrating your whole list of qualification in your name but there got to be a purpose to it else no one stops you to do something similar to the south India's film directors, do you recall the captions like these -
Produced and Directed by:
Mr. B.D.E.L.M.B. Dasari Rao,
B.Com, L.L.B.,W.C.E.E.,
R.D.F.Z.X., A.K.L.O.E......"
and it used to take the whole screen and in few seconds, I am pretty sure that no one could read them and even if you attempted to read, half of the degrees were never heard of but it used to be nice to see that there were some during those days who took pride in letting the world know that what all "paapads" they have "bellowed" before the final stay in movie world. It was much like a syndrome, since it did not stop only to the film directors but it used to be a spread out phenomenon to all, so even director of Photography and others would have something similar...
Anyway, coming back to main discussion... our generation had listened to that song many times and the next line used to have alternative option tan just become engineer of " koi business me apna naam karega..", may be many of us felt that it was too late for us to explore the second option since were already into Engineering line but many of us indeed changed the profession.
What I wanted to explore with our group was that how many of us have really gone in which profession? If you can answer yourself, it will be much better since it proves that your "Play button is functional and you have your own speakers in built in your music system", else if you can proxy for those who prefer to be silent - been on the "Mute mode" or prefer "amplifiers" to send sound to the external speaker, it works even then since we just want to hear the music!
We all started with a vague teaching on "how to fish" and some of us chose conventional route of fishing, I mean many of us have remained in hardcore engineering, where we all should have belonged to, to begin with..
Then many of us went with a new way of fishing which evolved during our time, I mean around 30-40% of us have migrated in newly found IT river/lake/ocean. Please do not go further in fishy topic of how much fishing technique taught to us are being used in IT since it is known to all that what all goes into IT :)
Some went to fish in other's territory (ours being Engineering) like Banking, Personnel Management, HR... not aware of who all are in that league (Reena perhaps I know of who is in HR...)
Then there are some who said that we will not depend on any external resources but have one of our own so I know some of us are entrepreneurs now - like construction business (Binny, Sudeep, M.P.Singh may be many more), management/engineering consulting or manufacturing/services (Todi,Saurabh, Shanti, Himanshu, Anant Ranjan, not sure about others), some went on to have "investments" like Sattu Pandey and may be many others...
Then we had some who went for teaching on how to fish or improve the fishing business, I mean they went into Research/Eduational kind of stuff such as Dr. Satyam Suraj Sahay became Research Scientist and some who became educationists (I heard of Dilkeshwar Pandey, Samrendra Chaoudhary that they have been in Engineering coachings or teaching in Engineering colleges etc.)
Then we have some who have gone for something like Discovery Channel's "deadliest catch" series...like one which we had never in our normal thought process imagined realistically of...like IAS/IPS, movies, politics, authors, media etc. I know of Jaydeep, Ajay Nand, not others in this "elite" category (elite because indeed it is not just effort but a lot other factors contribute towards it to make it happen...).
I deliberately would not like to bring in this discussion as who all have what designations (CEO,CIO,VP and what not), pay structure or which company they are working for, since that is not the aim but to see exactly which profession people ended up in.
So here is my proposal, please update with your name or some one you know of in the categories as below and we will compile it later:
1. Engineering:
2. IT:
3. Entrepreneur/Business Person:
4. Non IT (HR/Banking/Retail/Finance):
5. Teaching/Research/Scientist:
6. Off beat (Politics/Movies/Author/Media etc.):
It will be really great if Naresh or someone good in "developing" to come out with a way to capture the names and later generate a statistics to see how diversified our group has become. It will give all of us an immense satisfaction that 20 years back we used to reassure ourselves that we will get "one job one day..." and here we are...!! And more importantly I sincerely hope that it will also bring an awareness amongst us and help in shaping our next generation by not pushing for stereotype conventional route of education to be enforced on them...
Cheers,
Sanjay Jha
================================================
================================================
That NMCT prof used to be Darogi Singh. We used to write the same program in FORTRAN 66, I guess, which used to be manually copy/pasted for years and some one later tried to run it and figured out that in manual copy/paste method many lines of code had been either distorted and/or missed, however, for years people got great grades who "reproduced" the codes in examination.
This was an extreme contradiction of storing the codes in our "mind hard disk or (which we used to erase just after exam)" and print out using the hand/pen "cartridge" on the examination paper while the program never got compiled in any system!
How about teaching Air Conditioner while we are seating in the class room (even fan was not working)?
Now, what really surprised me was that with that infrastructure and "expertise" level we had a new branch "Computer Science" started from very next year. Later, I found from one of the juniors of '88 batch that they were given some books to share and study together and also frame question and may be evaluate as well....now that was leaps ahead of even the most advanced education system in the world...
