New Chapter

The noise around me did not help the emptiness within. I still remember the day couple of weeks ago. The day when I left College Park. I have loved this place. Every face around me reminded me of a story that day. It does feel good when you have about 20 people to wake up at 8 on a lazy Saturday morning just to say goodbye. Feels great to see so many people care! Precious moments; similar to the ones when I first left Mumbai to come to US. 

There were 20+ reasons around me for not living a lonely life and a few more reasons were just a phone call away. I had come here with 3 bags and left the place with a few more, that too without much shopping.

Memories flashed by. The two times when my bank balance touched zero. My first paycheck, walking up to IHOP at 4 in the morning. Several job interviews which I screwed over, few that went well. The day we moved in and shared the apartment with hundred different cockroaches in the kitchen. The day when I went unprepared for a group presentation and ended up saying things like ‘All that shines is not gold, everything has a dark side’ and the whole economics class laughed. 

I can go on. I’ve met some really good people along the way. Sometimes, you have bad experiences, but if you look one level deeper, the people where never bad. The circumstances were. Every Indian student in US knows that he has spent a fortune coming here and will look out for ways to recover it. There’s nothing wrong in that, except in the process you knowingly or unknowingly end up hurting people who are dear. 

The apartment where I first lived - Seven Springs!

Now after 2 years, the fight was over for most around. The waters were calm. When everything looks perfect, there comes the time to move on. You cannot be at the training grounds forever; someday you have to play the match for real.

I don’t know how that world would be. I do not have the experience of swimming in corporate waters. But the days of tracking the next bus on mobile would surely be remembered after buying the first car. Cooking food for 8 people will be replaced by cooking food for yourself or eating outside. Early mornings will be ‘in the office’ and not ‘in the bed’. The long phone calls will be cut down. 

The dream was cut, it was time to say good bye. The train moved and my friend called saying ‘You have left a few things behind’. I looked at my bags, they were all there. 

‘Memories’, he said!

What Next

What Next?? 

I’ve faced this question too many times and almost every time, I had only two words to say ‘No idea’. I chose to join IIT coaching classes ages back just because one of my good friends did. To be frank, I did not have the faintest of idea what IITans did. I had no clue where I was heading. I have no clue why I chose ‘Electronics and Telecom’ either. Back then, I could have selected any branch and it would’ve really made no difference. 

The ‘Go with the flow’ mentality makes you feel comfortable sometimes. You feel safe when you know that you are heading in the direction which thousands of students follow every year. You know you are assured of a job which will ensure safety. It may not necessarily be the thing you like, but like swimming, you learn to float on the water first and then when you are safe, you start swimming.

 A couple of years back when I was sitting in my college canteen and chatting with a senior of mine, he made a really interesting comment. He said ‘Some people climb the mountain too early and when they reach the top, they have no idea what to do’. Isn’t it true? Haven’t you come across people who choose the path of MS or MBA after engineering just for the sake of reaching heights? If you ask these people,’ why MBA?’ they will fumble. 

It is not wrong to be free-flowing, the flexibility is amazing and you eventually start liking what you do. But it is terrible if you end up not liking what you do. That dream job of yours which has caught your attention because of the fat paycheck may give you more headache than money. The MBA in finance which you chose purely on the basis that this particular college is famous for Finance will lead to you doing things that you have no interest in. 

After coming to US, I’ve learned to be brave and pursue what I really want. There is one course in my department which is ‘one-of-a-kind’ in all of US and there is stiff competition to get that one. I had the opportunity to choose that course but I chose against it. I will not end up learning something that does not interest me. Companies are not classified as ‘Dream’ and ‘Normal’ for the amount of money they pay. 

I know this took a lot of time, but now I know exactly what I want to do ahead in life. Luckily for me, that’s going to be my next step, however, it wouldn’t have made a difference if there was a transition step in between. The destination is what makes the journey worthwhile. 

After all this ‘hoopla’ a couple of years down the line I may figure out this is not the thing I really like. That will be the time to write another fresh blog.

In Transit

‘Kaam Chalu’….or ‘Work in progress’ was written on the diversion created by the Reliance Metro work going on in Mumbai. I bet this phrase was not just for the Metro, but for almost all my friends….and yes, me too.

Two years after engineering and everyone around is ‘In Transit’ mode. Moving towards the ‘One Big Break’ with more urgency than ever before; bearing all the troubles, the confusion, the chaos to see a better tomorrow. It was not the city which I left a couple of years ago. Probably when the Metro would come up a couple of years later, it would be a little more comfortable, but people have suffered a lot for this comfort. Nevertheless, building the Metro was essential. 

