Social Sciences 101: Lessons on Post Graduation, Marx, Life and everything that is or isn’t?

A few pointers for the 1st week of college at a premier institute of Social science:

• People no matter how broad in their outlook always look to form herds
• Read up on a German named Karl Marx and
• People from colleges like Miranda House can be “snobbish if they want to be!”

So around this Institution you are encouraged to think beyond the mainstream. Implicit in this is that you must acknowledge that the only way you can be a part of the herd here is if you wax eloquent on topics like Capitalism, caste, gender oppression and Marx.

But being a part of the herd is not what you want to be, do you? So you want to be different now and be recognised as an individual, do you? You want to take life by the scruff and seize the moment, do you?

Then remember the only way one can be one self and also be acknowledged is by speaking on topics like capitalism, caste, gender oppression and Marx!

Yes I hear you out there when you say A Rock and a hard place! Trust me I know! But remember in Post graduation even discussing the trivial makes you sound intelligent at the end of the day.


There are some who chose to break the ice using certain “Cheap party skills” like twisting their arms elbows and shoulders in such a convoluted manner that even Baba Ramdev would stop crying hoarse, make note and break his fast.

Then of course there are Iconoclasts like me who decide to break ice with conversations less significant such as the lack of affinity that certain Malayali parents have to their children. The empirical proof of this is that they name their wards, “Jincykutty”, “Bibin”, “Libin”, “Jibin”, “Aebin”, “Supromastic”, “Scholastic” and the best one that I have heard yet, “Nice Baby”
The last aforementioned person also happens to be a doctor. I leave it to you to decipher who feels more awkward while greeting him, the patient or the Doctor himself!

So remember that whenever life gets ambiguous, vague, abstract, too fluid and impossibly unmanageable please:

1. You have probably attended a 4 hour double lecture on Contemporary Indian Economics at an Institute of sheer excellence.
2. Realise that you need to get intoxicated because you have already lost it and once you manage to get over the effects of alcohol or whatever your poison is,
3. Read ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’.

The reason why I turn to Douglas Adam’s master piece titled ‘Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ is that it contains “The Answer”

"The answer to what?” you may ask, well as Adam’s puts it "The answer to Life, the Universe! To everything!" and by extension in this context the answer to the question why after spending 6 hours in a lecture hall I still chose to write about the trauma?

You see after processing the question for about 7 and a half million years a super computer called ‘Deep thought’ states with infinite majesty and calm that,
"The Answer to the Great Question..."
"Of Life, the Universe and Everything ..."
"Is ..." (pause)
"Is ..."(hold your breath, wait for it, wait for it….)
"Forty-two!"
I know the perfect answer to all WTF moments in life!