Of NIT-T, NI(I)T and ... IT?!!

Been waiting for quite a while in bated breath, huh? Sorry folks but the recent turn of events (or the lack of any eventful enough) had eventually forced me into hibernation during warm months. Life is taking me through darkness at noon*, and I'm being crushed by this juggernaut of unimaginable proportions into this shell. Not that I have much of a choice or workaround, but I'm just helpless. I guess I'm doing a really shoddy job with (atleast) trying to explain my absence. But what the hell, did procrastination ever warrant an alibi? Thankfully today (with no logical connections to 231 years of July 4 and a free Uncle Sam, not even seemingly), I've been woken up by a bolt from the blues of news reporting. So bye bye Mr. Impasse, and welcome back Vikhy!

Early today morning, I got a couple of pleasant emails over the RECAL informal group network about the enviable placement scenario of my undergraduate institution. A proud alumnus of National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli (Formerly, Regional Engineering College) that I am! It was good news no doubt, perhaps a very significant milestone crossed by NITT and I must commend the director for taking the initiative to bring it all to light. But thanks to modern day journalism and (mis)reporting, big news has come out even bigger and in very bad taste.

Presenting the crucial facts as is from reliable sources...

Exhibit 1(a): TOI says-

NIITian grabs 23-lakh package
4 Jul 2007, 1851 hrs IST, PTI

TIRUCHIRAPALLI: IT education provider NIIT on Wenesday, said that it has struck a highest salary offer of Rs 23 lakh per annum for a student during the campus placement.

The salary was offered by multinational oilfield services provider Schlumberger to a mechanical engineering graduate with a CTC of Rs 23 lakh per annum for posting in India and Rs 44 lakh per annum in case of overseas placement, NIIT Director (Tiruchirappalli) M Chidambaram said here.

He said that the placements during the academic year 2006-07 was one of the best in the country, with over 100 per cent of under-graduate students and 94 per cent of post-graduate students placed through campus selection.

The companies thronging to the NIIT campus include MNCs like Schlumberger, Microsoft, Yahoo, Texas Instruments and IT giants like TCS, Wipro, Infosys and CSC and PSUs like NTPC, ONGC, IOCL, BPCL.

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Exhibit 1(b): IBNLive says-

Fat pay packet: student offered Rs 23 lakh salary

Press Trust Of India

Published on Wednesday, July 04, 2007 at 18:44 in Nation section

Tags: Salaries, Placements

Tiruchirappalli: A student of National Institute of Technology (NITT), a leading IT education company, has been offered a salary of Rs 23 lakh per annum during campus placement.

The salary offer was made by MNC Schlumberger to a mechanical engineering graduate with a CTC cost to the company of Rs 23 lakhs per annum for posting in India and Rs 44 lakh per annum in case of overseas posting, said NITT director Prof M Chidambaram Tiruchirappalli on Wednesday.

He said the placements during the academic year 2006-07 was one of the best in the country, with over 100 per cent of UG students and 94 per cent of PG students placed through campus selection.

Bakthavatsalam, who heads NITT’s placement cell, said one out of every five students had got two job offers this year. MNCs Microsoft, Yahoo and Texas Instruments and IT giants TCS, Wipro, Infosys and CSC and PSUs like NTPC, ONGC, IOCL, BPCL had approached NITT for placements.

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End of exhibits 1(a) and 1(b).

NITT and NIIT? A deemed university for technological excellence and a mere IT education provider? An IT Company? ...pause...hard brakes...screech...crash! I almost got thrown off my seat! It was like the most nauseating feeling that not even my wildest nightmare in seven lifetimes had given me!

On the outset, I must first echo the "happy" emotions that erupted for this (seemingly) benign piece of news is intended for good reasons. NITT has been a front runner among 17 of its peers as a leading tier-1 engineering school in India, one of the few there are. Obviously a boy wonder grabbing such an offer is bound set off ripples the size of the not-so-long-forgotten tsunami. But thanks to a few over-enthusiastic geniuses (the media people of course), this whole thing comes out utterly embarrassing, and a very bitter one at that.

