Muzzammil is a graduating Y19 student in the Computer Science and Engineering Department. In the fortieth edition of As We Leave, Muzzammil reflects on his college experiences, urging readers not to imitate others and create their own memories.
Disclaimer:- The views presented below are the author’s own and are not in any manner representative of the views of Vox Populi as a body or IIT Kanpur in general. This is an informal account of the author’s experiences at IIT-K.
Having gone through most of the As We Leave articles by seniors, I don’t think any aspect of college life has been spared to talk about, and all the As We Leave articles till date have beautifully outlined all the facets of our college experiences, be it academics, college culture, the freedom that we have at IITK, the lifelong friends that we get from here, stories of failures, stories of success, stories of surprises, and their smiles and tears. However, one important thing to note here is that “It was their college life, their friends, their experiences…their memories. You have to create yours.”
Don’t fall into the trap of “treading the footsteps” of a particular senior. Two prime reasons: It’s not possible statistically that all the events that happened in their lives will happen with you too. Secondly, in this process of imitating someone, you lose yourself.
Inspired by the above insight and multiple failed attempts to write an autobiographical AWL, I concluded that memories of the whole four years cannot be jotted down. It has to be lived…there and then. The goosebumps I feel going down memory lane are because ‘I’ have lived it, and that’s why I cherish it. It would not help you much to know the minutes of my college life. You will have your set of friends: your college bestie, let’s call him Varenya; your poet friend; for the moment, let’s assign the name Viplav to him; your MC friend, who may be named Sparsh; your secret friends WhatsApp group; let’s call it ‘Moradabadi Biryani’ for a while. (The names are imaginary. Source: trust me, bro) The list is endless; above were a few examples.
Our campus is beautiful, isn’t it? Having all the shades that you can expect. Flowers in full bloom, peacocks roaming around, colorful leaves strewn all around the tall, strong trees. Also, there is a calming silence and tranquility that you can feel if you have walked alone here. Only when you are out of the college and hear the regular honks and inhale all the obnoxious exhaust gases do you recall how clean and peaceful the campus is. Moreover, we have all the facilities nearby: a gym, a sports complex, canteens, and other shops. I won’t even mind living here for a lifetime; it’s such an easygoing place.
Despite all this tranquility, beauty and convenience, if you pick a random dude and ask how’s life, get ready to hear ‘Bahut BT hai life me’, ‘Tumhara toh sahi hai…meri lagi padi hai’, ‘Couldn’t live up to the expectations’, ‘Disappointed’, ‘Bas ye intern lag jaye then life sorted hai’, ‘Ye sem bahut heavy hai yaar, agle sem maze karenge’, ‘Aap toh chaapu ho… ham gareebo ka kaha kuch sort hota’. Notwithstanding the outside environment you live in, on the inside, it’s full of chaos, broken dreams, feelings of despair, feelings of hard work not paying off, impostor syndrome, and feelings of jealousy as to why “this guy gets everything easily and I can’t”. We are in the continuous state of being unsatisfied with whatever we have achieved in life and in the incessant run for achieving the next “big thing” in life, with the obstinate illusion that once this next “big thing” is achieved, life will be heaven.
The problem is this: We wish to get something. However, what we can do on our part is only 0.0001% of what all it takes to get the wish to be fulfilled. The rest, 99.9999%, is still in the hands of the world around us, over which we have no control. Take some time to digest it. Therefore, things are happening as they should, causally speaking; it’s just that they might not be aligned with our wishes.
The best we can do is play our part, and instead of worrying about the outcomes, let the events unfold in front of us.
I won’t say I was in any way different. I also thought, Bas double dassa aa jae, and get my department changed to CSE, then everything would be chill and life would be heaven. I got it changed, and then I tried to squeeze out all the elixir of joy I could from this achievement. You know what? It didn’t last for more than 3–4 days. I won’t be the first to experience this; all of you have achieved something or other in life. The joy doesn’t last long. With department change came the impostor syndrome that I wouldn’t be as good a software engineer as my peers who were already in the department. The run goes on. ‘High CPI rakhta. It would help me land good offers even if I was bad in CP’. Again, things went well. Got the “foreign” intern offer from Samsung South Korea. “Bahut badhiya.” Then? Again, a few applauses from close ones, again the process of squeezing out all the nectar I could. No matter how hard I tried to cling to this happiness derived from the achievement, it didn’t last long. ‘PPO mil jaye, job pakki, phir toh life set, uske baad maze krenge’, again stupid it is, but that’s what I believe runs through the minds of most of us.
