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The Tougher Right , or The Easier Wrong ?

I read this quotation somewhere. I guess it was inculcated to us during our tenure as NCC Cadets.
" Oh God! Please give me courage to do the harder right , than the easier wrong "

This year has been full of surprises. It has actually brought out a revolutionary in me who always opted to make things correct. Some where hidden within each one of us is this revolutionary spirit. A person who tries to bring about a change in this world. But quite often this inner voice gets dampened by other worldly issues. But then , there is also a limit to everything. A time comes when you just cant take it anymore.
The year 2008 started off with some of us realizing the deteriorating conditions at the MSc IT course. All through our course we were being taken for a ride. The utter mismanagement of the course and the lack of determination and professionalism on part of some of the professors is altogether another blog post. It was due to such pathetic conditions that some of us decided to voice our opinions against all the wrong that was happening.
It would have been easy to keep mum and carry on with what was happening. It wouldn't have made a difference to us anyways. We rather decided to speak up and take the concerned people to the cleaners. All our grievances was put forward in front of our college Principal. This little gesture of ours bought about a change the very day itself. The faculty members were fearful of the fact that these are a bunch of student who cannot take things lying down. They started to get more accountable and focused on their responsibilities. A change was in the making....
Things went on ... We all appeared for our exams ( self study to the ultimate heights !!!! ) and then patiently waited for our results after May 2008.
The transition from college life to the real world was also in the process. All throughout our vacations we were awaiting our results. Which according to our famous ( or rather infamous) Mumbai University standards is like waiting for the Hailey's comet to strike twice in year. Finally after all the rumors and the last minute jitters our results were announced on June 25th 2008. Still there were no signs of our mark sheets being dispatched. By now we had got pretty used to the waiting. So waited and waited , and then waited a little more. Finally after a week long of waiting we all received our mark sheets. Mark SHEETS !!! omg ... it could well be crow shit on printed paper.
The glaring errors in the mark sheet was a sure thing to laugh about. I was wondering why no one noticed such gross errors in the mark sheets.
For instance , intelligence being spelled as intellogence, Robotics as Roboties, Technology as Technoloty and Convergence as Convergenice.
This infuriated the hidden revolutinary in me even further. I started circulating a scanned copy of the mark sheets highlighting the gross errors (which i am sure all of you had a look at ).





It was during this same time that one of my colleague who had recently got a job at Times of India saw this pic. He got in touch with one of the reporters who agreed to take up my cause and print an article in TOI about the same. What I didnt realize was the gravity of the situation that was about to unfold. The reporter was very professional in her work and wanted to take the University to the cleaners. She gathered information from all corners about this , took our comments and bang ! got this on the front page of TOI !!!!
I will still remember the day 11th July 2008 . I changed my sleeping schedule and got up early to catch glimpse at the article. Again it was a simple choice , either to maintain our silence or to stand up and take a stance.
I really feel that each one of us during various stages of our life are presented with these choices .
"It is in our hands to either opt for the Harder truth or accept the easier wrong ...."


Comments

Rickson Menezes said…
Very well written Ankur. You are right. If a lot of us would fight for daily little things, this world could use great bolstering at least for the good people who always work to live in an upright manner and not in a world made and devised of the slothful and unethical.

Most of the times, there is a lot to lose when one has to voice one's opinion. One has to be prudent so that he doesn't end up actually portraying his foolhardiness instead of his opinion. Each one of us has to touch the golden mean between cowardice and foolhardy courage. Most of the people choose cowardice and prefer bitching about everything that is wrong at Tea time snacks with friends.
I am proud of you for taking a stand.
its good to know that you stood up and got the change going . this will surely make difference to your juniors as well.

keep it up dude. make me proud
Unknown said…
I am so glad you acted instead of just sitting back and going with the flow. There are very few of you out there who would actually take a stand. Lets face it...all of us hate Mumbai Uni and the mgmt but none of us want to do anything about it. So...glad TOI got involved and someone realized it as a problem.
chetangb said…
sahi hai boss, YUVA in the making, lage raho
VasuDev said…
Hehe!!Well done..u shud hav invited me for the meeting wid d princy(...i've neva seen her in coll..does she ever attend?? :)nd if she does den we shud fite for chng how can she brk d sies legacy) coz i've come 2 colg so many times nd had 2 go bac empty brained( n edu insti shud b providing knowledge rite..) but still we can still make amends for all v hav faced ..let us spread d word---plz do not do MScIT frm mumbai uni & if u really feel lyk doin it do not do it frm SIES..haha..wat say??
btw is saal kitna bacchalog admission lia kuch pataay??
ReIncArNated said…
Hey Good News... finally got my corrected Mark sheet today. The University finally bowed down before us. Thnx for ur support all this while. Regards ,== Ankur.
sagar said…
dats wht i call "changing the system" in the true sense ....good work man

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