Thoughts down the streets of Bangalore......

(The Yaadein series will be continued. Digressing for two posts.)

I just completed the summer of 2011 doing an internship for 3 months. This internship required me to travel down to a different part of my present city, bangalore, every morning, and return in the evening, by a small bus provided by the company. This was my first real exposure to the city of bangalore, although i have been living in the IISc campus for 3 years. Although i have grown up in a metropolis (Kolkata) that is possibly even more overcrowded than bangalore, and certainly less organized (Kolkatan Hawks pardon me please), a journey through the bustling traffic appeared a very new (and unpleasant) experience for me, possibly because i have grown used to the evergreen, zero-pollution environment of the campus. In this post, i want to write a couple of random thoughts that crossed my mind during these journeys.

At a couple of traffic signals, one near the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium and another on Sankey Road, i saw a sight everyday. As the sea of two-wheelers, cars, buses and company vehicles (like mine) waited, 3-4 people, some of them female, can be seen making their way through the vehicles, holding in their hands some umbrellas, or small toys like aeroplanes or motorbikes, and trying to sell them to the people in these vehicles. Who will buy these in the busy traffic signal? Moreover, even if it was not a busy junction, would anyone buy? In this age of glitterring shopping malls, does the  newly-rich urban consumer ever pay any attention to the small traders or shopkeepers? I don't think so. Even in our childhood in the early 1990s, as young children we were fascinated to see small toys or painting books in roadside stalls, and often craved for them. If i were again a child 20 years later, i would probably be looking for toys in a air-conditioned shopping mall, and throw a condescending look at those being sold on the pavement, or by the wandering traders. The advent of these malls have distracted the urban consumer completely, relegating the small-scale traders to the background. Do these poor people, who are risking their lives daily in a desparate attempt to sell their ware, ever succeed in selling even 1 piece a day? i hope they do, but i fear that they probably don't. I have been crossing the places almost every day, for 3 months, i have never seen a piece being sold. Where have these people come from? And where will they go?

The second thought is regarding the traffic. In the morning the roads are reasonable free, and the journey is smooth. But in the evening, often we get trapped in an ocean of vehicles. Most of these are small private cars, and sometimes cabs. There are many cab companies in Bangalore (Meru Cabs, Easy Cabs, Go Cabs just to name a few). Many of these are A/C, and highly expensive. I have noticed that most of these vehicles carry just 1 passenger except for the driver, while the car can accomodate 5-6 people. Isn't this a gross wastage of resources? More cars mean more traffic congestions, and more consumption of petrol/diesel which is already becoming scarce. Nevertheless, as people of Bangalore are becoming richer thanks to the IT sector, the number of private cars is increasing day by day. People buy cars not just because it is convenient, but also because (or mainly because) it is seen as a status symbol. As the people increase their status, what is going to happen to the city? and to the petrol/diesel stocks?

Of course,  some people may view the issue from a different angle. The more the number of cars, more is the demand for mechanics and drivers. Thus, more jobs are created in the city. More unemployed people find employment. Isn't that good? Why think of tomorrow, let's think of today! In fact, a similar argument was given by some political parties of West Bengal in 2006 to environmentalist Subhash Datta when he demanded that the settlers along the Ravindra Sarovar Lake be evicted, as they are polluting one of the last pollution-free parts of Kolkata. Where will these people go then? How can so many people be evicted for environmental concers? The root problem seems to be the ever exploding population. Unless the population can be controlled, no good can be achieved.....neither for the people nor for the environment.

Yaadein: Semester 4 (JU)

The fourth semester was the first of the three busiest semesters in JU. It was a almost a paradigm shift from the slow and tranquil life of the previous three semesters. It started in february 2006, but ended in april, and there were exams in may. This left only 3 months for classes, 12 classtests and lab assignments all packed together. To add to this, was the project guide selection, which turned out to be a huge drama.

