Iit, iit....

[Haridasa Siva]

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12 Lakhs students have appeared for the Preliminary Joint Entrance Examination (JEE Prelms) held in April 2013 for admission into 16 Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and 36 National Institutes of Technology (NIT, formerly known as Regional Engineering College or REC) which offer 9647 seats and about 20 000 seats respectively. This means about 40 students appeared for every (combined) seat available. In Tamil Nadu, about 30000 students appeared for this examination. Apparently, there are only about 50 institutes in Tamil Nadu that could train students to appear for this exam. Sons of two of my friends appeared for this examination. While one has cleared it another could not. Interestingly, both the guys have scored more than 92% in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry (MPC) in their Class XII (CBSE) Board Examination. On another note, it is stated that of the 180000 students who completed Engineering Degree last year, only 40000 managed to find jobs.

The issues, inter alia, are:
1. High competition for admission into IIT/NIT
2. Availability of only about 30000 seats in premier technical institutes in a country like India with a huge youth population. What is the status in other countries like Singapore or Australia or Western countries?
3. Poor quality of ‘qualified’ people with ‘ordinary’ B.E. degree, most of which could be from the so-called self-financing colleges.
4. The soundness of the selection process
5. Employability and job prospects (job in the appropriate field, good salary, etc.) for IIT/NIT vis a vis B.E.
6. Education pipeline in Tamil Nadu

I would like to hear views from our members.

 

[Visalakshi Ramani]

:welcome: back dear friend!!!

Nice to see you here again.

Entry into I.I.T = passport to U.S.A :thumb:

Passport to U.S.A => rolling in $$$$!!! opcorn:

I will not be surprised if the training/ orientation

for I.I.T J.E.E starts in the mother's womb!!!

 

[sangom]

Dear Shri Haridasa Siva,

What I understand is that the quality in IITs have deteriorated as compared to some 30 years. Some of the NITs maintain certain standards.

But the problem is that every boy/girl wants to be an engineer. Job opportunities are shrinking both domestic and abroad and there is not much hope that the capitalist economies in most countries, there will be another "boom" in employment scenario even in the next decade.

Hence, for a country like India, what is needed is not B.Tech engineers or B.E. engineers but well-qualified technical work force who will not mind doing manual work in factories & workshops. Those in this category who have the inclination to learn more and prove their higher abilities, must have the opportunity to prosecute higher studies and become full-fledged engineers. The old system of A.M.I.E. etc., should be enlarged for this and India should become a nation of experienced technicians and very capable engineers.

 

[கால பைரவன்]

The issues, inter alia, are:
1. High competition for admission into IIT/NIT

In nationwide competitive exams such as the one listed in OP, students from Andhra Pradesh invariably dominate whereas students from TN lag far behind. Perhaps, there are plenty of opportunities for TN students in TN itself or TN students are not as ambitious. Additionally, there are differences in standard of board education. In TN, the standard has steadily deteriorated whereas, I hear that the Andhra school education is one of the toughest across the country. Given the shortage of available seats, declining competitiveness does not make it easy for TN students.

Poor quality of ‘qualified’ people with ‘ordinary’ B.E. degree, most of which could be from the so-called self-financing colleges.

High percentage of unemployment does not necessarily mean that the graduates are unqualified. It is just, as Sangom has said, adequate jobs are not being created. Of course, there is nothing to write home about many engineering colleges in TN. Those colleges are simply there for revenue generation for the owners, most of whom are either political bigwigs themselves or related to politicians. It is classic socialism at work.

 

[vsubbu48]

People want to study in IITs so that they can gain entry into one of the IIMs or second tier management colleges. IIT/IIM combination is deadly. One finds that most of CEOs in India are from this category. The opportunities for foreign assignments are plenty.

Andhra coaching classes are better and hog the maximum seats in IITs. We can ask some of them to establish their training centres in TN.

 

[கால பைரவன்]

Andhra coaching classes are better and hog the maximum seats in IITs. We can ask some of them to establish their training centres in TN.

That could be one of the reasons but I doubt that is the main reason. In any case, if coaching centres were the prime differentiator, I think TN or atleast chennai would have already have those here. They would definitely be commercially successful.
Of course, things could be different this year because of the format change in IIT exams and the added eligibility criteria of 80% in board exams. Plus, quotas based on place of origin may soon come which might even out things. In India, quota is invariably the remedy sought for incompetence.

 

[biswa]

:welcome: back dear friend!!!

Nice to see you here again.

Entry into I.I.T = passport to U.S.A :thumb:

Passport to U.S.A => rolling in $$$$!!! opcorn:

I will not be surprised if the training/ orientation

for I.I.T J.E.E starts in the mother's womb!!!

Ms VR,
I can say with a lot of certainty that if just USA is a goal, one need not have a IIT degree or even an Engg degree. Plenty of other people have also made it to the promised land.

The IIT essentially functions as an IQ test. It does not matter what is taught in an IIT. Clearing the JEE proves that you are among the intellectually elite in your generation in India. It is a filter criterion.

So much so that much later in the US in a job interview, I was once asked my IIT rank. By another Indian of course ...

 

[Haridasa Siva]

Glad to hear that coaching in Andhra is good. Better to have it across India. We need quality education.

 

[Visalakshi Ramani]

Ms VR,
I can say with a lot of certainty that if just USA is a goal, one need not have a IIT degree or even an Engg degree. Plenty of other people have also made it to the promised land.

The IIT essentially functions as an IQ test. It does not matter what is taught in an IIT. Clearing the JEE proves that you are among the intellectually elite in your generation in India. It is a filter criterion.