Adding to the already existing long list of insecurities, there is the paradoxical comparison of apples and oranges. ‘Usko dance bhi aata, sketch bhi karleta, wo guitar bhi baja leta’. I can’t do anything; I’m useless. Whenever we do this kind of comparison, we forget how diverse the backgrounds of the people here are. Be it the financial background, the regional background, the cultural background—the list goes on. Speaking for me, I came from a ‘middle-class OBC Muslim’ family. I mentioned ‘OBC’ specifically because I registered as a ‘General’ category student for the JEE. Blinded by the ‘anti-reservation, meritocratic’ ideals during my 12th class, I stubbornly gave up my ‘OBC’ reservation. Only in my second year, when I took SOC 171, did I come to know that I was a perfect fit to be called coming from OBC category. My parents tried their best to provide me with the best education, but at the same time, they didn’t have enough to spend on luxuries. Even though they always encouraged me to take coaching for JEE if I needed it, I knew it would be tough for them and hence didn’t take it. Things worked well for me, but now looking back, here In IITK, I had friends on both sides of the spectrum: far more privileged than me and far less privileged as well. And we should appreciate this diversity. And I strongly encourage you to learn from your peers, be it any skill like dancing or music OR any viewpoint of theirs on any topic.
Be open to new experiences and viewpoints. Recognizing that the ground is not level for all, everyone here is fighting their own battle. And all of you are doing well, appreciate it.
“Love more, Judge less”. At times we have this feeling, ‘How cool is their friend group? ‘Why are my friends not like that?’. I myself thought at times, Why are we not doing what this or that group is doing? We get swayed by the conventional definitions of being cool. Prominently in the final year, there’s this convention of coolness judged by how often you get ‘bhand’, how often you do ‘crazy things’, and how often you do ‘parties’. My group was majorly the sober one. We found solace in random walks to OAT and Mama Mio; we loved to spend the nights sitting together, roasting each other, cherishing the memories, and singing random poetry, shayari, and songs. Fitting the conventional definitions is good if you are enjoying it, since along with fun, you will not be feeling FOMO. However, keep your FOMO aside if you like something else and go do it. Don’t simply try to avoid existing friends that you vibe with in the search for conventionally ‘cooler friends’.
‘Time hi kahaan milta, assignments karne hote, classes hain, thoda fursat mile, phir karte hain start’. We get so busy being successful that we forget why did we start all this in the first place. Constantly neglecting health and putting it at the end of the queue took a toll. And whatever you achieve, if you are engulfed by a multitude of diseases, it won’t be of any help. During the lockdown period, my weight peaked at 100 kg. I suffered from severe back pain and digestive problems from constant sitting in front of the laptop screen. At some point, I was diagnosed with hypertension and was on pills for 3–4 months. I decided to prioritize my health. I had shed 18 kg by the time the 8th semester ended. If you are in good shape, well, that’s good; try to maintain it. If not, it’s never too late to begin.
Looking backwards, I can see that throughout my college life, I was in constant search for the source of happiness. A small part of this search was my exploration throughout college of different mystic schools such as Sufism, Taoism, Buddhism, Vedanta, and the list goes on. I thought the academic achievements would be the source, but they weren’t. I thought the applause we get from people for our achievements would be enough, but it wasn’t. I thought luxury might be it, but it wasn’t. I thought ‘good things continuously happening’ to us would be the source, confusing still, it wasn’t. Happiness lies in accepting the fact that there is “no goal to be achieved in this life”.
There is no “success”. “Life in itself, your being present at the moment, being here and now, is the goal”.
That being said, appreciate the moment, appreciate the people around you who love you, who you love, appreciate what all life has thrown at you, and appreciate that in this infinite cosmos of time and space, you were given an opportunity to ‘exist’, to be ‘alive’. But as it is said, knowledge and wisdom are very different. I won’t claim to have achieved supremacy in this art. There’s still a long way to go on the path I have described.
But still, it’s perfect, the moment is perfect. Your being here and reading this now is perfect.
PS: Feel free to reach out for a chat or something, gyaan toh bahut ho gaya 😂
Written By: Muzzammil
Edited By: Sruthi Subramanian, Zainab Fatima
