WHY IIT'S?

WHY IIT’S?

India, a country obsessed with IIT graduates and IIT degrees

What’s happened to the newspapers these days?

Don’t they have enough information to publish? I don’t think that’s the case! With the IPL 2012 quickly losing its sheen and having its share of troubles like the fixing row, the brawl, molestation charges by a hungry girl who wants to grab the limelight by accusing cricketers, the president looting our money by taking her grand children on pleasure trips to the US, diplomatic Khan being banned from the MCA, and umpteen number of bull shit news.

So it seems to be that there is no dearth for news.

Then why do I see a whole page dedicated to IIT achievers as well as aspirants? Not in one but in several newspapers each and every day! I mean to say, “Why do I give a damn about these guys when I sip my morning coffee?”(You’ll understand why?) “Why do I need to see those passport sized criminal looking-like photographs with their numbers saying AIR 442, AIR 132?

Does AIR stand for,”All India Rogues”?

Some of them try to squeeze a smile and others beaming with pride and thus try insinuating the fact that he or she is better than me? Yeah you might be, so what?

Well first of all I frankly don’t know why am ranting so much about these poor little creatures! Anyways best of luck. Most of the engineering aspirants consider IIT’s as the holy grail of engineering, as a matter of fact even I do! But the main crux of the matter I want to criticize is, WHY IIT???

Yeah I know that it is the most prestigious chain of technical institutions in India! And I also agree that it is a proud moment to walkout of the portals of an IIT and carry a fancy tag of being called an IITian and pocket big bucks. And for some of you, who have already started to hate my introduction, please accept my apology. Now you guys have to answer these questions!

The first IIT according to my knowledge was established somewhere around 1950(or 1951) and it’s been around 62 years since its inception and eventually many of them were established. Now we have around 12 IIT’s. That’s a happy and satisfactory figure to the so called education department as well as to Mr. Ever-Changing Kapil Sibal. Even to many students as it increases their prospect of joining one. I think that there might have been around hundreds of batches graduated from these hallowed institutions. And then most of them follow their desires, the main desire of obtaining fat and hefty salaries so that that can comfort them and also compensate their four years of hard slogging. In fact that’s the desire of an average Joe.

Now answer me, has any Indian soul produced a single, just one Nobel awardee. Anybody? (Especially from the IIT’s) No. No one has been able to achieve this feat and the last time anyone did that was a very long time ago by Sir C V Raman (not an IITian)

I’m attacking these institutions because they have assumed quite a high position in echelons of education. When you are in such a position you are expected to do really well! Look at Harvard (Bill Gates, Mark Zukerberg), Oxford, MIT (George Smoot), Stanford (Linus Pauling), Caltech, Yale and many more.They've produced some of the most brilliant people of our times. And as a matter of fact IIT's don’t even feature in top 200 universities in the world and sadly not even in top 20 among the Asian universities!

Now let’s go to the grass root problems we are facing. Why are we not able to do this? Though Indians are extremely smart, why? Though Obama reiterates time and again about the educational prowess we Indians behold. Why can’t we?

Are we to blame these coaching centres which prepare these young minds to crack the toughest exam in India? Are we to blame our parents who push us into torture and hence force us to study in anguish? Or should we blame ourselves?

There are many, and when I tell many I mean thousands of coaching centre’s for IIT’s. Especially in Kota, Rajasthan aka Mecca of IIT coaching centres, there are at least 2 to 3 centre’s for each and every lamp-post. These are what I think merely manufacturers for producing IIT entrance-exam-oriented students. They just stimulate our brains to think only for that period, I call that forceful intelligence because once you’re out of that institution, you’re just a normal guy who in earns in millions. Does he need anybody to stimulate his mind again to think out of the box? Imagine you’re reading the newspaper & you’ve seen the photo of a lad with a garland thus making it seem like a happy demise with his rank written, AIR-1. Do you ever again in your wildest dreams see him in the print ad giving him the credit to an important invention or a discovery?

Most of them crack it with ease and then hog their limelight for a few days and then he’s off to world of torment (unless he loves what he’s doing). Some of them struggle hard to complete (and compete) and some even succumb to suicide. I was shocked to see a blog dedicate to IIT suicides! (iitsuicides.blogspot.com).Strange but definitely true.

Some of the centers begin at 5 in the morn and incessantly continue till 5 in the evening. And as far as I know there are no recreational facilities available. Then how the hell will you fuel his already half –stunted- imaginative -mind? Because imagination plays a critical role when you take up exams! I’m emphasizing only on IIT’s because I and the whole world knows that people who study there are darn smart but not able to channelize their brilliant minds hence making a robust point, that none of the IIT’s have produced a Nobel laureate! SHAME ???

Ah, now it’s the turn of our loving parents, yea some of you might be from IIT’s but you can’t enforce that same rule to your children. You can’t compel your offspring to study in Narayana or FITJEE so that he gets into one. I know many friends who have gone to these so called money making institutions at the behest of parents, some of them completed their 2 year course and some abruptly dropped after a few months while some due to parental pressure  screwed their twelfth and obviously IIT.

The feeling or the urge to get into one should be from the heart, it can’t be forced upon you and finally I would like a say one thing to these centre’s, getting into an IIT isn’t everybody’s cup of tea!

Don’t join IIT just for the sake of it or lured by the fat pay checks or just to make a point to some bloke to show that you’re smarter than him. Join to become a Nobel laureate, join to bring some change in the world, join to bring glory to India!

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