In pursuit of tomorrow

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with this day, a day called ‘Tomorrow’.

On one side, it gives us Hope. Hope that what is pending today, might be completed tomorrow. It gives us a brand new day to work upon. A day to start a new task, follow a new regime, pursue a new dream. In case of a hectic day, tomorrow will be the day when we’ll dance our troubles away.

On the other side, the day sometimes is an ‘illusion’. I have to start studying tomorrow, so many mornings came and went, this ‘tomorrow‘ never really arrived. It allows us to procrastinate. It allows us to be lazy today. It’s a nice way of avoiding things, even if temporary.

We all travel through both sides of the road I guess. It’s difficult to say which side is right and which is wrong. Rather, there’s no right or wrong.

But, in this journey, you should not forget about the auspicious day called ‘Today’. I see many people around working hard just for their tomorrows, right from their childhood till retirement. They never really enjoy their present. Yes, dreams and ambitions should be big, you should sacrifice some joy today for a better future, but don’t do this all your life. Don’t live your life with the tension of ‘things to do’ list. You might move from one success to another, without really savoring it.

Enjoying your today so much that you leave all most of your work for tomorrow is also not the right thing. By this, although you are living today to the fullest, you are making tomorrow a horrible day. Plus, someone else might fill in your shoes, and you won’t be required for tomorrow. The opportunity that knocked today might not wait till tomorrow.

Balance is the key I guess. Working for a better tomorrow is essential, but freaking out about the troubles that you may face tomorrow isn’t a wise thing. Relishing today is important and so is cherishing tomorrow.

Engineering reloaded

Few days back, a friend of mine studying in class 12th asked me if I could come along with her to a seminar cum counseling session called as ‘An insight into engineering’ given by a famous coaching class that trains for both, the CET as well as engineering subjects. I know that such seminars are all about publicity, another of those time wasting exercises, but I had nothing better to do, so I agreed to attend it with her.

Some guy in his thirties in a loud and clear voice started explaining ‘what is engineering about?’; Something which I couldn’t figure out after three years of engineering. Then he spoke of how important is the first year and if you don’t figure out how to get around things in the first year, how the rest of the years will be difficult for you. 'First year is the foundation for everything, here’s where you get the basics right' he added.

Basics what, being friends with the person who writes assignments, being a regular at the Xerox place, finding someone to make your ED drawings and all, I wondered. Then he started talking about individual branches of engg and here’s when I started dozing off. After almost an hour gone, I looked around to see students still paying attention with the same enthusiasm. How fast your attention span can reduce after getting admit to an Engg college is what I was thinking about!

After the seminar, there was the counseling session. Seriously bored by then, I decided to have some fun. Students in group of 3 were counseled by the volunteers of the coaching class. I pretended to be a class 12 student along with my friend. At first, I preferred listening to the questions my friend was asking such as 'Is engineering difficult?' 'Which colleges are the best for engg?' and more such questions. He mentioned my college name as one of the best ones. I felt happy for a moment. He also said, "First year is the most difficult, but don't worry, if you join our classes, you will have done the syllabus a month before the exam leaving ample time for revision".Then he asked me whether I have any questions.

I was kinda waiting for this. I asked him what distinguishes a good engg college from an average engg college. He answered ‘ Good engg colleges have good professors who give wonderful insight into the subject and they have good research facilities, good labs and other infrastructure.’ Those exact words he said. A picture of my profs flashed for a minute in my mind. Period.

Next question I shot was, ‘How good is the interface of an engg college with the industry?’
He answered, “Every year, most colleges arrange Industrial visits (IV s) to get student interaction with the industry; they are quite good for budding engineers”. I can’t remember how I controlled my laughter then. Man, people can lie!

Then I bombarded another question, ‘If I enter Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering, which companies will offer me in college placements?’
He answered, “There are the telecom companies like Vodafone, Airtel, Idea and also internet providers like Hathway, MTNL etc. who come for placements. You can also get into good core electronic companies such as Siemens, Falcon, Samsung, Sony etc. through good colleges like a, b, c, d.” one of those colleges was mine. He also said that some people also end up with software or financial jobs. Unless the word ‘some’ meant ‘almost everyone’, it didn’t reflect the truth. When I asked him about the course of Electronics and Telecom Engineering, the answer he gave me could very well have been termed as something even no professor of this subject in any college, has done in his lifetime.

A few more questions and I was wondering which of his answers was the most hilarious one. He was like an in-form batsmen hitting sixers all over the ground. For a while it made me wonder whether I was studying the same thing this guy is talking about. If I were to do it all over again, would I do things differently? Nah, I love my life and love the journey that has been so far. I would change nothing about it, not even a single thing!

A 'Drama' tic post

I adore going to the drama theatre. It is a more pleasing experience for me than seeing a movie. A bit weird it might seem, but very true. I’ve seen a plethora of live dramas, and can still watch many more at the price higher than a movie ticket.

It gives me a very different feeling to that of a movie. It’s like someone is giving in his 100% performance, not once, not twice, but every time he performs. No matter what his mood that day is, or whatever the problems in his daily life are, he has to the same for every show. Going behind the set in a flash, changing costume and coming back as a different character altogether in less than half a minute. Making mistakes would ruin the reputation of the show and thus his future earnings too.

Plus, the attitude in India towards drama isn’t very positive, both as a career option and as a viewer base. The salaries earned by the actors are much less than what TV actors get without possessing half the talent. Fewer people are present to view the drama and lot of this amount goes into the hall rent, building up the sets and the people working behind the scenes that actors have to bear with an amount which is much smaller than they deserve. The cost of a drama show is almost equivalent to a movie ticket in India. So sad, but true. Despite that, most viewers are people long beyond their youth.

Cost of watching a drama in England is around 35 to 50 pounds. This is more expensive than watching a live premier league game; certainly more expensive than watching a movie. Still people of all ages turn up there to see a drama there, with the same enthusiasm of seeing a movie. TV serial actors over there aspire to be associated with a good drama someday. Here in India, such a step would be considered as a step backwards. We care so much about publicity, don’t we? Whose gonna watch a drama, millions would rather be watching me on a TV show or for that matter even a commercial.

Neways, coming back to my love for drama; I’ve seen my cousin directing a play in her college. It was amazing to see how much of hardwork they went through before the final product. It was a play based on communal riots which won the ‘Purshottam Award’ for the best college drama that year. It’s considered to be the most auspicious college level drama award in Maharashtra. The energy and enthusiasm you see in it, makes you wanna do only one thing, stand up and applaud.
Apart from these, it was also great to see many college dramas at Malhar a few years back. Some of the plays in our college Quadrangle on weekends are also good. I also remember watching a pantomime contest in Pune a while ago. Even without speech, they conveyed such beautiful messages and such nicely did they depict emotions that brought tears in my eyes. Just like the Charlie Chaplin movies. Last year, on one of the college days, we had prepared a 10 minutes skit by the four batches of our class. It proved to be such a fun task and everyone was so happy at the end of the day. We’ll never forget that day.

Lastly, language is not that important, as long as the emotions and actions are conveyed to the viewer. I’ve watched a lot of Marathi plays, a few Gujarati plays, English plays and one Korean play too; and have been able to decipher most of those. According to me, what the play conveys is more important that what language is used. One Gujarati play on Shri Krishna had such a mellifluous sound of flute playing in the songs that completely mesmerized me without understanding a word.

We say many a times to our friends, “Chalo, let’s go to a movie”. Hoping that someday we would say “Let’s go for a drama” too…