Like Will Smith will put it forward as ‘This little part of my life is called struggle’. But the best part of the city is that it never complains. Never about the traffic, the crowd, the troubles. These things are always going to be there. Life goes on. There are always ways of going about things. Banning the ‘Hookah’ does not stop the people from having it, or the restaurants from serving it. 

When I look at most of the friends I have, I feel the same thing. They are in transit, just like me, but that hasn’t changed a lot of things. They are still the same as I knew them. Just a little adjusted to let go the little curved balls that life has thrown at them. When life throws curved balls, these people never asked ‘Why?’

It feels nice. Life will always be in transit. Are you the person who honks at the traffic when a new flyover is being constructed or are you the one who blasts music in the car without caring much about the traffic makes a difference.

Bitter Sweet Symphony

'I hate my life, everything in India was so perfect. I left that for what? More money, comfortable life, what else?'..I did not know how to react. I had to wait for my friend to finish up before I said anything. It was just the both of us and I knew I had to handle this carefully.

Tears rolling, face full of frustration and words of anger. This was certainly not a case of failure. Let's call the person 'X'. I used to admire X's life, way too classier than mine. I never expected this to happen. X and breakdown - Never!!

For a moment, I began thinking about my life. I too miss being in India. I am missing the perfect set of friends I had there too. I miss them badly. It takes a moment to 'crack down' and it takes a moment to 'collect all the pieces and get up again'. Just that these moments never come together.

What if I would have been in India? Life would have not been the same, same thing about friends. Full time job is no 'Engineering college'. If loneliness has to strike you, it will strike you on the busiest street in the world. My friend knows all of this. Getting into trouble and coming out of it was nothing new for X but today was a different day.

What do I do, reach for the phone, call someone, talk to parents. But broadcasting would have done more harm than good. Nobody wants the ugly part of their life to be known to others. As I was thinking all of this, I realized that I had missed the last 5 sentences that 'X' had said. But I could sense that they were on the lines of 'How messed up my life is' types. You feel sad sometimes when people lose courage. It's not bad to fall into deep pit, it's bad if you lose the confidence that you'll come out of it.

I was thinking about things that could cheer 'X' up; trying to remember the things that cheered me up during my 'lows'. Once I had viral fever and I had to sit home all week while everyone else was off to the University. Made me homesick. My mom would have taken special care of me had I been back home. That day, 'a totally unexpected friend' made hot soup for me. That soup simply made my day and took away the homesickness.

I had no time to make food. I remembered about the 'Dairy Milk' chocolate in my pocket. It came from the parcel that dad had sent me from India. I had reserved it for someone's birthday that night. It was the right time to take that out. Yes it worked...I wonder how 'Dairy Milk' did the trick. Life's like that, 20 rupees is all you need to get out of shit! Dad send me more Dairy Milk, 'kuch meetha ho jaaye'.

Smooth Transitions

For some reasons, transitions have been super smooth for me. Be it from School to Junior College, College to Engineering, Engineering to MS.

Somehow, the 'firsts' of everything have been near perfect. The start of something new. The time when people around you run with all the 'Goody-Goody' projection of themselves. In a couple of months, the make-up fades and you see the real faces.

The last hop of the transition till now has been 'The most interesting one'. Coming to US, everything is new. You are away from everything, the perfect set of friends you had back at home in India, your parents, your family everyone. In the first month of landing in US, you have a hundred different stories happening around you. The job search stories, house hunt stories, roommate trouble stories, rumors et al.

Basically you are loaded with too much stuff to keep it to yourself. You are on the lookout for new avenues to vent out these stories. Damn!!!You run into the wrong person and your story is a broadcast in the entire batch. Trust, who, what, when???

The 'Trust Building' period is amazing. Here, you are not too sure about the people who you can trust. At the same time, you are projecting yourself as a trustworthy person. It's tricky. If you reveal too much about yourself, you are more likely to land in trouble than adding a new friend to circle of trust. On the other hand, if you remain that person who holds on to their cards for long, you might remain holding on to them forever and watch other people play.

I use some really stupid but effective tricks for navigating around this maze. I use some really 'trivial information (hyped up, of course) which I absolutely do not care about' and tell the 'Target' person about it and ask him or her to not reveal it to anyone.If I come to know about it from someone else within a week, i know what to do!

The beginning is always interesting, you remember it at all the twists and turns. Now, when I am right there knocking at the exit door of MS, everything has pretty much stabilized. The glass is clear. I miss those times. I see the juniors revisiting these times and I really want to be one of them right. Or wait a second, do I?? When I get a job, it will be another set of beginnings that I'll look forward to.

Looking for yet another smooth transition.