One of the earliest memories of this semester was that of one morning, when I, along with debarshi, anirban and haimasree went towards the Arts and Science section of the university. Debarshi needed to collect a form regarding some french class he was attending. He went to the Arts department building, while I sat near the building gate with anirban and haimasree. Whenever some girl walked past, haimasree would ask me whether i liked her or not. Earlier in the first semester, when dripto frequently asked me these questions, i got highly uncomfortable and tried to move away. But on this day, when haimasree did the same, i thoroughly enjoyed it, and became aware of the change which 1.5 years of college life had brought about in me.

Sayan, i have mentioned in earlier posts, was highly focussed about Ph.D. in USA. But in this semester, he also started preparing heavily for GATE, even though that was still two years away, and we had hardly studied much Computer-Science related subjects. But he selected Automata Theory and Discrete Maths, and started studying them and practising problems. Souri had got a collection of previous years' question papers of GATE, and Sayan started solving them. I particularly remember one day, when I found myself with the geeks of the class-namely sayan,swagato,arpan, souri and shibasis, engrossed over those questions. Sayan started singling out the questions related to graph theory, discrete maths and automata theory, and solved them before I could understand the questions. I  was shocked to see what was going on, since my own plan was to appear in GATE after two years. I panicked and started studying automata from that semester. Although i did not particularly like the subject, by the end of the semester had picked up a reasonable understanding of it.

Students are required to do a project in their final year, but many students start working in the third year itself. In this semester, we were taught digital logic by Prof PK Das, who taught particularly well. He ran the Center of Mobile Computing and Communication (CMCC) of JU, where some of our seniors worked. Some of us, including myself, had a fascination for working with PKD sir on this topic. Now PKD selected students on the basis of an interview and CGPA, and there was a heavy demand for him. 12-14 students approached him, including some of my close friends- arpan, souri, haimasree, debarshi and arijit. He asked us to organize ourselves in groups of 3-4 students each, so that he could interview in groups rather than individually. He asked us to study the fundamantals of Java and Linux for the interview. Some seniors had warned us to prepare well. I had no experience in either of the two, but picked up books and read the introductory chapters. My group members were arpan and arijit. On the D-Day, around 4:30 in the afternoon, all the 14 students huddled into the CMCC- a small but air-conditioned, brightly-lit, neat and tidy room on top of the administrative building. After a long and anxious wait, PKD started calling the groups one by one. Our group was second to go in. PKD asked some questions about java and linux, we answered whatever we had understood by our one-chapter reading. I don't remember any of his questions or our answers, but the latter ones must have been very weird. We were very tense after the interview, but after a couple of days he put out a notice stating that all 12 of us were selected except for Pramit and Ankit, who had interviewed with him but voluntarily opted out as they wanted database-related projects.

The above two incidents added to the tension of the anyway overloaded semester. To relieve myself of this tension, i often used to wander about the building during the free periods. It was a huge building consisting of two wings, connected at the second floors by a narrow hanging passage. The main building was 8-storeyed, and housed the Computer Science, Electronics, Civil and Architecture departments. The annexe building belonged almost entirely to the Computer Science dapartment. Both the buildings were dark, old, damp, dusty and even filthy at certain places. However, I thoroughly enjoyed my solo strolls to every nook and corner of the buildings, every passage and staircase, familiarizing myself with the names of the faculty, the different labs, reading the paper abstracts and posters displayed at different places on the walls. I am sure I knew the buildings better than anyone else in the class. It was fascinating, and for me, the best part of the semester.

It is in this semester that most of us, including myself, opened our Orkut accounts. Very soon, Orkut was the main talking point in the whole class, along with the book Five Point Someone. Everyone took great care to fill up his own profile, and often read others' profiles in great details. Very soon, orkut had become an important mode of communication among us-as important as the telephone. In fact, in later semesters it became still more important, and it could be claimed that for many (or most) of us, the Orkut existence had become as important as the real-life existence!

