Shaastra comes once a year and takes your breath away. (There's hardly time to breathe) It brings purpose to life and a sense of fullfillness to the spirit of innovation left in you. It leaves your heart brimming with engineering pride.
To call it the annual technical festival of IIT Madras would be a simple way of putting it. Only, there's much more to it. I, a completely non-technical person actually spent an entire day going from Chemical X to The Ultimate Engineer to The Master Challenge to Shock (it was funnest of all) to math modelling, finally drawing a close with a lecture on why time can't go backwards. That did not surprise me. I do all sorts of weird stuff.
What surprised me was how much I enjoyed it. How much (though I didn't qualify) I "put fight" to solve the problems in math modelling. Trust me, two hours of doing nothing but concentrating on problems you are motivated to solve as though your life depends on it. Two hours of ecsatacy. It is so much fun to solve problems, pushing yourself every second to do it faster, work harder and tax your brains. Yep. My idea of bliss. If you think I'm a nerd, stop reading. You lack the spirit.
For those of you who know Saarang, (IIT's cultural festival) I thought I was capable of enjoying only that. Generally fool around and have fun. ;) But shaastra is fun in a completely different way. Somehow, it brings a wholesomeness to my existence. It brings out that part of me which I never knew existed. Basically, I always knew that engineering had a soul; that's why I'm here, at IIT trying to get a degree in it. What I didn't know and I realised this Shaastra was that my soul has engineering in it.
PS. Aah I feel good now. :)
3 comments:
Hi, nice article. But r u sure it motivates you? Because for me, after Shaastra, I realize that I don't know so many things. The engineer in me is demotivated and it takes the whole quiz week which follows Shaastra, to gain back my confidence :-)
Hehe for me, my confidence came down exponentially during quiz. [:P].. Shaastra was fun with no work [:P]..
"Basically, I always knew that engineering had a soul; that's why I'm here, at IIT trying to get a degree in it. What I didn't know and I realized this Shaastra was that my soul has engineering in it."
"If you think I'm a nerd, stop reading. You lack the spirit."
Really liked your post. I guess your post summarizes how most of us @ IITM feel about Shaastra (esp. tech enthu junta).
You could actually use this post for Shaastra publicity. As it is, I hope you don't mind if I quote the above statements in a later post on my blog...
regards
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