So much so that much later in the US in a job interview, I was once asked my IIT rank. By another Indian of course ...

I know and I have seen restaurant owners, grocery store owners, mamis making murukku, pickles and milaggaip podi rolling in money in USA. But I.I.T gives prestige plus money.

As you have rightly pointed out, the first thing they ask is the rank and if it is< 100 then the person is super brilliant!

 

[Visalakshi Ramani]

Glad to hear that coaching in Andhra is good. Better to have it across India. We need quality education.

Andhra is the ultimate coaching center for I.I.T :whip:

The orientation starts as soon as the child can understand spoken words. :baby:

Where else do we have VISA Balaji temple - where people throng to get the U.S

VISA without any hitch? :flock:

I hope they will put beside VISA Balaji a VISA Lakshmi also soon!!!

 

[kunjuppu]

Ms VR,
I can say with a lot of certainty that if just USA is a goal, one need not have a IIT degree or even an Engg degree. Plenty of other people have also made it to the promised land.

The IIT essentially functions as an IQ test. It does not matter what is taught in an IIT. Clearing the JEE proves that you are among the intellectually elite in your generation in India. It is a filter criterion.

So much so that much later in the US in a job interview, I was once asked my IIT rank. By another Indian of course ...

I know and I have seen restaurant owners, grocery store owners, mamis making murukku, pickles and milaggaip podi rolling in money in USA. But I.I.T gives prestige plus money.

As you have rightly pointed out, the first thing they ask is the rank and if it is< 100 then the person is super brilliant!

biswa, visa,

as an ex iit(m), something which i seldom like to talk, i feel obliged to intervene. only because, i did not find anything great in iit, except the nice hostel life, the camaraderie of the hostel mates, the joy of meeting guys from all over india and the saturday night movies at the open air theatre. ok, throw in also the annual inter collegiate festival.

the curriculum is the same as in any other engineering college. the facilities are much better, but then, at the undergrad level, all those make little difference. as a PG institution, it has not made any mark in the industrial footprint of tamil nadu, through innovations or even marginal improvements of technology, to give india an edge in manufacturing or exports. we now, depend on countries like malaysia or korea or brazil for technical knowhow, apart from our traditional dependence on us, uk, japan or germany.

what was surprising, when i visited it a few years ago, is that, in that particular year, of the 250 b.tech students intake, 186 was from andhra. the mix was quite different in my time, when about 50 - 60% were tambrams, from tamil nadu and elsewhere, the next largest group being kerala xtians.

dont know where the kerala xtians went , but all my nieces and nephews past 10 years or so, have been attending the mushrooming engg colleges around madras, and all of them without exception, have been able to land in the usa without any difficulties.

not being of the smart sort, i still dont know how i passed the physics entrance test , because even after graduation, just looking at that question papers, caused tremors within me .

re andhra domination, i think, can be largely attributed to the state sponsored coaching factories started by chandra babu naidu, the ex tech savvy chief minister. once such a process is initiated, it develops a momentum of its own, and keeps on going at the same speed. and it would be difficult, if not impossible to break it and allow for any other mix. except ofcourse through legislation.

without any offence meant, i would say, that the teachers of my time, were of the poorest quality. most of them came from rural andhra, brought in by their respective department heads, from their alma maters. i think guntur engg college had the largest number of lecturers. these could hardly speak english, which i dont consider a defect, for after all, it is a foreign tongue. but most of these lecturers, did not what what we used to called 'funda', ie a basic understanding of the material, and add to it, the inability to convey it across to the students.

most of my classmates, were of the average kind. many the smarter than me, school and PUC mates, did not get into iit, and went on to successful careers after graduating from guindy, rec trichy or ac tech. all iit did, in my opinion, in those days, was to give a chip on the shoulder to those lucky enough to get in, and enjoy the fruits of a good campus life.

ofcourse, since the dotcom revolution, all this has changed. a few iit-ians in the silicon valley have established a reputation for the iits. but then, these are the type of guys, who would do well, anywhere, irrespective of where they study. these are the 'naturals. these are not the run of the mill 'brilliant' ones - that overused word to describe ordinary tambram youths, and which a certain section still enjoy using

if you pick the highest salaried tambram today, it is sundar pitchai of google. he just graduated over a decade ago, from the grandma of all engg colleges of madras - the venerable guindy one. it so happens, iit madras, has not produced any tambram of renown in silicon valley - the most famous i know is rajiv ramaswamy ex of cisco. the most successful graduate is a kannadiga gururaj deshpande of networks fame.

i have always considered cognizant as an IT company with a strong rooted unique tambram background. and looked at its management profile. not much of tamil there. ans not any undergraduate from iit either (one has a grad degree from there).

cognizant management

 

[kunjuppu]

i stand corrected.

sundar pichai is from iit kharagpur...iit nevertheless, not from iit madras.

 

[biswa]

I think Sundar Pichai is where he is because of his subsequent MBA and connections. By I agree with Mr. K. During my time as well, the top ranks were dominated by TBs. So the Andhra domination was fairly recent.

For me the bugaboo was Mathematics, not Physics.

 

[Raji Ram]

Dear Kunjuppu Sir,

You write that you had a nice hostel life. My son did too (1994 - 98) except that he developed jaundice during the

second year stay there. The students did not get treated water to drink and had to use a cloth filter tied to the tap!!

A huge, I mean really huge cat would walk on all the tables after the boys finish eating and leave the table with the

left over food on the plate! The chapAthis which the students used to comment 'come right from the opposite campus'

viz. CLRI. !! The students later fought to install an aqua guard to get safe drinking water. Hope they got it now!!