Though the semester was hectic, the summer holidays in june were particularly refreshing. It was the best vacation I ever had in my entire student life. The days were magical at home- the hot, sunny afternoons, the beautiful "Chand Sifaarish" or "Tu hi meri" playing on Red FM or my favourite Radio Mirchi, and the world cup football! After reading Five Point Someone I had become inspired to think beyond books and exercise problems and try something innovative- and I started to design various digital electronic circuits and implement them on a simulator. I had developed a deep passion for this, and also for networking, which was related to both PKD's project and our project in IIMC. Sometimes i would go to JU during the holidays, and met friends. Unlike students of other departments who hung out in canteens, the playground and the "lakeside" (a venue for lovebirds and smokers/weeders), the favourite hangout of some of my classmates was the Computer Architecture Lab where they surfed the web, and particularly Orkut. I went to this lab sometimes for some coding related to the IIM project, and had a great time mixing work with fun as many friends were around. I dare say, this was the best time for me in JU.

Yaadein: Semester 3 (JU)

This semester started in late august 2005, due to the delay in the previous semester caused by the Semester Boycott. The earliest memory of this semester that I can recall was that of the first day, a particularly cloudy day, with me, Dripto and Souri sitting outside the department below the Jupiter Building and discussing an Ashes Test match. Soon the classes started. In this semester, unlike the previous two semesters, we had interesting subjects. There was Data Structures, which was taught by Prof Chandan Majumdar (CM). He taught better than the previously seen JU teachers, and gave programming assignments which had to be done in groups of two. My partner was Arpan, a particularly "aggressive" (a term which i am in no mood to explain here ;-)) guy when it came to assignments and projects. His "aggressive" behaviour caused him to be disliked by many classmates, but i managed fine with him, at least in this particular semester. We implemented linked lists, stacks, queues, heaps and even b-trees and 2-3 trees - structures i have never used after that :-P. Besides there were the sorting algorithms. It was hectic, but enjoyable.

The other subjects included digital logic which was taught by DKB (never knew the full name). His teaching was quite horrendous, but i liked the subject. In fact I loved it. And I also loved the electronic circuits, 555 timers, schmidt triggers and all which were taught by Manojit Mitra- a part-time faculty in JU (actually based in BE College, Sibpur). Although I did not use them subsequently in any project, and gradually forgot them, these two subjects instilled in me a love for what I was studying- Computer Science and Engineering- for the first time.

A particularly interesting experience of my college life was the project at IIM Calcutta. It started in this particular semester, and continued for two years. It all started when Sayan mentioned to me, Arpan and Arijit about Debasis Saha, an ex-faculty of JU, currently a faculty in IIMC, was looking for 3-4 students for a project. At that time i had absolutely no idea of what exactly a project was- "a food or a hair oil". But Sayan and Arpan, the two guys who were always 1 year ahead of the others in class particularly in matters related to going to US for phd, convinced me and Arijit that this was very important for our careers. Shortly before the first visit to IIM, I fell severely sick, and the other three went there. I joined them in our second visit. We boarded a S-31 bus from the 8B stand, and went through unknown roads to an unknown place called Joka- at the southern extremety of kolkata-where IIMC is located. We entered the campus and went to a building called "CAM center"- to the first floor. After waiting for some time in a air-conditioned, tidy but empty lounge, the prof called us in. He gave us a paper - "A survey on sensor networks" to read and prepare a presentation on it for the next meeting. He also asked us to write a C program to display some circles randomly moving around and occassionally overlapping- each of which represented the range of a moving sensor node. For the next few weeks we were busy trying to make sense of the paper- most of it made almost no sense to us at that stage. However after going through Tanenbaum's textbook on Computer Networks, it started to make some sense, and I started liking it. However, soon after this meeting Sayan dropped out, and was replaced by Souri.

In november 2005, there were again prolonged strikes in JU- on an issue which I have forgotten now. It was at this time that I started making close friendships with other groups in the class. Beyond my established circle of friends consisting of Sayan, Arpan, Souri, Swagato, Dripto etc, I got closely acquainted with the group of Debarshi, Chiradeep, Pinaki, Haimasree, Sourav and Anirban. Debarshi, Chiradeep and Sourav were computer-addicted, technology-obsessed guys, but all of them were nice and jovial. Pinaki was a peculiar character -a bit rustic in taste but with a weird sense of humour that made him loveable. Haimasree was a nice and sweet girl, always keen to talk about romance and relationships. Their company induced a joviality in my own behaviour, which had probably been missing till then.

