An Idiot in the Story
Your thoughts can undergo such friction that you begin to
wonder how your brain processes information. Seems senseless, you know. When you
have two different thoughts served on a plate, raw, you would ideally have them
one after the other. Unless your lifestyle and growth are marked by gluttony! The
consequence of such a lifestyle choice is usually crap packed comedy. Here’s
why.
I spent the day watching a programme of Science that talked
about railway engines and USA’s Environmental
Protection Agency. I quickly switched on to watching Air Crashinvestigation. Two different modes of transport,
one common beauty – the physics of mechanics, I thought. I looked up Rolls –Royce
on Wikipedia and with no proper means of justification, placed it above GE. Don’t ask me why. Sit in a Rolls-Royce and
shut your mouth. Like Boeing & Airbus are the two largest makers of
aeroplanes, the former two are the largest manufacturers of engines that are
fitted in to these beauties. Now what? I
could fly a plane. I know what’s what. Some pilot from Delta Airlines told me
landing a plane with ILS is as easy as playing a videogame. [What!] I
could make a brilliant pilot. [/What!] If only I had 20/20 vision!
I get disturbed by
the ease of communication. Methods, rather. My twitter timeline keeps buzzing. My
fingertips feel an itch. If I ignored reading them, the itch transforms in to
pain. My diligence could fetch me several accolades. (That is how wonderfully
well I check every tweet!) When renowned filmmakers, in their cataleptic state,
rant about stalling the telecast of Vidya’s ‘The Dirty Picture’, you never
question his ideas but begin to think before rejecting the insanity in every
word of his. I switched on my TV to find it was another master on screen. Oh. It wasn’t beautiful Bidya. It was
Amazing Aamir. Aamir began to give us a quiz. (I still miss @bhogleharsha.
He was superb in his ESPN School quiz and was instrumental in shaping careers
of many young men! I bitch about how much sense he made at IIM-A once. That was
long ago when he was still bald.) So, Aamir asked me what Farhanitrate and
Prerajulisation was. I, and the devil in the lisping giant Virus, began a
frantic search for the definition. I used Google while the others used a
textbook they were given. I didn’t know it was a test of Aamir’s skill as a
teacher. At the end of the little exercise, he mentioned one point, fundamental
to our learning, fundamental to our approach towards knowledge and life – Why the
race? Why the herd mentality? Two big personalities taught me two big lessons -
@bhogleharsha at IIM-A taught me about talent and attitude . Aamir taught me
how to use it. I connected them. Getting
caught in the crowd is easy. It is how you stand out and get noticed, matters.
It was past midnight when I put an end to Aamir’s class, a textbook written by Raju. [Putting on cool shades] In our names, there’s an intersection of 3 letters.[/Putting on cool shades] I then moved on to a class of my own – picking and
processing thoughts served on a plate. It was a day with overflowing information
and jigsawed knowledge. I take night classes for a bunch of idiots. I was to be
a guest lecturer in an engineering college. I was called to teach dynamics. I
took a metro and then it was bang! I
met with an accident. (Well, I met with a metro that would go on to meet with
an accident.) I called the fire department. I wasn't hurt. I found my way
out of the debris. There were no casualties, luckily. I realized I was getting
late for my class.
I stepped in to see quite a good student turnout. It was my
first day with a chalk-piece. I began.
I hate introductions.
Science is too vast and we engineers are too busy for crap. Writing an
equation on the board, I asked how many of
you can prove this? None came forward. A guy in dark glasses wanted to try
his hand. Sure. Go ahead. While the
guy-with-glasses does his bit, can you guys open your books to find the solution?
He started writing, equating, assuming before arriving at a conclusion. ‘Hence,
Qx = Ted(J,L),’ he wrote. Brilliant. Why
this herd mentality? I saw no one attempting to prove it. This is basic science
and math. You cannot get in to designing Rolls-Royce engines with this work
ethic. That was the end of my speech.
I received a call from the Train
Crash Investigation team. A young boy on the line said to me ‘I saw you coming
out of the train wreck while others were battling for life. I noticed two
coaches locked in an angle that suggests shearing strain that gives us a clue about what
caused such an impact.’ Young genius, I
thought.
And that was that. My dream made a dirty concoction of events
through the day. But science played significant role, a link to learning and
attitude.
Now for this idiot to make sense of it all.
