Quizzing - My Journey

So I am late in writing this post about my quizzing life. My friends have already written their posts and have done a rather good job of expressing their and some of our feelings. Arun's post can be read here.
However, I am still going to write my views on this subject, as this is something very close to my heart. I doubt many will read this, and I know fewer will care. But here it goes!
As for my school experience, Shreyas' experience has been quite similar to mine : Never qualifying for BQC, winning a few inter-school science quizzes, working with legendary seniors and all that jazz. (it can be read here)
And then I came to join IIT Roorkee. Quizzing here was quite a different experience. It started for me effectively in the the second year. Those days it used to mostly consist of my team writing the prelims, scoring a miserly 1 or 2 and sitting back and watching the titans battle it out amongst themselves. It was quite a treat to watch, in fact. They tackled obscure and abstruse questions with such ease, that it turned out to be a humbling experience. I thought, “Dang! I probably should start reading more stuff. There’s no way I would have known that!”
But never qualifying and our scores having a heaven and hell difference from the cut-off from our seniors did take its toll. I remember very distinctly sitting behind a senior and declaring, “I’m done with quizzing. There’s no way I’m getting any better.”  The senior turned back, saying, “Dude, you are in the second year, there is a lot of time to learn and improve, don’t give up already.” One of the most valuable advices I have heeded to.
I didn't give up and we went on to get better and better, all of us. Our year’s batch was now a formidable force, mostly qualifying for prelims and sometimes even prizing a podium place from the seniors!
Then came 3-2 (third year second semester). Third years were the main competition, but our immediate juniors were now proving to be good competition and were getting better with every quiz. Yet, we won the Geek Quiz, General Quiz and the prestigious Ashesh Memorial Quiz after fierce competition. What a time that was!
Our peak (by “our” I mean my team) behind us, we went on to perform well, but as well. Our worthy rivals from all around were now doing even better. The next batch of juniors also proved to have some very good quizzers. We lost our Ashesh Memorial crown to our much worthy rivals and nemeses. However, we ended on a good note by defending our General Quiz victory of the previous year.
Hence, we can say, we ended on a high. Quizzing has been and will remain my deepest passion. I am a different person when I am in a quiz, I am loud, vociferous, foul-mouthed, excited, raucous, angry, calm, a risk taker, a risk shirker … You get the point.
I have a lot more to say, especially about my team and my rival teams. But I have decided to split the post so that I can ramble more about quizzing.
I will end by listing some of the most memorable answers I/we have given:

• Sachin Tendulkar
• Mario
• 42

Tiger v/s Dragon

The other day I was sitting in the lounge of a fancy hotel, waiting for my father to come back from a meeting he had with some Chinese guys. They had apparently not gone through with a deal properly. Whatever, I hardly cared. All I wanted was to get my father and go shopping for my very own laptop. Honestly, that was all that kept me in the sterile and overly formal place. I was flipping through a magazine with a nearly naked celebrity on its cover, wondering what was about it that made it so different from those cheap C-grade magazines I saw on stands. But before I cud conclude my thoughts, there came a Chinese chap, about as old as me and sat on the sofa next to me.

We both exchanged cursory glances. He smiled and nodded, I smiled and nodded right back. Then there was dead silence, as I fumbled through the magazine in which I had no interest, and he looked about, probably wondering why he wasn’t in China where he could have some noodles or something. So as you would expect, we started chatting. Here’s an excerpt (lets call the Chinese guy X, cuz I wouldn’t be able to remember his name on my life!) :

X: Hi. I be from China. I have come to India for first time! Nice place!

Me: Oh, really? Where in China are you from?

X: I be from Beijing. Have you heard of it? It is capital of China!

Me: Yes, yes! I sure have heard heard of it! (to myself: then what the hell did he like in the smallest town in India??)

.

.

.

(some formalities later)

Me: So the crowd you see here must be very normal for you, eh? After all, population is an issue in your country too!

X: Yes. But China found an effective solution to the rapid growth of population. The one child policy is brilliant! You will beat us in population!!! Ha-ha!

Me: But I feel that India is on a better course by not forcing her people to have only one child or two children only. I feel it should be a matter of conscious decision by each person and people should be about the ill-effects of a large family.

X: Maybe, but of what good that be? Look at your population growth. You people are going to overtake us in terms of population in just a few more years. Is that something to be proud of? Our country believes in taking effective measures. That is why we are more successful!

Me: Achha? More successful? Success is a rather relative measure, don’t you think?

X: Relative measure? How can “measure” be your relative?

Me: I meant it depends on each person’s point of view.

X: Hmm.

Me: I mean, we can call ourselves more successful than you’ll in many ways.

X: WHAT??? How that be? We have more money, stronger economy, bigger army, better weapons, bigger land and … and … yes we have all this. What do you people have?

Me: Humare paas “Maa” hai! Hahaha!!!

X: What???

Me: Sorry, that was just an inside joke. But seriously, I agree you have more money and a bigger army and all, but at what cost?

X: What do you mean by that?

