With No Preparation

Here comes the 28^th of this month and I will sit for one of the top notch entrance exams of the country. Yeah, majority of you guys would have guessed it right, its Common Admission Test widely known as the CAT. Cracking CAT is the first step towards chasing your MBA dream as it paves way into one of the best management institutes of the country, the Indian Institutes of Management or IIM’s. 

You might be thinking so what’s the big deal in that, every year lakhs of students sit for few management seats across the country in hope of making it into one of the IIM’s. But then it’s not about everyone, it’s about me. I have been blessed with a prophecy since birth that nothing will go smooth and in a planned way with me. And, CAT’11 is no exception to it. 

Family, friends and well-wishers bombarded me with their suggestions of first earning a good job after the engineering degree, gaining some expertise and experience and then finally switching the gear towards the MBA. But all those suggestions fell on deaf ears; I was least interested in their words. Then putting aside suggestions from fellow college-mates I filled the test date in the middle of festive week. 

And here I’m with no air of relief. The preparations haven’t been unto the desired level as it I’m in the battle field with no arms and ammunition's. Making the matter worse are the chances of change in the test centre. 

So, here comes the 28^th laughing all the way and here I sit cramping. 

Note: I’m sorry for not been consistent with my posts. The pre-placement tests, major projects, entrance exams and final year are keeping me all busy these days. Yet blogging is not a hobby but a passion for me and so I couldn’t keep much distance from it for a long time.

Reservations: A Weakest Review

Have you ever been a victim or a beneficiary of the government of India’s policy of reservation? You have reached the right place if your answer is in affirmative and for all others, please don’t waste your time in experiencing one over here. The idea of the post came after I watched Prakash Jha directed full of social and political drama movie Aarakshan last weekend.

Framers of the constitution of India in order to provide equal opportunities to the oppressed lower caste people came out with a questionable and short-sighted idea of providing them with a tool known as reservations. It reserves certain number of posts in public sector units and in all public and private educational institutions for the lower castes.

Reservations over the years changed its prime facia from being  given only on the basis of caste initially to particulars like sex, state of domicile, rural people, religion, defence background, sports, NRI, etc making it into the eligibility criteria to avail one now.

Reservations should be based on economic status instead of caste-based-reservations.

Constitution makers in order to avoid widespread resentment created a speculated deadline of ten years to implement reservation with full vigour to wash away all the inequality perpetuating in the society. But due to corrupt vote-bank political practises each successive government in the centre has only increased the speculated time period and even after 65 years of Independence the inequality exists.

Ironically the same constitution guarantee each and every Indian right to equality which is fully undermine by the right to reservation. People supporting it often cry foul of reservations being instrumental in delivering social justice but sadly none government dared to review the actual impact of such policies. Not only reservation schemes weaken equality laws but also it bore from within the quality of education.

Reservation is a tool to meet narrow political ends.

Over the years caste based reservation have wrecked the social fabric of the country instead of providing a environment of harmony and peace as envisaged in the constitution. Reservations cause friction among social groups. Sadly there are instances where castes not included in the reservation fight and clashes with government to also get admitted and enjoy benefits of reservations.

Reservation system with rising unemployment has created a large scale civil unrest in the minds of higher caste people. More and more students from higher castes are leaving the country for foreign universities which has aggravated the problem of brain drain. Half of India living in the villages devoid of schools, hospitals and basic infrastructure don’t need reservations for higher education but socio-economic development in the grass root level.

A year back the women's quota bill was introduced in the parliament thus increasing the competition for victimhood status. Interestingly in few states reservation exceeds even beyond 50% mark thus making it hard for general category to strive for air of progress. 

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Creativity- Gone Forever ???

“I was born intelligent, but education ruined me”

For years it was just another satirical quote on our public education system which I hardly notice and understood. But, believe me its shadow conceals something deep for which a person needs to uncover the layer of pseudo-intelligentsia from his eyes.

I remember once my cousin brother made an inverted painting of ship when we were still in knickers. He explained that it’s just a normal ship only travelling inside the water. I guess that day he might had been engulfed by soul of innovators behind submarines.

Creativity plays a major role in sharpening the behavior and shaping the future characteristic of a child. Fortunately, we all are born creative. Unfortunately, the refinement process which we undergo in later stages of life kills the basic notion of being creative.

All around the world the public education system is much or more the same; it’s livid and morbid designed only to make us a human machine. Quite amazingly we spend two forth of our life learning how to be perfect and in the process we forget the basic definition of being perfect. Idiotically, our mind is alluded to became captive of the notion that mistakes would result in failures which would subsequently end our life.

How ironic is that? Ask any scientist about the number of failures he met in his career and the answer will astonish even the hardest human being. Creativity might lead to mistakes which may further bring on failures but failures are the only door to invention and discoveries. You cannot find a new way to your home unless you look for alternatives. Following the same path will only lead to same results.

We had a great legacy of Gurukul system of education in our country where students enrolled were being mould according to individual creativity. It never emphasized on creating junks of students who are good for nothing. Unfortunately, in a mad race to out-due our western counterparts we got the system changed and now like rest of the world we too are following a global system of public education, made only to create a new class of clerks in post- industrialization era.

“Success comes from bad experiences and a bad experience comes from failures.”

Today, I felt being deluded when the teacher coordinator rejected a minor project report of not only mine but the whole class citing reasons that were hypothetical. We were asked to look unto her words as axiom and follow the century old regime. Her remarks were quite naïve and pungent when she ordered us to reallocate the font size and modulate the content of the report. It was a serious blow on the creativity of students.

As a matter of fact, the so called brilliant students getting top ranks will one day have to work for a college drop-out who was busy nurturing his creative outlook out of those goosy lectures. 

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Those one hour.. Part 2: I'm still in search for an effusive creative spark.

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