A GUIDE TO A COMPLETE HUMAN BEING

A lot of us say...."life outside of college suddenly becomes filled with selfish

ness!" Many say this is a "natural thing" and "humans are born selfish".... or i
s it because of failures and shortcomings of the student in the full college exp
erience itself? Read this detailed piece on this topic to find out....

What are we in college for? What is the scope and purpose of our education? The
general stereotype answers to the questions above is: We are in college to prepa
re ourselfs for our careers and enjoy our friendships. The purpose and scope of
our education is to give the student the skills required to get a good paying jo
b easily. And the purpose of being in college is to prepare for our career, and
also have a blast with the buddies. This is the mainstream notion of a college,
from a student's point of view. But the question is- is that an education? Does
that make you a complete human being?
What IS a complete human being? He (or she) is one who sees themselfs as an ACTI
VE part of society, someone who identifies various social ills prevailing in the
environment around them, desires to shape, lead and CHANGE the society around
them to make it more just and equitable to all. College is the perfect and the m
ost ideal media for this kind of exposure and facilitate this kind of change. An
d we can see this clearly. The best and closest friendships are formed in colleg
e. Where else do you see people taking flak for his friend to the point of endur
ing a suspension for his friend? Where else can you find people who share their
shirts, pants and even underwears? Where else do you find people who give their
friends their last 5 Rupees in their pocket for a gold flake king? It doesn't ta
ke a nuclear scientist to figure that the bonds developed between people in coll
ege between students are the most intense of bonds.
But then..........the INSTANT the degrees are handed out, the students change al
most OVERNIGHT, in a flash. The camaraderie dissappears instantly. People who we
re ready to share their inner wear in 2010 no longer even wants to spare a simpl
e sum out of his new found salary to bond and celebrate with his ex comrades. Pe
ople who were only about giving and sharing and the "bhai bhai" spirit suddenly
don't even want to part with their time for their best friend more than a day or
2. The "WE" gets replaced by an overwhelming "I".....
How does such a change happen overnight? They say it's "repsonsibility." So the
implication is that all that camaradrie in college was just a stint of fun, and
that in the "real world" one has to be selfish to "survive" and "get ahead." Not
hing could be a bigger lie as this is saying being a self serving parasite is th
e only gateway to success. If this were true, we would have wiped ourselves out
as a species a good 50000 years back. This sort of change happening overnight i
mplies the person did not learn a damn thing in college beyond his carricula. He
or she failed MISERABLY in becoming a complete human being. Where did things go
wrong?!
Failure to evolve one's moral and ethical standards while in college
What is moral? What is ethical? For the most part, in our schools and in our hom
es, morals and ethics are dominated by your personal habits and your religious b
eliefs. You are not judged by your ACTIONS, but by what habits you have. "He smo
kes and drinks, he must be of loose morals", "She talks to men a lot....she must
be a bad character" are often the value systems we learn in our homes and in ou
r schools. College gives us an independent environment to form our own character
judgements and form our own ethics and morals. Yet many of us just "roll over"
what was imparted to us in schools and in homes and refuse to embrace morals and
ethics in a secular light. For example, who is more moral? A man who drinks hea
vily and has a "party animal" reputation, but is loyal to the country and is kin
d to the poor.....or a man who has no vices, but jumps ship to a foreign country
for selfish gains forgetting his country completely whilst being miserly to the
 poor? Think about it....but many times we just look at the person's external li
festyle habits and form a character judgement on him or on her without taking an
y of his or her credentials, conduct. NEVER judge a person till you have seen th
eir conduct.
