I recall a
famous quote by Aristotle,
“It’s the mark of an educated mind to entertain an
idea without accepting it”.
I couldn’t realize the profundity of this quote
until I visited this academy. 7 IITs, 1 German Institute, 39 Indian students, 6
German students and well , infinite amount of talent was mathematically
available if you will but leaving mathematics aside the dynamics of the very
environment was so intellectually stimulating that all I could do is wonder and
wow like a 5 year old standing outside a candy shop! The academy was for 7 days
and I wish it continued for more but this number 7 seemed to work like the 7 wonders
for us. We all knew the importance of networking and we all knew we had to
learn. This short period of time somehow enabled us to overcome the threshold
of acquaintance and cross-over to immediate friendship. Professional friendship
perhaps if not personal, but that was adequate and sufficed for my gray cells
to sweat every second. After those long sessions of contemplating about my
college culture and coveting peers whose frequency could match with mine the
academy proved to be like a necessary reassurance that there is always a wider
spectrum. There is always a group of intellectuals who are ready to listen. Full
of categorical literature and contemporary knowledge, the participants
possessed an ability to challenge the borders of infinity itself. Yeah I know,
if they are reading it perhaps modesty will make them think I am exaggerating
but consider them to be like mirrors. Individually you cannot figure them out,
but place it with another and one sees infinity for the other. I saw that in
them. I realized even I could. Every second, every moment there was something
new to imbibe. Be it numerical methods for fluids or dynamics of cricket balls,
be it learning about different IIT cultures or the common threads that held us
in a single fabric, be it learning about foreign professors or differentiating
them with Indian ones, be it about realizing we were all weird in some way or
realizing we all had something unique about us, it was all there. You just had
to open your eyes, seek and learn.
Speaking about
the academy specifically, we all were assigned a topic from contemporary
research fields such that each topic had something known and unknown for all of
us. The fact that the topic was familiar helped us be engrossed in the
presentations even when there were only mathematical formulae on the white
projector screen. Naturally the unknown aspects of the topics were difficult to
comprehend in a matter of 45 minutes but just a simple introduction to it acts
as an ignition to the bomb of knowledge ready to explode our minds.
From morning
9 to evening 6 there were a series of presentations including the professor’s
bragging here and there about their research work. Day began with a lousy
breakfast and ended with a lavish dinner. Obviously, it includes the super
heavy lunch and infinite coffee breaks during the presentations. Although it
was half-felt, thanks to the previous Indo-German being held in a 5 star hotel
with IIT Delhi celebrating its 50 years, we were treated royally. The newly inaugurated
hostel was like the innocent virgin about to be exploited by academia hungry Indo-German
participants, turning the shiny new rooms into murky residence. There was a
fully functional HVAC system, fresh new sheet covered beds, a cozy blanket, new
pair of bathroom slippers, a flat screen LCD TV, a lounge area with awesome
couches, a cozy balcony with a couple of chairs, personal bathroom with soap
and shampoo and well an annoying cacophonous bell. These might sound very
trivial and obvious details for an accommodation but well given that they said
our accommodation was in a hostel and not a hotel, as Indians students we learn
to appreciate. Yeah there were some unfortunate ones who got to stay at the old
guest house a couple of meters away, but they were saved the trouble of walking
all the way from the new hostel to the guest house early in the morning when
the soul is yawning and all it needs is just some food right to the mouth to
help it not depart from the body.
After the lousy breakfast as I mentioned
earlier which was only bread butter and jam, at about 8:45 am we headed to the
main campus as inmates in a caged school bus with a weird mysterious entrance
which could only be found once you walk the entire perimeter of the vehicle. Basically
the door was at the rear end and involuntarily everyone headed towards the
driver side or the front of the bus to find the door eventually leading
everyone to circumscribe the bus at least once.
The CMERI
campus stood proudly and beautifully like a wild animal amongst the dense
forest area of Durgapur or probably the campus was gardened well, anyways the
serenity was engulfing. We reached the auditorium for our welcome session. Recalling
the Delhi IGWA academy we wished to be stunned by “I”-pads or “I”-phones but
alas! Reality dawned upon us like Leonardo DiCaprio in Inception silently
whispering “Wake up” and we became the proud owners of “I”-Cards and Indo-German
bags with a few goodies.
That marked
the beginning of something so awesome, so exhilarating, so motivating, so
reassuring, and so liberating that I choose not to spoil it by casting in
words. Those 7 days of interaction, learning and intellectual stimulation shall
remain with me forever. In all probability, it will be improving my way of
thinking and by extension the course of my life. I am grateful to have met
these amazing guys from Erlangen, IIT Madras, Roorkee, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Delhi
and Mumbai and I am sure we all are looking forward to strengthen our bonds
over the internet and continue to exchange information, ideas and knowledge to
reach the apotheosis of ourselves.
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