Alright the accusation has been made. We obviously know who the culprit might be. Probably TOI has been all too compassionate towards the Vision/Hearing Impaired, and even encouraged them with all confidence to cover such BIG stories. I am not joking. When curiosity prompted me to pay a second visit to the article later in the evening, the stats on TOI proudly read some 94xxx against the number of views for the article, placing it besides a few "blasts here and there" and "the UK crackdown of the bad doc network" (both of arguably much lesser import) as the TOP STORIES of the day. How tragic of all of them?! I have, thanks to my being educated to lead a sophisticated life, inculcated the habit of keeping myself abreast with prolific news-tellers. I have heard of sensationalism, yellow journalism, news making-breaking whatever, gonzo stuff and much more that place many a doubt on these news-tellers. Honestly and frankly, their stuff is by and large incredible and questionable at best. Now I know there's so much HEARSAY!!

The ratiocination act-
Looking beyond just the (let's say) inadvertent error which shall soon be followed by a very curt and diplomatic corrigendum as the cover up, the case presents a two-fold issue. Firstly, the news reporting system in India (perhaps universally) is pathetic. Yes we know that the poor reporter and his accomplice with the lens are running for their lives and are n-fold likely to jump the gun and miss precious detail in their desperate bid to come out with breaking news updates. Atleast the editor could ensure correctness using that thing of his six which, unfortunately, is not so common.

Secondly, it is a very shocking piece of reality that institutes (even the reputed technological ones) have to face. Whilst they've been denigrated to the ranks of IT training schools and IT companies, their outreach towards junta is best not spoken about. Even the well-informed sources are well and truly ill-informed! It may appear insignificant for T-schools on their list of priorities alright but they certainly have to take many a big step towards ensuring their rightful presence in the social circles. Branding of institutions is a daunting task that the big names in the academic circles are waking up to nowadays. The wild west has somehow stayed up all these years and been smart. But the situation back home is appalling.

Something needs to be done, perhaps right from the grassroot levels of both institute branding and news reporting. But I am happy enough to just expend my energy and words being the cynical me, rather than imploring a few zillion deadweights.

Concluding act-
1. I'm back.
2. News people suck.
3. News people totally suck.
4. News people will anyway suck.

As a (seemingly) less important gesture.. dear dude who bagged the 23/44 goose with the golden egg- hearty congrats and condolences. It feels awful enough being the baap!

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*Darkness at Noon - by Arthur Koestler is a great novel. Certainly recommend it as a must read.

PS: In the midst of all this botch, I somehow happened to notice one good (perhaps unheard of) source which presented the facts of the case accurately enough to the much depreciated acceptable standards.

Exhibit 2: DNA (India)-

Student gets Rs 23-lakh salary package

PTI

Wednesday, July 04, 2007 19:51 IST

TRICHIRAPALLI: Technical education centre NITT on Wednesday said it has struck a highest salary offer of Rs 23 lakh per annum for a student during the campus placement.

The salary was offered by multinational oilfield services provider Schlumberger to a mechanical engineering graduate with a CTC of Rs 23 lakh per annum for posting in India and Rs 44 lakh per annum in case of overseas placement, National Indtitute of Technology (NITT) Director (Tiruchirappalli) M Chidambaram told reporters here.

He said the placements during the academic year 2006-07 was one of the best in the country, with over 100 per cent of under-graduate students and 94 per cent of post-graduate students placed through campus selection.

The companies thronging to the NITT campus include MNCs like Schlumberger, Microsoft, Yahoo, Texas Instruments and IT giants like TCS, Wipro, Infosys and CSC and PSUs like NTPC, ONGC, IOCL, BPCL.
***************

End of exhibit 2

Atleast there's one smart storyteller out there....

The moment of Truth!

It was Saturday, the 11th of November. A typical autumn morning for Bangalore- cloudy and pleasant. The newspapers reported of “dark and stormy nights” nearby, but Bangalore was just as placid as anybody could expect of it. I must remark that, in the past few months, I had personally weathered raging torrents of a tempestuous phase of my life- to the point of enough is enough! I knew the end was near. But that wasn’t the point; it was more about the outcome- was it going to be the opening of the gates for the road to hell? -so they say; or was everything set to vapourise into a dreaded anticlimax?

There wasn’t anything particularly remarkable about my start for the day. I forced myself out, against the will of my resilient body parts, from the cosy comfort of my king-sized mattress, went through the excruciating spells of my parents’ banter over my chores as usual and rushed to the lab. I had been well over a month into my corporate life – Vikhram V.S. (Project Assistant, Compliant and Bio-systems, IISc), and was anxious to draw my first pay check. A no-frills life in Bangalore and my uncompromisably prodigal ways with the phone had been strangling me by the scruff of my neck. I was desperate for some room and cushioning, to get into a comfort zone. And so, it was a good time for realising a month’s compensation- for toiling against convention, beating the odds and making the impossible into reality through seemingly logical surmises.

