Yes, you guessed it right........it's that age-old stigma we Indians just cannot seem to shrug off......the eternal question in the middle class mind......Doctor or Engineer?...which gets more specific...computers or biotech?....even more specific...JAVA course or GRE? And the questions just keep coming!!!
Even though there are tremendous academic, peer and social pressures on today's youth and children in a country like India, there is no denying the fact that we seem to somehow, rather sheepishly, fall prey to the general herd mentality all around us....and often get flown along the strongest drift of the times! The Indian rational tradition of thinking and decision (which we, at other times, pride ourselves on) conveniently gives way to a false and hypocritical sense of future security and moral righteousness! The result? A lot of good artists, musicians, historians, poets, archaeologists and sportsmen turn up carrying T-scales and the obnoxious label of "engineering student", under the overwhelming umbrella of social respectability and class.
We keep hearing about the pathetic fates met by those few rebels among our friends and cousins, who chose to follow their passion and in the process lost out on the "race of life"! Society treats them like outlaws, as if engineering is the only divine profession worth living in.......well actually, there are a few laws driving today's engineers , not found in the numerous career counseling guide books....and who know them better than the unfortunate few, like myself, who really wanted to engineer science and almost ended up a disillusioned techie!
Law 1: Right to JEE (Joint Entrance Examination, the premier engineering entrance exam in India) is a birth-right, and every student shall have to take it, even if they prefer facing the firing squad to a maths paper!
Law 2: All important and high-scoring subjects need to be captured in notes......not the other way round.....and during exams?....well, careful strategy...after all : "Hum aam mein sab nange hai!" (Among us we are all the same)
Law 3: If you are not exceptionally intelligent and a touch lucky, you will not get to work in your dream job after college...and that is not such a bad thing, is it?
Law 4: After 2 years of work, you will feel like moving on to either an MBA or a masters, without which they say you are doomed...."but hey, 2 more years man...and then sky is the limit!"...career counseling nowadays is almost like marketing to you your own future!
Law 5: Almost every so-called "engineering job", no matter what your pay-scale is, gets intolerable after the first year...worst kept secret...but your "pseudo-engineer ego" is never supposed to give way - especially in front of the "Arts" guys!
Law 6: You feel like having a silent laugh to yourself when they call you "the IT guy" for doing the "Ctrl C Ctrl V" routine day in and day out....but then again, who cares?
Law 7: Before facing the job interview in final year, you never quite realized how important a trivial thing like communication could be!......if only you spared a few hours for the "lowly language subjects" from your JEE preparation that crucial year!
But even with laws and the divine hand of society guiding us engineers, we often stop to ask ourselves......What am I doing? Is this worth it? What if....? But then again, in comes the "herd", pushing and tossing us about.......till we give way and become a part of the crowd! We are engineers, after all...
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Journey of life
Hi everyone ! Today I feel like talking about something a touch (maybe even a press!) philosophical, so please excuse me if it gets a little heavy...but hey, we can all handle a little load, can't we? So that means we venture to ask ourselves one simple question: WHAT IS LIFE ? ....... No, I don't intend this to be an intense, didactic value education essay (I am no guru)... rather, I just want to pour out some thoughts or questions for all of us......
If we google the above question, we will get loads of book names, famous quotes, religious references, philosophy writers and what not! It probably has been asked through centuries in thousands of languages in millions of contexts....some wise men have defined life as the path to God, some others as love, some as success, some as fate, yet some as a goal worth living for, besides others. But the concept of life as just a JOURNEY always fascinated me....don't exactly know which school of thought this belongs to and it doesn't really matter anyways. The philosphy of life being a journey in time appeals to me because, for starters, it is simple to understand, and it also doesn't have religious or political undertones as the others, besides marrying well with science.
Like any journey, Curiosity is our invisible, but ever-present, co-passenger in life, always wanting to know what lies beyond the next turn! Some ways look more familiar than others (feeling of deja vu)....some roads bumpier than others....and inevitably the journey always gets slower on the rougher terrain, often making the pain more agonizing....and seems to speed over the smoother parts - too fast to enjoy the surrounding beauty to its fullest!
For the most part of our lives, we move on...... move away...... move over...... move towards.... but rarely ever move FOR something or someone......because somewhere along the entire journey, its very reason gets lost...the reason to go to the next destination erodes away and the destination starts becoming the reason!