Being a good COMRADE versus a good PREACHER or a BAILER
Too many times we run into situations which involves our good pals and buddies,
which is not always pleasent. Here is a very common example. There are two dear
friends. However due to some unfortunate circumstance or events, one of the frie
nds takes his life for a tailspin heading for a crash. He becomes an alcoholic o
r gets involved with some drugs. His parents get into depression mode, and the i
nstitution he is affiliated with often goes into disciplinary mode. This is an o
pportune moment for a display of camaraderie but many times, the "dear friend" e
nds up becoming a "dear preacher" often using his friend's misery to subtly stro
ke his / her own ego. Most friends at this point start going thru lengthy preach
ing sessions as to how the friend is giving his parents a heart attack, how he i
s ruining his career, what a terrible human he has become bla bla bla. And in th
e end the guy who is already heading for a crash heads for a faster crash. And "
friends" too many times just go on lecture mode, which does NOTHING USEFUL to hi
s friend. And it only makes his situation worse.
The correct remedial procedure would be for the friend to show a kind heart, and
most importantly some TIME and get into the root cause to the problem as to wha
t made his friend take his life to a tailspin. Maybe the friend is a creative ty
pe, but finds himself constantly suppressed and unable to express his creativity
? Maybe the friend's career path was chosen for him by his guardians which was c
ompletely opposite towards his interests? Or maybe his home is being materially
supportive but emotionally treating him like a pressure cooker? Sadly, most "fri
ends" don't even bother getting into the root cause, but just skid the surface a
nd go on a damnation mode like they do in the confession box. Getting into the r
oot cause of such a problem about a friend may suck out of one's time, energy a
nd might expose the student to some considerable flak. Speaking of the time fact
or, lecturing someone for 20 minutes for 2 days and making yourself sound like y
ou care is easier than spending a good 4-5 months or a few semesters constantly
w/ the friend, in a genuine trouble shooting mode. The energy factor is also th
e same. And about the exposure to flak factor, what if one finds out the main re
ason of a friend getting depressed is due to home pressure.
For example, the guy wants to become a social service worker or fight for the op
pressed poor in Chattisgarh, but his guardians want him to pursue a corporate jo
b in HP or Microsoft and are completely insensitive to the guy's needs.....as a
friend, how would you face your friend's guardians? And how would you manage thi
s situation? Are you ready to handle a slew of hostile words like "He probably b
ecame rebellious because of you", "His life probably got ruined because of you",
"None of you f*****g business, this is our private affair , get lost" (speaking
from personal experience). There is no manual on how to handle this type of sit
uation. But it is SUPPOSED to be a part of your college experience. Sadly, many
of us choose to negate this part of college life altogether! And the teaching co
mmunity also in most cases encourages students to go the "Preacher" way rather t
han the "Comrade" way. "Keep off him. Being with him will ruin your future" can
be heard a LOT LOT more than "Come on try and get his life back on track, help h
im out, arent' you his friend?" by the teaching community. But the greatest lose
r is NOT the drug addicted friend who falls into vices, but is his friend, who d
eprived himself to not only become a complete human being but also to become a L
EADER. Instead, he just chose to become a SHEEP.
Social consience
College life is where we can interact with the society around us the most. In sc
hool, what we can see are often shielded by our homes. In job or business life,
what we can see is often shielded by the constraints of the workplace. And in re
tirement life, what we can see is often restricted by our physical health. So co
llege is the GOLDEN opportunity to form a social consience. But that largely dep
ends on how you lead your life. If you glue yourself to books, you learn nothing
(you can learn books in home tutoring or a library, no need for a college campu
s for only learning books). If you just party away to Mars, dunk bottles and cig
arettes tilll final year graduation, you learn nothing either. Your entire colle
ge life will just look like a blur. Inbetweeen partying hard and studying, there
should be room to develop social consience.
The easiest way to pick up social consience is to do what the great Che Guevara
did. As a medical college student, he picked up his motorbike and roamed the rem
ote places of South America, where he saw poverty, and EXPLOITATION OF THE POOR
first hand. As we all live in a capitalist "dog eat dog" world, especially after
the 1990s, as long as there are poor, you can be SURE there is exploitation. Po
or don't necessarily get exploited only in remote villages- if you look close en
ough you can see naked exploitation of poor in almost every walk of life, most c
ertainly in campuses too. Many times, they lack proper representation, and with
the added financial insecurity, their careers DEPEND on that coveted mark sheet
to a point of life and death. While this is a gateway for their career enhanceme
nt, this is also an opportune moment for exploitation. Without saying a word, st
atistics prove that the overwhelming majority of suicide cases in college campus
es across this country- and many other countries- are from the poor student popu
lation.
