The Quintessential Outsider

I am finally back in the blogosphere after a long time (more than three months). A lot has happened in this time, & I thought of updating my blog quite a few times, but something or the other prevented me from doing so. Finally, with the end of another semester, I have got some time to write about a recent event which really shook us up.
Yes, the suicide at IIT Bombay, on which there have already been countless opinions, blog posts, newspaper articles and more in the two weeks since it has happened. Yet, I believe I should add to it, because Nuke was my classmate & I have seen some of the events in its aftermath very closely. In any case, it is good that we are discussing this now, however late it might be…
Before I begin, I should explain the title of this posting. This was the title I had chosen when I was going to write sometime in September about the change in the pattern of the IIT-JEE. I had saved the unfinished draft of the post:-

“This is an epithet we have grown used to over the years, having heard it as much with a sense of admiration by IIT aspirants & other outsiders, as with sarcasm by our professors. For the latter, the context has usually been the apparent lack of interest, in academics, of most of the undergraduate students, something I have discussed earlier too.
Now, we hear that there is talk of simplifying the IIT-JEE, by having a one-stage objective exam with the syllabus restricted to 12th std CBSE level. Whatever the new selection procedure might be, there are a few things which I feel should be kept in mind. Firstly, the new format should still be tough enough, so that we don’t have cases where many people get full marks, & there are scores of students on every mark from there on. This usually improves the chances of undeserving people who make arbitrary guesses.”