Cheers,
Sanjay Jha
===================================================
===================================================
Good that you brought this up. And a big thanks to Saurabh for being so loyal to his alma mater (those who do the work, do not speak a lot and vice-verse barring Alok Varma). I know this is an ape-age problem of BIT and in general of that region. Communication is so vital in success of one's professional and even personal lives, yet it is sorely neglected in almost every professional institutions. We did have Technical English as a subject where we were exposed to a very limited aspects of communication, in our case we could not go past one term called "MOM - Minutes of Meeting" (If B section - are you listening 106?, recall we used to have a teacher who used to have an artificial Anglo accent and spent hours and hours on overemphasizing what "minute" means in this perspective).
Well, communication is not only accent or vocabulary but able to express effectively. However, depending on what job one needs to go to, accent and polished manners may be required. So, my question to Saurabh and Alok would be that, did they find it not suited for the profile, or ineffective or with some local accent that they rejected all of them? Often, we all have learned (I am still learning...) from our experiences and so most of these new graduates need opportunity. The wider question is that can we do something in that direction for our institute? Can we speak to Director and help them by starting some optional courses which can help them expose them to basics of communication and prepare them for interviews and job (resume writing, how to face interviews etc.)? We can have a web bridge of sort and present some PPT, now that institute has Internet connection?
On a lighter note, bare minimum distribute copies of Rapidex English speaking course (Rohit, are you listening?) to them (it seem to have worked for some of us, agree?). In that connection did you recall "Barunwa" ka guide (Barron's guide for GRE which used to indicate that whoever possessed that in his room, was kind of had visa application for America, it indicated that the "elite" member of would be Americawasi is serious)?
I recall we had similar issue when we realized that campus and also for other companies, after getting through the written we would need to get past the GD and GT (do you remember the difference? SAIL used to have Group Task and ONGC would have Group Discussion). Suddenly, people got serious and started speaking Angrezi everywhere. They realized that academics was just one part of ticket to success, the other part of clearing the interview, GD/GT did not have any notes...!!! So,whether it was mess or Kameswar ka Dhaba...all over only angrezi!
It spread out like Azadi ki Ladai, like Netaji, Azad, Bhagat Singh et al there was an undercurrent...swadheentha ki aag me kya ameer, kya gareeb, har varg ke log is aag me kud pade the, sabkee manzeel thee aazaad bharat ka sapna!! I can not be like Prabhat Singh!! If you guys did not know this trivia fact then listen to this- Prabhat Singh, Electrical '86, room mate of Baalu and Shailesh Singh (room no 24 in hostel 10), had memorized the whole samaj shastra bhag -7 so he could start from cover page like "sankalan - Dr. Rakesh Singh, Bihar Pustak Prakashan Kendra,Patna dwara mudrit....Adhyaya 1 ....." trust me he could recall cover to cover and speak out...Shailesh confirm this if you recall this incident when he started reciting the whole book on one evening during the power cut...!!! I have never come across anyone having such amazing talent of memorizing the entire book chapter by chapter, line by line....!!!
Anyway back to the topic...
Often people made their groups and made it mandatory to have a group discussion before or after dinner, much in line with CSR (Competition Success Review)'s pattern! I participated in some of them and I would not reveal their names but while it was a serious business, it used to be no less than any comedy movie! No, I till date did not laugh at their attempt, which was too little too late, but certainly a bold step in the right direction, but the approach! OK, get this:
Participant 1 (typically room owner where this show would be taking place) would invariably take the role of moderator, since CSR used to put remarks in bracket that the leader or moderator role is very crucial who can keep the whole discussion in command. Arguably that appeared to be the most sought after role since it appeared to be a sure success path to impress and exhibit "leadership" quality.
So, here is our participant 1 raising voice over others and at times thumping the chowki as well - "Mr. Singh, may I request you to give chance to others as well please..." or " We all will get 1 minute each to say something and get everyone to share their valuable viewpoint, please...so let us begin clockwise from me ...!" ( This apparently would establish him as a leader automatically...). If this worked out with the group then fine, discussion will start and Participant 1 would be mostly busy watching the clock and remind the speaker to let others speak....but there were occasions when same group has been meeting very often and say Participant 2 has been tired of not getting the coveted timekeeper (err... leader's) role so here he goes with, emotional tone- "Mr. Kumar, no...why always you...I will decide who all will speak and in what order...!"
Then we would have participant who would vomit the whole passage rattofied from CSR and it would sound so artificial and in between when his "mind to brain dumping network congestion" would take place, he will not let the opportunity go away so will kepp repeating -"I mean..." or "You know..." or "what is that called...." (sometimes I heard "Athee...", "Arey...", a long Bheemsen Joshi's alaap type -'Aaaaaa..aaaaa..." or a complete silence with eyes looking up to the roof and recalling all his points...). Some would give up very easily at that point and would either become complete silent (much like DD Sports which around the penultimate over would get signal completely lost) or there were some stalwarts who will ask for more time with loud, louder and louder phrase of -"One minute, wait, no wait...please...no it is my tuen,,let me complete...", as if this lifetime opportunity will never come back!