Okay, now that was not the dreaded anticlimactic ending I was talking about… only just a prelude to the great big happening that followed…

Excited about my temporary ascent by a few bucks, I left for home early. On the way, during the bus ride, I was pondering over how rationalistic a figure I was to hand over to my mom, besides how much to reserve for the phone bill, a hands-free headset, data cords and other inexcusable indulgences. It never quite hit me that it had been nearly two weeks since I had done what was expected of me for the ad-hoc processing, and it was now just a matter of time…

Grandma opened the door at 2.00 pm. I could notice an unusual sparkle and excitement about her normally grim expression. I didn’t really take that seriously though. If at all there was something, my dad would have already blown the whistle on it. He isn’t the kind to sport cheap thrills and surprises.

But I realised there was something when she ushered me into the Puja room and handed over a grey envelope from “#$%”. My eyes lit up instantly and I could see my gleam of hope, flash in all its resplendence, from the dull grey cover! My heart went for a dash; my palms suddenly felt numb and chill, as if I were sneezing through my worst bout of cold for hours; butterflies in their flight did hula-hoops all over my tummy; and memories flooded my cranium beyond capacity. I knew this was the moment of truth! I had waited for six months, pored over gigabytes of fundae and information, spent a few hundreds on useless long distance calls, and relived the trying experience of having my app reviewed all over again. And now the verdict was approaching me, FTASB! (for the uninitiated, it is a lazy jargon for Faster Than A Speeding Bullet)

I wasn’t prepared for this high speed chase. And so I took my time, with heavy gasps of breath. The metabiophysical reactions in my body rewound the clock backwards, and I found myself confronted by a roster of hostile questions-

Why did it have to be June 8?
Why not the 8-point someone at ITC?
Why not IIMB?
Why not Stan?
Why rediff?
Why that one particular grouchy chap?
Why me?!!

Alright that’s enough dude! Just open it.

When I opened the package, my most dreaded fears very nearly came true. There they were - my small blue booklet, intact; and the all important cert., battered and bruised as if out of a washing machine! It spoke volumes about their contemptuous attitude towards me, and us all.

My first instinct was to just look at the first available page in the booklet- nothing; next page- nothing here either; third page- not even a dot of ink! At that moment my heart came to a grinding halt; I almost sank in my posture! Go to the last page- no sign here too. Was there more to the already over-convoluted twist? The back-cover page- there was just this green sticker bearing the 4 ominous alphanumeric characters. Did they imply that the “pink slip” I got was for GOOD?

Of the few moments that followed, my memory is blotted and I don’t know or remember how but they just happened… I regained my composure, got back on my feet and virtually visualised the matrix of all my body parts before taking any action. I still don’t know what gave me the ridiculous brainwave that there are 36 pages in all eligible to get “stamped”, and that I had just covered no more than barely one-twelfth of the probability. And so I garnered all my will power and strength and patiently started flipping each and every leaflet. I even looked for invisible ink and UV marking! After all I am a mechanically aptituded technocrat. One by one I scanned- pg 2, pg 3, 4, 5.. ..10, 11, 12, 13- stop!

Voila, there it lay! Carefully nestled and concealed from everything, including a normal man’s sight or oversight rather. Six months of my sweat and agony in waiting, all for a 3-by-5 stamping! But I will take that, for it was well and truly my tryst with “The moment of Truth!”

I have one important question, which has been eating my head since, to put forward though – why page 13? Aren’t they the ones who contributed the infamous triskaidekaphobia to the rest of the world?

My experience closely relates to that of my project partner and good friend GREram who himself had to go through three full-fledged attempts. I suppose his summation of the whole thing- "Wham! Slam, Thank you Ma'am!" says it all. He will surely agree with me and wonder as to how, especially after 4 attempts, 2 failures and a "pink slip" between the two of us, we remarkably made it!

In the end, after perhaps a perfect ending with an anticlimactic flavour to it, I can only look back at an excessively quoted, ridiculed, clichéd saying of a few wise ol’ timers – All’s well that ends (well)!

Period