P.S: Unkempt hair, jOlnA bag, bathroom slippers as foot ware, bemuda pants and T shirts were the characteristics of

Madras IITans living in the hostel, those days!!

 

[kunjuppu]

Dear Kunjuppu Sir,

You write that you had a nice hostel life. My son did too (1994 - 98) except that he developed jaundice during the

second year stay there. The students did not get treated water to drink and had to use a cloth filter tied to the tap!!

A huge, I mean really huge cat would walk on all the tables after the boys finish eating and leave the table with the

left over food on the plate! The chapAthis which the students used to comment 'come right from the opposite campus'

viz. CLRI. !! The students later fought to install an aqua guard to get safe drinking water. Hope they got it now!!

P.S: Unkempt hair, jOlnA bag, bathroom slippers as foot ware, bemuda pants and T shirts were the characteristics of

Madras IITans living in the hostel, those days!!

dear raji,

our batch had our silver jubilee reunion (silre) in 1998. you have to remember that we graduated before internet, and most of us, had only continuing contacts with just two or three of the closest friends.

i think i heard of silre in 1997 sometime, and each one of us, got excited, and passed the news on and on. i was all excited to go, and my connections were toronto/london/newdelhi/madras dec 28 - 30 1998. i landed in london, and went to the BA counter and was told that the BA flight was cancelled due to fog in delhi. and all the flights next few days to india were full (i think they did not fly to madras then..not sure.. i could not get tickets anyway).

you can only imagine my disappointment when i took the next flight back to toronto, and cried all the way through. every year, we have reunions, and i have not even attended once. something happens and my plans get jinxed.

back to silre. my classmates, used to impeccably clean hostels, flushing toilets and non stop crystal clear water - were just plain shocked and saddened - at the dilapidated conditions of the hostels. when they challenged the director, he told them, that the central govt funding had dried, and the iits were having a hard time just meeting the salaries.

we adopted one hostel, collected money and fixed the bathrooms (saraswathi i think).

to me, on landing in canada, the biggest impression, was the cleanliness of the toilets. i read somehwere, that you can judge the development of a country by the state of its public toilets - and that east of germany till you come to japan/singapore, there is not even one clean public toilet.

i was in beijing 2005, and the city was getting geared for the olympics. one decree was, that any foreigner, can go to any 5 star hotel or less, and demand to use the toilet. such apparently were the conditons of the toilets in beijing at that time.

even last week i read in aval vikatan, about a young lady, working in a rural area, in a pharmacy, 12 hours a day standing up, and unable to find a spot to pee (forget the big jobbie or her monthly times). she used to hold up what we consider a natural bodily function, till she now has kidney troubles.

i dont know raji, where the world is coming to. all i can sadly say, which i tell my children, with a lot of regret, is that, we, our generation, is leaving behind a worse world, than what we inherited.

thank you.

 

[kunjuppu]

dedicated to raji ..iit memories..composed 1998, 25th anniversary of graduation..

An Ode to Ganga Hostel..


Ganga

From July 69 to May 73, Ganga Hostel was the best Hostel in IITM. Now you
non-Gangaites would disagree. And rightly you should. To each of us our own
Hostel was the best. There was never any question of wanting to live
anywhere else. And the universality of the Hostel system ensured that all
of us had a base reference line.

But even among Hostels, Ganga had some advantages. It was closest to the
Bus Terminals (even Jamuna was on the other side of the road and Mandakini
appeared far off). So many of us could just perform a quick dash from our
room to the bus just as the driver started the engine. And being there from
the very start, we could always get seats!

And behind Ganga was a stretch of luxurious grassland--the sight of deer
grazing on a misty morning would invoke the poet inside even most
insensitive lout!

I do not remember any of the wardens or the ass-wards. They flitted in and
out like thieves at night and were never a part of the hostel life. But it
is a different story with the mess staff. After all these years, I still
remember Aravindan. He took care of the mess, but for some dubious reason,
the 'manager' title was denied. It must not have been easy, trying to
satisfy the finicky palates of 220 people! What is poignant is those
Thursday nights, around 10 PM, long after the mess was cleaned and closed,
Aravindan used to take a bowl of melted down ice cream as he left the
hostel. He used to tell me that his children stayed up late looking forward
to this treat (Aravindan lived in Taramani). It took fatherhood and 3
children later for me to appreciate that love which those watery ice cream
carried!

And there was Nair. Ever clean. With the ever present viboothi on his
forehead and flip flopping slipper, ever at the beckoning of one and all,
building his retailing empire with cigarettes! There was Selvam -- sorry
Selvam I don't remember your face anymore. And I don't remember anybody
else's names, which we used to shout with such gusto, expect a level of
service that I seldom experienced in later life. And how many of us had
even talked to the cook who made it all happen?

To all these people we must have appeared rich and privileged. The vast
majority of us were neither. But someone who earned around 75 rupees a
month (as Aravindan) and 25 rupees a month (Nair, Selvam et al.) we must
have looked like coming from another planet. The truth is that even this
pittance of wages came from our parent's pockets and any acknowledgement of
a bleeding heart would hurt THEIR pockets. So there was never any talk
among us about ameliorating these guys' lives.

