The Student-Sensei Relationship

It's hard being an anime fan. For starters, English dubs of the latest episodes are only available when they aren't the latest episodes anymore and reading the subtitles is as good as reading the instructions on a Chinese lantern. Your references are returned with blank stares and your hand remains un-high-fived. Then you have the clarifications.
"Dude, you're 21 and still watch cartoons?"
"It's anime...."
Soon you either realize you sound like Sheldon Cooper only with half the IQ, or convenience overtakes dignity and you let the people believe what they want.
You are soon mentally herded into a small esoteric group by the general public, often dangerously close to those categorized as "geeks". That is not to say geeks are bad, usually that's code for, "guy who knows how to use electronic stuff that makes me look like a gorilla in RadioShack."(You're welcome, geeks and RadioShack).
In spite of these ramifications, I do tell people that I enjoy watching anime. Blank stares greet me once more. Then I say the buzzword.
Pokemon!
"Ah yes! The Chinese cartoons!"
I open my mouth to tell them it's Japanese, but it might just cost me a friend.

So many memories...

 Ramen : Not the Top Ramen we get here

One of the reasons that I enjoy watching anime is that it does have some profound opinions on the sort of things that I like to think about. And trust me, once you do start thinking, you forget about the insanely voluptuous anime women who give Barbie a run for her money in setting unrealistic beauty standards for girls.
My hypothesis is that  anime resonates oriental culture. They don't have cheeseburgers, bacon, cowboy boots or machine guns. They have onigiri, ramen, kimonos and katanas. And they've stuck to them.  Parallelly, they also resonate the core values of the Eastern culture.

Onigiri or Rice Balls

One of them is the bond between Student and Sensei.
The word "sensei" literally means "a person born before another" or to give it more depth, a person who teaches based on experience and wisdom acquired by age. Now, I have always been of the opinion that just because someone is older than you doesn't mean that they know better. This emotion usually reaches it's peak when an old man breaks the signal and crashes into me, and I'm the one being reprimanded because I'm younger and have a faster bike, which is apparently criminal.(If you're reading this old man, I'm coming for you.)
So the degree of strictness with which students follow and obey their

Katana : Something I must have in my life

sensei has never really made sense to me. It always struck me as pretty puzzling because in the Western world of bombs and bikinis, teachers have always been portrayed as beings who can do no wrong. Their morals and intellectual understandings are unquestionable and there isn't a crooked bone in their body. Yet, students find the compulsive need to try and find faults in the method if not the person. In anime, in comparison, you have senseis who are drunkards, perverts, have anger management issues, or aren't even interested in teaching the student at all. And yet the student follows his master through whatever life throws at them.

C.K Louis - Comedian, philosopher, masturbator

The answer to my quandary was found in a Reader's Digest magazine I was reading the other day. Well known comedian C.K.Louis is famous for touching on rather uncomfortable subjects such as masturbation or the "N-word". There was a little quote by him which explained things quite well.


It read " If you're older, you're cleverer. I just believe that. If you're in an argument with someone older than you, you should listen. Even if they're wrong, their wrongness is rooted in more experience than you have."

I realized that my confusion had arisen because I had only considered the student and the teacher to be the possible causes. What I hadn't considered, was the attitude towards learning.
You can learn new things in whatever environment you are thrown in. And if you want to learn something in particular from someone in particular, it doesn't matter what the character of the teacher might be, he is teaching you something and that is always something to be grateful for. Students aren't grateful to their teachers for what they are, but for the knowledge that they have imparted to them consciously or unconsciously.

As Mr. Miyagi's words famously say; "There is never a bad student. Only a bad teacher."

A true sensei only gives. And gives whatever he has to his student. He understands without being told. He listens without anything being said and he speaks without uttering a word. He entrusts his life's meaning to his student without hesitation, because his student is his only pride. He believes in his student when all the world is against him because he knows that is all he needs to fight back. A good student is a source of joy and happiness for a sensei, because he receives whatever he has to give fully.
A true sensei teaches the student about life. Not just history or geography or martial arts. A true sensei is a guide. Someone who has his hand on the student's shoulder, not to push him in the right direction, or to pick him up when he falls, but to be there when he is needed.
A shining example of the same is Rock Lee and Might Guy from Naruto.

For the non-animaniac readers, a bit of background. Rock Lee is a ninja with absolutely no talent at anything. He is sub par at best in hand to hand combat. In spite of relentless training and taking his body to the limit, he is never able to ever reach the others.Constantly mocked in class, for his lack of talent and bushy eyebrows, Might Guy finds himself alone practicing on a tree stump, doubting his abilities and empathizes with him. He convinces Lee that he is better than the rest because he is a genius at something that others will never be. He is a genius at hard work. And that doubting your abilities is the worst thing one can do. Believing in yourself, your abilities and sticking to your decision, no matter what is the road to success. These simple words are what made Rock Lee from one of the underdogs into one of the best ninjas there ever was.
Unfortunately, such senseis, albeit with their own eccentricities, exist in a utopian world. The times we live in aren't privileged enough to have many of those. True senseis are a rarity.

So, if you find someone whom you think can be your sensei. Hold on to that person and never stop believing in them. Because The bond between a student and a sensei is only as strong as the will to learn between them.

