As We Leave… #16

Animesh Mishra is an undergraduate in the Department of Civil Engineering from the Y15 batch. Let’s hear out his story as he leaves.

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Hi. My name is Animesh Mishra, and I’m not sure how many people know my story, nor am I certain of how to put it in words. I hope ‘As we leave’ is the great platform by Vox that shall help me reach the student community. I will talk about my feelings for this place, my experiences, and certainly what I want people to know! I will also be explaining some organisational flaws existing in IITK, that I came to know of. I know there is another side to the coin that I might’ve overlooked and that sometimes my views might be laced with sarcasm. If that’s not understood, I’ll NEED TO WORK on my sarcasm.  As far as I can remember, my journey slices up neatly in 4 phases and trust me, I do not intend to bore you.

Excited as I was to get into IIT, I was also disappointed with my rank and my branch(Civil Engineering). I had screwed up my JEE Adv and along with it, every expectation I had for myself. Like many others, I came with a hope to change my branch to MnC. Yeah! People knowing me might laugh at this, but it’s true. I still remember running away from the stage once during orientation, when called upon to sing and asking my parents to take me away: such was my homesickness. Soon our classes started. I remember sitting silently and anxiously in my first class in L-7- I was a little frightened, but, more shocked to see the batch of approximately 450 students sitting in this big lecture hall. It was after attending the first 4 classes that I decided to not attend any more lectures in my four years (for those who don’t know me, I fulfilled that promise). Like any other fresher I picked things from the typical “Freshers’ starter pack” one by one- the habit of texting, planning on starting a startup without an idea, enthusiasm towards hall General Championship, and highly unproductive contagious bulla sessions all night long. During this phase Ayush Singh and Anurag Kumar were my best support to always keep me motivated. My first year went by in meeting people, showing little interest in academics and much more in bulla sessions. The results were rather sour than sweet. Average grades, no improvement in thoughts and not enough accomplishments, because as Yoda from Star Wars might say, “misguided, I was”.

My second phase started with the lowest point in my journey. By then, I thought a good CPI would do everything (which ironically I did not have either). Influenced by the elite seniors, I always wondered what anybody could gain from working in the fests. And soon enough, I entered the race for the so called “PORs”. My first ever task was given to me by Utkarsh Pratap Singh(a senior, fondly referred to as UPS). Me being totally unorganised and inexperienced, I ended up botching it up. I called up 75 colleges for participation in Prodigy (which on contrary, happens to be an event for school kids). Soon, I observed that in this corporate establishment, the top tier(Core Team) assigns tasks to the senior management, who pass it down to the junior employees(Secretary), who in turn dump all the useless tasks to their interns (Volunteer). Each working for an incentive to climb higher or learn something, but in the process, gaining nothing but experience (except the top tier).

As I was into writing and filming during my school days, I often wondered why the campus was so dull in filmmaking, and there came the idea of becoming coordinator of film club. While the club was really small when I started my tenure, as I leave the campus it has grown enormously. There are people now, constantly involved in the non-performing clubs and that gives me immense satisfaction. Parallely, I wanted to make my way into the Students’ Gymkhana, the “supreme” students’ body, that controls all the councils. Enchanted by the power, without any existing knowledge of its workings, I became a senator. I went to every meeting initially, listening to every issue that was being addressed and putting up my suggestions on the desk. But, I saw no significant work being done. So I started missing the meetings, as a result of which I lost my seat in the senate. I gathered all the ideas about managing Ritambhara working as a secy, and after a successful interview, I was made the Coordinator.