There was the dhobi, with whom I had nothing to do (my mother considered it
her privilege to do my weekly laundry). But most importantly there was
Vengaiyah. Now most of you don't know Vengaiyah. He was dirt poor and came
from one of the outlying Telugu speaking villages that surround Madras. He
cleaned our washrooms and felt our wrath indirectly at the sight of the
smallest speck of filth left overnight on those Neycer Keramag toilets. He
operated daily around 11 am, when most of us were in our classes, silently
working away one toilet at a time with his bucket of disinfectants and an
ever worn out broom. Sometimes his wife came to watch him work. She never
helped him out. Vengaiyah's work was his own source of pride. Even after
all these years, I am overcome at his show of gratitude at those few paisas
I used to dish out. So much for so little!

A few years after we left, the support staff in the hostel went on strike
causing great disruption. I fervently hope that their condition improved
after that.

But you cannot say the same thing about the conditions of the hostels
anymore. As per Sankaran (1971 batch), they are run down, the washrooms in
disrepair, and first years bunk in two to a room. Also there is no longer
the compulsory hostel-living. All this makes me wonder if the camaraderie
rivalry that we experienced, is still abound?

There were those Hostel Days. . . banal events of which I remember nothing.
Except the final year, when Ganesh at my urging, invited the Alakananda
chef to cook our pulau.

The Common Room was a luxury. Where else could you get the most eclectic
collection of music, game room and magazines and you didn't pay a penny.
Most of us did not have any of these in our own homes. But in Ganga, we
took to it like fish to water!

A few years after we left (1980 or 1981), one of the Gangaites met with an
accident. He was sitting on the parapet wall which separates the rooms from
the bathroom, on the 3rd floor, early morning and brushing his teeth. He
lost his balance and felt behind the hostel, 3 floors down, broke his neck
and died. Except that this parapet was at the end of rooms 316 through 330,
the VERY PLACE where I had the same thing. Scary thought that this could
have been me or any one of us who did this ritual daily. Sriram, may your
soul rest in peace.

The happiest day in the Hostel was the day before the start of term. From
early morning ,there were the steady stream of cabs and cars, dispensing
these IITians with their bags and baggage into the hostel gates. One cannot
forget cheery loud greetings across the corridors at the sight of long lost
comrades. The atmosphere was so heady that even the mess food didn't taste
all that bad. This however lasted only till the end of the first week.

And the saddest day to me personally was mid-May 1973, long after everyone
had departed, the mess closed and vessels packed away. One sunny hot
mid-afternoon, I came alone in a taxi, and loaded it one by one with all my
personal paraphernalia --bed, luggage, fan, radio etc. After the last
piece, I walked across the courtyard, and just before the exit to the
steps, turned upwards to have one last glance at Room 325 my home for the
last 2 years!

At that time burdened with the prospect of an uncertain future, I did had
little time for sentimentality!

But now, 25 years afterwards, I have a lump in my throat! However at that
moment I knew that I would never be the same again! And neither would Ganga!!

Adieu!

 

[kunjuppu]

IIT Memories ..contd

Memories Album

Well, I was thinking of how to top up that last note about 'How do I look'.
Instead, just a feeling of nostalgia overcame me and hence this electronic
snapshot from my personal memories album:
* The first day of arrival, July 1968, soon after the folks leave you,
the smell of absolute freedom.
* The ragging during the first week and the idiot letter Warden Mani
send, resulting in upset parents driving from Pondicherry, Bangalore,
Mandaveli and elsewhere.
* Superb pulau from the Alakananda cook.
* Sunday morning masala dosas (unlimited!)
* OAT
* Gaj Circle
* PJ (God rest his soul). . . a record 72 in one class. Venkatraman and
self used to keep count
* Campastimes
* Velacheri movies
* Late night movie madness to Mount Road followed by tea in the local
stalls
* Knick Knack Restaurant
* Inter IIT Meet
* Inter Collegiate Meet (pre Mardi Gras). Ambi Harsha from Madras
Christian College. (By the way I bumped into Ambi last year. He works as a
Foreign Students Advisor at UCLA.)
* Bulb Ramaswamy (Electrical Engineering)
* Sarat Jayatilaka (what happened to him?)
* The cramped buses: Kanchenjunga, Kailash, . . .
* The first day Dr. Natarajan introduced himself with his "just off
Canada accent" and trying to enlighten this crowd about Thermodynamics. He
is now the Director!
* Last few days in IIT, slowly one by one, slinking away, in a taxi
with the bags and baggage and never to be seen again.
* The graduation. For the first time hugs (!) to some of us and tears.
I am looking for an exit line from this rather long winded note. Maybe I
will brace myself for yet another Canadian winter with a rum laced Oolong
Tea and toast to the readers of this note.

Adieu!

 

[kunjuppu]

IIT Memories.. Part 3

The Teachers

My very first class was pijiks with Shobhanadri. In the cavernous PLT about
120 of us Mech & Elecs were huddled in a stadium with the gladiator
Shobhanadri staring at us with his baleful eyes. Every class, he spent half
hour over the attendance. And appeared apologetic for being in front of us.

The only exciting thing ever that happened in his class, when once he was
explaining centrifugal/centripetal forces, and thought he would
dramatically explain it, sat on his circular swivel chair, rotated it fast,
and spread his hands in and out, thus increasing and decreasing his speed.
When he stood up later, he still hadn't got back his equilibrium--to his
own disastrous consequences!

There was PJ with his jokes. I don't remember any of them. They must have
been really 'poor' but I remember them being very topical, spontaneous and
we laughed a lot.

