Dear Principal Muthal, Let me start this letter by following the traditions of our land and wish you

a very Happy Diwali and a prosperous New Year. I hope that you and your family are in excellent health and are happy, be they staying with you there in Nagpur, India or anywhere in the world. Let this letter be a reminder to you for the love and respect that your students feel for you and the Land we have left back in the pursuit of the new, the unchartered, and the unknown. I am living a good life here. In terms of being a student, I could not ask for a better life, not because of the comfort that I live in here, but exactly opposite of that. The sheer extent to which I and my fellow International students have been taken out of our comfort zones is staggering. It acts as the best catalyst in pursuing this life-long process of learning. Of appreciation of Academia and the simple nobility of it. Indeed, I understand now that life begins way out of our comfort zones. More on that later. This letter is supposed to address my ideas/suggestions to create something new for my Junior students back home. Or at least my ideas on what its guiding force should be. Madam, let me tell you the simple philosophy that guides my life. Although its text is not intellectually daunting like the vivid, onerous discussions done on this topic in our old texts, I find it pretty functional. My life is guided simply by two principles. 1) To learn more about the Universe that we live in than what I knew yesterday. 2) In the process of learning, trying to lessen the suffering of others. It sounds simple but it works for me. I have learned a lot about the simple philosophies that guide not just our lives, but have understood what should guide our purpose, morality. It has been a very good year indeed, intellectually. My current world view has been shaped by listening to the simple logic of people like Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Christopher Hitchens, Carl Sagan, Cenk Uygur and too many others to list. If I were in your place, I would highly encourage my students to check those gentlemens books/lectures. The student in me has been stimulated incessantly by these learned, accomplished gentlemen. Indeed, books have been the guiding/defining force in my life. They have shaped my worldview as they have done to millions of other students before me, in the positive way. Indeed, if one does not read, they are doomed indeed. We cannot personally meet the intellectual giants that have walked on this earth with us, because quite a few of them are dead now. Also, I would not be keen to meet them in person for the fear of an AntiClimax. However, I can see them, converse with them in the books that they have written. In them, the best of us are immortal forever. Except Id like to talk with Sir Isaac Newton. The guy who invented Differential Calculus in two days, just to explain how gravity works is someone Id give an arm and a leg to talk to. Observing myself, following are some of the issues that I feel that should have been addressed in course of my education in India. Sometimes, I cant help but feel that had I started working on these things earlier, Id be better suited for acquiring knowledge here. Not just acquiring knowledge garnered by others, I wish to give something back to the world. My own intellectual Input. They are as follows 1) Leadership Quite a few Indian students are scared of the Academic process. I know that because I was one of them. Also, I met innumerable people who felt the same way as I did. There is some kind of an inexplicable notion that is fixed in our heads that failure is final. Also, the practice of making a spectacle of failure of people in front of other people in the class is very common. Non-compliance with the instructors approach toward the subject will get you in trouble. I have had that happen to me and my friends multiple times. That crushes the soul of the student in you. You just try and strive to obtain validation from your peers, family, and teachers by trying to obtain as many marks as possible in exams. A very stupid and toxic practice indeed. Making

someone feel that their quality as a person is defined by something written on a piece of paper is one of the primal failures of our more than two centuries old Educational system. It was established by the British Monarchy to crush our national spirit and discourage free thought. The very basic essence of Slavery, which they sought to establish and did establish successfully. Indeed, we as a people are free today, but mentally I feel, we still remain Chained thanks to this archaic educational system. Thus, to not make a spectacular fool of themselves in case of a failure in front of a crowd, the students are unwilling to lead. Same is true in the case of the Chinese students. Few of our teachers have encouraged us to innovate. We were just expected to follow. Follow the curriculum, pass the exams, get a good score, and get a job in a software company. End of story. This, I feel should be the FIRST thing to change. 2) Self-Confidence and Independence Continuing on my last point on leadership, I want to expound upon the importance of self-confidence and independence. Onerous amounts of self-pity and a hopeless dependence on people for things that are critical for being successful in Academics are one of the cornerstones for the lackadaisical attitudes that Asian Students have towards education. As I previously said, the final objective is just to get the aforementioned job. That is the EndGame. It should not be so. We should strive for something higher. Things like knowledge, fairness and freedom of expression. Prosperity will follow. And any prosperity that is obtained by chaining my minds to pre-established norms of an outdated knowledge/value system is something that I do not want anyway. I as my fellow students want to study whatever I want. Not just what my parents approve. My parents life is their life. They are free to choose to do whatever they wish to do to be happy, but not through me. I have observed that the offsprings education is seen as an investment on the part of the parents for their own future. If not that, the overbearing attitude towards the childs career choices that Asian parents sometimes exhibit, I feel is hereditary. Thus, for ensuring compliance with their pre-chosen educational plan for their child, the parents inundate him/her with their money. I am not saying that this happens in every case, but I have seen it to be prevalent a lot. Luckily, my parents were not one of those cases. Overdependence on daddys financial resources to obtain stuff that we do not need, with money that we dont have to impress people we do not care about is one of the central problems that are plaguing us middle-class, bourgeois students as a culture. 3) Tolerance Lets face it. Everybody hates everybody. The hardcore Marathi supremacists hate the Biharis, the Biharis hate the southies, and the so-called upper caste people hate the so-called lower-caste people and vice versa. This is another remnant of the age-old culture of division, oppression and intellectual slavery established by foreign vested interests with the sole purpose of controlling the populace that they sought to rule. This is one of the aspects of the Indian culture that has followed me here, even in the USA, but in a much milder, much more innocuous fashion. The issues that divide us are sometimes manifested in the cultural zeitgeist of the Indian community even here. I bring this up because I feel that this is one the fundamental issues that impede free thought and enterprise. We need to take a look at our history and learn from our mistakes of intolerance and hatred. We should not just understand and recognize our differences, but also appreciate them. Also, entitlement culture should stop. People wanting/expecting free stuff or special treatment just based upon their caste and other things that they did not choose is not only onerous for other students, but also fundamentally unfair. That is why I suggest that there be equality of Opportunity, not the guarantee of Equality of Outcome. Let there be a battle of ideas amongst people equals. And equality as a human is one of our basic rights. Misogyny, Racism, Casteism, Homophobia, Fascism, and Supremacist attitudes should be abhorred in any shape or form and their perpetrators severely chastised. Truth is the spark that will manifest itself when ideas, like two diamonds will strike each other as equals.

