Confessions of a Cheater (Simplifying the moral conflicts involved in cheating during exams- II)

Startled by a rustling noise, Anand looked to his left. It was obvious; the college is surrounded by acres of greenery with a motley variety of reptiles and other creatures breeding inside the hollows of ground and under the withered leaves. Perhaps Anand thought he heard some creature rustling down the walls. He turned his head, and when he found nothing he continued with what he was doing.
Meanwhile I picked up the paper Mahitosh had dropped stealthily on my bench, which actually made the rustling noise that had startled Anand. I quickly swept a fleet glance at the invigilator to make sure he didn’t see us. Followed by a quick turn back and passing of my own paper to Mahi’s desk. We were executing the famous old school cheating technique of Paper-exchange for one last time. I wrote down the answers in my copy and cleaned the question paper with an eraser to avoid getting caught. Later on I was to discover that Anand was to ask me the same question and I would have to write the entire answer for him again.
During the early days of college, sometimes i used to be sceptic about the answers that mahi would tell me. Not that I don’t trust him, but the fact that we are equally mediocre on the academic scales. But as soon as he got his new Nokia X-6, the credibility of his answers shot to 100%. Now he was the James Bond of examination, using the most sophisticated mode of cheating- A touch screen with all the notes stored in it. Now it will be only a foolish who would doubt the credibility of answers told by such a guy.
Still the major hurdle lied in communication; in finding a method to receive the answers from him. For this we have tried all sorts of methods, The bend-back, The lean-forward, the casual-talk, the quick-turn-and-talk method and the most memorable of all THE ERASER method. The last method will ever remain in our memories for it was the only time we ever got caught. I still remember, it was the majors and we were taking the exam inside the ED hall, a place which I considered haven for unfair means. The ED hall, isn’t constructed on stairs like other classes are. So it is easy to escape the eyes of invigilator. But that day I was going to be proven wrong. I was stuck in first question, as usual and was waiting for the invigilator to turn back so that I could ask for answers from Mahi. Soon the opportunity arrived,
‘Bhai, Centrifugal pump ke types bata!!’ I whispered
‘Ruk...’ a pregnant pause followed, ‘Abe kaise batau?’
I tossed the 3 inch Apsara non-dust eraser to him and said wryly, ‘ispe likh haraami.. tu kisi kaam ka nahi hai’
Mahitosh wrote the answers and returned it back. I noted down the answers and rubbed my thumb on the eraser to destroy the evidence. Once again a few minutes later, I asked him ‘Bhai Soderberg aur Gerber equation likh de.. jaldi!!’
He complied and wrote the answers on the eraser. But this time I wasn’t as lucky as I was a few minutes ago. While I was destroying the evidence, the Invigilator noticed and came to my desk. I clenched the eraser inside my fist like a kid unwilling to let go off a candy bar, by hiding it from the bully. But it was too late, he had already seen the candy. He placed his palm in the air in front of me, and made a ‘give me’ gesture. I gave him the eraser. My heart thumped on my ribcage as He looked at it. After a brief glance, he looked at me, smiled and returned it back to me. The entire world appeared to me as if it danced in ecstasy. There is no greater joy than being released without being punished for a crime for which you got caught red-handed. That guy, an Mtech Scholar at that time,( I am not sure what he is now) later on became a headache for exam cheaters. He could make the Scotland yard drown in a pool of shame with his accuracy in nabbing cheaters. His name was RAVIKIRAN!
Apart from the collaborated cheating techniques, we had to adopt self-sufficient techniques as well. Since in the former method, most of the time is consumed in ensuring that nobody is watching. If you ever enter a MANIT classroom, you will see loads of things written on the desk. No they are not Love-letters written by love birds. They are topics that might appear, have appeared or might have appeared in exams. Make a note that in MANIT, writing on desks is considered a sign of your porcine sense of public responsibility unless you are writing exam notes.
Table is not the only place where we stored data. Majority adopted the conventional technique of ‘farra’ or micro-sized notes. A few other wrote on their legs. But that required clean-shaved legs. So you have to devote extra 5 minutes before exam in shaving the fibres off your legs.
The list of modus operandi doesn’t end here, it goes and on and on and on. Every year more research scholars add more and more techniques to the list. An extensive research is being done in the field of ‘How to ask for answers from your neighbor’. Scholars have developed various models to solve this problem like turning back with your own pencil and saying ‘BHAI TERA PENCIL GIR GAYA... 2nd ka [b] bata’
In the end, I don’t know if I’ll go for a PG or not, but even if i do I won’t find guys like Mahi, Anand, Deepak Palecha and Jadhav for cheating in exams. We were seriously an awesome team!!! All these 4 yrs I always cheated more sincerely than I used to study because Mahitosh taught me a valuable lesson, however involuntarily, ‘Pointers aur Ladkiya... sab moh maaya hai... college se nikalne ke baad dono hi apni importance kho dete hai.’