K.M. Das. Math genius. We had no idea what he taught. He used to come to
the class, take attendance and go to the board and never look back. Within
minutes all he had was the first row and that too never more than ten. He
never complained, though was quoted as remarking that his sight was not as
what it used to be. But Das had the last laugh! He gave us a take home
test. Nobody except Dandy could solve the problem. Which we all copied.
When the marks came, each of us got 2%. When Horse challenged this, Das
with a twinkle remarked that there was indeed only one solution, 60 copies
and 100/60 equaled 2 (rolled up). I think it was the only a teacher got
better of Horse during a grading argument!

There was the workshop. Appavoo with his minions. The ever present bundle
of energy Toner. Superintendent Mani who was of no use. And the German guy,
I forget his name, but who stayed long after all the others have left.

And the supervisors for our periodicals. We always had the likes of
Krishnamurthy, Ram Mohan Rao, Ram Koteeswara Rao for most of our
periodicals over the five years. Overall they were good guys. Ramkoti, like
the perennial bridesmaid, was passed for a trip to Germany every year. I do
hope he got wish fulfilled after we left.

We must have had over 100 teachers total those five years. Surprisingly,
not much memorable about most of them. Most of them were not idiots and
many of them were not teachers. But coin the term idiot-teachers and we get
a healthy list!

Which brings me to Bulb. It was our lot that Bulb Ramaswamy taught us
motors. The man had absolute no clue or control. A typical class would
start with the likes of Sesh (Horse, or substitute any one there) asking
him a question. Bulb did not understand it. So Sesh would go to the
blackboard and draw a picture. Finally Bulb understood the question. But
now he had no clue to the answer. So our friend Sesh again presents
alternative solutions and asks Bulb to pick his choice. By then the class
was in a pandemonium and all hell broke loose. It was left to Dandy, who
was performing this Sesh role once. The normally mild Dandy, at the end,
got angry, and in front of the whole class, told Bulb that he was not fit
to teach! You can use your imagination as to what the rest of us did!!

Bulb also was my lab supervisor. For every experiment, he made us write
volumes of theory data, copied from text books, to supplement the superb
cooked results that Horse produced. I asked him once why all this scribe
from the texts. And in his own Bulb-way said 'That's what they do in
Amrika'. Ok you guys in Amrika, do something about this because, there were
several Bulbs out there at our time. And probably just as many right now!
Do they do this in Amrika?

It was left to Bulb and Bulb-likes to take ridiculousness to such heights!
My Bulb here is sort of generic, for IITM had several of those blokes of
the same caliber.

And there was this mass bunking. I would like to think that the Mechs were
the chief purveyors of this. But probably went just as often in the other
batches. A lecturer was given barely 5 minutes grace, and it did not take
long for the likes of Horse/Ajit/Ashok etc to organize a quick exit out of
the class room. I remember we practiced on Shobhanadri for the first time.
And we improved with time. Towards the latter years, a punctual lecturer
were the only ones to find us in class!

Now that the tables have turned, and many of you in academia, I wonder!
Does any of Horse's students ever bunk? I wonder if our current juniors
bunk? Or this one of the features of IITM that was born and perished with us?

Adieu!

 

[kunjuppu]

IIT Memories...Profiles of classmates

TV Krishna

For 5 years from 1968 onwards TV was a regular feature at any public
entertainment function. It all started in Alakananda, when he showed us how
to mimic bird sounds (caw), cat (meow) and dog (hooooowl) during one of
those apres-dinner corridor chats. Thus a star was born!

But he went over his depths when he tried to imitate 'Rajamani hollering
for AV across the corridors'. on Hostel Day. He didn't do a good job. Those
high notes simply failed him! No gambeeram!!

And after all these years Rajamani has not forgotten. He recently purchased
a Machete and a Magnum and it is a toss up as to which one he will use on
TV when they meet in December.

TV IS a natural performer. He cannot help it. It's in his genes. His full
name is Tharkabooshnam Venkata Krishna, the Thark . . . being the title
bestowed by Krishna Deva Raya a few centuries ago, on an illustrious
ancestor for superb skills in debating and showmanship. And the show has
continued non stop from then on.

I got to know TV in 1967 (pre IIT). We spend a year together in Loyola
College. My college registration number was 111 and TV was 112. So due to
the vagaries of the attendance system, we were burdened to sit next to each
other for many classes (also bunched together for labs and what not). I
used to notice that TV was always well dressed. . ., nice watch, hankies
and trinkets etc. Very innocently, he explained that his mom was the
Headmistress of Neyveli Lignite Girls High School and visiting girl
students from there dropped off those things for him. Even after all these
years I haven't understood what this statement meant.

Even then TV had a sense of wit. We had a chemistry teacher Trivedi (in
Loyola). This bloke sported a luxurious moustache (which was his pride and
joy). But one day announced that the mush had to go (order from a new
wedded wife). Trivedi couldn't bear the thought of guillotining his beloved
extension of himself. So the perky TV stands up 'Saar vy don't you take it
off millimeter by millimeter every day? That vay your wife will see it
going and you may not feel so bad?'. That perked Trivedi up and daily we
were witnesses to the waning of Trivedi's moustache to the final zero
level. Needless to say that TV got 100% in all Chemistry tests and labs
from then on.

God must have been smiling when TV was conceived. He was endowed with a
handsome face, curly hair, some petit and slim build and a natural gait.
Add to it his personality and ever sunny smile, TV was a magnet for the
airheads from SIET or Stella at all these Inter Collegiate Gatherings,
fluttering their eyelids at him! This caused no amount of chagrin to our
in-house dhaal (but kaanju pona) hunks like Ajit, Yogi, Narendar and a few
more. No amount of body building or muscle rolling would ever get them the
attention our TV received. The moral of this story is: Never underestimate
the potency of sambaar saadham!

