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Saturday, August 20, 2005

Chp 43. Relative Grading!

In the Beginning, God created land, water, the sun, the moon and animals n birds. And then he created man and woman. Just one man and one woman. That itself was Paradise for the man, for he had no competition to worry about. Hence he need not leave the toilet seat down, nor did he have to ask for directions in that little garden. Similarly, the woman was happy, for she need not shave her legs nor make chapattis for her man.

Everything was going great until one fine day, the woman gave into temptation (just wondering why all the “other” things they must have done is also not termed as temptations). Anyway, God banished them from the Garden of Eden, and made their life utterly miserable. He thought of the worst possible way to make them suffer: He thought of floods, he thought of fire rain. Until one brilliant idea hit him. He had just thought of something that will make Mankind suffer for the rest of his life: He created Relative Grading.

Within no time, Cain murdered Abel, hence making Abel the first victim of frustration due to relative grading in the history of Mankind. Fast forward thousands of years later and here I am sitting in my room and feeling like doing the same thing to some of my classmates

Being a below average student sux, but here in IIM, it doesn’t hit me that hard. I am more than happy to be a below average student in this prestigious institution. But what really sux is the fact that we guys never gain recognition. People treat the toppers like celebrity. They even award them medals and throw a party n get drunk, when in fact it is them who are screwing up everybody else when it comes to grading. Whereas it is us guys who actually push up everybody’s grades. For every small mark that we screw up, we know deep inside that somewhere out there, there is an individual being pushed above average (Yes, I am doing QM for the second time, so I know perfectly well how a normal distribution is calculated! )

Had I not been here, I assure you, there would have been quite a number a people on the other side of the mean, and the standard deviation would have significantly decrease.

Humility aside, I sincerely feel that, just like the top 10 students who are awarded the DML (Director’s Merit List) award, us bottom 10 should have been awarded some sort of medal, strictly from the Student’s Union side.

He he he… okie, was just kidding. Actually all u DMLs and toppers rock. Especially those of you who are always ready to help me out whenever I have a doubt. As much as it sux, Relative grading is something that we’ll always face in the real world. It brings about competition.

And this is not just regarding acads or business. Even when it comes to flirting, mankind always competes. Who has the bigger car or smaller cell phone. Looks take a back seat, and charm now sits in the driver’s seat. For most girls, it all depends on how much of a smooth talker the guy is, whereas for most guys, how hot the girl is. For girls, it’s easy to score as guys will fall for anything. But for guys to score, it takes a lot of meticulous planning, cajoling, serenading, impressing, and most important of all, making her laugh. Ofcourse when I say this I don’t speak on behalf of all the ladies who feel that guys shouldn’t be just smooth talkers but also non-alcoholic, career oriented, financially stable blah blah blah.

Anyway, to sum up everything, I guess Relative grading is something we can never run away from. It will always be there, waiting to pounce on us when we least expect it. Sometimes it’s a good thing, like when the paper is really difficult and nobody knows how to solve it. But when it’s a moderately easy paper, everybody leaves you far behind and you suddenly realize nobody’s around you to share your sorrow. You become, once again, an outlier. Gnite.