In search of words

Sankaralingam Muthuswamy
In search of words, thats the position I was in. And I just couldnt quote a dictionary, though I really
wanted to. I had 3000 words to write and I had 6 hours left. I was down 798. It was a ticking time
bomb that I didnt know how to diffuse.
A quick heads up - Procrastination is an evil, its a cancer,it will eat you alive and you
wont know, till its too late.
Like how all derivations (that I unfortunately have to learn) start, let T be the deadline of
my paper, which was Monday, March 31st 2014 - 11:59PM.
T minus 45 Days: In class, I was told about the final term paper, which was worth 50%
of the grade and the topic was - Is India is an industrialized society and did it have an industrial
revolution?. I thought to myself - What am I going to write? cause I generally dont feel such
abstract things, let alone more simpler, concrete ideas.
Anyway, I wrote this down on a random page in my all in one note book (all in one?). It
was more of an encyclopedia, that contained bizarre facts of that semester like,
How to write a VHDL program, How to run a VHDL program , How to convert AC to DC , How
to convert DC to AC , The most severe fault is a three phase fault , How to figure out if your power
system is stable , How NOT to electrocute yourself, when doing experiments in the lab , Formulas I
should memorize, to pass the exam , Tips on making particles with size less than 100nm or How to
make Aspirin. (We actually made Aspirin, the kind that Thatha takes every morning.)
This encyclopedia was not just limited to power engineering, power electronics, hardware
design, nanotechnology and chemistry but it also had my in class doodles spread-out here
and there.
T minus 32 days: It had been twelve days since I got my assignment, I hadnt started nor
did I ponder about it. What I did think about, was the fact that I had a little over a month
left and I could start later. I was also thinking about what was for lunch that day. I was
praying that it wouldt be Kaadi. Unfortunately, it was Kaadi that day. I have an intolerance
for anything with curd, smells like curd or looks like curd, except for vanilla ice-cream.
Anyway in class that day, I found out that the weight-age of the term term paper had been
increased to 75%. I should have started then. But I didnt, I was too preoccupied in my
imaginary world. It was nearing the end of my 6th semester, I had lasted 3 years in college
(which was just as much a surprise to me, as it was for my parents). I just had a year to
go. And in my imaginary world, I had promoted myself, graduated top of my class and
was half way around the world doing my masters.
T minus 18 days: I hadnt started yet. (Please, stop judging me...) My mid-semester
break had started that day, I was off to home sweet home - Bangalore. Leaving Dadri was
a relief. Let it be known that Dadri is synonymous with the middle of nowhere. I hadnt
been anywhere outside the university campus in the last 60 days. Thats was a scary
thought, more scarier then not finishing my term paper. That signifies the degree of
middle of nowhere-ness that my campus is in.
T minus 17 days: Arrived in Namma Bengaluru. As I got off the plane, the pleasant
Bangalore breeze hit my face, I knew I was home.
Eh! Bangalore Airport, its practically in Hyderabad, my journey from Delhi was shorter
than my journey from the airport to home. It takes 10 hours for me to reach home from
university and the flight duration is just 2 hours. The other 8 hours im either traveling
on a unpaved Dadri road with traffic or on an paved Bangalore road with traffic.
While I was at home, I was stuffing my face with Idlis and Dosas accompanied with
coconut chutney and Ammas sambhar. I was on a diet... a NO chappathi diet, thats what
North India does to you. Lying on the couch with my feet up, the remote in one hand and
a filter coffee in the other I was catching up on the hours of television I had missed out. I
could hardly bother about my assignment. When your on vacation, you tend to have
selective amnesia, you forget the stuff, you want to forget.
T minus 12 days: I was leaving home the next day. I felt like I had wasted the my entire
break. I had just written the first 50 odd words. I called up my classmate. Hey, you
finished your term paper?. I havent even started she replied. That gave me
reassurance. I was 50 words ahead of her! You can see I was just kidding myself. I had
just written the title and rambled on in an ever-so predictable introduction.
Industrialized India?
This paper aims to identify whether, India is an industrialized society and if it had an industrial
revolution.
The term Industrial or Industrialized society is open to many interpretations. The term may refer to a
society driven by technology to enable mass production...
T minus 11 days: Back to campus, I did my research, not about my term paper but about
how much others had finished theirs and what they were writing about. I was relieved
even further (if thats possible), the others had a long way to go too.
Once classes started I became busy with finishing tutorials to attending labs. I also had
my tests lined up that week. I was scared I wouldnt have time to finish my term paper.
So, I planned and all I did was plan. Eventually I decided to buckle up, and sit
continuously for hours in the library the coming weekend and finish it off.
T minus 8 days: A classmate of mine comes up to me and asks Did you see your grade,
its uploaded on BlackBoard?. The grade was for my short response piece. This was for
the other 25% of my final grade. So I tried hard logging into BlackBoard. Its much easier
for an underage to enter a bar, than it is to log on to BlackBoard. The gods were nice to
me that day, they granted me access. I saw this red notification on the homepage.I had
gotten a B. I thought I could have done better. I was feeling not orange but blue. A perfect
reason to procrastinate.
T minus 3 days: Friday! I did a little bit of snooping around, found out one guy had
finished and had written close to 4000 words. My jaw dropped, who knew what could
have flown in, in this Dadri wind. I needed to write, the fear of me not finishing was
creeping in and was turning into a reality. I opened the word file and started to type. I
could barely get past a sentence before I was hit by a block. It was writers block and I
went blank.