After Alakananda I saw littler and littler of TV. Only two impressions
remain in my memory after all these years. On every IIT function at OAT, TV
would make an appearance with Narayan, flute, mridangam. Together, they
would produce a cacophony with their individual ragam, talam and swaram,
and try to pass it off as Carnatic Music! Too bad, it was neither Carnatic
nor Music!!

TV used to hang out with Ranthi a lot in later years. They were an odd
looking pair. . . Ranthi with his military gait and hunch and TV (well you
know TV)! Soon afterwards TV traded Ranthi for Leila. . . and it came as a
shock to our friend that whenever anything was mentioned in the context of
'the beauty and the beast', HE was not the beauty!

OH there are hazaar more stories about TV. . .

Have you heard the one about when one night he rushed from the showers to
his room dressed au natural, only to meet the delighted squeals of two
lovely lasses from Sarayu who had decided to give him a surprise visit?
Notwithstanding, our upright hero. . . oh but I cannot go any further.
These are Tapti Hostel lore and coming from a staunch Gangaite like me
would be a breach of etiquette. Let a weaver from Tapti take over this yarn.

Adieu!


G. Ganesh

What better way to show gratitude to Ganesh than to profile him here? But
after reading this caricature, you might think along the terms of 'biting
the hand that feeds you'. . . . (ha ha). So 'appaney Ganesaa', let me be
blunt and tell you something from bottommost of my heart, "an unadulterated
THANK YOU for the listserv and making this happen". So, sit back a second
and savor this gratitude, for after this line everything goes downhill!

Ganesh got his 15 minutes of fame when he got elected as the Mess Secretary
of Ganga Hostel. Still after all these years, sometimes I ponder for hours
over the higher than average mortality rate among us Gangaites and wonder
about the effects of long term food poisoning. No offence meant, the man
did try hard to come up with novel menus. But the ultimate judgement was
always given by AV (Srinivasan) who on being told there was a new item in
the menu, automatically opted for the bread and jam 'sick' meal!

Having shared rooms next to Ganesh for 4 years, I got to know him fairly
well. Short on stature, but long on perverted humor! He could play around
with the local vernacular fairly well and even the most innocent of
statements could be twisted to xxxx rated stuff. Ganesh remember
"santhankudathukkullay pandhugal urundu. . ."

I forgot the number of times, the man has knocked on my door late at
nights, all excited, 'Raja Raja, you got to hear this one' and out came yet
another quote of juicy morsel from the latest Tamil pondies.

One could always count on his cheery countenance and hearty greetings ALL
the time. Only ONCE had I seen him morose. This was after a particularly
difficult periodical in the 2nd year. Our friend was convinced that he was
getting an F (his first ever), and he believed that this was the end of his
life! So he packed up and readied to go back to Trivandrum to take over the
family pharmacy. Engineering was not to be his forte! But AV thought
otherwise. It took AV a better part of 6 hours to convince this guy that
getting an F was OK (just look at Rajamani!). This was AV's finest hour of
a random act of kindness (though I don't know if he regrets having done
this!) As a footnote, I was the one who got the F. Ganesh got an A. (RIGHT
ON!!)

Ganesh was the sole son pet of his father. So one fine day, Dad arrives on
the Trivandrum Express with a moped for his heir. Except this one was a
battered old Vicky with one tyre and the gas tank on their way to the
graveyard. As soon as dad left, Ganesh calls me up and wants to show off
this two wheeler. With me on the pillion, we barely reach Kaveri before it
clunks out. Of course, Ganesh being petit can hardly push this monster,
that job being left to yours truly. That weekend, Ganesh asked me to take
this moped to my mechanic for some fine tuning. I still cannot get over the
sight of my mechanic bundling up laughing to the ground at the sight of
this mangy colored beast! And to top it, on the way back this thing
couldn't climb the gradient (5 degrees ??) of the Adayar bridge. It was a
loooong walk/ride back to the hostel for me. Even Ganesh realized the
futility of this issue and the Vicky was quietly consigned to Vicky Heaven
soon afterwards!

So, when I heard that Ganesh had taken up residence in the vicinity of
Velacheri again a few weeks back, I penned him a note on the lines of
reviving his old familiar Velacheri delights. However, PAT came the answer
--the man has CHANGED. He now follows the straight and narrow path of
righteousness! No more movies of a certain type for our guy! No more books
of dubious literary virtue! I was given short shrift for even entertaining
such sinful thoughts!!

Pity though. The old Ganesh was definitely a more interesting bloke!

Adieu!



PAPPU. An affectionate profile. (Sort of!)

They say that stories about Pappu started circulating even BEFORE he was born!

Let us mine those archives for some of them. . .

Even when he was in High School, Pappu had a business acumen. Way back in
school (St Bede's) we used to exchange comics for reading, and on one
occasion, Pappu gave G-, 10 comics more than what he got in return and
settled accounts by demanding 50 paise to the astounded G-, as fees for
reading those pictorials! The last laugh goes to G-.who years later palmed
off a dilapidated. . . but that story is not of interest to this audience.

Every Friday afternoon, in High School, we used to miss Pappu from the
class. It was only after a while that we learnt about his new mantra:
'First Day First Show'. In those days of yore, Pappu was the darling of the
owners of Shanthi, Anand and Safire and numerous other theatres around
Mount Road. His annual goal of 100 films was attained EVERY year from 1961
through 1966, no mean feat! It was also then that Pappu developed his
meticulous record keeping skills--movie name, date, hero et al, detailed to
the finite details in his diary!