Me: I mean look what you all have had to sacrifice for this “achievement”. You people were no better than any other Asian country to begin with. What you’ll have done is taken up extremist Communism to force yourselves into a mould.

X: Be you implying that Communism is bad and that we are extremists?

Me: Well not “bad” per se. But yes you are extremists. Look I believe Communism was good for its time, but the way your leaders took up violence to enforce it shows that it’s not a peoples’ method. You would not have to enforce it if people wanted it. You’ll have the blood of hundreds of innocents on your hand.

X: TRAITORS ARE NOT INNOCENTS!!!

Me: Hey! Cool down, will you? I am trying to have a discussion here, not start World War III! See that’s the problem with you’ll, you all have been brainwashed to think in the way your leaders want you to think! There’s no room for original thought!

X: Of what good is that?

Me: You know, that’s why I think we are much better off. Atleast we have freedom of thought. Yes India has less money, corrupt politicians, etc, etc. But this is one place I can be whoever I want to be, one place I can practice any religion/belief I want to. One place where I can put forward my views and not be afraid of an entire army coming after me! Here I can be a Communist of Capitalist by choice, not by force! Yes, we may end up having a larger population, but heck, atleast we did not force people and make their family choice for them and WE DID NOT KILL BABIES to force such a law!!! My heritage speaks of Gandhiji, an common man rising and leading the people of India to gain Independence without violence, not of a leader who killed people to get what he wanted. Come to think of it, Gandhiji alone got more without a gun than your leaders ever could with an entire army. Look, I don’t mean to say all Chinese people are bad or something, but yes your current systems represses individual thought and basic rights of a person to believe in what he wants. And I also know people in China want to change it, or else the Tiananmen Square incident wouldn’t have taken place.

(Enter: my father and probably his too along with a handful of Chinese guys)

Me: It is time to leave, but I ask you this, what would you rather have, a poorer nation with the freedom to do anything you want, be anyone you want … or a richer nation with no option but to follow the government because it has a gun pointed at your head? A poor master or a rich slave? And, hey! We will reach the economic status and our army will be the best, in time. But we believe an innocent man’s life, and a free man’s thoughts need not be sacrificed for it. Ciao!

… And I left. Last I remember he was red-faced and fuming. I knew getting across to him would be difficult, but he seemed to be on the verge of punching me in the middle of my, well, “speech”. But I guess he remembered then, he is on my turf!!!

India Rules!

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Looking for Patterns...

However much anyone may deny it, we are all curious scientists one way or the other. Yes "scientist" not "explorer". That's because here we discuss about the things that are present in front of our eyes, not the ones we go looking for.

Meet Jon (it could be John or Joan, so that gender is not a problem, still here 'he' will be used, hoping readers recognise it as gender-unspecific).

So meet Jon. He is like anyone of us. Had a normal childhood. And like any of us is curious about the things he sees/feels around him.

When Jon was young, very young, he was bewildered by the world. Everything was new to him. Nothing made sense. He had nothing to compare anything with, he did not have anything to draw an analogy from. Even if hypothetically he had some prebirth knowledge, at infancy his brain was not developed enough to handle analogies. So that time he accepted things as it came. First trying to see the 'effect' rather than worrying about the 'cause'.

But as Jon got older, he looked for the explanation of his observations, experiences, facts, science, etc. And then he was told in 'science', everything follows a rule. Everything happens because of a cause and it follows certain rules.

This applied perfectly in mathematics, the pure science, and decreasingly well in physics and chemistry. By the time it came to biology, it started being called 'The Science if Exceptions'.

Jon then realized that 'rules' as such applied only to science. Real life was far too diverse and complicated to apply rules to.

Still... Still he knew he was looking for patterns. And so was everyone around him. So often whenever he heard some new song, his instinct somehow told him that the lyrics will start only after four beats or after three loops of a piece of music. Or when he saw a dance sequence, some steps had to be repeated, it could not be all arbit. Though many artistes have tried all arbit, he knew that very few could get it right, same as with musicians, because else something felt missing, something seemed wrong.

Then again with looks. He noticed that good looking people were generally those with very good symmetry were universally considered good looking. Even a slight deviation looked unsightly.

Then Jon thought about buildings. Most of them were scarily similar. Just squarish or rectangular blocks. In fact the buildings that didn't conform stood out! Still it looked good only if it had certain symmetry. It had to consist of regular shapes, not arbitly shaped parts, to look appealing. For Jon had seen such buildings being looked down upon.

Then Jon realised the biggest example was Nature itself. Although it is said to be the most creative and imaginative and unrepetitive thing... Yet it has symmetry. Whether you look at mammals body structure, bone structure, arrangement on a sunflower, proportion of body parts, distribution of elements in air, water and earth, particles with corresponding antiparticles, most appendages, external characteristics of living creatures being unity or an even number, day and night, hot and cold, and, obviously, good and bad!

This confused Jon. Did symmetry apply to non-scientific principles as well? Did it apply to art? To Nature? To feelings? And to many such things that go beyond science?