Our lives, again like any other journey, are also checkered with images, sounds and feelings from the trail of the past....... bright memories and gray shadows from the roads left behind of childhood, teenage and youth.... by this time, our good friend Curiosity has got off somewhere and Nostalgia has got aboard. We no longer yearn to see the next turn but often look over our shoulders into the haze of yesteryears!
And finally like every journey, life has a definite beginning and end. It ends exactly in the manner it once began...with suddenness and the eternal truth of all existence...neither is there a clicking stopwatch throughout the way, nor is there a countdown at either end of the road! But it is true that some lives (the few great ones) begin from where they ended.....most great men become "great" only after their journeys end....guess only theirs should be called LIFE CYCLES, while others should be spared that scientific misnomer and just called LIVES (linearly so)! However, in spite of the eventuality of every journey's end (with no heavenly luxury facilities to look forward to!), I feel there is a certain beauty in this prosaic and nonchalant sense of mortality...... The greatness of LIFE is in the JOURNEY that comprises it! How's that for simplicity?
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." - John Lennon
"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." - Oscar Wilde
If we google the above question, we will get loads of book names, famous quotes, religious references, philosophy writers and what not! It probably has been asked through centuries in thousands of languages in millions of contexts....some wise men have defined life as the path to God, some others as love, some as success, some as fate, yet some as a goal worth living for, besides others. But the concept of life as just a JOURNEY always fascinated me....don't exactly know which school of thought this belongs to and it doesn't really matter anyways. The philosphy of life being a journey in time appeals to me because, for starters, it is simple to understand, and it also doesn't have religious or political undertones as the others, besides marrying well with science.
Like any journey, Curiosity is our invisible, but ever-present, co-passenger in life, always wanting to know what lies beyond the next turn! Some ways look more familiar than others (feeling of deja vu)....some roads bumpier than others....and inevitably the journey always gets slower on the rougher terrain, often making the pain more agonizing....and seems to speed over the smoother parts - too fast to enjoy the surrounding beauty to its fullest!
For the most part of our lives, we move on...... move away...... move over...... move towards.... but rarely ever move FOR something or someone......because somewhere along the entire journey, its very reason gets lost...the reason to go to the next destination erodes away and the destination starts becoming the reason!
Our lives, again like any other journey, are also checkered with images, sounds and feelings from the trail of the past....... bright memories and gray shadows from the roads left behind of childhood, teenage and youth.... by this time, our good friend Curiosity has got off somewhere and Nostalgia has got aboard. We no longer yearn to see the next turn but often look over our shoulders into the haze of yesteryears!
And finally like every journey, life has a definite beginning and end. It ends exactly in the manner it once began...with suddenness and the eternal truth of all existence...neither is there a clicking stopwatch throughout the way, nor is there a countdown at either end of the road! But it is true that some lives (the few great ones) begin from where they ended.....most great men become "great" only after their journeys end....guess only theirs should be called LIFE CYCLES, while others should be spared that scientific misnomer and just called LIVES (linearly so)! However, in spite of the eventuality of every journey's end (with no heavenly luxury facilities to look forward to!), I feel there is a certain beauty in this prosaic and nonchalant sense of mortality...... The greatness of LIFE is in the JOURNEY that comprises it! How's that for simplicity?
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." - John Lennon
"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." - Oscar Wilde
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Nature's Call
Hi friends! Thank you very much for tolerating my attempts of blogging! And so here I am again. After the last post, I was wondering if the grossness of the Haitian catastrophy beamed over the news networks around the world somehow enveloped the bigger picture of the crisis facing the world today !!! Why? Well because 6 months from now another disaster would have happened and the world will react in shock and sympathy, with relief measures from rich countries, UN making the headlines, candle-light prayers across the world and few making small gestures through blogs such as this.......this is the way the human world reacts to natural disaster.....but after a while the rubble gets cleared, charity is done, relief camps are set up and we get back to our usual business.......everyday business involving urbanizing forests and lakes, looting nature with drills and dynamites, wasting water and electricity, jamming up sanitation pipes with plastic, transforming the troposphere into a smoke chamber, keeping poachers in business with our exotic desires and refusing to face up to a grim future awaiting us!