When you talk about 'faster than a speeding bullet', you would never think
of Pappu. I beg to disagree! We were lined up for Dean Martin's Matt Helm
movie 'Silencers' at Rajakumari Theater--first day first show, of course.
The long line snaked its way slowly through to the box office, and there
was no hope in hell for us to get a ticket. Paps tells me to hold the fort,
goes near the ticket counter, whistles and looks towards the sky, till one
simpleton hesitantly waddles towards the counter. Paps quickly shoves
himself between this guy and the counter, hands in the money and picks up
the ticket BEFORE anyone in the queue would blink an eyelid--surely a skill
honed over several try outs!

But the high point of Pappu's notoriety came when he was a resident at
Loyola College Hostel during PU days. Now Loyola's curfew rules would put
to shame any Turkish sultan's harem, and yet these guys took great thrill
in sneaking off at night to a local movie theatre, and one night returned
straight into the waiting arms of Father BlackBeard-- the wily TV, Ravi
Joseph, Ashok Sarma all melted into the night, and it was left to our hero
to be interrogated late into the night as to the nature of these nocturnal
exploits. And Pappu withstood THAT interrogation, the nature of which would
do the INQUISITION PROUD and true to his nature, wouldn't rat on his
comrades--the result being that at early dawn, he was unceremoniously
packed off in a taxi cab to his aunt's house in Purusawalkam, thus
consigned to be a Day Scholar for the rest of his PU days in Loyola.

I should tell you the story about how Pappu tried to make a tennis player
out of me. I don't know what the deal was, but one day Pappu comes to me
and talks about the greater glory of tennis...and sure enough before long
yours truly is at this tennis court, this really sleazy guy who is supposed
to coach me, pawns off a sorry looking tennis racket (Rs 5 only saar!!). I
try my first volley and the racket splits apart. . . and pat comes Pappu's
consoling remark: 'Raja, that's only five ruppees. . . for five more
ruppees he will re-string your racket'. My foray into tennisdom ended then
and there and the Indian tennis scene has never recovered from this
potential loss!

Pappu was always a generous guy....in those infrequent times I used to meet
him at OAT....'Dey Pappu, oru cigarette koduda!!'...and Pappu always had
this cheery repartee...'No Problem Raja, just a second..' and he would
saunter off to the likes of Ranthi, Jiggar Yogi, ........... bum a ciggy
and hand it to me with his trade mark smile ...and a sense of achievement!
Truly a generous friend!!

Rumour had it that by the time he left IITM, he owed cigarettes amounting
to a day's production at Wazir Sultans, but I cannot vouch for this. And
maybe being the beneficiary of those smokes, it is imprudent of me even to
mention it here in this note?

After all these years, my lasting memory of Pappu is his ever cheery smile,
his swinging walk and the ever alive cigarette on his lips!

All this nostalgia made me take up Thunder's suggestion and visit Pappu's
website at IUP, and WHAT do you find--the grand Dean, perched high on his
gaddi, in the deepest caverns of the Business School, giving you a baleful
gaze, fitting as any prospective marketeer would views his targets, the top
has grayed a bit, a tribute, no doubt, to those bygone campaigns (I
presume), while EVERY hair on his unruly moustache is bristling with
UNBRIDLED energy--ready to assault those unsuspecting Yanks with those
marketing campaigns for jalapeno icecreams/karela halwahs/see thru
underwear/reflective wallpaper...and many more. Me being safely in Canada,
thank my God that I am spared the onslaught of THIS master marketing
strategist!

But the highlight of this web mugshot is his SMILE! Enigmatic and Mona
Lisa-esque, this smile presented ME a mystery that would confound even
Agatha Christie!! I am convinced that HERE resides those 'Pearls of Wisdom'
mentioned by the SAGE Kailas in a previous note!

Our Hero, being the mowna-muni that he is, is not saying much. But us
mortals TOO need to attain salvation, achieve moksha thru reaching the
ultimate Marketing Nirvana! SOME ONE has to show us the PATH! Oh Master In
The Picture. Utter the words that will show us the Right Path and we too
shall lap it up with greater fervour than an hungry kitten shows towards
its bowl of milk!!

Adieu!

Mini Images

Shanks. Sesh always found this ditty from Shanks the most hilarious and was
repeated often in post Alak days: PUC, St Josephs, Trichy. Behind the
hostels were the railway yards where the ladies of the night plied their
trade. There was always a lineup from the St Jos, when your turn came, you
went behind the railway carriage, and for 25 paise you could get three
'WUJUK, WUJUK, WUJUK'. If you tried another, you had your neck and what
else pushed off. 'Ennaiaya, 25 paisakku ithuku melay kadayathu; innum venna
extra kodu'!

Ajit. Always liked him. I used call him Ajit Kurang and he used to enjoy
it, till he found out what meant! Boy, was he strong. I won't mention this
when I meet him. The credit goes to Ajit for being the only one in our
batch to scare Horse out of his wits (though Ajit does not know about
this). It was after 5th year, when Ajit was leaving Madras for good, and
they had slept in and there was only about 20 minutes left before the GT
Express left. Ajit took over the driving and made it from Mylapore to
Central with still a minute to go and a few dead chickens on the way. Horse
was all shaken when he dropped in on his way back!

Venkataraman. The PJ of our class. Venkat could crack topical jokes by the
tons. Always cheerful. The last time I met him was 1976, when we spent over
2 hours on a bench near Adayar bus stop, cracking PJs by the hundreds over
the imagined misfortunes of our compatriots in Umreeka, Iooovaa (U of
Iowa), Makkumaster etc. The thing with PJs is that you don't remember them!