Life in MAroon CoaT

Chapter 1: Baptism of the quagmire

22^nd July 2007, I was writing the examination for Special class railway apprentice, about which I hardly knew anything and wasn’t even interested in taking the test. I still remember, it was a warm Sunday; the weather was confused between monsoon and summer; and I was looking out of the window instead of writing the paper. Suddenly the invigilator interrupted and announced, ‘Time up put your pencils down’. I looked down, my worn out flotters appeared gloomier than my thoughts. I tightened the strap and decided I won’t buy a new pair unless I get what I always wanted since the last 2 years. So what if I messed up the JEE, all I need is hardwork and focus, and next year I will make it for sure.

During the 3 hour break between the papers, I was sitting under the shade of a tree in a temple, which was right across the street. As I started eating my sandwiches my mind slowly started returning closer and closer to the reality, and I started thinking about what people had told me about the college I will be joining from the next day, and kept asking myself a question, ‘is it really a college smeared with politics and groupism?’ A question with an answer that always remained in front of me but I remained oblivion.

I am not sure if He is deaf... But...

I still wonder why do they play devotional sounds or chantings on loudspeakers at volume high enough to create ripples in my cup of coffee. I am an agnostic, but that doesn't mean I am questioning their faith. All I want that these people should understand that when you are showing your 'devotion', it doesn't mean that the entire locality is also devoting their time to the Almighty. Someone might be sleeping out of illness, some school student might be studying, or even taking a nap after a rough day. But why would they care? There are some guidelines for noise in various localities in any city, but no vigiliance body has ever bothered about putting it into action. Well it's not just religion that takes its toll in deafening our ears. Marriage ceremonies, public speeches and what not; everyone has an excuse to play it loud. The louder you play the sound system, the stronger you are in society. Even if the cops try to put them off, someone utters 'mantriji baithe hai' (the minister is here). This tendency of wielding power is an old practice and I am still not sure how long will it survive. People will keep playing it loud, mostly on the name of religion. And I might never come to know if, up there beyond the clouds, He is deaf or not, but if this keeps on going I will surely turn into one.

Simplifying the moral conflicts involved in cheating during exams

A couple of days back, a friend of mine called up after a long time. She called on a pretty bad day, I had messed up my exam that day. I told her I was really infuriated because the invigilation was uselessly strict so I couldn't peek anywhere. She replied with an awe," Is this the same Samrat who never cheated in exams, let alone helping others to do so? What has college-life made out of you?"

Suddenly I realised she was right. During school days, I never even thought of cheating in exams. But now, a day ahead of exams, I study like this," Dude I'm leaving this topic for you to tell me. And tell me the STUPID tables we have to scribble on the WOODEN table...." So am I morally corrupt?

Whether or not a person should cheat in life is a different question altogether. The answer to this dilemma is not as straight as it might seem. As a matter of fact, it is a personal favourite of HR personnels while interviewing candidates. The complications are enormous, which, if mentioned, will dilute the issue I'm trying to focus on. So I will stick to the issue that I want to discuss. Whether a person should or shouldn't cheat in an exam is not as complicated as the previous question. No matter what our parents and teachers preach us, which I am sure, although in the darkness of unavailability of evidences to prove my point, they themselves never followed, we keep satisfying our desire for knowledge during examination by peeking into other answersheets, trying to read the illegible micro-sized notes hidden all under our clothes( even in places, too disgusting for hiding any stuff), pre-writing 'importants' on table and numerous other ways that undermine all sophisticated modes of communication invented till date. We keep doing it again and again, but never experience the guilt. So is it that our ethical values are dead? Is it that we have forgotten the values that we ought to adhere to in life?