In a nutshell, the third semester was important to me because 1) it was the first time i learned to love Computer Science 2) i got a new circle of friends and a new dimension -joviality- was added to my character 3) the IIM project started and 4) It was a semester full of peace and tranquility despite the rather hectic workload - a peace that i never felt again in the subsequent semesters in JU. In fact the subsequent semesters were often marred by tensions, as will be described later.

Yaadein: Semester 2 (JU)

For me, the second semester was possibly the least eventful semester in JU. Regarding the classes, there were two teachers most of the students immensely disliked- the electronics teacher Tapati Ganguly (TG) and the Programming teacher Abhijit Kar (AK). The first one was disliked because of her horrible teaching and strict attitude like a school teacher -like she used to ask questions everyday, while the second one was disliked because of his supercilious and arrogant attitude. While I had no issues with AK, I disliked TG thoroughly.

One real ordeal was the mass-bunking of TG's classes. Most teachers did not mind a mass-bunk once in a while, but TG not only reported every bunk to the CSA office, but actually went around the building to capture the fugitives. These fugitives mostly hung around the architecture lab and the corridors, and TG would walk up to these places looking for them. If she caught anyone, she would first reprimand him and then assign him the task of finding the others and asking them to surrender :-D. Another comic situation arose when she had caught Aveek writing a love-poem in class, and had even read it out to the class!!!!

Though the semester by itself had been rather short and eventless, there was a huge and long-lasting event at the end of it. This was the "Boycott of the Semester Examinations" by the student's council in protest against the suspension of 4 students who were found guilty of unruly behaviour during some protest held some 2 years in the past. Most of us, including myself, opposed participation in this Boycott, since we had no idea where the students were guilty or not- the incident had happened long before our admission to JU. Besides, we thought that boycotting the semester exam is hardly a sane and logical way of protesting. Nevertheless, we had to participate in the boycott as no one wanted animosity with the seniors/union leaders. It was really boring- we had to study and come prepared on all 6 exam days only to find huge crowds of students crowding in front of the department. We would stand there and chat for an hour or two before dispersing. 

None of the exams were held at the scheduled time, and were postponed to june. But just before they could start, the 4 suspended students went on hunger-strike. As a result, again the exams were boycotted. But this time, 4 days into the hunger strike, on the night of 10 june, a huge police force in battle fatigues swooped on the strikers and rounded them up after a massive "lathicharge". Many were injured. Though this ended the hunger-strike, the university authorities came under severe criticism from all quarters for the use of force. They finally decided to set up a review commitee to review the roles of the suspended students, and set up new examination dates, which were finally followed.

A lot of articles were published in the newspapers regarding the boycott. Many people heaped lavish praise on the participating students for throwing themselves behind the 4 students even "putting their own careers in jeopardy". The ultra-left union of JU hailed the "historic protest". Cynics suggested that the students of the current generation rise in protest only when their own interest are affected, and are otherwise aloof about the society unlike the students of the 70s. I had never really supported the movement, and found all these comments weird. I do not know the truth, but I feel that the Union called for the boycott because they were sure that the authorities would not take any action on the boycotters and arrange for an alternate date. And it was hardly spontaneous, most people participated just by following the mass. Most students had no reason to boycott as they had no idea whether the accused students were guilty or not; indeed if they were not guilty, why and how would the probing commitee single them out?  And semester boycott is an extermely illogical way to protest. With due respect to all, I still feel that the boycott was largely a gimmick.

Yaadein: semester 1 (JU)

The first semster of Jadavpur University started in July 2004. The first experience of college life. 8 students were joining the Computer Science department from my school. Of them Sayan and Arpan had my good friends for the past two years, and i also had speaking terms with Aveek,Dripto,Dhrubo and Debarshi. Apart from them, there was Haimasree, whom I was not acquainted to in school. In the initial days, during the ragging and settling-in period, the first seven people from the school stuck together though Haimasree, somewhat to the surprise of us, would hang around with a different group. Our temporary group had marked diversity- Arpan mostly talked with us and the seniors about career plans, GRE and CAT, Sayan talked about combinatorics problems and plans to go to US for phd, Debarshi talked about football (Euro Cup had just ended) and English movies, Dripto and Aveek talked mostly about the girls in the senior batch and Dhrubo....well forget it :-P.

