Being jolted out of this slumber made recall what it was that got me back to consciousness, waking up to see a classroom filled with students and a booming voice explaining the intricacies of semiconductor physics. It was gloomy nightmare that had taken over my mind, a dull picture painted for my visit back to my institute after 25 years of having left the classrooms. Even though they weren’t really the ones I ever had the opportunity to sleep in, but it was still a feeling of nostalgia that I felt in my dream. Being busy creating an empire for myself I had been too preoccupied to ever turn and look up at the institute that had given me so much.
My very first visit to the campus that I had never had a chance to see, had my expectations been overzealous or was it that IIT Gandhinagar that had disappointed. The brand, the research the students and the faculty along with the administration were all abysmal. This vivid picture sent chills down my spine, my immediate inclination in contacting some of my previous classmates resulted in disappointed as well. Most of them were painting an image about the situation from my description alone. How could this have happened? The brand value that we once so dearly cherished, was now a part of a joke today, wherein a legend was slayed by some tenderfoot.
Once having left our college celebrating how we had managed to claw through engineering, never once did we the pioneer batch ever hear from our college again, I guess that was for a reason, never did IIT Gandhinagar reach the pinnacle we envisaged for it. So the newspapers never did have a chance to report about its fall down, it never did rise.
Coming back to my senses I reacted in the same way and shook the dead weight next to me and asked what do you think will be the future of IIT Gandhinagar? Only to receive an annoyed whine as to why I had broken my friends sweet slumber with such a stupid question!
I reasoned with myself, how much of our day do we spend day dreaming about what our future is going to look like and how many choppers we might have. But how much of our energy do we truly spend in creating a “Vision for IIT Gandhinagar”. My thoughts went back to a few days back where we had a discussion about the same topic and I was not convinced by the outcome and as to how the students would be involved in creating the future.
My thoughts also raced back to my first week at IIT Gandhinagar, the predicaments we faced, the unity that was created, the challenges we overcame, the character we built, the lackluster campus and most importantly how we still felt in control of the situation. At each point of at least my first two years at the college I felt a sense of responsibility as well as a sense of power. I knew if something was wrong the onus was on the students to fix it. This made me realize how any problem could be dealt with if you felt a sense of control over it. A sense of helplessness overcomes us when we start realising it is not for us to solve the problem.
Then is it that I realized that I needed to be doing everything possible to be in touching distance of every problem that the college might face. A very small community of the college still below 500 individuals demands everyone be involved in crisis aversion and management. Every individual be willing to help in any way possible to help the growth of this college. If there are walls of bureaucracy being formed it is essential they be torn down as there is no room of such vices so as to speak in a community as small as this. (bureaucracy is not feasible for a community of <500)
Our successors should have the same freedom as we did, to change, grow, evolve and succeed. That requires us to leave for them cultures set however with room for change as the problems of the future are not our battles to fight, the glory from hard work of the victory and conquests are the fruits for our successors to enjoy. Therefore in our infancy we need to be bothered more about the way we tackle our problems creating an example of tenacity rather than create guidelines of how problems need to be solved. We can cite examples for people to come for how we did things, but we cannot decide how they should fight their battles.
Our Institute also demands excellence from us in every endeavour for creating the so called “brand value” we desire. A brand translates into excellence personified for those who seek what the brand has to offer. If removing the name of an IIT from a college that is the best college of Electrical Mechanical and Chemical Engineering would still allow it to maintain its brand value as a centre for excellence, there is no reason why an institute with a tag of “a new IIT “ cannot become the above. However this is a goal needs to be achieved quickly and in my eye must have the highest priority. Diversity is important, but for success, excellence is the bigger benchmark. Wouldn’t all reading this be proud if 10 years from today you picked up a newspaper or magazines which read “IIT Gandhinagar the best college in India for all of the branches it offers”. “IIT Gandhinagar now surpasses one of the older IIT s” might also make us proud but I would ask the reader to contemplate which might qualify as a bigger quantum of success.
My personal vision for IIT Gandhinagar also takes into account IIT Gandhinagar achieving something no other IIT or engineering college in India has achieved or was set out to achieve. Jawaharlal Nehru had thought of an IIT being a pillar stone of self-reliance, making the country self-sufficient at least in terms of its technological needs. A question arises would anybody really miss the IITs anymore? I doubt it I’m sure the industry could go on to spend a few years building ties with other equally reputed engineering institutions for their technological needs. So have the IITs surpassed their time? I’d like to think otherwise- as India has grown out of its industrial revolution (replace by: “industrial infancy”?) the IITs too need a new goal. Considering the fact that the new IIT’s were started at such a time I think it is primarily their responsibility to be the role model of change growth and development. IITs have been a great breeding ground for young engineers however the IITs now need to conquer a different domain, that of excellence in research. I’m by no stretch of the imagination claiming that the IITs are not “good enough” to be quality research institutions. I’m merely saying that this is not what their primary objective was. So the mantle for construction of the new brand for the IITs should be a job cut out for the new IITs. Starting from scratch creating world class laboratories, buildings and other infrastructure fit for stimulus of research should not be a big challenge. Great research merely requires great talent which the IITs have an abundance of.
Don’t just be a part of this evolution, create it!
“It’s not about whether we can, it’s about how we will!”
