What I learn from my friends (Roorkee chapter)

Families teach us social behavior and along with that certain constraints. Constraints can be in term of what not to do as a part of social behavior and it is a result of familial experience over time. But, it's among the friends, where we learn beyond those constraints. This happens because of equal say amongst friends and collective risk taking while adventuring unconventional activities.

This is my experience at IIT Roorkee with an entirely different set of friends and my learning from them. At the time of my admission into IIT Roorkee, I was introvert, refrain from public speaking, under-confident (inferiority feeling when met with a student with fluent English) and in a habit of lying to hide my weakness or status. But on positive note I want to remain honest to few, have a decent aptitude and believe in hard work to learn and excel.
Once inside the campus and in next four years, after interacting with friends I learned a lot what to do and not to do and this had a deep impact on my personality. The results of these learning are visible over a period of time into my behavior and character. Some of my key takeaways from few friends:

Friend 1: I never had seen such an individual who is so much confident, fearless and intelligent. Inside a GD room during campus placement, I would never ever ask for pen from panel itself (obviously because of introvert nature); but this guy did that. And he taught me to be natural, not to fear of societal bondage and rituals. But at the same time, he was not consistent and having a poor emotional quotient (gradually improved a lot with exposure to friend circle).

Friend 2: This guy's simplicity and no nonsense attitude is worth to be learnt and practiced in real life. I although inspired from this but couldn't bring that into my life till now. But what I learn from him regarding not to do is never following a path blindly. You should always keep your eyes and ear open while preparing to achieve something.

Friend 3: I didn't have any sense of style, either in dressing or in conversation. This guy reminded me of the importance of presentation and sharpness in life (still lacking a lot). Also from him, I learn how not to waste time. And from his experience in life, I realized the importance of farsightedness and rational decision making in life.

Friend 4: This guy made me realized that extreme of everything is bad. And you have to balance your family, friends, love life and academics at the same time. But one thing that made this guy stand apart was his people skills and this quality was the savior for him. People skill is something, I always wish to master.

Friend 5: I never understood the rationality behind his behavior. Only learning, I am having from this guy is what not to do. He may act in a way, that show me 'the way' not to be followed. It may be a disaster for him but a learning for others like me.

Friend 6: This guy has a lot of traits to be learnt. But the problem here is inside me, because I never took the initiative or feeling of learning from him because of my competitive nature. I always tried to excel more than him and rarely took notice of his abilities and behavior to be followed.

I don't feel that after graduation I became perfect with my learning from these pals. But I do feel that my personality has improved a lot and it will take time to personalize those envious traits. But one thing I can confidently say, that forty years down the line, these guys will definitely have a contribution to my success (up to whatever extent that success will be).

Missing girl from the classroom

Education system of India, can only fulfill the dream of developed India by making Indian demography a dividend rather than being a disaster as going by current trend of poor skills of Indian youths. But this education system (government funded institutions) is suffering from poor teaching skills, absence of teachers in government funded schools and poor attendance of students. And often, one leads to another; absence of teachers demotivates students from attending schools and absence of students has been an excuse as given by teachers.
Well, these are the obvious reasons, but beyond there are few other infrastructural and sociological reasons. And I realized this on one of my trip to a girls high school in Jharkhand. As I entered a class-room of official strength of 100 but there were meagre 30 girls in the classroom. I enquired into the reason and beyond the usual reasons of low skill level of teachers and their absence; the reasons were unavailability of transportation fare to schools for poor girls (who comprise a major chunk of students), unavailability of time to girl child to go to school after finishing household activities.
These institutions are the only hope for poor tribal and rural students. And the institutions are mainly located in cities and towns, and access to such institutions require distance to be covered by bus, jeep , train or even auto-rickshaws. But these require the cost to bear for transportation, and for those daily wage earners it was very difficult to give 20INR as transportation cost to their wards to attend school.
Girls get the opportunity to visit the (sacred) school only when their parents get the wage.
While for girls from cities and towns, the sociological factors are inhibiting factors in accessing schools. In morning, they are first entitled to feed their brothers and fathers as well as cleaning the house and then go to schools. As a result, many a days they don't find time to attend the school.
And when I enquire about the so called usual reasons; the response are quite different. Their expectations are not that huge from teachers but the problem is regarding the time, infrastructure and money being provided by their families/government to reach and attend schools.