One of the earliest memories in this semester were the games of cards. Debarshi, Dhrubo and Dripto were into cards before joining college. In the first few weeks, classes were few and far between, so to kill time, I also joined them. Arpan was furious at the irregularity of classes, but even he joined sometimes. We played "Call Bray" and "Hearts" in the classroom sitting on the desks, or in the A-C canteen, over coffee and egg chops.

The classroom ragging by seniors had happenned for the first 4 days, and I was the biggest victim in the class. However this ragging was only verbal, and nothing objectionable had happened. However I had heard horror stories of ragging in CET canteen from Aveek and on the central playground from Chiradeep. They used to narrate the stories with great enthusiasm, as though they wanted to face such experiences. But I felt scared. For the first 2-3 months, I never walked in front of CET canteen. We had a class in the Mechanical Engineering department beyond the playground, and I felt scared to go there. On thursdays we had Drawing class and had to carry the "T" on the shoulder. This "weapon" would give me some sense of security :-D.

Dripto's fascination for the girls in the senior batch, and his open flirtation with them had become a hot gossip in the class. Everyone from Karati to Arpan was talking about it. That was fine, but Dripto often kept on asking how I felt about different girls. I felt quite awkward when asked such questions, but Dripto insisted. Taking a walk in the campus with Dripto in those days was a real ordeal for me. Whenever a girl walked past he would ask me how I felt about her :-D.

The Freshers' Welcome was to be held in september. The freshers were supposed to perform- drama, music, dance, instrument or whatever. Dhrubo had prepared a drama which he thought, would please the raunchy-minded seniors. Most of us thought it would only provoke more ragging. The theme and dialogue of the drama were enough to scare away the innocent guys Souri and Swagato. I was offered the lead role in the drama. I was reluctant, and considered staying away from college on the day of the Freshers' Welcome, but Dripto convinced me that it would result in a much worse ragging on the following day. So thus I was persuaded into acting. We rehearsed for several days. I always had a thing for acting, and transcending my initial hesitation, got into the role. My acting drew arousing appreciation from the other dramatists and viewers. But on the D-day, the seniors were not impressed with the drama. They did not appreciate the over-raunchy theme, and stopped the play midway, much to the disappointment of Dhrubo and ... well, even myself :-P.

Apart from the theoretical classes held in the classroom, we had practical classes, called "Sessional" in the terminology of JU. In this semester, there were 4 sessionals: physics lab, drawing, workshop and technical arts. Almost everyone complained that these were completely irrelevant to Computer Science and engineering. But for me, the worst part was that the class was divided into two groups- A1 and A2. Most of my friends and acquaintances were in the A2 group, while I, by virtue of my advanced rank in the entrance exam, was in A1. I found myself clubbed with Satyajit, Sourav, Arijit Khan, Rajdeep, Biswanath- most of whom came from suburban areas, and initially I had a bit of problem synchronising with them, having studied in a posh urban school for 15 years. These sessional classes of the first semester were quite boring for me- not only because the work was boring, but also because I could not connect with the company that well.

Personally, the first semester of JU was memorable because of the great change associated with it. For the past two years there was endless pressure to study, and now all the pressue had disappeared so suddenly that I was quite confused what to do...how to adopt myself to the changed situation. I thought I would forget about the change and study by myself, but what to study?? I tried studying physics- the Feynman Lectures of Physics, but soon discovered that I was not really being able to commit myself into it, and was just wasting time- neither studying nor enjoying.

On looking back casually towards this semester, the first things that come to mind are the peculiar odour of machine lubricants in the technical arts lab, the games of cards in the AC canteen, the songs "saanso ko saanso me dhalne do zara" (Hum Tum) and "dhoom macha le" (Dhoom) which played all the time over the new FM channels, the hubbub of the freshers' welcome, the times spent with Sayan, Arpan and Dripto, and the confusion- to study or to enjoy...and if to study, then what????

