The Best Policy

The day I joined IIT, I started losing something. That loss may not be irrepairable, but still over the last one and half years of my stay in this place, the losing process continued. The thing that I started losing had been ingrained in my personality right from my childhood to my school-days, it being an integral part of my character. Even my fellow friends used to praise me for that, but after coming to this place, my character started deteriorating. The thing I am talking about is Honesty. The tag of unscratched honesty that I carried over the whole of my schooling days was shredded the day I joined this institute.

Copying assignments, lab reports, term papers and almost every other thing related to academics became a commonplace in my life. I don't know what motivated me for doing that, perhaps this dishonesty is the bonanza we receive as a part of being an IITian, my conscience didn't even stop me or told me that this is not what I used to do or this habit is bad! My fellow class-mates(leaving a few gems!) did the same and I felt this was nothing bad or wrong. The experiments were done with fraud readings and even sometime left incomplete relying on copying the readings from my friends. All this continued to be happening without any guilt on my part.

And the last minor, it was my exam of Mathematical Physics - being amongst the toughest courses I have this semester. I had screwed the Minor 1 paper of that subject and was desperate to score more. Exam-time came, all my friends - including me - planned out that we would sit next to each other, and help each other out in the paper. On the day of the exam, we got up early and rushed to the exam-hall quite early just to capture the last seats for us to facilitate us in cheating from each others' answer-sheet.

Exam started - and as expected - the paper was tough. Out of the four questions - I knew just three. The fourth one carried highest marks and I started with that. While putting my brains to that question, I got stuck. I wanted to look into my friend's answer-sheet who had done that question, but to my surprise, I could not gather the courage to look into his copy. The fear didn't come into the picture because of the invigilators since they were not too vigilant, rather it was just my 'Self' which inhibited me to carry out that thing called cheating. My friends were taking use of this silly freedom of the backbench to the max while I was busy fighting with myself. In the dilemma of this yes and no, I wasted about 20 minutes of the exam-time out of the prescribed 60 minutes and as a result even the questions which I knew were also left incomplete. I could solve only one question completely and a half of the second one.

Last to last week, I got my answer sheet - I got a dismal 7 out of 25, which was worse than even the marks of Minor 1. My friends, who sat together during that exam-time, got marks in diverse range from 12 to 18 and managed to score quite good considering the toughness of the paper. Presently, carrying the copy in my hands, I can proudly proclaim that I am much happier than them because my conscience has been awakened and I re-learnt the great truth of life - honesty brings pride. The honesty that had been in me in the yesteryears is again going to be a part of my life and truth is to be my constant companion.

Thank you all my friends for(unknowingly) bringing in this transformation in me.

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P.S. I want to dedicate this article to my dearest friend Sunny, who has his principles, values and integrity intact despite living amidst the lowest grades of unscrupulous people. You are really a gem and a living source of inspiration for me.

The Origin

The very moment I decide to write something, the first question that bangs my head is what to write. The days here at home are uneventful; I get up late and stick to the computer. After waiting for an hour without any single scrap, I begin reading others’ blog and formatting my own blog to make it more lucrative to the visitors. The visitor counter of my blog contains 70% of my hits only. I read other peoples’ articles, some of them are really very touching and interesting. Then I come back and read my own articles(Not surprisingly, they too seem interesting to me). I begin thinking how can I write many more articles, for there are no happenings during these vacations, the days pass on quickly and boringly. Sometimes I write something that happened years ago, any emotion or a thought that occurred to my mind or just write my views on a particular area of interest. And if I never get a topic, I begin by criticising any actor, author or attitude.

But coming to the origin, I wonder what made me passionate about writing? I used to write diary but that too occasionally with no more than some weird happenings of the day. That was all. But this 'writing for others to read' was a hobby that was inspired by one of my closest friends.

This passion of writing started from writing a simple article on an ordeal that we undertook on the insti-top in my institute itself (The Ordeal). By chance, I made it a bit humorous and by another chance my room-mate Akshay happened to read it. For the first time he read such a long article completely without getting bored, otherwise most of the time he would get bored of and quit reading these kinds of long articles. Akshay is a big miser in appreciating anyone(yes that‘s true), and that time, for the first time he appreciated my writing. His appreciation was like a new hope for me. It gave me tremendous confidence to write.

Thanks a lot Akshay, if you happen to read this writing, I want to say you that your one word of encouragement inspired all my forth-coming writings. Thanks for being a true friend by not doing any insincere flattery. Your appreciation means a lot to me.

Orkut does not have so many demerits because for me it gave me my best friend.