I have forgotten now what I was going to write after that, but the underlying question beneath all of this is the same – Is there something seriously wrong with the IITs as they are now?
Before that, let me tell the events since the 16th from my point of view…
We had our first end-semester exam in the afternooon of the 16th, for which Nuke did not turn up. All of us thought it was not something new… There had been other courses earlier where he had got an XX and did not appear for the end-sem. Some of us from other hostels had even been preparing for that exam in Hostel 13 (with two other batchmates, who happen to be the top two rankers) that morning as well as the night before. This was a very regular thing for us, and usually, at some point of time during such last-night study sessions, some of us would go to Nuke’s room and give him some notes and ask him to study. Sometimes, he would even come up himself to study… at other times, he was plain disinterested, and no amount of talking would help. But that night, all of us somehow completely forgot about him (maybe because we all knew he had got an XX & would not appear for the exam tomorrow… or maybe we were just too busy trying to avert the FF/FR grade ourselves).
The next evening, after the exam, all of us went back to our hostels and relaxed (the next exam was a simple one). Sometime around 8 pm, I got a call from one of his wingmates, who was also known to me. He was asking questions like ‘When did you last see Nuke?’, which immediately sent alarm bells ringing in my head (but you do not always want to think of the worst rightaway). When I asked him to tell me what exactly had happened, he replied, ‘Nuke has tried to commit suicide’. I immediately left for the hospital with GV, and in that 10-minute walk to the hospital, I was only thinking of what we were going to say to him when he regained consciousness. It was only on reaching the hospital that I realized that he was dead… he had been dead for 11 hours… since probably 9 am in the morning, while we had been preparing for that stupid exam.
It was a strange feeling, everything inside me seemed to be stuck where it was, while my mind raced around to think… what had we been doing all this while? When was the last time that I actually saw him… spoke to him? Did I ever realize things would take such a turn? I could not answer these questions, and I felt guilty about it, but it seemed to me that all the guys out there (who knew him in some way or the other) had similar expressions on their faces. After just wandering around aimlessly for a while, it sank in that we could not do anything, and all of us left for our hostels one-by-one.
The next evening, we came to know that he would be cremated that night, and we all went. There were only three faculty members there (and only one of them not in any official capacity). Again, it was that same strange feeling, but now coupled with anger and frustration. I could see that the guilt that I was feeling was just a fraction of what some others were going through (some of my batchmates were saying that we are guilty of having neglected him, others said we should not have teased him). His father – I believe we can’t even begin to think what he was going through – somehow contained his emotions and went through the rituals, after which he grimly thanked all of us for having turned up. Even though we knew that he actually meant that, it seemed to me to be a slap on our faces. Truly enough, some of the guys who had somehow managed to stay calm until then, just broke down at that moment. I came back to my hostel, had a bath, spoke to some friends, and went to sleep. There was no way I could study then.
About four days later, we came to know of a condolence meeting to be held in the department. Some newspaper reports had just started appearing, which I would not want to comment on (we all know how they work). But we decided we could not let this be just an occasion for saying a few grim words and forgetting the whole thing. Some guys felt we should boycott the meeting (in response to the absence of the faculty at his cremation), but most felt we should go, and we did. Soon enough, the frustration of the students started appearing, but thankfully, the faculty (the few who were present) were ready to listen. Some of us were incensed by the comments of some of the faculty in the newspapers (which were probably out of context, so let’s leave it at that), while some brought up the issue of postings about this incident being selectively deleted from our online newsgroup (iitb.general). Again, the explanation that has been given is that it was a technical glitch, so let us leave it there.
But the questions still remain – is the IIT system so harsh on students? From whatever I have seen, it does not take much to pass your courses here, & even do reasonably well. Yet, there are many cases of people failing in courses (this happens in colleges everywhere), & most of them complete them in summers, but a few from every batch have to extend their stay at IITB for a year or more. Even for most of them, things are not so tough, as they have friends to talk to, and the degree that they finally get is still good enough ‘in the market’. Obviously, the value is much reduced compared to someone who cleared everything in time, but it is still good enough. Besides academics, there are a lot of other activities, and a vibrant culture, and most people look back on these years as the best of their lives.
But beyond this wonderful landscape, there are those who are at the borders of this system. There are some who are just not interested in what they are doing, who probably chose their branch out of parental pressure, or peer pressure, or the general ‘herd mentality’. IIT just doesn’t have the opportunities for average students to do what they want to do. For changing your branch (that too, only at the end of first year), or for taking extra courses of your interest, or for any sort of such freedom, you have to do well in your current branch (which I personally see as a major paradox). The faculty has explanations for all these rules, and we understand the constraints that they have to work with, but can’t there be more answers than explanations? Here are a few I have come across while talking to several students, alumni and faculty on this issue.
If a student is stuck somewhere in his program, and does not have the ability (or more often, the willpower) to go forward, there should be a reasonable exit option. Expelling him or asking him to drop out is not, not just because dropping out of college is considered such a big deal (& more so from IIT) but also because one would have to go through a 3-4 year grind again for a degree. There can be some system of transferring to a ‘lower-rung’ college with a transfer of your credits earned here. There can also be a system within IIT of providing a ‘lesser degree’, so to say, which may not have as much value in the job market, but which would still give these students some certification for whatever efforts they put in here (it may also allow them to sit for further competitive examinations which ask for a college degree). Finally, there should, of course, be efforts to expand the scope of academics at IIT and giving students more options in this expanded scope. Most importantly, the faculty should keep out petty politics and personal egos while making such decisions, which will impact the lives and careers of so many students.
All this may sound of no consequence, as I am talking of how the ’system’ should be changed. But, more important than all this, is the system that the students have built for themselves. In everything that we do, be it extracurricular activities or the daily life in the hostel, you can notice a few people who are just left out. They cannot conform, or they choose not to conform, & they are either teased or looked down upon by their batchmates, or just ignored & left on their own. Why does everyone have to share your enthu for the hostel, or for cultural or sports activities, or for anything that you (and the majority) have a passion for? Why does everyone have to share a drink or smoke with you in order to be your friend? No – obviously not. Everyone will agree, and everyone will say that we just let such people be the way they want to. But we also form an opinion (mostly negative) of such people. They are consciously ignored, they are often ridiculed (behind their backs), and very few of us actually try to understand & get to know them better. And each one of us is to blame for that. It may sound blasphemous, but we have to accept that this happens.
As for Nuke, there were people who knew him. His comp fundaes were widely acknowledged (even by faculty), & most people in the institute had heard his name through ‘Umang’, the search engine. But very few knew him personally. And even those (like us) who did, never realized what he was going through, never had a heart-to-heart talk with him. We can blame the ’system’, the administration, the faculty, the lack of counsellors, the attitude of society at large, but we were all at fault… somewhere, somehow. We have to realize that if we want to prevent things like this in future.