Like any of us, he has no answer, and perhaps never will. For maybe the day someone finds an answer to such questions, their will be no mystery in life left. No fun, no retrospect, no philosophy and no spirituality. Because then we will just be a bunch of chemicals with no life!

Gandhi vs RDB

This is in context to the recent happenings in IIT Kgp. Details can be found in the following sites : http://www.scholarsavenue.org/ or http://scholarsavenue.blogspot.com/.

For Latest updates ::: http://www.scholarsavenue.org/ (Scholars Avenue is IIT Kgp's news magazine)

Here is a brief summary (using excerpts from the aforementioned sites)

"This Sunday, the 22^nd of March, shall go down as a black day in the history of IIT, Kharagpur. It was with great sadness and considerable anger that the residents of the campus received news of the demise of one of its own; third year Electrical Engineering student, Rohit Kumar. A resident of the LLR Hall of Residence, Rohit had been visiting the hospital since Friday, the 20^th of March, complaining of headaches. On Sunday, the headaches became increasingly painful and it was on his way back from the doctor that he fainted and fell from the rickshaw, resulting in major injuries. Following this, he was taken to BC Roy hospital by two students of LLR. The doctor on duty (who was present at the time when Rohit was taken to the hospital), Dr. N.K. Som, recommended that he be taken to Apollo Hospital, Kolkata and shown to a neurosurgeon. He stated that BC Roy did not have facilities to handle such cases and that it was best to take him to Kolkata as soon as possible. However, problems (such as filling of petrol) and the extensive paperwork involved in arranging an ambulance caused a delay of 2 hours during the course of which nothing much could be done. He was finally sent on his way to Kolkata with 2 students for company and an untrained attendant. En route it was realized that though the oxygen mask had been placed over his mouth, the tank had still not been turned on. Soon after this, Rohit started coughing up blood. The students who accompanied him had the attendant call up Dr. Som and the students followed his instructions; pumping out blood without any help from the attendant. At the time, it was decided to take Rohit to the Spandan Hospital in Midnapore since his condition was deteriorating rapidly. In spite of asking the BC Roy officials to call ahead and inform Spandan of the impending arrival, there was no one there to receive them. By the time a doctor was found, Rohit had passed away and the hospital declared him dead on arrival."

What followed next can only be termed as any institute's nightmare. Over 2000 students surrounded the Director's residence and started shouting slogans against him. Soon the situation got violent, stones were pelted and Directors car was destroyed. The mob now wanted nothing less than the Director's resignation. Police were called in to control the situation.

That evening a general student meet was called which soon turned into a slogan shouting session (please note all this is based on the the accounts of Scholars Avenue (news magazine of IIT Kgp) and the accounts of my friends there.

The question arises whether the students were justified or not. IIT Kgp is first of all, well, an IIT! It is one of the premier engineering and science institutes in the world not just India. Students dream of getting admission to the IITs.

Being so respected it is expected to have good healthcare facilites. Unfortunately this is not the case, as is apparant from the incident. This is a glaring flaw from the administrator's side. For the sake of sanity, them being the most highly educated persons should know that a college with strength greater than 5000 students requires more than just a first aid clinic! An insitute cannot function until its students are heathy. Many students will be affected and the general sentiment will certainly not be favourable towards the admin in this regard. IIT Kgp is now 59 years old. I am not going to believe that the students never tried to ask the admin to do anything. But what is even more unbelievable and shocking is that the admin has not done anything about this for 59 years! Either on students' requests or on their own!

Then a student dies due to their negligence. What are the students expected to do?

I greatly respect Gandhiji and am a follower. But such incidents force me to rethink. Should the students have just kept a two minute silence followed by a candlelight march? After suffering from such poor healthcare facilities (another student lies in the ICU fighting for his life as you read this, check the aforementioned site), does one expect them to send flowers and cards saying "Get well soon"?

With all due respect to Gandhiji, I think if it had been my friend in trouble, I would have personally made sure that the college comes to a standstill, by hook or by crook. My anger would have known no bounds.

Right here I would like to pause and think. No I would not like to damage property or break someone's head. What purpose would it serve? I would just be degrading myself to the level of a hooligan. Yes, I get some satisfaction on having broken a few things, but that's not going to bring back the dead. And that's certainly not going to get the admin to do anything. Obviously they would do something to cool the mob off, but thats it.

Again neither will sending flowers get us our needs. Here is where most people confuse Gandhiji's methods. He never wanted to cajole the, well, "enemy" into giving into the demands. He wanted them to see that they had no option! How did he do that? Simple, non-cooperation movement. He brought down entire systems as everybody stopped working and went on a strike, displaying their discontentment. Whatever the "enemy" tried, this had no solution but to listen to the agitating party. All Bhagat Singhs and Subhash C. Boses put aside, it was, in the end, Gandhiji and his method which got India its freedom.

Hence my view is that violence is certainly not going to get us anywhere (I can say confidently that the IIT Kgp admin will not wrk on the medical issues but on getting the agitating students as soon as the atmosphere cools down). Instead if the students should follow the right channels, if those dont work, they should go on
strike and stay put till the admin takes definite steps.