4) Appreciation of Art One of my deepest regrets is that I started playing guitar at the age that I did. Although I am pretty good now, I cant help but think what would have been had I started on it earlier. I could have been what I wanted to be much sooner. Not just an accomplished guitar virtuoso, but a man who can speak the language of music. I wish to sit in the illustrious company of artists like Knopfler, Presnyakov, Shankar, Hetfield, Hanneman, King, SRV, Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven, Rahman and too many others to name. Instead, I spent my childhood pursuing things that I am sure I would never ever use. Majority of the knowledge that I gained in my school, I have forgotten, except the one that I use now. Basic Arithmetic. Instead of cramming more information in my brain, I should have been nudged to recognize - why is it that I learn? Why do I go to school? Barring a few exceptions most of my teachers just focused on completing the course. All of my American friends are flabbergasted that I had hour-long lectures throughout the day, and completed Homework through the night. I echo their sentiment. What was the point? Was it to make me recognize what I wanted? Or was it to make me a better student? Instead of becoming a good I became a good . The artist in me was benign and the virtuoso held a pen and a paper in hand, wondering pointlessly the meaning of it all, when all that I wanted was a guitar in my hand and a song in my heart. The speed with which I could learn new things back then staggers me now. I knew the name of most of the Nebulae, galaxies and galactic SuperClusters known to mankind then. I just think how quick my understanding of the guitar fretboard had been had I started playing then. I feel that this is common with all younglings. But, luckily, at some part in my life, I did start and I did learn the guitar. I havent mastered it, because no skill can ever truly be mastered. It requires constant practice and nourishment of the soul. It has changed my life. I am a much better person now that Ive started trying to understand the language of the arts. Indeed, if we speak the language of people, our hearts language is just of Music. A constant rhythm that cannot and should not change. We just exist on this planet; I wish to tell my fellow students. On the grand scale of the Universe, we are smaller than a particle of dust Suspended in an eternity-long Desert storm of galaxies, stars and matter. How many generals have tried to conquer this inconsequential speck of matter just suspended in some forgotten corner of our Galaxy? How many confident prophets, how many haughty ideologies, how many dreamers, just wanting to make a difference have been here before we have? What really matters? Think about it. On this little piece of rock is everything that we know and ever have known. Every wounded warrior, every young couple in love, every wise old man, every child being born; everything is, has been and will be here. Just matter and energy changing forms throughout the finite, infinitesimal scale of our unified existence. I know that you have a very onerous job. You have to heed to the needs and egos of many people. You have many backs to scratch and many alliances to form. Many bridges to be built and many people to chastise. I know that you control an organization which in itself is like an organism. Self-aware and mutating. But most importantly, it is an institution of learning. This self-aware organism, Based upon the events that happen to it, or the lack of them, let me assure you that it is changing and some changes that occur during its lifetime would be permanent and difficult to reverse. We as well-wishers of this institution must work hard to ensure that detrimental changes to its guiding philosophy like the problem of intellectual slavery that I described before do not occur to it. We owe that to our alma maters.

You asked me for an Idea for an inter-collegiate event that you wish should foster permanent change. I am honored that you have considered me a viable source for suggestion in this regard. I assure you that I will be with you in making this thing happen, because I know that this could be big. If I manage to indeed make a difference as far academia in India goes, however infinitesimal it might be, I would consider myself lucky indeed. I consider myself an ardent follower of this philosophy If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea On that note, let me conclude this lengthy letter. Apologies for its length, but I felt that this needed to be said to someone as powerful and consequential as you. Not just a student, but a future member of civilization. It was long overdue and I just wanted to acknowledge what an incredibly important task rests in your hand. If I help in anyway in bringing any tangible change in this world, I would consider myself honored indeed.

I remain respectfully yours, Mangesh Sanjay Nanoti