Sheep In The Big City : Episode One

The door to my room opened with a creak, then creaked shut again. The folded piece of paper that held it open had flown away ages ago. The musty smell of a room that hadn't been visited in four days eroded my olfactory senses. A crowd of dusty specks jumped and danced in the faint ray of light that penetrated my closed curtains as I sat down on my bed. I thudded down on my pillow multiplying the population of specks, and pushed a button that made an unearthly squealing sound that shuddered the fan to a slow start.

My weary eyelids drooped under their own weight, and my back cracked in places it shouldn't, courtesy a wrongly slung duffle bag for the last couple of days. My hand ached as I swatted off a fly that had been buzzing incessantly at my ear, and my mouth was dry from dehydration. 

And yet I was at peace.

Because this was nothing compared to what we had gone through for the last couple of days. 

Techfest, the annual techno cultural festival, Asia's largest, if I'm not mistaken, is held at IIT Powai every year. It is home to flocks of engineers and sane people alike who flood the campus every January in the hopes of learning something new. We were no exceptions. Along with a group of friends, whom we shall call Tony Stark, Wilfred Zaha , Brian Lara and Patrick (you know who you are); I had been planning to visit the campus for quite some time. 

The fateful day was to begin a few moments later, and I was sprawled on the bed watching Game Of Thrones and eating wafers of questionable origin. Little did I know that my moments of perverted peace were soon to come to an abrupt end.

The clock struck twelve, and I moved slightly. My heart was telling me to start packing for an adventurous day, and my brain was telling it to shut up and let it concentrate on what Tyrion Lannister was saying. My movements gradually increased in magnitude and soon reached a point where they overcame the inertia a soft bed could offer, and I got up. An open duffel bag lay at my feet. Nothing special. A simple two pocket affair encased in a plum colored body. I opened my cupboard, grabbed whatever my hands touched first and stuffed it into the bag. Soon, when I assumed I had all the clothes I needed, I turned to accessories. Now experience had taught me that one needs accessories on travel more than one thinks. So in one sweep, emptied the meager contents of my shelf into the bag. Now I couldn't possibly forget anything. Or so I thought. Packing done, I fell asleep wondering why it takes people eons to fill up an overnight bag.

Morning hadn't even had woken up when my cell phone rang. It was Patrick. He was on his way to pick me up. I rose like a zombie, and my eyes found my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I even looked like one. I munched on my toothbrush as I conjured up a pair of jeans and a sweater from the mountain of fabric on my desk, and by the time Patrick had his car up my alley, I looked fairly presentable. The drive to the station was punctuated by the occasional incandescent bulb under which paper boys worked at breakneck speeds. We soon arrived at the station, where in a couple of minutes, we found our platform.

Our train was already there, a giant metal tube striped in yellow, with shivering crowds scuttling about in its belly. Soon we entered our compartment and settled down in our seats. Hard plastic did little to warm us on that cold Friday morning, so we resorted to talking about our plans once we get there to distract us from the biting cold. The train silently worked up to speed, and so did the people. It seemed that the people were indeed part of the train, powering up when it did. Soon every square inch of the train's floor was either covered in sports shoes, chappals, or a baby. A few stops later, we heard the low rumble of Brian's voice behind us and turned to see Brian, Tony and Zaha tackling the crowd to get to our seats. all of us had the same attire. A pair of jeans, a cotton shirt and a sweatshirt. Zaha having worn his club sweatshirt, a bright red would be an excellent beacon in the crowds of Mumbai. Tony, Brian, Patrick and Zaha, all had worn sandals, and I a pair of mesh shoes. Random as they might seem, both these facts are of the essence. 

The rails and wheels sang a rhythmic song as we thundered down the railroad, and the sky blushed a rosy red as it heralded the coming of a new day. We stared at this glorious canvas of nature, looking forward to what it would bring. In retrospect, this was when we should have recalled the age old saying;

"Red sky at night, sailor's delight

Red sky in the morning, sailor's warning"

 Brian Lara :
The mother hen of our group, taking care of us, advising us in every situation, and helping us out in every event and rushing about the place to the extent that a rock in the head and a loss of more than a few IQ points wouldn't have been a bad thing.
On the plus side, we really did face quite a few tough situations, and this guy didn't lose his cool at any time despite being..... Well, I'll let heat absorption explain the rest.

Wilfred Zaha :
Aptly tagged, this guy was a major headache to me, personally, and if he had been writing this blog, he'd have called me Neil Armstrong, for reasons best left unsaid.
Either way, being one of the few people I could count on for quality advice and solutions negates his constant poking, and his ability to write one Bible of a code doesn't hurt either.

 Tony Stark :
He is Iron Man.
Pretty much anything I say about this guy would be an understatement. Now whether to take it as a compliment or not is up to the reader. Doesn't let many on to his thoughts, or I'd have called him the Hulk.
On the other hand, analytical, observant and pedantic to maddening extents, this guy is the ideal person to have to understand man and machine alike, likening him to Tony even more.

Patrick :

Easily the most composed of our ragtag bunch of 75% engineers, this guy is the glue that holds our group together. Calm, collected and understanding, his decisions are rational and well thought out. Along with a knack for PR, he is also the representative of our group in social situations.

One might think he is the voice of reason among us, but prone to fits of utter madness and chaos, unless your voice of reason is that of a monkey, our wildcard is best left in the wild. 

Yours Truly :

Insanely intelligent, manly as a chainsaw that shoots beer bullets and devastatingly handsome, yours truly is as flawless as this description is true.