As already mentioned, the act of cheating in exams doesn't even stray around the fort of moral obligations which stands open for all dilemmas. A person might view any ethical question from a moral perspective but I have kept this particular question miles away from the town of moral conundrums. The ethical dilemma has actually nothing to do with ethics. To understand this we need to know that examinations are a misinterpreted term in our society. They are not meant to intimidate us, they are just a method of testing our knowledge. What is worth noticing is that it says nothing about the timespan during which we can acquire knowledge. Moreover, elders will agree on the point that the process of learning is an eternal process and doesn't cease with an examination. Even the Oxford defines examinations as,"a formal written, spoken or practical test, especially at school or college, to see how much you know about a subject, or WHAT YOU CAN DO.". The last part speaks for itself.

Further if we look deeper into the matter, then we find that even if, by chance, the ghosts of morality haunt us on this issue, we can ward them off easily. The examination system itself teaches us moral misconducts. If gambling is amoral in society, then how can revaluation be justified as a moral act? You place a bet of a 100-500 bucks on your score to change; the examination board( who puts nothing at stake) plays for the negative. If you lose, it costs you your money, but if you win you get your money back. In addition to this, you don't even get to see the gambling table. So you cant even know if it was a fair play. All these things are against the ethics of gambling, in addition to gambling itself being unethical. So the next time you write an examination, feel free to peek.

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In praise of motor racing

6 years ago, when I finished my 10^th board exams I was promised that I’d be presented with a bike. I didn’t realise that the promise was made with a forked tongue and I ended up with a wooden nickel. My parents somehow realised that I was a speed addict, which I myself was unaware of, but as they will be telling me 2 years later when I will be crashing my 75cc scooter(of course the 'wooden nickel' I got) while trying to speed beyond its limit of 70kph. I was destined to be an aficionado of Moto wheels.

As I pursued my dream and kept getting more and more addicted to vehicles, I realised that so many people around me find Motor sports as a mere waste of resources. In fact some of them deny accepting it as a sport at all. Two years back, when Indian Formula one fans were struggling hard to bring the sport to India, a leading politician opposed the proposal saying that ‘it is not sport at all’. I’ll discuss it later how imbecile the politician was while saying this, but right now it is important to note at the first place that people hardly realise that this is the only sport in the world that everyone is directly related to. It has a vital contribution in shaping our lives and making it easier and economical. But people, blinded with prejudice, see it as a few dozen speed junkies racing across the finishing line at speeds insane enough to make you throw up.

Have you ever seen a child learning to walk? The child always wishes he could walk faster than he is actually able to. Trying to do so, he falls, stumbles upon things and hurts himself but never gives up. No matter how heart warming and cute it might seem, we seem to miss the lesson that it teaches us loud and clear. Human is never taught to be greedy; we are born as greedy creatures. We have an innate tendency of being greedy about achieving difficult goals. It is however a different matter that most of us give up on our greed as time flies by. History of motor racing is no different. With the invention of first steam powered vehicle, man was haunted with greed to make it faster. This resulted into the first ever motor race on July 22 1894 in France between the cities Paris and Rouen. This race was aimed at promoting the sales of a magazine which organised the event, but it was named as Competition for Horeseless Carriages (Concours des Voitures sans Chevaux) that were not dangerous, easy to drive, and cheap during the journey. The race was won by Peugot and Panhard. However this was more like a road-show than a race. The races that we see today started just an year later at Paris itself. And with the wheels of time the races became more interesting with improvised set of rules laid down for ensuring fair competition.

Ever since its inception, Auto-racing has served as a vital factor for promoting vehicles and their manufacturers. And were indispensable at the time when commercial advertisement wasn’t as successful as we see it today. At that time France emerged out to be a racing haven and still continues to remind us of its kingly heritage in the form of the world’s fastest on-road car Bugatti Veyron. A lot has changed over years and cars have become more compact and complicated. Today, the emphasis is laid on efficiency before power. But speed is always the key factor. The most popular moto sport Formula-one is based upon the constructor’s ability to design a car of unmatched excellence. Ace automobile companies from all around the world gear up to prove their mettle. What many people don’t know is that most of the technologies that we see in our cars arrive from these racing circuits. Traction control, improvement in aerodynamics and semi-automatic gearboxes are just some of the countless technologies that have made their way to daily cars from these race tracks. The most conspicuous of these is the spoiler that reduces the possibility of the rear wheels loosing contact with the road. Smarter electronic fuel injection that encases literally a small computer behind your steering wheels were first implemented and tested in these racing circuits only. Adding more to it, which still won’t be sufficient, is the UNICAM technology that Honda used in off-road racing and is now being used in the most popular bike the VFR1200F. The list goes on and on in praise of motorsports and still people will act in denial of its greatness like an ostrich with its head buried in the ground.

