Making a “Meluha” at IIT KGP
Recently, when I was reading “Shiva Trilogy 1: The immortals of Meluha”, Meluha has been defined as the heaven on Earth by Shiva and his tribe because of the difference in terms of Safety and Security, skilled people, infrastructure, healthcare access, and environmental quality.
Since JEE Counselling season is around, I have received several calls from my school juniors and their parents where the major concerns included safety, ease of travel, accommodation and food.
This made me analyze my own surroundings and how we can make a difference!
Location/Connectivity/Ease of travel:
This factor is associated with the geographic location, and nothing much can be changed/altered by our humane actions. Still, we can comfort the freshers/new visitors by being the best travel advisors. This can be as simple as sharing your travel routine with them: trains/flights that you prefer, contact details of trustworthy cab drivers, and details of good guesthouses/hotels. I have been doing this for the past 4 years, and I have seen how the students’ parents appreciate getting the contact details of a cab driver/ guidance in ticket booking and guesthouse booking.
Food:
This varies from person to person. I saw people loving the mess food, whereas the other set of people hated the same mess food. For me, no one can match the love of the food cooked by my mom. The other compliments like the coconut water, fruits, salads, bread and eggs will help you survive anyhow.
Talking about the other perspective, what attracts professionals? (Professors, Doctors, Engineers, Technicians, etc.,)
Location, connectivity, ease of travel and food play an important role here. On top of these, healthcare access and quality of education come into the picture.
Healthcare access is something like connectivity again. We cannot make much difference with a meagre contribution.
Quality of education:
Having stayed at a place like IIT Kharagpur, I can assure you that we can make a difference in the quality of education with meagre efforts. This is possible only because of the digital transformation which India is currently witnessing. During the pandemic, IIT Bombay students and professors have taken up the “Shala” initiative to teach everyone AI(Artificial Intelligence).
Gopali Youth Welfare Society(GYWS), IIT Kharagpur, is a place where I practically learnt that everything could be achieved with hard work, wits and strong determination. A bunch of motivated students are running a school where we provide free-of-cost education, books, transportation facilities and even hostel facility to more than 250 underprivileged children of Gopali, Salua and other villages near IIT Kharagpur. Similarly, we, the KGPians, can contribute to improving the quality of education, attracting talented professionals(Professors, and Doctors especially) to our institute rather than witnessing greater resignations.
Be the change you want to see!
