What if? and whose fault is it anyway?...... Vol 2

I was back in college, collecting my transfer certificate etc… when I met a really old friend, a classmate from my UG years. I use to rate him as a guy who was kinda like me- Goofy, cuts class and likes being obnoxious. But wait he was talking on the phone to someone and talking about how he is waiting for his Visa. I remember how Friedsman (yes that’s his name) pursued chemistry for his PG as well and I joked how his brain must have gone numb from eating in the Loyola college canteen and sniffing chemicals in the in the lab. Friedsman laughed with me and told me how he got a kick out of pulling professor legs. But now here he was talking about getting a Visa (probably to some strange nation). He was going to do a Ph.D. in some material engineering blah blah in some Japanese college where he will be getting a fully paid fellowship (whatever that was, but the words fully paid registered well). He said it with some pride. Apparently some eminent scientist Ramakrishna (or something) inspired him and due to lack of facilities in India he chooses Japan. My head was spinning- ‘I will be going to German for a post doctoral fellowship’ wow!

Friedsman stood 1st in his class and I was wondering why very few such students got so damn inspired. I hated chemistry. Hated the fact that I had to remember so much and so barely passed Organic chemistry, Physical chemistry and Advanced (gasp) Organic and physical chemistry. Hated how the professors themselves knew little or nothing (except for a few inspired ones of course) and so had to read out notes and dictate them so we as faithful ‘Banks’ redeposit these notes in our exam sheets.

A few really inspired students (3 out of 99 in my class) already came from scientist backgrounds so had it easy according to Frieds, while he himself had to wait for inspiration later on. And I wonder, surely I could have been like Frieds, pursuing pathetically complex concepts in modern chemistry and spending hours even days waiting for results in a chemistry lab. I remember those days in my final year when I used to break test tubes when my error registered more than 1% for an experiment that took 4 hours to complete. Why would anyone put themselves through all that? Inspiration? Well I am an inspired youth now in another field. And I’ve realized that I should stop blaming everything around me if I were to go anywhere. But surely our education system needs a sea change. Our education system is currently like a castrated bull, very depressed but keeps pulling millions of dead weight to another location.