There is yet another clan of people, as I have mentioned already who don’t accept it a sport at all. But if they ever knew what it takes to be a race-car driver, I think they would be holding a different opinion. A formula one driver, for instance, is considered to be one of the highly trained athletes in the world. While driving through corners their body has to sustain a force of 3.5G. In plain English, a man weighing 75 kgs like me experience force 2600N acting on him. To simplify it further, imagine a weight of 263 kgs being rested upon your body. If that doesn’t sound exciting enough increase the surrounding temperature to 50-60 degree Celsius alongside. If you still think it is easy for you, which if you are then it certifies you as a 24 carat idiot, then keep loading and unloading this force for a couple of hours. The horrors are that you will start dehydrating like an earthworm sprinkled with a pinch of salt, and by the time you finish the race... forget it you won’t finish it because you’ll die midway in a crash. And under all these circumstances you are required to have high degree of alertness to react towards all the unexpected things that keep happening. So Mr. Politician-i-won’t-mention-name-of! Do you still think they are just a bunch of guys pushing gas pedal to reach from point A to B?

Finally, as a suggestion to all the mindless speed junkies on the road who call themselves ‘racers’, I’d say you are mere ‘toddlers’ in this sport, even the word ‘rookie’ will be a hyperbole. When you were at the age at which Valentino Rossi was Go-Karting, you had just started speaking. Pulling through some funny stunts on the highway doesn’t make a racer out of anyone. Go to racing circuits since motor racing prioritises driver’s safety. So keep enjoying fast vehicles and drive safely.

The rhapsody of a roadtrip

What is life?

A good paycheck...
a great bachelor life...
a few trips to scenic places arranged by your travel agent...
a good looking neighbourhood girl you can ask for a cup of sugar, when you already have a sackful in your kitchen...
and an even better looking girl-friend who won’t ask for fancy things(quite a fiction ehh!!)? Is that all?
Of course not for people like us who have kangaroos on their top paddock, as people define us. There is a subtle joy in seeing things differently and enjoying them in a different manner. People ask me,’What is the sense of a roadtrip when you can hire a vehicle, or board a train and reach the destination without sweating out?’

I choose not to argue with such people for they will never understand that the real delight of a journey is not in reaching the destination in one piece, but the road that you take, no matter how much it wears you out. People who sit in the back of a cozy SUV, or helplessly try to peak out of the window blocked with grills in a train asking each other, Are-we-there-yet, will never be able to know what it takes to enjoy the road to the destination.
Life is never a bed of roses, but isn’t always on thorns either. We don’t achieve victory every time, then why do some people give up and some choose to try one more time. It is not always the victory that is delightful, but sometimes the road that stretches miles and miles, that bends backwards and asks you to come again. For once in your life, try pulling over in the middle of the journey and hear the road whisper in your ears. Hear the song that she is singing for you. You will learn how much she loves you, for you chose her. You will forget the ache in your back in a moment if you see the world around you. It is so different from the one that you live in. There is no crowd, there are no buildings, there is no rush for reaching office and there is no one to ask you where you have been.

On 16^th of this January, We added one more roadtrip to our album of memories. Sanchi, as the world knows it better, is a village in Raisen district 46 km outside Bhopal. It is believed to have been built by Emperor Ashoka in 3^rd century BC. The Buddhist Monument was built to house the relics of Buddhism. The architectural marvels are of great importance and architecture students from all over the country come here for case study. If you want to know more about Sanchi, either visit it or buy a book because I am not going to write about it anymore. My post is dedicated to honour the road, not the destination.

A night ahead of the roadtrip, Chowdhary messaged me to reach Karond flyover at 10’o clock next day. A little later Nizam of Bhopal, as I will address Siddhartha Soni, messaged me to meet at Platinum Plaza which was further confirmed by Roopa. We were supposed to reach platinum at half past nine. Roopa reached on time and I was late by five minutes. The Nizam, who was crying loudest not to get late, was 20 min late himself. After a further delay of half an hour, Shahul, Kamlesh, Ayush, Batham and Khushwant arrived. Now there were 3 bikes and 8 people, so after a lot of strenuous calculations for statistical distribution, Khushwant and I pillioned behind Shahul, Nizam and Batham climbed behind Ayush and Apoorv enjoyed the entire pillion seat behind Kamlesh.

