Wednesday, March 09, 2005

You win some, you lose A LOT

hi all

Congratulate me. Pat me on the back. Shake my hand. Crack a joke or two. Feign a laugh as I fake mine. Swear to be my friend forever. Lick my feet for a co-ordship. I'm now the co-curricular affairs secretary of IIT Madras, the first ever "northie" to do it. To win an insti-based election for Shaastra. But at what cost? Why, oh why, did I ever stand for this post? What was I ever thinking?

There are "friends" all around, congratulating me, saying I was worth it. Saying that my opponent deserved to lose. So many of them were openly supportive of me before the elections. Yet, what was the margin? 23 out of 3033 votes!!! Is that all I'm worth?

Barefaced liars. Bastards with no souls. I don't care how many of them even went through my manifesto, went through my credentials. I believe there were only 23 who really did. Those who made the difference. The others? Whores who sold their support for a co-ordship. Prostituted themselves to get a hold on the Saarang bandwagon. Motherf*ers who just saw the names "Uthpala Raghavendra Rao" and "Aditya Pandey" and figured out the longer one made the grade.

They predicted a hands-down victory. They foresaw a 500+ margin. They pledged they knew better than to vote on vague "fundaes". They promised they'd act sensibly and without prejudice. They cheered and applauded at the soapbox. They met me afterward and said I was great. They asserted that they knew me as a person, not as a candidate. Some of them were later surprised to know I'd won.

I always thought that people in general were sensible. The mass was sensible. The majority saw the manifestos and the credentials, and voted with objectivity. It's all wrong! And I thought that this was a pinnacle of an engineering institution, where logic and reason prevailed over regionalism and casteism. Oh, how naive I was! And yet, one expects politics to be clean. The truth is we have the keenest brains here. And that spiderman saying is all hogwash: There's just great power, there's no concept of responsibilty. With great power, comes a large cache of false friends, of sycophants of the highest orders, of two-faced people so full of themselves they'd do anything to be the next me.

And my best friends. I did it for them. To serve what I thought was some sort of "poetic justice". To see to it that their dreams left unfulfilled were finished with my beginning. They turn around now. Look the other way. They say it was a waste of time. It wasn't meant to be.

I am a fluke. I got into this place by accident. I was involved in Shaastra by mere chance. And here I am, a general of a force of enthusiasm, left hanging by the sheerest of margins. My opponent calls up and says "No hard feelings!". I reciprocate. At least he acted sensibly. No one else I know did.

The day is over. A new dawn begins. I must put all this behind me, they say, and work out a new and better beginning. But I am lonesome. I am afraid. I am looking the future in the face and it's staring right back at me. The past meanwhile is chuckling, at my naiveity and inexperience. At my failure to judge. At my over-confidence. At my inability to come to terms with what I thought was right, but in effect was a pile of smelly crap.

So here I am again. I have power. I have responsibility. They expect me to judge truthfully, but discount objectivity for "friendship". Some of them are as afraid as I am. Thinking I will seek "revenge". Contemplating my moves to suck out their blood. Yet claiming to be the truest friends I will ever know.

They congratulate me. They pat me on the back. They shake my hand. They crack a joke or two. The feign a laugh as I fake mine. They swear to be my friends forever. They lick my feet for a co-ordship. I'm now the co-curricular affairs secretary of IIT Madras, the first ever "northie" to do it. To win an insti-based election for Shaastra. But they don't care about what it cost me, emotionally.

Why, oh why, did I ever stand for this post? What was I ever thinking?

11 comments:

Gapa said...

past tense and past participle costed To estimate or determine the cost of: The accountants costed out our expenses.

pisku said...

Hmm. Actually I'm relived to read this. There is still sense prevelent. I say this because I've been a victim too. but on the other side of the firing line. I didn't believe that i had to stoop to the level of licking to get a coordship. I never thought it was worth it. I took the forms seriously and filled it with thought. For 3 consecutive years. Bumped each time. I stood for an election in my hostel in my second year and refused to go to anyone and ask them to help me surrogately. I lost by 40 votes to a clearly inferior opponent. It may ring a bell that i'm overestimating myself but when i did get a chance in Shaastra and Saarang in my 5th year (i don't know if it was 'friendship' that gave me it) I proved, more so to myself, that i was the best there was. Feels a little hurt for i saw it as a opportunity to grow and thus and opportunity denied.
As i said earlier, feels good to know therez still some sense prevelant. I think this is a huge opportunity to change things. to set a precedent that it is caliber that counts and caliber alone. Dont bother about people double talking you. this is just the beginning, I promise. Work on setting a system that is brutally independent of the person who runs it. Concentrate on clock building rather than time telling. Infact Shaastra is in much better shape than its counterpart. Well i could go on but I'm not sure it makes much sense. Just wanted to say if ur at the bottom then the only way to look is up.
Forgive the length.

Gyanam Hazarika said...

welcome to the dirty world of politics......

atleast you dont have a newspaper article and editorial commenting on how the elections might have been fixed with bogus voters and you cheated to to win (even though, i repeat even thought you were the only candidate)

Unknown said...

m*&^%$F%^$#r why get so senti man... the truth was staring at you in the face for such a long time...even I think you won because you deserve it man... pack all this senti crap abt the insti.. -- lala.

Vinay said...

Why, oh why, did I ever stand for this post? What was I ever thinking?
Good question
Yes Mr. Ghaapa, what were you thinking?

Vinay said...

what was the margin? 23 out of 3033 votes!!! Is that all I'm worth?
They foresaw a 500+ margin


You really need to have talked to someone in your hostel called Tushaar Garimalla

a_sudonym said...

hey gaapa! now that you are the head...give our dearest gamedrome some pseudax status at shaastra..what say? ;)

Gapa said...

quake 3, counterstrike, age of mythology, the works...

it's gonna be bigger and better! you should be here.

Unknown said...

organise the gaming thing properly..if you hype it enough you can get NVIDIA, ASUS level sponsorship... I saw this in the IIT Kanpur cyber games..get more pseud comps..you can get serious enough teams to come here and compete then.. not the regular gang of jobless f***ers that come here frm the IIT hostels( me included :))

bharath said...

Well nicely written one da.

I do understand sentiments about elections. I lost three of them in the same institute.

well atleast your opponent was a lot sensible compared to ones to whom i lost...

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