[Reader-list] Sarai / Independent Fellow 2007/ Nalin N. Mathur/First Posting

[Vedprakash Sharma]

  The same happens with those too, who come to big Metros from small towns or villages in order to make a career. it is vice versa. some times, the superiority/inferiority complexes also result out of the so-called different circumstances. I have also been a hosteller who cane from a very little town and landed at North campus hostel in Delhi. initially, I was afraid of the new surroundings, but as I made new friends, the nervousness evaporated.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Nalin Mathur 
  To: reader-list at sarai.net 
  Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 2:05 AM
  Subject: [Reader-list] Sarai / Independent Fellow 2007/ Nalin N. Mathur/First Posting


  Hello All,   Here I am with the first posting for my work, titled "B - Grade Engineering College Culture. I am an engineer with an IT major and am glad to be a part of something that's completely new and exciting.   My project deals with Engineering colleges which are often located at random small town suburbs or off a highway milestone. They manifest interesting and fantastical cultural dynamics wherein a mix of identities, cultures and aspirations are played out in non-metropolitan spaces to get an amalgamation of different worlds in one campus. What perhaps remains common right from the start is the collective detachment to small towness and the promise of moving out and making it big in the real big city.   
  I am interested to research and document: 

  a) How these aspects affect ones politics, conscience, personhood. 

  b) How these experiences influence and form the outlook towards the world at large or view points nurtured here during the four years of a students stay. 

  Given below is the abstract which originally was a part of the initial proposal I had mailed to Sarai. 

  "A boy must leave home in order to become a Man". I had been stuck by this saying way before Paulo Coelho's Santiago became a cultural phenomenon. I had no doubt that I would prefer staying away from home during my engineering, another thing about which I was sure I would do. Being unable to secure a decent enough rank in engineering colleges in Delhi further helped the cause. With the limited options that I had, my parents decided upon a college in Mathura, the place was known and was only three hours from Delhi. 



  For a Delhi born and bread, Mathura was another world. A busy highway was the only indication of it being connected to the world outside. Being brought up in the restricted environment of an expensive school, this change in habitat came as a rude shock. The mental preparation for an occurrence like this was my only savior. I was lucky enough to have great room mates, their foremost qualification was them hailing from Delhi. Over all it felt like I was not in Nostradamus's good books and I could easily predict four rough years ahead. By now I realized that I am not at IIT and this is what I call B-GRADE Engineering College culture. 



  It was not long before I realized how wrong I was. My class comprised of an interesting mix of students from Punjab and Delhi. The bulk was from UP. And even though it was a coed college, there was no girl in our class! Inevitably, I came in contact with people from different backgrounds and forged lasting friendships. I started playing for their teams, developed a taste for their kind of music, visited their homes during vacations and upon completion of our degree, joined the same company. The initial skeptic approach towards people with whom I didn't relate transformed into respect. The 'their' became 'my'. 



  By the time the first semester was over and I returned home to meet fellow school mates who had joined different engineering colleges at different places in India and abroad, I had a lot of stories to share. Some experiences we realized were very similar. Claustrophobia turned into liking was the moral of all stories. To my surprise, soon I started looking forward for the college to reopen. There were instances when I did not come home on vacations and stayed in college, bad food withstanding. 



  Not necessarily for the sake of nostalgia, but the last days at college made me look back as to what one has achieved over a period of these four years. From food habits to dressing sense to outlook towards life, I was a changed man, with a distinctive UP touch, which was only subdued by polished English. On a broader scale my Bengali friends in South religiously celebrated Onam and those in Lucknow didn't drink during Ramzan. This gradual change can only be attributed to a phase of social renaissance which unavoidably crops up and has profound effect on individualism. This is what I aim to study. 

  I am looking forward to your suggestions and comments.

  Warmly,

  Nalin N. Mathur



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