We set off for Karond Flyover, flying over every cop we met in between as the cops usually don’t like people saving petrol by using fewer bikes for more people. We arrived at karond, only to learn that the other half of the group hasn’t reached there yet. But finally everyone arrived and we rutted to sanchi. 13 people on 7 bikes.

Sanchi is at a distance of 42.6 km from the flyover. We reached Sukhi sewania at around 11 ‘o clock and Jarda started bickering for food. He was hungry so he wanted to stop by. We all were hungry, but our hunger for pestering Jarda overpowered that which we had for food. So we kept driving saying that we will eat only at Sanchi. Jarda was red hot like a heated iron ingot, and we laughed our hearts out looking at Jarda.

The road beyond sukhi sewaniya keeps getting beautiful with every inch you travel. There is a spell in those green pastures, a charm in those plateaus. So much that you cannot take your eyes off them. In the meanwhile, we reached deewanganj and Jarda didn’t stop crying. And neither did we stop pestering him. We moved.

As we neared the tropic of cancer, we realised that Shahul got left behind. In no time the phone rang and shahul gave a bad news. His mudguard had dislocated and was touching the tyres. The rubbing produced so much heat that the plastic mudguard melted as if someone heated it with a gas welding torch. There were fair chances of the molten plastic lodging between the treads of tyre and burning through the rubber. It would have been a disaster to have a flat tyre in the middle of nowhere. But somehow he reached where we were waiting and we removed the mudguard itself. After a few photo clicks at tropics of cancer, we moved ahead to barkhedi.

Celebrating after removing the mudguard

Finally we had our breakfast at Barkhedi at 12 noon and moved to Salamatpur. Life at these small villages seems pretty normal in the daytime. But the real challenge is to survive the night. As locals told us, temperature goes down tremendously.
‘Sheher mein thandi ka matlab bhi nahi jaante log’(city people don’t even know the meaning of cold) as a local villager of deewanganj would be telling us on our return journey. Spare the cruelty of cold that people in these villages have to bear, there is an additional scarcity of basic infrastructure that they can’t even imagine to have. 12 hrs of power cut and school buildings that you’d wish weren’t there will give goose-bumps to any city-dweller, if asked to live here. But surprisingly, they hardly complain about it. India might become superpower in 2020, but these people will still live in 12 hr power-cut, and city people will keep wasting electricity like a municipality tap wastes water. Indian is full of tragedies.

We reached Sanchi at 1 PM where Milan joined us. We spent some time at the stupas and went to a nearby dhaba for lunch. Gagan Dhaba, as the name was ,looked more like a haunted house, with no one around. We searched nearby and found the cook and waiter hiding in the dark nooks of the kitchen. Pretty Weird! The food wasn’t pretty good, so I won’t recommend it. Try somewhere else if the bile juices in your stomach don’t start digesting your stomach itself, as it had occurred in our case.

It was getting dark as we rutted back to our city. The cold air felt like liquid nitrogen, freezing every bone in our body. Although we had our warm clothes on but that was enough to subjugate the city-cold. The cold winds kept torturing us, and I was thanking Detani for driving the bike. The cold was getting colder than coldest, so we kept stopping at every village for tea. Those who smoke kept on pitying us for not smoking, as they claimed that smoking keeps your body warmer. But I’d rather have frozen lungs than lungs quenched in coaltar. No offence, but this is my personal opinion.
By the time we had crossed salamatpur, the sky was dipped in black ink and at around 7’o clock as we neared deewanganj, the lights from the village painted a magnificent sketch on the black canvas of night. As we sipped tea, we took warmth from a small fire lit by people to keep themselves warm. The onus of giving warmth to 7 people was now on the flame which was no bigger than a forty-rupees-Flower-Bouquet, made with roses, I must add. We chose not to put load on the flame and moved on.

Our Final stop was at Karond flyover where we had light snacks and redistributed ourselves on bikes to transport each other to homes.

Although the food was aweful, we couldn’t play cricket as we had planned to and the cold was torturous, but we still enjoyed the trip. As I have said it earlier, it’s the road that is the most enjoyable part in a journey. The joy of reaching destination is just a small part of the enjoyment. The small things, or hindrances if you may call it, actually make a roadtrip immortal in our memories. Years later we will look back and smile at these moments, moments that we’d hope we could live again.

DEDICATED TO ALL MY FRIENDS