Blog Spot

I was browsing through my blogs yesterday. Reminded me of the beginning; 3 and a half years rewind. Feels like just a few days have passed between now and then. I’d never thought I would complete 10 posts and now here comes number 75.

Blogging means a lot to me now. It is a big part of my life. No matter how busy you get in life, you would always find the time for the things you really like. Blogging is one such thing for me. I know I am not one of those artistic writers who would come up with masterpieces from time to time; neither do I have good story-telling skills. I have come across much better writers and I really like reading their blogs. Their blogs are a pleasure to read.

I like this place! Facebook will take over Orkut, tomorrow Google plus might throw away Facebook, people may lose their interest in twitter, but for me Blogspot will always be there. At times I had thought about shifting to Wordpress. It is much better than blogspot, much simpler to handle, more powerful tools. But given a second thought, do these things really matter? The content is the only things that really matter and counts for me and that wouldn’t change with the change in platform. I could do a hundred things on my blog, visitor counter, maps, an application for chat, but I prefer it to be simple, just plain writing.

I am not here to monetize or make new friends out there, write popular stuff and publish through the internet, connect through Facebook and all. I am glad that few people out there read my blog. I am happy when I see a friend or a stranger commenting or hearing from people that they read my blog and liked it or otherwise. Yet, that’s not the only thing that keeps me going.

I have nothing against Facebook and Twitter, but most of the things that I like to say cannot be really said in one or two lines. It simply does not work that way for me. For a person like me who likes to analyze things and go into the depth of it, blogging is the perfect outlet. It’s not a place where you would get 15 likes and 25 comments for cracking a joke.

The real question is do you really want it to be popular? I believe I can write more freely knowing that not many people are reading. I’m glad this does not reach out to the people whose only contribution in my life is a Happy Birthday on my wall once a year. I write for myself more than anyone else and I know I’m going to last long. Never had a writer’s block till now and I believe I would never have it ever.

To all the people who have read my blog : ‘A big thank you! Any feedback is welcome.’ I’ll continue reading other blogs too and commenting on the ones that I like. 

Summer @ Maryland

This summer has been brilliant so far for me. I like what I am doing. I am hopping between being a Web Developer during daytime and a ‘Risk Analysis’ tutoring assistant in the evening; both at the Business School. The school has been my home for the summer!

I’ve enjoyed the challenges I’ve faced at both my jobs. In particular, tutoring has been a great experience so far. Being at the other end of the class, facing the audience, it’s so different! 

I am taking a class on ‘Risk Analysis’ which is a Subject for Executive MBA at the Business School at University of Maryland. I teach an extremely talented group of MBA people who are at least 10 years elder to me, in some cases about 20. They are well established in their respective industries.

I like their approach. They know exactly what they are here for. They are here to learn more things rather than get good grades. Everyone is secure in their own field, well settled! The atmosphere is pretty much non-competitive, pretty much helpful. Just like the good old school days…and then life started becoming a ‘Race’.

It’s great to see a class full of ideas. Intriguing conversation about the simplest of the problems; it’s just the way you look at things make the difference! I remember when I took this class; little did I know there is so much to this subject. ‘Risk Analysis’ can never be taught in a classroom. The real life stories paint a beautiful canvas themselves. 

Listening to success stories of people from different fields feels fantastic. These people, when they look back, were not necessarily the brightest from their colleges or did not get the ‘Best Deal’ for the first time they tried. But all of them had great patience to climb the ladder. They knew how to grab the right opportunity at the right time.

I've learnt some new things here. A few of my students live as far as New Jersey which is more than 3 hours by car. So, it's inconvenient for them to travel all this distance and attend the class. So, I started a series of Web Seminars on WebEx. This WebEx software simply rocks, CISCO has done a great work! I was shit scared to use the software for the first time. 10 people on the conference and I'm the only one speaking. Web Seminars give you a feeling of TV reporter, you keep talking and hope that the audience grasp it! But at the end of first seminar when I un-muted each of the participant for any questions, then I'd realized that I had done a pretty god job. You will always cherish the first time, and if you are the host and the speaker both, you certainly will!

Apart from this, I sometimes get a chance to have free dinner in expensive restaurants, get dropped back home in a different car every-time. May get a chance to visit some companies and get a tour of them. Who knows, one of my students may end up giving me a full time job too and save me the trouble of hunting for one. 

Knowing all this, I know this is the easier way and also that there is a tougher way! Both will lead me to the same place. If not now, some fine day. Life is never like those GPS machines where you key in the address and follow the directions. It’s a joyride where you should stop whenever you feel like, admire, enjoy and keep going.

I’ll quote one of the sentence from my friend Gaurav’s blog!

“Life is not a race…So let the winning part be for those who think it is”