I had busy days and nights working for two big positions. Life now seemed more practical, formal and productive but I still lacked appreciation for the campus. I was confused about my future. Having worked for different cells for two years, I had realised that we often missed one important rationale – Not asking the right questions. Questions, such as, “why we are given this task.” Often, we act selfish and take up responsibilities, only to leave them unfinished. There is an evident lack of professionalism, no matter how small the task; A lack of leadership which fails to create interest in the so called “fraudies”. People often fail in academics, cause they never question their uncanny need for validation, even while having backlogs. They end up resorting to flattery and become a part of societal nepotism, through which one might end up succeeding for a while, but, ends up failing in the long run. All this because we keep forgetting the fact that though seniors are our guardians, we must question their suggestions and argue their logic. We must learn from them but choose what we learn, we must fight for the rights in any organisation(rather than criticising it). We must help them, even if it’s a small task, and respect them in our own rational way.

I started to notice hierarchy in some clubs over others, it seemed to me that people from certain clubs were always leading the council. Unfortunately, the public had the same opinion, irrespective of the candidate. The ideology was that members of the clubs which remained active in politics are often not worthy of the position. I decided to fight against this, the war was first fought in my mind and later, in elections. In the early stages, I had no clue whether the fight was a righteous one or just to satisfy my ego. So, I started a propaganda to characterise people who disliked that club (which I’m saving for when I apply for BJP IT cell).

I was now meeting people, understanding their problems, removing my initial biases and preparing the manifesto all along. During the course of my preparation, I identified some core problems in the council, such as lack of discipline and professionalism in clubs, and a lack of PG participation. The saddest part of all this was listening to the issues PGs face, all the while knowing deep inside that I can’t change a darn thing. The horrors of extension of a 5-6 year PhD to an 8-9 Year struggle were a living nightmare. While their pockets grew small, and their funding took a cut, a pack of Marlboro advanced turned into a couple of Wave cigarettes; a wing into a solitary room. As depression surrounded them, this place stayed still over the years.

Megha was the first person to stand beside me, and was the one to give words to my ideas. Oh! I can’t forget my Hall-3 bachcha’s core team, they were my strongest pillars. After 4 months of rigorous election work, the results came, and Yes, I lost by 4 votes! I still don’t buy stuff in multiples of 4. What started with 2 people turned into a crowd of 60 people standing beside me, and I managed to amass a vote bank of 1225. Immediately after losing, I thought to myself whether I managed to fight this corrupt election process, and was very much satisfied to find that my vision is now a perception widely accepted in campus. My vision to make people from strong background realise that they must win as an individual, and to know that only hard work and political game counts.

I still remember those days of “berojgari” post elections, when going to MT in the morning was the most productive thing I managed. Then came an opportunity to work in Antaragni, and in time I became one of the proud members of a 21 people squad; setting aside our differences and aligned towards a common target, “giving IITK the best 4 days of their lives, without any deficit”. I wasn’t sure whether to choose filmmaking and work for myself or again selflessly work for an established organisation. Only to realise in the end that my top priority was to stay busy to keep the campus from engulfing me in sadness. Thanking the previous team for entrusting this opportunity in me, I started my tenure. We worked hard each day, living side by side, always having a topic to discuss with juniors. Amidst all the common fest related criticism, we kept working. We didn’t care. There was a point where we didn’t even know where our careers were going, having safe in the knowledge that we had each other’s backs.

Come the placement season, luckily, I was shortlisted for few good companies by the virtue of my resume, and 2-3 tests I took. While people were getting placed, and I felt happy for them; I was surprised by how SPO stock market is governed. Yes, you read it right-exactly like a stock market! Imagine yourself being a stock share defined by your parent company’s (your resume) market demand. The companies coming for placements then, would be shareholders listed in the IPO (or your placement portal). While you are the kind of share that respects loyalty and wants to stay with your initial shareholder (the company you target); yet, you have to adjust according to the market everyday. The demand may go up or down, each time your company profile updates. Amidst all the fast paced, unpredictable fluctuations, many civil engineers become analysts, consultants become data scientists, analysts become product managers, product managers become operation engineers, and some clueless souls slide a resume, wondering if walk-in interviews are still happening. Well, who’s at fault? Maybe it’s us, for not planning our careers in advance and not building our profiles accordingly. Maybe it’s the companies, in which we apply indiscriminately which ends up increasing their workload and reinforcing a casual attitude, often missing out good profiles. Maybe it’s the system, which should have explained the work accounts to companies beforehand, so that there are less forged resumes and more honest ones. But, at the end of the day, everyone walks out more or less satisfied and maybe things will remain the same in the future. The last line is also indicative of how it works in the campus, “and as I walk out more or less satisfied, I think the state of affairs might just remain the same.”

