Atul Nene

Being from the IITs, we tend to think that we are somehow gods gifts to the world and the others are some sort of a second class citizens, leading pathetic, second class lives. After the IITs, we come here or somehow make our bucks, continue our self-assured dreams and go on to lead a comfortable life. Nothing wrong with all these, except that we become islands of humanity, become 'clubby' and lose that common touch.

We tend to socialize only with our own circles of other IITians. How many of us even know a non-engineer or a non-doctor and how many of us know any artists or lawyers or a construction worker personally ? We enforce our own modern caste system and live in our little worlds, without any clue about how the rest of the ninety nine per cent of the world lives. We just don't bother to relate to the larger community, be it here or in India. Humility and humbleness are not our trademarks. Sharing our good lives with the less fortunate is not our trait.

Only a small fraction of us even becomes volunteers for a cause, donating our time and efforts, because most of the time, we are constantly chasing a career path, worried about our house and car payments and preparing for that weekly meetings with our ex-classmates from our IITs. After some time, when we visit India on our two week stints, we don't even know how to deal with the taxi drivers or the bank tellers or the storekeepers, preferring our friends and relatives in India to act as our agents to talk to them. Somewhere along the line, we have lost that down-to-earthness and became a swaggering elite, serving absolutely no purpose in society, other than through our careers. The same probably applies to many other elite colleges, not just to the IITs.

So true ! Take any field, the moment one starts thinking elitist, one automatically, starts separating himself from those who he feels are not up to the mark. Does this always have to be so ? And does this mean that one can't say the word "quality" and not isolate himself from someone at the same time ? There is a thin line of difference between pride and arrogance, between self-esteem and egoism.