Sundarraman. Pleasant surprise a few years ago. Saw him regularly while he
had business in Toronto. Visited him in Virginia last year. The kids got on
great! Doing well.

Narendar. I call him the gentle giant. And that's exactly what he is. Soft
spoken and ever so nice. I bumped into him a few years ago in Detroit.
Exchanged phone/address, but haven't kept up since then. Saw Ajit trying to
reach him over the net. Hope Narendar makes it.

Dakshinamoorthy. Sesh, I and spouses visited him Stony Brook New York 1981.
Gentle and soft-spoken. His house was just as tidy and orderly as his
hostel room. Heard he went to join Intel California.

Varadarajan. Married to a pretty singer Chinni. Had the fortune of visiting
him in 1985 and he returned the compliment a few years ago. Had a very good
time with him.

Om Prakash Aggarwal. Ompee. Was a great host in Delhi when I visited there
in 1971. I still remember the sumptuous spread that his mother prepared.

And the ever erudite intellectual Paddy Bala! In Alak, he gave me a John Le
Carre novel to read one evening when I was bored. I found it BORING!! but
did not tell him that. And I kept giving excuses each time after that when
he told me that he had a good book for me 2 read. Years later I got into Le
Carre. . . Smiley's People I read 15 times, and each time I thought of
Paddy. Great fan of Le Carre (especially Smiley).

Pappu. Feel like I know him a lifetime, and yes I do. 1962 I think. He used
to look a lot (and think he was) Sammy Davis Jr. look alike! Last saw him
in Pittsburgh about 10 years ago. Pretty wife Alida and girl Hillary. Nice.
Very nice to hear from him a few days ago. You owe us a visit Pappu!

Chickoo. So much a part of the listserv. Know him a lifetime too. Since St.
Bede's. Shaggy-haired and pleasant. We had some fun some summers in St
Bede's with Vijay Shankar, Ganu and Romeo D'Souza!

And finally Subbalakshmi. Always looking classy and correct. She was the
only girl in our troupe. And conducted herself such that we all RESPECTED
her. No MEAN feat in those IIT days among us 220 kattaans. Truly a LADY in
every sense of that term!

Adieu!

 

[Visalakshi Ramani]

WOW!!!What long mails!!! and how many in number!!!

But I must run now to finish my chores.

I am sure the things being spoken here belong to the distant past. (1960s???)

The recent stories are different.

Even in the early 90s there have been major changes in the hostel life and

academics.

Tambrams are losing their place of pride.

Do you know why???

Just go through the list of topics in G.D and you will know why!!!

What a way to start the day!!!

All about rapes, suicides, psychopaths and other sinister persons and events.

We are happy discussing these things while he others surge ahead of us!

 

[Visalakshi Ramani]

To enter USA the I.I.T tag MAY not be absolutely essential

but it does help in an undeniable way! :first:

Those who shine equally well after studying in the other institutions

can attribute it to their own merits and hard work. :laser: ...:ballchain:

 

[Raji Ram]

Dear Kunjuppu Sir,

Thanks for your posts. My son also stayed in Ganga which became unhygienic like River Ganga!!

The follow up story of that huge cat! It bit one of the inmates and died after two days! Boys were

terribly scared and got the postmortem done on that cat. Report showed that it was infected with

rabies - probably it was bitten by a dog??! The student who was the victim had to take those terrible

painful injections to prevent infection. Poor guy!

One more note: When my son started a software company in Boston with his friends (all IITans) they

chose the name OATSYSTEMS to honor the OAT at IIT-M and also since oat meal is a staple food!

Ref: 10 start-ups to watch: OATSystems

 

[Raji Ram]

Hot news:

NEW DELHI: Studying at Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will be expensive by Rs 40,000 from this academic session.

The Council of IITs decided to increase the annual tuition fees for undergraduate students to Rs 90,000 at a meeting in IIT-

Delhi on Monday. Announcing the decision, the minister for state for HRD, Pallam Raju said that the fee structure will be

reviewed annually and that the revised rates will be applicable for the new entrants only and that the fee-waiver schemes

for ST/ST and 25% of the students from economically disadvantaged background will continue.


At present, the annual fee is Rs 50,000. The last fee revision was done in the 2008-09 academic session when the tuition fee

was increased from Rs 25,000 to Rs 50,000. An IIT spends Rs 2.25 lakh per annum per student.


Source: IIT undergraduate annual fee hiked to Rs 90,000 - Times Of India

 

[Raji Ram]

For perhaps the first time, students of IIT-Madras will protest the fee hike introduced by the Central government

for all Indian Institutes of Technology. Students said the hike — 80 per cent for undergraduate courses and almost

double for postgraduate students from this year — is an attempt to make the IITs self-financed and render them

inaccessible to poor aspirants.

Read more here:

[TABLE="class: ts"]
[TR]
[TD="class: tsw"]Students' stir at IIT-M[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

 

[vsubbu48]

That could be one of the reasons but I doubt that is the main reason. In any case, if coaching centres were the prime differentiator, I think TN or atleast chennai would have already have those here. They would definitely be commercially successful.

A study by the IITs revealed that more than 90% of the students joining IITs were from Andhra. The education level in Andhra cannot be so superior as to achieve such stupendous result. Many students who cleared the entrance exam scored just average marks in their final exams as the students concentrated only on clearing IIT JEE. Therefore IITs changed the exam system and also introduced cut off marks. How long this will in reducing the influence of coaching classes only time will tell.