Healthy infrastructure, healthy bodies and minds:
Other than that we have done very well on our games and sports infrastructure. I’m dwelling on the physical fitness part first – healthy body, healthy mind – which I think is critical first. Very often, people say that a healthy mind resides in a healthy body. I know people who are physically weak but mentally very strong, but we’re talking about a good combination of the two, a good balance between the two.
Today, all our sports fields are well-equipped, thanks to the previous students office-bearers, the previous Deans, the Advisors (Sports), our Engineering Unit, and our Gymkhana staff. They put in tremendous efforts to have our football and hockey fields equipped with floodlights. This is again a very unique facility in our Institute with very few equals.
Of course, this development went hand-in-hand with the power-cut in Tamil Nadu, which unfortunately sapped a little bit of the heady feeling that we had! (laughs) Nevertheless, the situation is going to improve. I’m sure we’ll have a good monsoon, and the power situation in the state will improve and that we’ll have good access to all of these facilities.
All we have discussed concerns the physical fitness part of campus life. Of course you know of the new additions, again thanks to the previous Deans, Advisors, students and others. I’m thanking them especially because we’re enjoying the benefits of their efforts, you know? So it’s only fair that we express our gratitude to those people, who have put in so much effort.
We have two spanking new squash courts. I hope our students will at least see how good these squash-courts are. Excellent: I’m told by some of these people who are involved with the project that they are absolutely international class squash-courts.
So, in terms of physical fitness, I believe our institute is second to none. I need not elaborate on each and every sport, game and physical fitness facility, and the opportunities in our campus for gaining physical fitness. I think our students should explore, find out and get to use all that we have here.
Our Gymkhana staff members are doing an excellent job in terms of operation and maintenance of all of these facilities. I mean, even with limited staff strength, the kind of extra-mile efforts they are putting in are laudable. Honestly, I know of the kind of constraints and limitations that bind us. Despite these, our people are able to offer us good infrastructure.
Be adventurous:
There are some more activities that I would strongly encourage our students to participate in – like adventure-sports, hiking and mountaineering. IIT Madras had a flourishing hiking and mountaineering club many years ago. They did extraordinarily well. I know quite a few students who were passionate about it and benefited.
One of the observations made by many people in our campus in recent years is that the IIT Madras student, on the average, does not enjoy the kind of outdoor activities that he/she should. There may be many reasons. People do attribute a lot of this to the computer gaming and social networking, which entice our students to stay in one place, and work on their comps or smart phones or whatever, and not engage in physical activities.
Now that is the reason I said I would like to promote hiking, mountaineering, and outdoor adventure. There are quite a few students who are interested and a revival would be a great move forward for our student community. There’s also a very interesting activity called ‘climbing’ (not the slang meaning!). A couple of faculty members who are experienced in it have suggested that we could do something very positive in this. It’s an extremely useful physical activity. We, meaning our Gymkhana, will see how we could promote this activity also, despite our limited resources.
I must mention, here that we even organize a lot of physical fitness activities under qualified coaches. For example, we have aerobics and yoga classes. We have regular physical fitness coaches in our fitness center. All of these have to do with holistic physical fitness. So you can easily gauge the way the system is organized, right? We have enthusiastic, dedicated coaches, we have Gymkhana staff and we have fine infrastructure facilities. We hope to have more students benefit from all these.
A critical question – Mental fitness:
Now, coming to mental fitness, which, I think, is of interest to every IITian, I’d say that there are a number of students who have to be far stronger than they are, in terms of their mental strength.
Our students should ask themselves a tough question, “Who or what is in control of us every moment?”
This, I think is a very critical question. For example, “is the mobile phone in control of me, or am I in control of the mobile phone?” This is a generic question. The mobile phone is only a metaphor here. It could mean something else also.
Mental fitness is demonstrated by human beings in terms of various qualities like alertness, powers of observation, focus and concentration, attention-span, imagination, and very importantly, restraint. From whatever I have observed of our students, some of these qualities seem abundant. I know that most of our students are very imaginative, and adept at what they say is ‘quick-thinking’, probably, given the background of their training, education, upbringing and everything.
But in terms of some of the other qualities – you know what? – I’d say that they have to work a lot on attention-span! (Laughs)
One obvious reason [for this], which many people have commented upon and which I would also agree with, is information overload. We’re all living in a society and culture where there is a very heavy information overload in terms of the content, the quantity, and also in terms of the meaning contained, the variety, and even the frequency of information to which we are exposed. Now, this is a very, very deadly combination.
See, when we are exposed to very heavy content, very high variety, and very high frequency in terms of information, I’m not sure of the extent to which our human mind is designed to handle this kind of complexity!
Of course, we DO filter out. The point is, are we filtering out, or filtering in, wisely? That’s a serious question.
So, as I told you, in terms of attention-span, I believe a lot of our students have to really improve a lot. The second quality is restraint. It’s a very exalted quality of human beings. The more restraint a person shows, the more mature he or she is considered to be. This is generally and widely accepted. I’m sure when you look at some elders in your family, your parents, etc., you can recall the number of occasions they have exercised great restraint, in the wake of extreme provocation! It’s a very exalted quality. I think our students have to develop that.
The great chain:
I’m talking of all this not just in the context of life in IIT, which is important, but limited. See, it’s a duty of our institute, and people like me who are working as teachers here and as administrators, to develop and contribute to create a very wholesome and very healthy set of youngsters who will slowly take charge of various initiatives and efforts in our country.
See, people must – even our students must – view it from that perspective. I think that’s a healthy perspective to view things from. They are being trained to take charge of various situations and various resources in our country.
And one must realize … see, I’m definitely in the last stage of my life … in a few years, I’ll retire and move on. I’m making a very important point. After all, we’re a chain of faculty, right? There are faculty who are retiring. There are faculty who have about ten to fifteen years to go, there are those who have twenty years to go, twenty five years to go, and there are those who joined recently. So it’s like a very strong, great chain that we have to build. There is a certain culture that ought to pervade our institute, an exemplary culture that all of us must own and be proud of.
That concludes this issue of The Dean’s Column. Stay tuned for further issues.
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