While we sit, and wait for our semesters to end; we often indulge ourselves in pointless activities to keep our lives from falling apart. Otherwise, the environment just becomes repetitive and boring. One such activity is to revisit your hall for one last Galaxy. Well, I was a hall 3 resident, need I say more? But, as one of the overall coordinators of Galaxy and a prominent member of the hall, I have witnessed its slow and painful demise. The unwillingness of 1st yearites to participate results in a lack of interest to organise in the 2nd yearites. Only a few are involved, and as a result they have to participate in multiple events. It is organised only by the seniors and HEC’s who have been involved in it previously, and care about hall culture. Sadly, this model won’t last long until changes are made (i.e e-rickshaws from hall 13 to respective halls). I remember the time when the sole purpose of Galaxy was to create an interaction space between juniors, seniors and the clubs, and to witness the majestic parades of 150 people coming together from each hall.

Being a godfather to a few candidates this time (just like Kshitij Yadav was mine), I’ve now seen elections from inside out, and from every stakeholder’s perspective. Well, we have a vote division based on caste, religion (or our hall residency) much like in the Indian political system. Then we have a body acting both as an investigative and judiciary committee (GRC), a set of bureaucrats who directly/Indirectly influence the election (HEC, Senators, Executives), candidates lobbying with each other, exchanging each other’s territory votes and a team called EC trying their best to avoid any bias or malpractices. And not to forget set of written rules which seem like a joke; hardly ever discussed or worked upon over time. But, thank god we don’t have a multi-party election system like DU, right? Many candidates each year work hard for 6 months, waste their time and money for people supporting them. They still end up losing their candidature either by the administration or in some kind of politics; later to to be labeled as unethical. Why should one not lobby with other candidates, or not involve bureaucrats, or not view PGs as a mere vote bank, or not make fake promises, cause maybe, you’ll end up sitting and waiting while your opponent is doing the same. How could you know? Can you just assume the precedence that both the candidates will end up fair? In this utopian society, if both the candidates play fair, then we’ll have a total voting of just 15-20%. The candidates might not be a popular choice, but Hey!, at least everything is legal and free of forced participation, and THAT is the best for Gymkhana. I see a lot of people in Gymkhana with a visionary approach, working hard every year to make it a true representative of our students. Many of us are unaware of the fact that each day, each cell, fest and student body are in a way dealing with administration while our administration(except few people) are crushing us. Even among all this, there are still people who view it as a playground to pull each others legs out, and satisfy their own ego in an unproductive manner. My advice to them will be to start appreciating others, and unite the living for our true war in the North(dealing with administration) and not among ourselves .

Well throughout my 4 years I always had a core group of people who always supported me and I was always loyal to them , well the list is long and it would not be good if I miss even a single name but I would like to thank them to make my campus life bearable and everyone’s unbearable. The one person who I would like to acknowledge and without whom I would have been just a GC enthusiast who supported me helped me never questioned my rationality and stayed dank af- Megha Anotra. She always supported me as if it was her work whether election or me going through anxiety or through the placement or showing me the practical side of the coin. As one junior rightly said  

“Vikaas ka pahiya Animesh Bhaiya Jeet ki chabhi megha bhabhi“

Advices- Maintain a practical CPI

              Do get involved in extracurriculars

              Possibly be an entrepreneur

              Don’t do too much nashe (only occasionally)

              Talk Politics and do some social work

              Don’t care too much about placements it will happen