In many instances, it is not too uncommon to find a case where a poor student wo
uld be held hostage to the personal whims of his guru. Then someone who is suppo
sed to become a guide ends up becoming a tormentor. A power trip for one comes a
t a HUGE emotional strain on another, and after the bubble bursts, many on the r
eceiving end resort to suicide. We are not suggesting that all gurus exploit poo
r pupils, but certainly- some do. There are bad apples in every tree, in every p
rofession, in every nation, in every street. Even inspite of these gross instanc
es of injustice, happening on campus, many choose to turn a blind eye and simply
blame the system for lack of support or lay blame entirely on the teaching comm
unity and forget about it the next day. Does the system or the teaching communit
y explicitly ban formation of action groups? Do they ban student run informal su
pport groups which caters to poor students? How long does it take for a bunch of
1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th year students to jointly form a rights awareness group li
ke NHRC in campus where poor students feeling exploited can give a cellphone buz
z to any of the members? If a poor student is experiencing exploitation, how har
d is it to take his case as a rights association and forward it to a media group
? Or launch a simple agitation drive? This is as easy as forming 2 football team
s, but many of us don't do it because "we couldn't be bothered." And then we cur
se our fates, and our society for selfishness when we find ourselves in need of
help...and none is forthcoming.
Even at a more bare basic level, how many VOLUNTARY (versus official) student ru
n groups have we seen on campus that collects donations to help ease the expense
s of their poor and more financially unfortunate compadres? Not that many at all
. If it ain't official, it ain't there. That's the attitude many of us take. Bla
me the system, it's capitalist, never designed to help, it's valid. But the ques
tion is- what have YOU done to counter all that exploitation and apathy?
Collaboration Vs Competition
Compete! Out-do the others! Come out on top!!! These are the mantras which are t
aught in homes and many surprisingly fail to graduate from that mentality in col
lege. Maybe the author of this piece is just whacked in the head but for some re
ason thinks that 4 people collaborating on a common goal yields more benefit for
all four than a case of 4 people constantly trying to out-do one another. Somet
imes we just need to think things over. What the hell are we "racing" for so fan
atically? Did all the women on this planet except for 1 dissappear and the one w
ho gets the highest marks gets to copulate with her?? Doesn't look that way. So
why try to out-do each other when you can learn so much more by collaborating wi
th one another? Instead of playing "whose got the highest marks" between 4 peopl
e, why don't those 4 people try and do something like building a TV, or building
a remote controlled helicopter? Or a bike? OR anything....instead of trying to
cut each other's throats over some marks?! By pooling different talent towards
a single goal- versus play 'ME OR U' with marks, college education- including th
e theoretical aspects of education- can be used to the fullest. If you like comp
eting so much there are PLENTY of quiz shows like kaun banega crorepathi. By poo
ling different talent towards a common goal that's project oriented you jointly
learn different skills. And you also jointly pick up an added bonus of leadersh
ip skills and management skills, in addition you jointly hone your technical ski
lls and your theoretical knowledge, so all 4 come out stronger in the end. And a
s a bonus, you ALL can add a project completed in your resumes. You do NOT need
University sponsorship to do a collaborative work, you can do it yourselves amo
ngst your friends. And almost all colleges will be supportive once an effort act
ually gets completed.
Imagine the Chinese attack India (for example) and in the Indian Army, u have th
e Punjab Regiment and the Jhat Regiment trying to out-do one another as to who k
ills the most number of enemies....if this mentality prevails, you can be assure
d your children will be reading Mandarin Chinese in schools. Just ask any Army m
an. And even common sense tells us that 5 hands working together on cutting 5 tr
ees will get work done cleaner AND faster than 5 different hands trying to cut 5
different trees in an ultra competitive mode.