Hmm, and what might that future be? Well, how about a time when drinking water would be costlier than jewelery? Or fuels rationed weekly, green parks as luxury hang-outs, simulated forest safaris and cage-less zoos with fossil enclosures? Better still, how about taxes on the oxygen we breathe in, patentable cloud-making technology, artillery for breaking waves or cars lining up at solar power stations? I know it sounds straight out of a "Day after tomorrow" kind of flick.......but let us think a bit harder on the following facts....They say that the third world war, if fought, would be .....no, not for land or oil...it will be for sweet water sources! Oil will almost run out of stock in the next 50 years, and natural gas a little later. Already chartered parks (with entry fees), much like oases, are staring to crop up in the concrete desert of metro cities. The entire forest cover of a big country like India is likely to vanish in the next 30 years. 50 animal species have become extinct in the last 100 years, with many more about to. Oxygen might be the fastest depleting(%) component of the air we breathe, and solar power looks like the only realistic hope for clean energy. Yes, my friends, these are some reasonably accurate facts.....and we need to know them....not as hi-tech environment scientists or policy-makers or business tycoons....but maybe as just responsible world citizens, who would like their kids and grandkids to inherit a planet worth living on !!!
"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." -Lao Tzu
p.s: It's now 7 am, and the street-lights haven't yet been turned off.......
Hmm, and what might that future be? Well, how about a time when drinking water would be costlier than jewelery? Or fuels rationed weekly, green parks as luxury hang-outs, simulated forest safaris and cage-less zoos with fossil enclosures? Better still, how about taxes on the oxygen we breathe in, patentable cloud-making technology, artillery for breaking waves or cars lining up at solar power stations? I know it sounds straight out of a "Day after tomorrow" kind of flick.......but let us think a bit harder on the following facts....They say that the third world war, if fought, would be .....no, not for land or oil...it will be for sweet water sources! Oil will almost run out of stock in the next 50 years, and natural gas a little later. Already chartered parks (with entry fees), much like oases, are staring to crop up in the concrete desert of metro cities. The entire forest cover of a big country like India is likely to vanish in the next 30 years. 50 animal species have become extinct in the last 100 years, with many more about to. Oxygen might be the fastest depleting(%) component of the air we breathe, and solar power looks like the only realistic hope for clean energy. Yes, my friends, these are some reasonably accurate facts.....and we need to know them....not as hi-tech environment scientists or policy-makers or business tycoons....but maybe as just responsible world citizens, who would like their kids and grandkids to inherit a planet worth living on !!!
"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." -Lao Tzu
p.s: It's now 7 am, and the street-lights haven't yet been turned off.......
Monday, January 18, 2010
Reaching out with verse
Hello again people! Why, on earth, was winter created ? And they talk of global warming !!! But in spite of that, there's no denying that winter mornings are the best excuse to run away from the busy world into a bit of verse. Nowadays I hardly get time to write poetry.....about 3-4 years back I used to write more frequently....and I miss it quite a bit! Verse is such a beautiful addiction to have(even if you are just a versifier like me)! I still remember the first poem to make a significant impact on me while in school.....it was "On his Blindness" by Milton...I loved his embrace of hope and faith in his hour of "darkness". Who's your favorite poet?
Speaking of hope, there is perhaps one place on earth which needs all our hope and prayers at this moment......Haiti, as you all know, had been struck by probably the worst earthquake ever in history, with almost no prior warning at all! I was going through some news reports.....such a beautiful country hit with such ferocity and shock! The poor island was transformed overnight from a peaceful caribbean tourist hub to a mammoth humanitarian crisis with over 50000 lives lost !
I wrote the following poem a long time back, but am rewriting it here as a small gesture towards the affected people of Haiti, who fight their loss and pain in this moment of crisis. This is a compassionate message of strength and love in celebration of humanity......it's called SILENT HARMONY.
Silent Harmony
The show had finished an hour ago,
And the harmony faded into the dark,
Shadows have peopled the empty hall
As is winter embraced by an aging lark....
Their music had ceased long before,
Loud cheers are not heard anymore,
Reverent whispers have died away
And they bid adieu for the day.
A sudden note! The breeze lights up!
The cobbler's child at his broken flute -
His broken notes grace the dark,
This touch of freedom warms the lark .... the aging lark!
The boy plays through the frozen night
And smiles at the crowd in brazen joy -
Accolades and praises deafen his soul
Until the orphan can take no more ....
Lowering his flute he screens the hall,
His restless eyes in search of a face -
The face of his mother shining still
Amidst the gloom of the balcony.
