The MSE years

By the 15th of June 2007, things had really hit a low point and I was in pretty bad shape. Plagued by depression, fear and most of all the constant questioning of my own rationality, I needed something to happen to just keep things together. 

The call from MSE came as a surprise. But it was an opportunity. A start that could turn everything around. The question facing me was: how do you do something that makes you sick to your stomach and that too for two years? Don't get me wrong. I loved Economics; its the exams and cramming that killed me. 

~Digression~

I sometimes do a thought experiment where I choose some point in my history where I go back and replace the 'me' who made all those mistakes with all this new insight and knowledge. Stephen's is always the place I'd chose to start over. I don't know why. I did have fun and didn't screw up so badly over there. I guess Stephen's is the sort of place where a multitude of possible future paths may emerge. As the experiment progresses however, I begin to feel that regardless of how amazing a life I may be able to live this time round, it just isn't worth doing it all over again (I'm assuming my memory is intact when I replace myself)

~

My first month at MSE was very lonely. I was stuck up in the Guest flat away from the main hostel and none of my roommates had arrived. I was never good at just going out there and meeting new people unless I was forced to. So, initially, I spent a lot of my time in my room, horizontal. There was however internet access in the room and that changed things. Till then I only used the net at cyber cafe's and computer labs primarily for checking mail. This internet access blew my mind. I discovered blogs by several Stephanians with whom I had lost all contact. Initially it felt very wierd. When the surrounding environment doesn't change, at least for me, thoughts tend to be repetitive and I end up in my comfort zone. A sort of intellectual stagnation, if you will. I felt that I was somehow left behind. People were out there working and earning money, while others had started their PhDs. People had moved on, talking about new things, reading new books, listening to new genres of music while I had not changed a single bit from college and that was frightening.

The music I was listening to had not changed since my first year at Stephen's. The blogosphere was abuzzing with all sorts of new sounds and bands. I was soundly of the opinion, at that time, that rock was well and truly dead. I could not have been more wrong. I spent the first few months getting acquainted with likes of the Arctic Monkeys, The Killers, The Libertines, The Strokes, Vampire Weekend, (rediscovering) Oasis and so on (all thanks to zonuts.wordpress.com and millenniumhand.wordpress.com). This really fired me up. It was so different from what I was used to listening to (the usual classic rock stuff) and it was a rollercoaster ride of discovery, every day. 

Classes were really easy. So all I did was read and watch videos online and nothing else for the first semester. I read 1984, Shalimar the Clown, The Glass Bead Game and 70% of The Idiot. 1984 fit right into things. I identified with Winston and his paranoia. I took pleasure in the way the sentences seemed to from themselves with Rusdie (I like the story of this book a lot too). Joseph Knetch of Castalia was a constant reminder to slow things down and to just take pleasure in knowledge. This really helped rejuvinate me thoroughly.

I wasn't all that anti-social either. I did end up meeting people and hanging out. I would take any opportunity to go to the beach. I just loved standing there in front of the massive ocean and feeling so insignificant. 

~Digression~

   

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MSE as an institution was rather peculiar.  The people, teachers included, were extremely friendly. Something I was really not used to, within an academic setting. What's more was that the faculty seemed to have a different motivation for their classes i.e. for the first time since school, the emphasis was on the fact that everybody understands whats going on. Given that this is a master's level course, that may seem a little like spoon-feeding but this is what lead to the unique environment there. Intense competition was not prevelant. Collaboration was more the norm. Hands-on rather than internal visualization was the preferred way to understand things. There were free riders. I can't conclude that this was indeed a better approach. Students were being served all this knowledge on a silver platter. I found the reciprocal dishonesty, in terms of cheating and reckless nonchalance, loathsome. 

I couldn't understand the motivation the teachers had for this. Their primary output was their research. There were teacher evaluations by students which were apparently taken seriously. Although I doubt if that is sufficient cause for them to put in such extra effort. There was also genuine humility among the teacher. The better the teacher the more humble they seemed to be (again, extremely uncharacteristic, if you've come from Delhi).  That being said, humility was a virtue some teachers posessed and for others, it was forced upon them by their incompetence. The important thing I guess was that they cared. It mattered to them what we thought or felt.

~Digression~

If you've lost your faith in love and music
Oh the end won't be long
Because if it's gone for you then I too may lose it
And that would be wrong

I've tried so hard to keep myself from falling
Back into my bad old ways
And it chars my heart to always hear you calling
Calling for the good old days
Because there were no good old days
These are the good old days

- The Good old Days by The Libertines

~

Then there were after hours. I've had some of the most stimulating conversations there. The usual formula revolved around getting slightly wasted, either on the terrace or the COE steps and posing a hypothetical. The scientific method would be fully applied: assumptions would be clarified and step by step deductions drawn, till the generalized theory was agreed upon and stated. I've wanted to post those discussions here, but it was always seemed like too much work. Let me see if I can remember that stuff and post it on this blog.

Initially it was great meeting all my new classmates. Every evening people would be walking outside the hostel making chit-chat. The comments were usually guarded and the conversations had a sharp edginess to it, as they normally do when you have them with someone for the first time. As time progressed, people started forming small groups (I guess a minimization of said edginess over the set of all new people choosing n, number of people in the group, or the dual problem of maximising compatibility :-) ) of their own and those massive hanging out sessions stopped. This left me where I started: back in my room. I didn't mind it much. Being such a small college though, unlike Stephen's, if you weren't hanging out with people, you were alone. I was never alone in Stephen's: there was always somebody in my room or I was in someone else's. It was great though, getting to spend so much time by myself. The internet was the main provider of companionship.

The average day was pretty simple. Classes in the morning. Lunch. Nap for a bit. Evenings were tricky, since there simply was nothing to do (most of the time I'd go out in search of a snack). This was later replaced by football in the last semester and our own little league was an eagerly anticipated and regular feature. The late night sessions got rarer and towards the end, it was very much like the beginning. People had become like strangers with their own dreams and plans.