One good impact of CSR was that even after a lot of heated exchange, they used to remember that one needs to be polite to each other no matter how disagreed one may be with his point, so after a lot of such fights, much like fire and ice combination, the violent looking lion will become calm and cool like a deer and would start addressing everyone -"Thank you Mr. Pandey, very good point", even if Pandey had spoken something very stupid, but the lakshya was to impress the selectors by exhibiting that he is now in the ice-cool mode so he is appreciating...even dukhiya Shankar Jha, would start nodding to every point during such GD after a lot of heated argument,he was one who was hard to agree with anything under the sky but foir the sake of CSR's recommendation...!
There used to be insecurity as well and if someone even touched a point already covered, the "patent holder" of that point would reiterate and let the panel know that this point now and for the time eternal belonged to him because it was uttered by him first, so - "Mr. Prasad, I am sorry but I already had told about this.Please do not repeat "my" point"
Then there were spectator type participants who would not speak on their own and Gandhiwadee self imposed leaders used to try for some brownie points by targeting and enabling such participant to speak up. Group also used to generally agree since no one anticipated any fear from them. So here would be remarks from such silent ones, when given the opportunity to speak- "No, I agree with Mr. Kumar" or "I support you all, it is a very good discussion going on.." or some will just smile and will keep his mute button as is. There was a general suggestion by some one that "points" are important so there were few who would come out with a request -"If group agrees, can I speak in Hindi?" and you would expect that he had some good argument or point they had and for the limitation of language it did not come out but even in Hindi it used to turn out to be a damp squib!
What used to be another interesting observation was about the kind of topics being selected - Nuclear Arm Race, Cold War, How can poverty be eradicated, Right of Education, Religious Harmony in India and so on... and the participant used to speak like an authority who appeared to have "owned" the problems in their hands and desperately needed a solution out of the current discussion only! They used to be so concerned or stressed during the discussion, as if he was answerable to that problem!
The other problem was that one had to make early call on his stand (per CSR, one needed a "for" or "against" approach), so if one ended up on the wrong side, would later after the discussion often remarked -"Dutt sala...oo side me jada pointwa sab tha..."
I can't stop until I share with you guys the part which I have till date not forgotten - there used to be a room where on a regular basis such practice session used to carry on. They used to end their GD session with clapping !!!!!!!!!
Oh my old days of BIT!!! I am convinced that ours will be much superior version than 3 idiot if we could make a movie with all the experiences captured...!!!
Cheers,
Sanjay Jha
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U R Right about Sindri and BIT's current situation. BIT Sindri name itself has become khandhar... It used to stand for Bihar Institue of Technology and then there was a rumor tat it will become Birsa and now I hear that it is just BIT..
All good Professors are gone, no new drive or leadership to hire new ones...Jharkhand division has not helped the cause at all....not sure why they are not making it an autonomous institute and let it attract new sources of investments....same logic as for Sindri whole, this institute has one of the best infrastructures in India....why not introduce new courses, let it find its own way to generate revenue and let it survive on its own....
Sometimes, I feel that Jharkhand has the best from God but politicians and government officials have spoiled the whole progress and I feel that it is getting worse day by day...If things are planned better, Jharkhand alone can generate huge employment opportunities, so much so that Thakres would like to come and give a slogan that "Maratha Manus need to be employed in Jharkhand since we are Indians, Jai Bharat!!
Cheers,
Sanjay Jha
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How can you miss '"Huzur Dhaba"? There was one near Goshala gate, where the white haired old owner of dhaba used to carry a very dirty "gamcha" which he used to dust off the bench while saying loudly -"Aaieeen hazur....baitheee...." and then he used to almost shout in full authority -" Ayeee Sanaaatttan...labo panee da babu sab ke....". That person Sanatan would hardly show any sign of urgency but the owner used to be always in top gear and would ask us before even we could settle down -" Ka khaib hazur?" and we would say -"Kya kya hai khane mein?" and he would go like this -"Sab kuchh fresh banal ba hazur, meat ba, macch-aree ba, aalo gobi ke sabji ba, kautohar ka sabjee ba...bolee hazur ka khaib..." His way of speaking "khantee" Bojpuri and repetitive "Hazur" had made it a very popular dhaba.
There used to be another dhaba opposite Thacker's called "Tapan's dhaba" that also used to have very good food, particularly naan of that place used to be very popular. Another good point of that dhaba was that it used to have th tandoor and main kitchen in the front of it only, so it used to have a good "inviting" feeling.
Dubey's dhaba used to have a very good combination of truck drivers and BIT students together all the time. Also, that was the only dhaba used to have many "khaats"- a true dhaba feeling.
Oh...those old good days!! Now, a big question, can any of us eat again there?
Cheers,
Sanjay Jha
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