Tears pour down as the music plays on
Deep down in the bottom of his heart,
He closes his eyes and takes a bow -
The shadows leave the balcony.
--------------------------------------
Speaking of hope, there is perhaps one place on earth which needs all our hope and prayers at this moment......Haiti, as you all know, had been struck by probably the worst earthquake ever in history, with almost no prior warning at all! I was going through some news reports.....such a beautiful country hit with such ferocity and shock! The poor island was transformed overnight from a peaceful caribbean tourist hub to a mammoth humanitarian crisis with over 50000 lives lost !
I wrote the following poem a long time back, but am rewriting it here as a small gesture towards the affected people of Haiti, who fight their loss and pain in this moment of crisis. This is a compassionate message of strength and love in celebration of humanity......it's called SILENT HARMONY.
Silent Harmony
The show had finished an hour ago,
And the harmony faded into the dark,
Shadows have peopled the empty hall
As is winter embraced by an aging lark....
Their music had ceased long before,
Loud cheers are not heard anymore,
Reverent whispers have died away
And they bid adieu for the day.
A sudden note! The breeze lights up!
The cobbler's child at his broken flute -
His broken notes grace the dark,
This touch of freedom warms the lark .... the aging lark!
The boy plays through the frozen night
And smiles at the crowd in brazen joy -
Accolades and praises deafen his soul
Until the orphan can take no more ....
Lowering his flute he screens the hall,
His restless eyes in search of a face -
The face of his mother shining still
Amidst the gloom of the balcony.
Tears pour down as the music plays on
Deep down in the bottom of his heart,
He closes his eyes and takes a bow -
The shadows leave the balcony.
--------------------------------------
Saturday, January 16, 2010
What is happiness ?
Folks, how are you ? January is looking more like the foggy English weather than the pleasant tropical winter of these parts. The other day while conversing with my sister, this question casually crossed my mind....and I was a touch surprised to actually find it difficult to answer. The last couple of days have been pretty stressful with work....in fact these days I feel so intrinsically a part of the "rat-race" around me that I really thought of stopping for a moment and asking this question.
So friends, the question today is very simple: "Are you happy?" Now to answer that, we ask ourselves the very question in the title. And suddenly this seemingly naive question throws up more questions......like, Is "happiness" comfort or peace or both? Is it absolute or relative? Is it a very personal thing or a collective feeling? Is it a goal to reach for or just a pursuit in itself? And, as usual, I don't have all the answers either.
But 25 years of my life has helped me find one answer for sure.....happiness can only be pursued but never totally achieved. This is not like saying that all men are greedy and hence never satisfied with what they have (which, to an extent, is true for some).....but the very fact that happiness, like you and me, always grows with us in our lives.......and its form changes with time, place and situation......form being a brand new toy to a kid, to jewelery to a girl, to baby's first steps to a parent, to that one solved equation to a scientist, to a Wall Street listing to a CEO and so on. But the one thing that doesn't change is the very meaning and essence of happiness....or in the pursuit for it! Whatever it is to each one of us, it is very precious and personal.......and it is something we live for....but we often mistake it to be the superficial things or the petty forms of happiness, like our possessions (things or people), ambitions and comforts.....I don't think happiness is the paint of our lives (that some of us mistake it to be) that we can scratch it off the surface and see which color it is......but a little deeper than that....more like the plaster of paris that holds all the paint and cement of our life together from falling off! Isn't it? It's like if i really love someone, i will be "happy" regardless of his/her love for me......why? because I am happy at a very personal level with my feeling, that gives me peace.... it's free of the seemingly material and possessive happiness that we often mistake for real happiness !
Now friends, let us decide what makes us happy........and pursue it with all your heart.....because that's worth living for !!! As for me, I live for 4 other people on this earth......that keeps me going ! Chow....gotta run for lunch. More later.
So friends, the question today is very simple: "Are you happy?" Now to answer that, we ask ourselves the very question in the title. And suddenly this seemingly naive question throws up more questions......like, Is "happiness" comfort or peace or both? Is it absolute or relative? Is it a very personal thing or a collective feeling? Is it a goal to reach for or just a pursuit in itself? And, as usual, I don't have all the answers either.
