APPING
OR APE-ING
It’s a known fact that IIT kanpur
produces a good number of IAS officers every year. And IIT Bombay is said to
produce an equally impressive number of prospective managers flocking to IIMs.
IIT Delhi is accredited to lead the lot in producing software engineers. In
this context our own IIT madras may as well be called a factory of appers ( or
may we call ourselves appcats ). So much so, many here consider their four-year
stay as a mere stopover between JEE and GRE!
These days there
is a climate of apping prevalent in all the hostels, our hostel is no exception
- fourth-yearites assembling in gumbals in front of the hostel, outside their
rooms or in the junctions of their wings and exchanging their viewpoints about
different univs and their own chances. The catchwords in all these
conversations being ‘Harvard’, ‘Stanford’, ‘ranking’, ‘aid’, ‘prof-reco’, ‘resume’,
‘gre score’, ‘toefl score’, ‘cgpa’ and that elusive land of dreams the US of
A. It’s also believed that by the end
of the whole exercise some are more well versed with the geography of US than
that of our own country. Once in a while one also gets to see a junior taking
fundaes on apping from a senior and the senior revealing his unending tale of
woe, the blunders he made and the mistakes he could have avoided. One cannot
miss to see the dream in the senior’s eyes and the quizzical look on the
junior’s face.
About issues like
apping one finds it very hard to remain neutral. Emotions run high and people
cry hoarse to make their opinion heard. The other day a prof made a seemingly
valid point-“India, our poor country, has spent nearly 8 lakhs on each one of
you for your b.tech education. You use this as a ticket to go abroad. Give me
one good reason why the govt should’ve spent or continue to spend the
taxpayer’s money on you.” The class got the point. One of my friends later even
told me that now he would have to think twice before deciding to app. There are
even doubts expressed about the decision making capability of IITians. The
people of Bihar and U.P. are considered most uncivilized and cattle-minded.
They are accused of taking sides on the
basis of castes. They are supposed to share herd mentality and during elections
vote in flocks. Free will, there, is almost non-existent. The point the
advocates of this argument are trying to make is that we are not anyway
different from them. Only the level of operation is different. In making
decisions we too are guided by the same dictum. While in their case it is the
succor of caste, in our case, it is pursuit for greener pastures. I-will-swim-with–the-flow mentality is topmost
in the people’s mind in both the cases.
While people who app mainly with research considerations face little
opposition and criticism, those who go there with a false pretence of research
are termed hypocrites. Money and higher standard of living seem to govern their
decisions. To deny this is not to disprove or destroy the fact. Robert Frost
did make a point in his poem “The road less taken”. While it is easy to move with the flow, those people make a
difference who swim against it. In our nation, starved of leaders, famished of
heroes, where corrupt politicians, foul cricketers and hollow film stars pose
as people’s god-sent messiahs, who is it up to, to stand up and to stand out?
Going to US is fine, studying there is okay, but settling there and serving
that nation’s interests, oblivious of conditions here, is heights of playing
safe. Sending a few pittance (yes, its only a pittance irrespective of however
much it is in terms of money), will not solve the problems of our country. It
may serve to satiate one’s guilt, may increase one’s respectability or may
offer an opportunity to socialize, that’s all.
While
this is one side of it, there are people (some even, of the previous generation
who had decided to stay back) who are vociferous in advocating apping. They
quip “if Brain-Drain is what you oppose are you in support of Brain in the
Drain”. It is definitely tough to answer this question. But then the questions
raised before are equally tough to answer.
It’s indeed true, this Generation has too many
questions to answer………
coorg