Thursday, May 14, 2009

MS renamed MJ - Masters of Jugaad

Jugaad - an arrangement or a work around, which have to be used because of lack of resources and/or will power.

Some people here in my university have enlightened my mind with this word by their exemplary performance. A google search on Jugaad gives some positive meanings also, but here I do not intend to mean it positively. For me, it is an act of using people ( by some uncanny tricks ) for your own benefits and getting rewarded for something which you do not deserve. A person who is known for such acts is called as Jugaadu in colloquial Hindi language.

I have been observing few people are getting extremely good grades in many subjects despite of their very little participation in doing things on their own. These people make a network of similar souls and share code, assignments and everything that they could share. Needless to say, they themselves do not put in infinitesimally small amount of time / efforts in making it happen, instead they ask for help to some of their friends ( here literal meaning of friends should not be taken into consideration. Friend for them is someone who can directly share rather give his code without even worrying about the consequences - and their "friendship" could break into pieces the moment a motive is achieved). Few days back, I was extremely agitated by some incidents and wanted to write about it, but my finals were approaching so did not really get time for that. Now that I am free, I will be kicking some serious asses today.

Copying somebody's work and putting it under your name is a crime in itself but many people disagree to this point. Chalta hain, dekha jayega, sab karte hain like statements are nothing but a cowardly act of supporting your baseless points. Someone who puts in efforts and works out things must get credit for his / her work. And somebody who is copying his / her work must get punished, I know I am sounding really harsh on this point but you would think exactly same if you were in my position. The root of this problem goes right into the mentality of human. Many of us (including me) want things to be available easily and readily and do not want to take efforts in making something work. But I think, higher education has offered me a chance to disprove the above statement and I should try my level best to do so. Some people do not seem to mind this fact seriously, though. All of them want to have a very high GPA and a very high paying job, but they want it without taking any pains. A jugaadu in general will find another talented / hard working guy and will do anything to please him / her , cause he / she is the one who is obviously doing all work and our friend is least bothered about it. I am not against making good teams but think everyone should have an active participation in their work if all of them want same grades. Some people are even more worse, they themselves don't know what is going on in their project and somehow end up getting close to 'A', and preach others how easy the subject was and how stupid others are. Such flavor of jugaadu gives me nothing but aggravation.

I would be more than happy if the problem ends here. But alas, as they say one rotten apple spoils the barrel, a jugaadu advocates and attracts someone with similar characteristics. When such people find a higher position in any hierarchy, they start expanding their vicious circle until the system becomes a big, intermingled web of mess. Many deserving candidates get nothing but rejection when such people make their decisions, and that is a serious problem. After that overwhelming incident few days back, I felt some people do not deserve a master's degree - forget about a job in United States.

But one can't help this - there are always some elements in every system who are corrupted and the system is functioning properly only because of some honest people. Fortunately God has given us that much ability to decide where we want to see ourselves.

Whatever - one thing is true - MS is no more Master of Science for me, it's Master of Jugaad !

23 comments:

vijay said...

I completely agree with what you have written in this blog. We can't help it much. Only thing we can do is try to be as honest as possible and hope everyone does the same. Nice post.

Rohan Vishwasrao said...

well written!

Prashant Bhole said...

Yeah, I have gone through the same in my MCS days. Students from other colleges used to ask me and my project partners to share our project code with them. That was not enough, they wanted training of the project along with the code!
Many engineering students *buy* a project

What's in the name said...

You've written my mind boss!!
hats off to you :)
you have the guts!

Gaurav Mehya said...

simply awesome....

What's in the name said...

I admit that I did it for the first and the last time in my life for a selfish purpose and haven't been able to look into the mirror ever since..I resolve not to indulge in such mal-practices and to punish severely those who do it!

What's in the name said...

and don't worry about the people who do it...once they are out of the university they'll suck at all the jobs assigned to them at their workplaces...they'll have to get the balls to do it on their own...

MS said...

Well done boy, u have put things in words. i think u shd have been more harsh in your words and shd have put subtle references to those a******s. i m sure this blog is going to reach them. seeing references to their name would have been fun...

Sooraj Purandare said...

nice 1 OD..

Gopal said...

"preach others how easy the subject was and how stupid others are" me too dislike this kind of person. Rest is fine for me, I don't care. Keep on checking what I have learned and what has to be learned in near future (keep on improving yourself). Thats it. Anyway nice blog :)

Sooraj Purandare said...

gopal ka attitude mast hai .. :)

Anu said...
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Anu said...