But 25 years of my life has helped me find one answer for sure.....happiness can only be pursued but never totally achieved. This is not like saying that all men are greedy and hence never satisfied with what they have (which, to an extent, is true for some).....but the very fact that happiness, like you and me, always grows with us in our lives.......and its form changes with time, place and situation......form being a brand new toy to a kid, to jewelery to a girl, to baby's first steps to a parent, to that one solved equation to a scientist, to a Wall Street listing to a CEO and so on. But the one thing that doesn't change is the very meaning and essence of happiness....or in the pursuit for it! Whatever it is to each one of us, it is very precious and personal.......and it is something we live for....but we often mistake it to be the superficial things or the petty forms of happiness, like our possessions (things or people), ambitions and comforts.....I don't think happiness is the paint of our lives (that some of us mistake it to be) that we can scratch it off the surface and see which color it is......but a little deeper than that....more like the plaster of paris that holds all the paint and cement of our life together from falling off! Isn't it? It's like if i really love someone, i will be "happy" regardless of his/her love for me......why? because I am happy at a very personal level with my feeling, that gives me peace.... it's free of the seemingly material and possessive happiness that we often mistake for real happiness !
Now friends, let us decide what makes us happy........and pursue it with all your heart.....because that's worth living for !!! As for me, I live for 4 other people on this earth......that keeps me going ! Chow....gotta run for lunch. More later.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Lessons from history
Hey friends ! Guess what, just watched a wonderful movie from 2007 called Man From Earth. One word amigos.......Awesome !!! "Refreshing" might be another! In spite of being into science, I kind of always liked history (thankfully initiated in the subject by a couple of wonderful teachers in school), which graduated into love in the last 2 years.
Unlike the way the subject is taught and evaluated in school, it's actually quite an interesting thing.........i mean, after all, its about the PAST ! And who on earth is not interested in knowing it? We always want to know in everyday conversation "what happened, dude?" or "where were you?" or "have you done this before"?.........its just part of normal human curiosity, I guess....... most of us celebrate birthdays , anniversaries, golden (and other metallic) jubilees and so on......and all of this is nothing but implicit references to things of the PAST or HISTORY. And still those same people piously claim "I don't like history" or better still "History is not for me"...........how absurd, right ? And the weirdest thing is often how people have this mental "time cap"on HISTORY, as if 20 years back is not history but as it starts to go above 30 it does become so. Time has been forever continuous right from the day one of us rubbed stones a little harder to today when we are trying to rub electrons together ! In this enormous length (or space, courtesy Hawkins) of time a lot of things have happened............. and those many many occurences, no matter how archaic and insignificant, have a lot to tell us today.
I always felt the murder of history in our textbooks should be discussed in some serious forum.......like maybe the parliament (maybe not, after watching Lok Sabha TV)........ or the UN (but even they distort history)........ or better still if children grow up knowing REAL HISTORY rather than the mug-books that roll out year after year in this country.
By reading on the internet and collecting information from various sources, I have known so much more and dispelled so many widespread myths that we inculcate about our own history, right from the Aryans to the British. And it doesn't give me a high saying this, but just a sense of clear understanding and quiet respect for the past we inherit.......i was fascinated to know bits and pieces about the egyptians, parthians, romans, nubians, greeks, saracens, crusades and so on.........and then when i tried to relate the diffrent histories from different geographies, a completely new and enthralling picture of the world emerges from various periods of her past - ancient, medieval and modern!
Just to give you an example how we miss the real flavour of history by missing the relative historical picture worldwide..........we are all taught that india had her temples and sculpture and so forth during Samudragupta's rule.......but unless we understand what was happening across the Hindukush or in the late Roman empire during that time, the real relative picture of the world never emerges.........you know why ? Because at about that time the huns (who helped in destroying the gupta empire) were wrecking havoc across Roman Europe........and the western world we know today might not have existed if the hun leader Atilla was not assassinated by his wife, because they had almost destroyed Rome and ended all western civilization at about that time.
But that was a long time ago......who cares what happened then ? Lets think of religion or even science........history of either has immediate bearing on our lives today. Religion itself is mostly history.......isnt it? History which has been rewritten and modified and coaxed and finally flavoured till it tasted and smelled right ......... almost like a well-cooked dish !!! It doesnt require a historian to tell you that the one thing that has been falsified the most by man is his PAST.......... lots of things to cover up, maybe........... hmmm, but we thought noone cared for history, right ? So why is history worth killing for/waging war for/spending fortunes for/devoting lives for .......... if it really wasnt that important? Friends, there's a thought to leave you with ........... there must be something in the seemingly boring HISTORY that affects how we are and what we do in everyday life.......something we are very busy to notice...... something that can teach us what a lot of textbooks cannot !!!