A word about leadership
In college, there are some of us who are fortunate enough to grasp positions of
power in the student body. However, too many start acting like bureaucrats or li
ke conquistadors, and completely miss the point about leadership. A good leader
does NOT do his work on the frontlines by sidelining those he leads with a "watc
h and learn" mindset, but takes the back seat and creates the proper environment
for those he (or she) leads to take the initiative and only steps in if the lea
der sees inaction or misdirection. A good example of a leader who grabs all the
attention and sidelines his people would be Diego Maradona as Argentina coach. A
good example of a leader who sat back and just created an environment for his p
eople to take the show was the Spanish coach. And we all know who the FIFA 2010
winners are. Leaders are not miracle men, they are mentors. Leaders are there to
help those who leads to grow, beyond the household. Those who like to grab the
headlines are nothing but showmen. They should try the cinema, not leadership ac
tivities.
We are humans after all, we are here to make mistakes. A leader should make it a
point to do a self criticism session in a meeting and strike a chord with those
he leads that making a mistake is not a capital sin, but is a learning experien
ce. A leader should be willing to learn from those who he leads as well, and thi
s is very important.
Secularism and the Secular identity
Who are you? "I'm a Tamilian Muslim" , "I am a Punjabi Sikh", "I am a Keralite C
hristian" are the identities that are flounted the most in India today. If you a
sk a population of 100, only about 2 said they were "Indians"....the rest identi
fied with their religion and their ethnicity and their caste. Colleges and Unive
rsities were created to break off with such identities and embrace a common iden
tity with a secular denominator. In Ancient Greece, you had a culture and a reli
gion and a way of life in Athens that was RADICALLY different from the same aspe
cts in say- Thebes. The Greeks created the University in order to BUILD COMMON G
ROUND between the various regions and populations in their territories. However,
that secularism melting point identity aspect of college education is largely l
ost in college life today. Two people can't marry people of different religions
without attracting SOCIAL SANCTIONS even VIOLENCE, even though the constitution
says India is a secular country. How can we be secular if 2 people of different
religions can't even marry and live in peace as citizens? In school life, you li
ve at home, so you live with people of a similar / common religion, caste and et
hnicity. That changes in college. A Hindu can be a bunk mate of a Muslim and a S
ikh and an Athiest in 1st year. Yet we don't see any attempts by the college goi
ng population to forge a new identity for themselves based on this newfound secu
larism. Proof? After graduating from college, they return to their same old part
itions. They marry as per caste / ethnic / religious considerations- just take a
look at THE HINDU newspaper or any other matrimonial in India and it's as clear
as crystal.
It is a very disturbing trend that in Indian Universities, even after completing
University life, people are unable to break out of age old caste and ethnic and
religious enforced partitions. This is why we have so many riots on religions,
ethnicities and castes in this country even in the age of laptops, wifi, 3g and
satellites. To be fair, the system in our country unfortunately discourages secu
larism and secular identity by entertaining castes and religion in politics. How
ever, that gives students no excuse not to embrace secularism in its truest and
purest form in college life. I dream for the day when college students say "I am
a Hindustani" and when 2 Indians of various beliefs marrying would just be trea
ted as a norm. We have a lot of work to do in this front, as students. EVERY col
lege student has a responsibility to create for himself and herself a secular id
entity where interactions based on GENDER, CASTE, RELIGION are not made barriers
out of. Everyone of us is dutybound to be India's Red Guard.
Though college life provides us an environment to foster the STRONGEST human bon
ds many of us just pay lip service to that opportunity and get focused too much
on self. This prevents you from becoming a complete human being and you become n
othing but one of the billion or so sheep. College life DID provide with that op
portunity to become a complete human being but many simply squandered it away be
cause they are too obsessed with looking at themselves in the mirror. THIS IS A
FACT. LET'S CHANGE IT TOGETHER.