The General Secretary

The General Secretary (G.S.)

DISCLAIMER:
This article is for the general public and specifically for the “socially inactive class” of Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (V.J.T.I.), Mumbai, which bears a mention in the subsequent areas of the document. The contents of the document are not meant to intentionally hurt the sentiments of the GS, but to make the socially inactive class of VJTI aware of their campus happenings.

The life of a socially active third year engineering student can either be absolutely flamboyant or in plaintive shatters.
Now in a college like VJTI , which stands a host to various events like technical, cultural and sports ( not to forget Rose-Day, Teacher’s Day and Ganeshotsav as well), the perennial activity of the social group barely needs to be elaborated. Now, ‘Social Group’ is nothing akin to BJP, BSP or JD. It is the first authority of the college which conducts the year-round activities in the college campus. The Social Group is a collection of some important students ( the degree of importance of every student member can be best decided as per the personal claims made by the student ) and some professors who re-direct the action on the forefront. The Social Group invariably gives you ample opportunities to be innovative, judgemental , blunt , conscious and most importantly politically correct ( or ‘diplomatic’ in lay man’s terms ). So there is a bunch of candidates ( includes “genuinely deserving” ones and “genuinely claiming to be deserving” ones) who wish to apply for the illustrious post of the General Secretary ( GS ). Believe me friends, you will never find a larger number of aspiring engineers struggling to be a ‘secretary’( and that too a ‘general’ one!! ).
The horizons of the Social Group encompass only the ‘socially active students’. As per a former mention, there always exists a substantial number of students, who at the end of four years of a rigorous (!!) course can claim to have the profound knowledge of running motors or encoding programs. Categorizing them as “socially inactive” is derogatory to their brilliant pointers and conceptual understanding. Yet, the ease of addressing them like this, tempts me to use the phrase with a high frequency. I’m sorry for giving into this temptation… The ‘socially active class’ on the other hand knows how to conduct Pratibimb, Technovanza or Enthusia..( names of our college festivals ) without having a fair understanding of what is happening in their classrooms and majorly screwing up their pointers on the scoresheet.
Note: The repeated use of the word “social” can be justified on the grounds that the author herself is an existing member of the ‘Social Group’.
Now, back to our post of the General Secretary - the process of getting selected as one is more nerve-wrecking than getting a BTech degree altogether! The process is elaborated as under-
Step 1: This includes elimination of undeserving candidates. “Undeserving” is a relative term. Even a “genuinely claiming to be deserving” candidate may ‘find’ a fellow candidate undeserving. The search results for the ‘findings’ of the former for the latter can be varied – ranging from animosity, jealousy or a simple reason that- “ he/she is not a part of my group and/or I hate him” ( ‘group’ here does not refer to Social Group but indicates friend-circle ). So, on such diverse grounds, we have 5-6 ( at times even 8 ) candidates ( who are unable to reach a consensus ) vying for three possible vacancies. The elimination is the carried out by conducting elections which forms the Step 2 of our elaborate process to reach the ornamental position of the General Secretary.
Step 2: Elections
These are again of two types:
Staged and not staged ( i.e genuine ..haha!! ) . The early stage of preparing for the elections includes garnering ‘support’. Now in VJTI, we have a hostel. So, the support system consists of ‘hostelites’ and ‘localites’. If you have the right set of ‘contacts’ , your support system can become exceedingly larger than that of your rivals. The contesting candidates can exploit all fair means to ensure an impregnable support system. Once this is done, an auspicious day is selected and three victorious candidates are elected! ( I hope you appreciate the rhythm of this sentence..) if you find this process to be genuine, then my class elections were of type 2.
Step 3: The 3 candidates elected from every branch now have to submit a proposal to the panel of teachers of the Social Group. The proposal includes an elaborate description of how they intend to conduct the event and its various aspects like budget, sponsorship, publicity, etc.. the proposal is comparable to the blueprint of the mega-event . The candidates are interviewed for about 15-20 minutes by 4 to 6 teachers. The total number of candidates can be anywhere between 15 to 20 for the 8 most enviable positions of the Social Group.
Step 4: After studying the proposals, the panel can chose to eliminate candidates on various grounds ( attendance, scores, residence, etc .. ) and select the most deserving candidates for the available posts. The results are declared on another auspicious day and the new set of names of Social Group student members are on display on the various notice boards of the college.

Now, the elaborate process is over. The GS is selected. He/she suddenly becomes the most sought after person in the college. People want to talk to the GS, work for the GS and if at all you were not on good terms with the GS, you might as well end up trying to develop good relations with the GS. They say that “Rome was not built in a day” but the GS definitely is!! This explains the flamboyance of the life of a third year socially active engineering student… The position of the General Secretary comes with immense responsibility and enviable fame. It can even result in spoiling the relations developed with peers which flourished in the preceding years. The GS has to bear the brunt of inefficacy on the part of team members, ego clashes and difference of opinions and still get his/her work done in the best possible manner. This justifies the phrase ‘plaintive shatters’ used in the latter part of the opening sentence of the document.

The GS has to do loads of planning, organization, coordination and brainstorming with his/her colossal team and most importantly – never be wrong. Even if the GS cant be right everytime, it is instrumental for him/her to NOT be wrong. Very difficult task….i guess!
To sum up, I can say that belonging to the socially active class gives you a sense of the real world on a smaller scale. So, there is an element of pride in being a part of the Social Group. What is in store for our GS hereafter will be propounded in the next expert document to be released soon…!!!