"We learn from history that we learn nothing from history." - George Bernard Shaw
Let's change that part of history for the better, at least.
Unlike the way the subject is taught and evaluated in school, it's actually quite an interesting thing.........i mean, after all, its about the PAST ! And who on earth is not interested in knowing it? We always want to know in everyday conversation "what happened, dude?" or "where were you?" or "have you done this before"?.........its just part of normal human curiosity, I guess....... most of us celebrate birthdays , anniversaries, golden (and other metallic) jubilees and so on......and all of this is nothing but implicit references to things of the PAST or HISTORY. And still those same people piously claim "I don't like history" or better still "History is not for me"...........how absurd, right ? And the weirdest thing is often how people have this mental "time cap"on HISTORY, as if 20 years back is not history but as it starts to go above 30 it does become so. Time has been forever continuous right from the day one of us rubbed stones a little harder to today when we are trying to rub electrons together ! In this enormous length (or space, courtesy Hawkins) of time a lot of things have happened............. and those many many occurences, no matter how archaic and insignificant, have a lot to tell us today.
I always felt the murder of history in our textbooks should be discussed in some serious forum.......like maybe the parliament (maybe not, after watching Lok Sabha TV)........ or the UN (but even they distort history)........ or better still if children grow up knowing REAL HISTORY rather than the mug-books that roll out year after year in this country.
By reading on the internet and collecting information from various sources, I have known so much more and dispelled so many widespread myths that we inculcate about our own history, right from the Aryans to the British. And it doesn't give me a high saying this, but just a sense of clear understanding and quiet respect for the past we inherit.......i was fascinated to know bits and pieces about the egyptians, parthians, romans, nubians, greeks, saracens, crusades and so on.........and then when i tried to relate the diffrent histories from different geographies, a completely new and enthralling picture of the world emerges from various periods of her past - ancient, medieval and modern!
Just to give you an example how we miss the real flavour of history by missing the relative historical picture worldwide..........we are all taught that india had her temples and sculpture and so forth during Samudragupta's rule.......but unless we understand what was happening across the Hindukush or in the late Roman empire during that time, the real relative picture of the world never emerges.........you know why ? Because at about that time the huns (who helped in destroying the gupta empire) were wrecking havoc across Roman Europe........and the western world we know today might not have existed if the hun leader Atilla was not assassinated by his wife, because they had almost destroyed Rome and ended all western civilization at about that time.
But that was a long time ago......who cares what happened then ? Lets think of religion or even science........history of either has immediate bearing on our lives today. Religion itself is mostly history.......isnt it? History which has been rewritten and modified and coaxed and finally flavoured till it tasted and smelled right ......... almost like a well-cooked dish !!! It doesnt require a historian to tell you that the one thing that has been falsified the most by man is his PAST.......... lots of things to cover up, maybe........... hmmm, but we thought noone cared for history, right ? So why is history worth killing for/waging war for/spending fortunes for/devoting lives for .......... if it really wasnt that important? Friends, there's a thought to leave you with ........... there must be something in the seemingly boring HISTORY that affects how we are and what we do in everyday life.......something we are very busy to notice...... something that can teach us what a lot of textbooks cannot !!!
"We learn from history that we learn nothing from history." - George Bernard Shaw
Let's change that part of history for the better, at least.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Being Brave
Hi everyone again ! Just returned from lab in the intense chill of January, the least enjoyable feature of this part of the country (even more than the scorching heat!). Before diving into soem desperate manuscript writing towards the end of my thesis, I thought of sharing this wonderful scenery on my way back.
Just beside the narrow winding way back to the hostel, there happens to be a bowl-shaped woody cover that kind of descends from the road into scrub and ascends into another road on the other side. Tonight I found this really ghostly fog slowly descending into the bowl and covering it up........... straight out of a Hitchcock movie! And then it suddenly struck me that that must be the reason why they say that valleys between hills are always more moist and feel colder in the morning than even the hilltops. Such a simple thing (to think of now) seemed so weird at the time i first heard it........ and really, this is a no-brainer ! But then again many great discoveries have seemed later to be "only natural", but just that people were not brave enough to ask the right question !!!