"Yaadein" series

Ever since leaving school in 2004, I have spent 12 semesters of college life in 2004-2010. First 8 were in Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and the next 4 in Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Each semester is associated with many memories... some good, some bad and some neutral. In my present life, somewhat uneventful and lonely, i often delve back into the past, and re-visit those memories....and try to re-live those days. A peculiar psychology of the human mind is that, while reminiscing, even the bad times seem to be nice. In the next 11 posts, I will try to paint this collage of memories. There will be one post for each semester, with the exception of the 8th semester of JU, for which there will be no post.

Do we really need politicians and political parties for democracy in India?

A lot is said about the gross corruption of politicians in india. It will be agreed by most people that most politicians in india today come to politics just for power and/or money, rather than any particular ideology. A large section of common people are angry with politicians, and even look upon them as enemies of the country. Others argue that it is unfair to blame the politicians alone for the rampant corruption in the country, the common people also have played a role in it.

Recently, there were elections in four states of india-tamilnadu,kerala,west bengal and assam. While the congress held on to power in assam and narrowly won in kerala, in West Bengal the TMC-Congress combine routed the 34-yr Left Front regime, and in TN AIADMK took the incumbant DMK to the cleaners. While I am not in a position to comment about the first two results, it is the other two which seem somewhat thought-provoking to me. When the people of WB and TN voted, did they vote for TMC/AIADMK or against CPM/DMK respectively? In WB, I understand that people were fed up with the arrogant and undemocratic rule of the CPM-led front for 34 long years, and wanted a change. I doubt they consider Mamata to be a good administrator, but they voted her because she was the main anti-Left campaigner for many many years. But in TN, Jaya and Karuna come to power in alternate terms. Both of them have had lots of corruption charges against them. This time, top DMK leaders like Kanimozhi and A. Raja were accused of corruption in the 2G spectrum case. Because of this, there was an anti-DMK wave and Jaya came to power. But she herself is no better, and had lost earlier for the same reason-corruption!! Then did the people really vote her because she was a better alternative? Or is it because she was the only alternative??

This actually raises a fundamental question- are there enough alternative political forces in India? A large section of the people are disillusioned with the current political system. While there can be no doubt that a multi-party/multi-view parliamentary democracy is the best form of government seen so far, is it really working meaningfully in india? If a disillusioned voter is to be  brought back to a polling booth, (s)he should have enough options to choose from. In practice, in every election there are two main camps, and parties/leaders switch frequently from one camp to another. In WB, TMC once goes with BJP, once with congress. In TN, AIADMK and DMK keep switching between NDA and UPA. In elections, the chief ministerial/prime ministerial candidates remain mostly the same year after year. Jaya had earlier been defeated for her corruption, but she again contests. Why should people at all be motivated to vote?

The parliamentarians/MLAs are supposed to be representatives of people. But in the current system, once they are elected, they work independant of the people for the rest of the term. There is no system of an elected member getting feedback/suggestions from the electorate, or being replaced for failure to deliver. Then, are they true representatives of people? And actually, is there at all any need for representatives of people? Is there at all a need for the concept of political parties and politicians in india? Cannot a parliamentary system function without them?

The main function of the parliament is to discuss policies of governance, and once decided, order the concerned departments to implement these policies. The discussion is suppossed to happen among the parliamentarians- the so-called representatives of the people. However, instead of having representatives, is it not possible to directly take the opinions of the countrymen on issues? With the rapid development of the Internet and social networks, it should not be impossible to obtain the viewpoints of a substantial number of people. Indeed good discussions on various matters of national interest happen on online communities in orkut or facebook. Of course, involving too many people will tend to cause confusion. So we will need a dedicated group of people to moderate the discussion, and identify the majority view. This group of people should be professionals.....just like there are IFS,IAS,IPS,IRS etc, we can have an Indian Parliamentary Service-whose job will be to conduct such discussions among the people. Any common person, irrespective of his/her social status should be able to raise a discussion thread or participate in a discussion. The service should have its own boards for management, promotions etc. And the different people will have their own views-some can be liberal, some conservative etc. Thus we will have a multi-view parliamentary democracy without a political class. Isn't it possible??