I guess it would reach to more "JUGAADU" ppl if u put this link on our University community on orkut. So, that new comers will know that even if they dont have any knowledge they can surely make use of thr god gifted "JUGAADU" skills to get good grades and secure a high paying job in some good company.
I dont even fear god so much than I fear these "JUGAADU" ppl :( they can do anything with thr "JUGAADU" skills. They have some much power that they can even a get a job without giving interview or get good grades just by licking the boots of the ppl in authority.
Thr is no point in talking on this stuff anymore "JUGAADU" ppl will remain "JUGAADU". God bless :)

anyways nicely written blog well narrated and perfectly explained :)
Cheers :)

goaasim said...

Your concern is totally justified giving the amount of hard work you have put in, but I want to put in a suggestion here.

You see, a university is a place to learn, not a place to compete, its like a sandbox for the real world. A university is the only place where you will find so much diversity in one place. When you interact with these people you will find some of them friendly, some fiendish. You are expected then, to learn to handle and manipulate such people in your favor by trying out different strategies against them. If you lose you got nothing to lose, if you win, you have learnt a valuable lesson. These people skills that you learn will then play an important part in shaping your career. So, dont think of jugadu or whatever people you find hostile as your competition, but as your test.

I do understand that this is more difficult said than done, so, instead of critisizing your point of view anymore I want to tell you a real life story that might illustrate my point. S L Kirloskar was a pioneer industrialist of India. During the early part of his career, he had a lot of competetion for his water pumps line of business. Most of these competetors were really jugadu kind of people who were selling cheap and badly designed pumps at a much lower cost than the Kirloskars. SLK was a visionary who saw that these cheap pumps were eventually going to hamper India's progress, and this gave him sleepless nights. So, he decided that he will instead give all the Kirloskar's superiour pump designs to these competetors. His vision here was that if these competitors anyways wanted to sell cheap pumps, let them at least sell good quality goods, and as far as losing the edge over the competion was concerned, he very confidently said that no other company in the world can ever match the quality and standard that Kirloskar had to offer.

The lesson to learn here is like what Saurabh Shah said. It might seem that some people might go ahead of you by using your assistance, but the fact remains that no one will be able to match the creative ability and orignality that work possesses.

Cheers,
Aasim

Sooraj Purandare said...

lai philosophy jhadu lagle ahet bhau pora... :)

Mohsin said...

well, can't say *I* never copied stuff during my engg dayz..but atleast I never claimed credit.. anyway I too hate the 'kam khatam, dosti khatam' jugaadu types.. but yes, they are to be found everywhere, not only at the college, even at the workplace..

Anonymous said...

i hope this blog has reached the intended audience..
hope they feel some shame on reading it ...
hope they realise their aukat

Unknown said...

very nice ....gud blog...I agree to most of the points..but I would like to highlight something..In contemporary world , only sincerity and hardwork are not the only things which matters ...there is one more thing ..that is smartness ...There are times when everybody needs to do jugaad ..not always its right ...but yes sometimes its a better option to save urself from drowning....people may support the ethical values taught to them , but there are certain times when they also do the same..." JUGAAD "..but the only thing which makes a difference is ...how smartly you work out the things in this world ..

Paresh said...
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Paresh said...

ery aptly put dude. I have plenty of cases in my univ to support...n while they are showing off their 4 pointers...the really talented lot are languishing in the 3's.
and because of people like these, indians in almost all universities are considered cheats. We had a series of lectures on cheating and plagiarism, and the only indians and chinese students were the targeted audience. It was such an embarassment. Unfortunately these people don't have any shame. A few were recently caught and punished accordingly.

Sooraj Purandare said...

sonal v intelligent comment yaa.
well written.. i was pleasantly surprised to see such a mature approach.. well done !

Apurv said...

Really nice blog!!..You will find these MJs everywhere and sincere guys always feel the same disgust.Sadly these guys can also be seen as "smart" people if they could manage to get 'A's in spite of hard partying and other activities. And they would never feel regret!! Anyways great job Onkar for putting our frustration in words.

Anonymous said...

Jugaadus could be tolerated to some extent in grad colleges.. frankly speaking.. its more or less justified when done in grad colleges.. people hardly know what they are getting into and can't be blamed too harshly for their ignorance.. I am sure some will disagree, but this is what I think..

in universities..its a different matter altogether.. people know what they are getting into.. and they have chosen it for themselves..

I am not sure if this post will reach the intended audience... I think it will turn out like the "piracy is a crime" ads.. those who watch pirated movies will never see the message.. those who are against piracy and buy originals will have to endure 2 minute lecture on how "piracy is stealing" every time.