Thinking about it, one of the most fascinating things about IIT Kanpur is ........ no not its academics ..... or its status..... or the fat-pay jobs.......but the really weird way in which it helps you to be BRAVE ! No, there is absolutely no compulsory military training or killing a tiger or that sort of stuff ........ its just after 2 years in this institute you suddenly realize you have started questioning yourself or the world in a way it never happened before !!! How ? Well, I honestly don't know......i mean, maybe the intense peer pressure.....maybe expectations back home....big-shot alumni success stories.....16 credits per sem....it can be anything. But, now I realize something and this is especially important for the many young IIT aspirants out there : IIT doesnt make you great, it just helps you understand your potential ..........trust me friends, all it takes is loads of curiosity and a touch of guts ! And IIT doesnt teach you either......it just grows in you while you are here. So if you want to be "brave" and "great" and "successful", you can be so anywhere you are ... you dont need to join this brand !!!
I just realized the last para looks more like "gyaan" than "friendly advice"........ oops..... but hey, my fingers are freezing from the cold through the window..... so i gotta go- more later. And as they say ........ "AAL IZZ WELL" ! Chow.
Just beside the narrow winding way back to the hostel, there happens to be a bowl-shaped woody cover that kind of descends from the road into scrub and ascends into another road on the other side. Tonight I found this really ghostly fog slowly descending into the bowl and covering it up........... straight out of a Hitchcock movie! And then it suddenly struck me that that must be the reason why they say that valleys between hills are always more moist and feel colder in the morning than even the hilltops. Such a simple thing (to think of now) seemed so weird at the time i first heard it........ and really, this is a no-brainer ! But then again many great discoveries have seemed later to be "only natural", but just that people were not brave enough to ask the right question !!!
Thinking about it, one of the most fascinating things about IIT Kanpur is ........ no not its academics ..... or its status..... or the fat-pay jobs.......but the really weird way in which it helps you to be BRAVE ! No, there is absolutely no compulsory military training or killing a tiger or that sort of stuff ........ its just after 2 years in this institute you suddenly realize you have started questioning yourself or the world in a way it never happened before !!! How ? Well, I honestly don't know......i mean, maybe the intense peer pressure.....maybe expectations back home....big-shot alumni success stories.....16 credits per sem....it can be anything. But, now I realize something and this is especially important for the many young IIT aspirants out there : IIT doesnt make you great, it just helps you understand your potential ..........trust me friends, all it takes is loads of curiosity and a touch of guts ! And IIT doesnt teach you either......it just grows in you while you are here. So if you want to be "brave" and "great" and "successful", you can be so anywhere you are ... you dont need to join this brand !!!
I just realized the last para looks more like "gyaan" than "friendly advice"........ oops..... but hey, my fingers are freezing from the cold through the window..... so i gotta go- more later. And as they say ........ "AAL IZZ WELL" ! Chow.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
My first blog !!! Wow !!!
Friends, citizens and planetmen (and women) ........ lend me your ears !!! My name is Shammodip Roy, an engineering post grad student in the heart of this beautiful country called India. I have been thinking about this for a long time, and here it finally is.........
I am blogging at long last, finally finding time from the daily schedule of dry computer programming and fancy 3D modeling . After coaxing from a few friends, advice from dad and considerable self-motivation, Shammodip (mechanical) Roy's life seems to finally start building the one avenue that it lacked the most ---- Release !!! (not in the physical sense)
Yes, my friends, this little space will be solely for a child, dreamer, critic, connoisseur, loner, fool, follower and leader in my humble self ! And it has taken me some 4 years to finally get going. Well, better late than never ........ and as time flows on and the pages get turned, I seek to capture some imprints through this little effort ....... and hope this wet clay hardens with time to find resonance in someone's heart (or mind) somewhere in the world --- in these "sounds of silence"!
I am blogging at long last, finally finding time from the daily schedule of dry computer programming and fancy 3D modeling . After coaxing from a few friends, advice from dad and considerable self-motivation, Shammodip (mechanical) Roy's life seems to finally start building the one avenue that it lacked the most ---- Release !!! (not in the physical sense)
Yes, my friends, this little space will be solely for a child, dreamer, critic, connoisseur, loner, fool, follower and leader in my humble self ! And it has taken me some 4 years to finally get going. Well, better late than never ........ and as time flows on and the pages get turned, I seek to capture some imprints through this little effort ....... and hope this wet clay hardens with time to find resonance in someone's heart (or mind) somewhere in the world --- in these "sounds of silence"!
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