I called up a friend, to find out what hes was up to, turned out that he was just as blank
as I was. He was asking me what the topic was. You know, when your scared and dont
know what the future beholds, you tend to laugh thinking all your fears will just vanish
away, I did just that, nothing happened. In fact, I had lost a good 7 minutes of my time ,in
whining about the assignment and deadline. He had an idea about extending the
deadline. Both of us were too chicken to ask the Professor, we had been given more than a
month, that was like less than 100 words a day.My panic mode was initiated.My google-
ing skills were put to test and for the first time I went beyond the 3rd O of gOOOOOgle.
I managed to finish about 350 words that night.
T minus 2 days: Its Saturday! The weekends are the days a college student catches up on
his sleep. I caught up on mine. I woke up at 11 (thats early by any measure). The first
thing I did was open my laptop and started to type. I typed whatever was coming to my
head, I tried reiterating and expanding whatever I had perviously wrote. I defined each
term, I explained industrialization. I ended that day with about 600 words.
American Economic Historian Walt Rostow in 1960, tried to explain the industrial revolution through his
Five stages of Economic Growth. These were -
1. Traditional Society
2. Preconditions to Take-o!
3. Take-o!
4. Drive to Maturity
5. Age of High Mass Consumption
T minus 1 day: Sunday is my least productive day of the week. I had my monday blues
early. Its the day I have my 6 hours back to back of CAT coaching. From 1AM1 to 5PM, I
was doing twisted math problems and long and boring reading comprehensions. Reading
comprehensions on greek mythology. It takes the energy out of you, it makes your grey
matter black. After which, you want to nothing else but watch some Suits and crash. But
I still forced myself to write another 100 words.
T minus 15 hours: Woke up. It was the BIG day. The deadline was approaching, I
thought to myself, why do they call it deadline? Probably you cross the line and your
dead. English is a funny language. So, I packed my bag with my laptop having full charge.
Any free time I got I needed to be typing. I knew that, But I never did any typing. In the
little free time I did get, I was either eating at the cafe or doing my homework for the next
class.
T minus 7 hours: The last class for the day was over. I went straight to the library into
one of the study rooms and started to type. One way of writing a difficult paper, is to
write it bottom-up, that is to write the conclusion first, then make your way to the
conclusion. Thats what I did, instead of calling India industrialized or not industrialized, I
said its in the process of industrialization. This allowed me to write any fact under the
sun. I started searching for statistics from GDP to Employment.
In India, in terms of contributing to GDP (as of 2013) Agriculture contributes 17.4%, the manufacturing
sector contributes 25.8% and the service sector contributes 56.8%.
In India, according to the National Sample Survey O!ce , as of 2012 45.99% of India's Workforce is
employed in the Primary Sector, 24.26% in the Secondary sector and 29.74% in the Tertiary sector.
India is in the third tier of human development (medium human development) ranking 136 out of a 187
countries, just below Equatorial Guinea (as of 2013).
75% of India has access to electricity. India's per capita energy consumption is 879 kWh, ranking 153 in the
world.
T minus 6 hours: In search of words, thats the position I was in. And I just couldnt
quote a dictionary, though I really wanted to. I had 3000 words to write and I had 6 hours
left. I was down 798. It was a ticking time bomb that I didnt know how to diffuse. I
increased the line spacing from 1 point to 1.5 points. The number of pages increased, that
motivated me. I thought of increasing it to 2 points but sadly that made each line to look
like a new paragraph.
T minus 5 hours: Its was a race against time. I was trying to think of a sentence every 30
seconds. My sinuses started to act up, probably cause of the pressure of the deadline.
You feel more stressed when you have a deadline and others around you dont. In that
study room the others were watching this YouTube video - Mom Tries to Teach Adorable
Girl Life Lesson. My nerves started to pop. I left that room and to have a coffee at the
cafe. It wasnt coffee, It was more like flavored warm water. I come back with my nerves
back in place, I put my headphones on and continue to type. I have this habit of shaking
my legs, but that day my legs were shaking at a speed that would put the washing
machine to shame.
T minus 3 hours: I had written close-to 1000 words. I needed a break, I walk out and
find another classmate of mine, she was finishing up her paper. She had written around
1500 words. Then and there I made the decision that anyway I wouldnt be able to write
3000 words, so I would write about 1500 words and stop. For that I had to write another
500 words more, thats 50% more than I had written!
T minus 2 hours: 1200 words done. Now I started to read my paper, It had started to
take shape. I started to correct grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. Simultaneously,
I started to add adjectives and change phrases where ever I could, without making myself
look stupid. So in my introduction, India became the worlds largest democracy,
India, in an anther instance, Created by Amartya Sen and Mahbub ul Haq the Human
Development Index... became Created by renowned economists Amartya Sen and
Mahbub ul Haq the Human Development Index..
At some point I was actually considering spelling out numbers and instead of the
percentage sign %, I was thinking of writing percent . But that made me look too
desperate and very stupid.
T minus 1 hour: I had 1581 words and I was done. I dint want to write anymore. I did
some formatting and emailed my paper. I had lived beyond this.
You would think that I learnt a lesson from this entire fiasco? I did. What I learned was
History repeats itself! Now I have more assignments to complete.